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Los Angeles-style wildfires will likely hit mid-Missouri

Author Hunter BasslerPosted on Categories Prescribed Fire, United StatesLeave a comment on Los Angeles-style wildfires will likely hit mid-Missouri

Mid-Missouri communities are ripe for an LA-style wildfire disaster, and experts have rung the alarm bells for years. Communities near the Lake of the Ozarks, in particular, have a higher chance of wildfires igniting than nearly every other community in the nation, and the likelihood is only expected to increase in the years to come.

Ground zero for severe urban wildfire concerns in Missouri is Lebanon. The city’s wildfire likelihood is higher than 84% of communities in the nation, and 99% higher than other communities in Missouri, according to the US Forest Service’s “Wildfire Risk to Communities” dataset.

The cause is, in part, due to the region’s woody encroachment of eastern red cedar and other non-fire-tolerant vegetation, driven by a more-than-century-long absence of fire on Missouri’s landscape. The fire suppression regime, however, is slowly being reversed throughout the state. A Prescribed Burn Association movement is working to reintroduce “good” fire to Missouri through prescribed low-intensity fires.

Federal and state agencies largely can’t burn in the state because of the wide-sweeping privatization of land. Around 93% of Missouri’s 44.6 million acres is privately owned, meaning officials have to convince landowners that fire is both good and necessary on their land before a prescribed fire can be set.

That convincing is done on the neighborhood level by Prescribed Burn Associations, or PBAs, in the state overseen by the Missouri Prescribed Fire Council. The most consequential of these associations is the Niangua Basin Prescribed Burn Association, which oversees Missouri’s most wildfire-prone counties of Camden, Dallas, Hickory, and Laclede.

“It’s become an organization of learning and neighbors helping neighbors,” Lance Dunbar, who runs the PBA, said. “The PBAs were the genesis of the Missouri Department of Conservation to help organize prescribed burning. They’re now in almost every county in the state.”

Click here to read the full article.

Finding a role model for success

Author Guest WriterPosted on Categories Safety, Training, Wildland Firefighter1 Comment on Finding a role model for success

By Mike DeGrosky

Many years ago, I taught supervision and management courses for a community college. It was night school and few of my students were seeking degrees. They showed up because they were motivated by a central idea –that I would help them craft a role model for their own effectiveness.

At the time, I was acting on my belief that people aspiring to effective leadership needed positive role models as well as my knowledge that many working adults had come up under people who had been excellent technical performers who may not have been fully prepared for organizational leadership.

{This article first appeared in Wildfire Magazine}

People aspiring to be effective leaders need positive role models but few of us will find a single person who meets all our leadership expectations.

These days, I can lean on some solid research around the power of positive role models. For example, a 2023 article in Forbes, by Tracy Bower, a PhD sociologist, cited a Gallup/ Amazon poll of 4,000 early to mid-career adults that found that people with positive role models were more likely to say their careers were fulfilling, that they felt established in their careers, and had careers that paid them enough. The poll also found that young people who had mentors were “more likely to have jobs with authority and autonomy and to experience more intrinsic rewards from their jobs.”

Role models are people we look up to so much that we consider them examples to be imitated. Finding people whose values and behavior inspire us to want to lead like them can accelerate a person’s development as a leader. However, leadership role models can be elusive. Leadership is complex. We want leaders to be credible, build trust, have vision, lead by example and with compassion, be authentic, act with transparency, value learning, communicate well, and inspire, motivate and direct us all while maintaining a positive environment. All those attributes can be hard to find in one person. If you have identified such a person, if you have said “I want to lead just like that,” by all means, please start emulating that person immediately, if you haven’t already.

“All leaders are incomplete leaders, works-in-progress. Stop looking for the flawless leader and build your own.”

