Coal mine fire in Australia being fought with helicopters

Coal mine fire, Morwell, Victoria. CFA photo by Keith Pakenham.
Coal mine fire, Morwell, Victoria. CFA photo by Keith Pakenham.

A massive fire at a coal mine at Morwell, Victoria in Australia is being fought with massive quantities of water and helicopters that are normally used for fighting bushfires. The fire, which has burning for three weeks, was most likely the result of a bushfire started by an arsonist. The town of Morwell, 150 km east of Melbourne, has been inundated with smoke and officials think it could take months to put out the fire.

Water pumped onto coal mine fire
Massive amounts of water are being pumped onto the fire at the coal mine. CFA photo by Keith Pakenham.
Helicopter fights coal mine fire
Helicopter fights coal mine fire. CFA photo by Keith Pakenham.

Wildfire Today has numerous other articles about coal fires.

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Darren

Prescribed fire as a hands-on tourist attraction

Flint Hills Rx
Prescribed fire ignited by tourists at the Flying W Ranch in Kansas. Screen shot from the video below.

A cattle ranch in the tall grass prairie of Kansas allows tourists to observe and if they want, to help ignite prescribed fires on their property. The Flying W Ranch in the Flint Hills supplements their income by charging ranch visitors $100 to help start the fires by dropping wooden matches in the grass. We counted approximately 30 tourists in one of the scenes in the video below. The admission fee also includes a steak dinner. Their next hands-on prescribed fire is scheduled for April 5.

We can think of a lot of positives about an activity like this. Many ranchers could use an additional $3,000 (before expenses) to supplement their income.  It could also provide an opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of prescribed fire, and how the process is essential for managing tall grass prairies and other vegetation types. In my experience as a Fire Management Officer, I learned that if you have a high-ranking manager in your organization that knows little about fire management, invite them to observe a prescribed fire. Loan them some personal protective equipment (PPE), and while under close supervision, let them operate a drip torch for five minutes. They will be hooked. (After seeing this video, a couple of matches could suffice.)

The negatives of a public hands-on prescribed fire are pretty obvious and revolve around the liability of the ranch owner and the safety of the participants who have no PPE or training, other than a briefing before the event. If there is an unexpected wind shift on a grass fire, experienced firefighters wearing PPE know that often they can find a place where they can step through the flames into a previously burned black area. Who knows what tourists, including children, might do.  It is hard to believe that an insurance company would issue a liability policy to cover an event like this.

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Tristan

Time lapse video, Yosemite National Park

To see a much larger image, click the full screen icon at bottom-right.

This video is a collaboration between Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty. All timelapses were shot on the Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon L and Zeiss CP.2 Lenses.

You are welcome.

And here’s the sequel:

A 200+ mile backpacking experience through Yosemite National Park captured by Colin Delehanty and Sheldon Neill. This project was filmed over the course of 10 months. They spent a combined 45 days in the park capturing the images in this video.

Ironwood Hotshots to be disbanded

Ironwood Hotshots
Ironwood Hotshots

UPDATE at 5:13 p.m. MST, March 5, 2014: today we reported more details in a new article about why the Fire District decided to disband the Ironwood Hotshots.

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(Originally published at 4:53 p.m. MST, March 4, 2014)

The Northwest Fire District announced today that they will disband their Hotshot Crew, the Ironwood Hotshots, at the end of the 2014 wildfire season. The District serves the northwest metropolitan area of Tucson, Arizona, and is one of the very few organizations employing a hotshot crew that is not a federal or state land management agency. Another was the city of Prescott, Arizona, whose Granite Mountain Hotshot crew was virtually wiped out when 19 members of the crew were entrapped and killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire June 30, 2013.

The Fire District said the reason for eliminating the Ironwood Hotshots, according to Tucson News Now, was financial.

Financial and operational reasons were given for the decision to disband. Financially, the fire district said the hotshots cost money, including indirect costs that are not reimbursed by the federal government. Operationally, the crews are sent all over the country and by disbanding the crew, Northwest Fire can improve service locally and lower the tax rate.

A petition at Change.org that encourages the retention of the crew, cites fear of lawsuits, such as those filed against the City of Prescott following their disaster last year.

…In the wake of this terrible tragedy a series of lawsuits were filed against Prescott Fire Department, and State and Federal agencies. It was in direct result of these pending suits that the leadership of Northwest Fire District has hastily decided to abolish the Ironwood Hotshots, who provide a core function in the protection of the cities of Tucson, Marana and surrounding communities against the threat of Wildland fires…

When a firefighting resource, such as a hotshot crew or fire engine, from one agency travels and helps to suppress a fire in another jurisdiction for an extended period of time, formal agreements usually stipulate that the lending agency is financially reimbursed for their expenses. For example, the Prescott Fire Department paid the personnel on the Granite Mountain Hotshots around $12 an hour according to The Daily Courier, but the department was reimbursed by the federal government at the rate of $39.50 an hour.

In fiscal year 2012, the city estimated that the crew brought in $1,375,191, and had $1,437,444 in operating expenses – for a difference of $62,253.

In 2012, payments for fighting fire paid for 95.5 percent of the cost of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. While they were not assigned to a fire, they sometimes spent time on projects for the city, including hazard fuel mitigation — removing vegetation to reduce the chance that fires approaching residential areas would destroy the homes of city residents. And of course, much of the year they were available for fighting wildland fires in and near the city of Prescott.

We have a report that the Ironwood Hotshots have been doing even better financially and the crew is not a monetary burden on the Fire District. They are reimbursed at about $40 per crewperson hour, which covers not only salary but some other routine expenses while firefighting the fire. The starting pay for a new crewperson is about $13 an hour. Even though the crew recently purchased and paid for $500,000 worth of new crew carriers, they still have a positive balance in their hotshot crew account of several hundred thousand dollars.

Last September another hotshot crew, El Cariso, established