But what if you do not have that role model, that person who meets all your leadership expectations? Build your own role model of leadership excellence. At some point in my career, I stopped looking for a single leader on whom to pattern my leadership. I’ve worked for a lot of people. Many had remarkable leadership strengths and were effective leaders but all were regular human beings with regular human-being shortcomings. None was that ideal leadership role model. I believe that is reality for most people. I have previously called attention to a classic Harvard Business Review article titled In Praise of the Incomplete Leader by Deborah Ancona, Thomas Malone, Wanda Orlikowski and Peter Senge in which the authors said “It’s time to end the myth of the complete leader: the flawless person at the top who’s got it all figured out. In fact, the sooner leaders stop trying to be all things to all people, the better off their organizations will be.”

I started noting who, in my experience, would be my benchmark for key leadership skills and attributes and building my concept of an ideal leader – a kind, compassionate human here, an excellent decision maker there, a person who had earned my trust and respect over here, an excellent communicator there. My experience inspired my college classes way back when, and later in training for fire personnel, and it has remained a big part of my leadership development philosophy.

Wildland fire is a great leadership crucible, and the sector has invested heavily in leadership development so, if we are paying attention, we can observe and draw from many good leaders, even if they are incomplete. I have also had to fill in gaps and I expect that anyone taking my approach would. I have pulled from my training and education when I had no role model for what I considered a leadership essential. There exists a mountain of academic research to draw from, against which we can benchmark our experiences. We can learn from historic figures. We can watch a good movie or TV show. Honestly, as a person who views darned near everything through a leadership lens, I consider the show Ted Lasso to be terrific leadership training. We can ask friends and trusted colleagues to tell us about their leadership role models.

I believe now, more than ever, that people aspiring to effective leadership need positive role models and having one will accelerate development as a leader at any level. But I suspect that few of us will find a single person who meets all our leadership expectations. I have embraced the idea that all leaders are incomplete leaders, worksin-progress if you will. I encourage anyone asking to stop looking for the flawless person at the top who’s got it all figured out. If you are not one of the lucky few who have found that single leadership role model, build your own; I believe you will be glad you did.

{This article first appeared in Wildfire Magazine}

Mike DeGrosky
Mike DeGrosky

Mike DeGrosky is a student of leadership, lifelong learner, mentor and coach, sometimes writer, and recovering fire chief. He taught for the Department of Leadership Studies at Fort Hays State University for 10 years. Follow Mike via LinkedIn.

Timeline of LA’s historic wildfires outlined in new report

Author Hunter BasslerPosted on Categories California, United StatesLeave a comment on Timeline of LA’s historic wildfires outlined in new report

What started as a wildland fire quickly catalyzed into a widespread urban wildfire in Los Angeles on Jan. 7. In the wake of the tragedy, researchers are understanding more about just what fueled the conflagration.

A new report from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety outlines the timeline of both the Palisades and Eaton fires. Institute researchers also entered the community in the days following the destruction and uncovered what types of homes were worst-hit by the fires, and which were more fire resistant.

The Palisades Fire ignited near Skull Rock in the Summit neighborhood at 10:30 a.m., when gusts were reaching up to 60 mph, relative humidity was falling, and severe Santa Ana winds created a highly volatile environment for rapid fire spread. The fire quickly spread downhill and eastward, spreading 771 acres in 4 hours, 2,920 acres in 8 hours, and 15,832 acres in nearly 27 hours, which accounted for 70% of the fire’s total growth, despite it going on to burn for 43 more days. The Palisades Fire was fully contained on February 20 after burning over 23,000 acres, destroying 6,833 structures, and claiming 12 lives.

The Eaton Fire ignited in the Eaton Canyon area of the San Gabriel Mountains at around 6:20 p.m., around eight hours after the Palisades Fire began. At that time, peak gusts surpassed 60 mph, sustained winds exceeded 40 mph, and relative humidity had dropped to around 10%, creating extreme fire weather conditions. Just 16 hours after igniting, the fire had grown to over 10,000 acres. Although the fire continued burning for 42 more days, its initial 24-hour growth of over 13,600 acres would be 96% of its final size. The fire was fully contained on Feb. 20 after burning over 14,000 acres, destroying 9,418 structures, and claiming 17 lives.

Flames from burning tightly spaced buildings only worsened the fires’ spread, according to the report. Each home ignition generated short-range and ground-traveling embers, further amplifying the fire, specifically in downtown Altadena and Pacific Palisades. Fire-resistant building materials, however, reduced damage severity and interrupted the chain of conflagration.

Click here to read the full report.

Natural Hazards Research Australia is holding a public webinar on the report at 11:30 a.m. AEST on April 16 (9:30 p.m. ET on April 15). Click here to register.

 

Finding calm in the off-season

Author Guest WriterPosted on Categories Safety, Training, Wildland Firefighter3 Comments on Finding calm in the off-season

By Bequi Livingston 

I love the phrase pivot and redirect; it applies perfectly to healing from traumatic stress and grief, especially after fire season.

As we all know, nothing ever stays the same, especially in wildland fire.  Everything changes. The seasons change, the tides change, and wildland fire continues to change; yet we as humans, avoid change like the plague. Change can bring comfort but can also bring terror; change can bring good, but it can also bring chaos.

[This article first appeared in Wildfire Magazine.]

When dealing with traumatic stress and grief, especially once the fire season winds down, our thoughts and emotions tend to surface, partially due to our autonomic nervous system being overwhelmed from the stress of the fire season. We do everything we can to distract ourselves from this chaos by reverting to our comfort zones, which can include turning to maladaptive coping behaviors such as busyness, alcohol, substance abuse, or other addictions, because change becomes too hard.

When we pivot, we make sure one foot is planted in a stable safety zone while letting the other foot explore. As the traumatic stress and grief from this past fire season begins to unwind, it’s important to keep that one foot planted and grounded; this may include reaching out to your safe and trusted support systems – the people who help keep you grounded while providing safe space for you to talk about what’s on your mind. Finding healthy ways to engage in self-care of your choosing is also essential to grounding and helping to calm your nervous system after fire season. Wildland firefighters tend to live in a constant state of adrenaline addiction during the fire season and long after it’s over, the sympathetic nervous system on high alert 24/7 as stress hormones continue to circulate through the body. It takes time, patience, and intention to allow the nervous system time to calm down, unwind, and heal.

How do we focus on self-care, especially when we’re stuck in the remnants of the sympathetic survival mode of fight and / or flight?  In this state we tend to be angry, impatient, judgmental, elusive, anxious, fearful, overworking, arguing, running away, and reverting to our addictions and distractions. Self-care modalities that are helpful in this state include breathwork, mindfulness, somatic movement (such as yoga or Tai Chi), and bodywork (such as massage, chiropractic, or cranio-sacral). Considering trauma-safe therapy with a professional you trust is helpful. Do whatever you can to go s-l-o-w down and find some stillness, even when it’s uncomfortable. You can then allow the other foot to move around, redirect, until it too finds stability and safety. As the saying goes in recovery and healing: One step forward and 20 steps back 

What self-care techniques work best when you’re stuck in the parasympathetic dorsal vagal survival mode of shut down, freeze, and collapse? This is an especially hard place to be, because you have little or no motivation to do anything, especially pivot and redirect. This is where we tend to feel sad, depressed, lethargic, unworthy, unloved, unmotivated, hopeless, helpless and may experience suicidal ideations.

Self-care modalities to consider when stuck in this parasympathetic dorsal vagal mode include active movement such as walking, dancing or jumping jacks to get out of freeze mode, and splashing your face with cold water or holding cold soda cans can help jump-start your system back into a more sympathetic mode.   Other helpful modalities include breathwork, somatic movement, and mindfulness if you’re able. Social engagement is also important when in this state, to activate the parasympathetic ventral vagal branch.  Meeting with friends for coffee or a walk in the woods, participating in a support group, going to a safe event where you’ll be around other people, and especially participating in trauma-safe therapy can help re-engage the nervous system. It’s too easy to isolate ourselves when in this mode, which isn’t healthy.

This delicate dance to find calm is never linear, it’s all over the place, like a toddler scribbling with crayons.  Yet, we must do our best to keep that one foot planted, grounded, and safe. If both feet are ungrounded, then we may have a hard time moving forward, leaving our nervous system in chaos.

As you learn to pivot and redirect this off-season, may you find strength and courage to prioritize your self-care needs. May you look back at the fire season, doing an after-action-review of yourself, your relationships, and your health. What worked well, and served you best? What didn’t work well, and didn’t serve you? And what can you do differently, to pivot and redirect, during this off-season, and make some changes to help you heal and prepare for wildfire season 2025?

A couple of helpful resources: 

[This article first appeared in Wildfire Magazine.]

Bequi Livingston was the first woman recruited by the New Mexico-based Smokey Bear Hotshots for its elite wildland firefighting crew. She was the Regional Fire Operations Health and Safety Specialty for the U.S. Forest Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

War sparked Ukraine’s worst wildfire year in history

Author Hunter BasslerPosted on Categories UkraineLeave a comment on War sparked Ukraine’s worst wildfire year in history

New research published by the European Union found Russia’s ongoing invasion has worsened environmental challenges in Ukraine, including ongoing wildfire trends.

The risk of large forest fires has “significantly increased” in the nation. The country’s worst wildfire years happened over the last 5 years, by far the worst of which was in 2024, the EU study said.

“The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has severely hampered efforts to prevent and control large fires,” researchers said. “Restrictions on public access to forests and natural landscapes, introduced by Martial Law, have blocked fire prevention activities such as patrolling and establishing firebreaks.”

Numerous other wartime impacts have caused issues for wildfire mitigation, including the enlistment of firefighters and the destruction of fire management infrastructure.

 

Credit: Publications Office of the European Union

Wildfires account for between 45% and 65% of forest cover loss in the nation annually, cover loss that has worsened since the invasion began.

The spike was driven by more frequent heat waves, droughts, and windy weather, which Ukraine’s forest management and emergency response systems were not prepared to deal with.

“Explosive remnants and other potential causes further increase the risk of wildfires, and reallocation of fire-fighting resources makes it more difficult to prevent or control large fires,” the study said. “Climate change also contributed to forest cover loss by significantly increasing the risk of large forest fires, especially in the last five years.”

The largest forest fires in the nation happened in the Eastern and Southern regions, specifically Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Kherson oblasts. The fires tended to cluster along the front lines of military, underscoring the close relationship between conflict and forest fires.

Click here for the full study.

Credit: Publications Office of the European Union

Fighting fire with fire in Europe

Author Guest WriterPosted on Categories Prescribed Fire, TrainingLeave a comment on Fighting fire with fire in Europe

By Lily Mayers and Paulo Nunes dos Santos 

There has been a seismic shift in the goals of modern European fire fighting. The aim “is not to eliminate fire, because it is part of the natural dynamics of ecosystems, but to make fires less dangerous,” said Fernando Pulido, director of the Dehesa Research Institute at the University of Extremadura in Badajoz, Spain. “Even with many resources, you cannot do complete fire prevention.”

It’s a consensus many experts in fires and forestry have been trying to disseminate for decades with varying results. They are unified in their prescription for a problem that is growing worse with every increasingly hot year: the only way to avoid destructive mega fires is through thoughtful land management and the controlled reintegration of fires into ecosystems.

[This is an edited extract of an article in Wildfire Magazine. Click here for the full article.]

A Fire Technician from Viera do Minho City Council, setting fire to gorse bushes during a prescribed burn in Serra da Cabreira, a mountain in Vieira do Minho district win northern Portugal, on January 24, 2024. Prescribed burning, also known as controlled burning, involves setting planned fires to maintain the health of a forest. These burns are scheduled for a time when the fire will not pose a threat to the public or to fire managers.

There is however no one golden bullet solution, rather the key to long-term mega fire prevention is the use of a mix of tools tailored to a territory’s needs. Across the Iberian Peninsula there are several international, national and local fire smart initiatives being implemented in public and private forests including the use of prescribed burns, extensive livestock grazing, agroforestry land mosaics and the extraction of trees and shrub litter for biomass energy resources. These solution projects break up continuous fuel loads acting as a barrier to stop or slow fire while reducing the flammability of landscapes surrounding vulnerable towns and, in many cases, boosting rural development.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE

Managing the land means allowing it to burn periodically to avoid untameable wildfires. This can be achieved in a controlled way, by prescribed fires, which reduce accumulated fuel loads, renew soils, increase water availability, create pastoral areas and importantly create firefighting pathways. In Portugal the tool has been used since the 1980s, being one of the first European countries to introduce a structured legal framework for the practice.

A group of sappers, guided by the Fire Technician from Viera do Minho City Council, Nelson Rodrigues, debriefing ahead of starting a prescribed burn in Serra da Cabreira, a mountain in Vieira do Minho district win northern Portugal, on January 24, 2024. Prescribed burning, also known as controlled burning, involves setting planned fires to maintain the health of a forest. These burns are scheduled for a time when the fire will not pose a threat to the public or to fire managers.

The Serra Cabreira mountain range, in the northern Portuguese region of Braga, is a shining example of authorities proactively using prescribed burning to keep vegetation undergrowth under control and extreme wildfires at bay. The aim is to avoid a disaster like the one that occurred in October 2017, near the municipality of Vieira do Minho, where 1600 hectares burned. At the time, the highly flammable carqueja shrub had grown to more than 1.5 meters high and enveloped much of the land. Because of the available fuel, fires raged from the valley to the mountaintop.

Prescribed fires can’t just be lit and left. Before any flame is sparked, fire technicians in Portugal must have a burn plan approved by the National Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF). In Spain, prescribed burning is regulated according to the provisions of each autonomous community. After approval, technicians must wait for the ideal on-site weather conditions. The window for burning is typically open for 10 weeks a year between November and March and requires dry but not parched soil, substantial wind speeds, high relative humidity and low temperatures. The specially trained teams control the fire’s progression using drip torches, wind speed and direction, slope, vegetation density and hand-held mops to suppress spot fires.

Nelson Rodrigues, 49, is the Vieira do Minho municipal council’s head fire technician specializing in prescribed burns and fire analysis. In five-year cycles he and his team have been burning parcels of the Cabreira mountain range. He explains the difference between prescribed fires and wildfires is in the severity of the burn.

“A natural fire destroys the vegetation, destroys the soil and then in the next rains the [burned] soil is washed away and only the rocks remain. [With prescribed burns] we are now burning the top part of the vegetation, the plant doesn’t die, the roots don’t die, it remains fixed to the soil and in about a month it will start to grow again.”

Nelson is confident that due to the interventions a mega fire would not be able to develop in the area he controls; it’s a long-term achievement that fills him with pride. “Imagine that we [have] worked on a landscape for a few years and during the next few years there were never big fires. No habitat was destroyed, no type of forest or environment. And it was possible for us to all work together – shepherds, technicians, hunters and farmers.”

Nelson Rodrigues, a Fire Technician with Viera do Minho City Council, sets fire to gorse bushes during a prescribed burn in Serra da Cabreira, a mountain in Vieira do Minho district win northern Portugal, on January 24, 2024. Prescribed burning, also known as controlled burning, involves setting planned fires to maintain the health of a forest. These burns are scheduled for a time when the fire will not pose a threat to the public or to fire managers.

[This is an edited extract of an article in Wildfire Magazine. Click here for the full article.]

Lily Mayers is a cross-platform freelance journalist from Sydney, Australia, based in Madrid, Spain. Mayers’ career began in television and radio news for Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC. Since moving to Spain in 2020, Mayers’ work has focused on the long-form coverage of world news and current affairs.

Paulo Nunes dos Santos is a freelance photojournalist and reporter covering armed conflict, humanitarian crises, political instability, and social issues worldwide. Nunes dos Santos is a frequent contributor to international publications including The New York Times and Jornal Expresso.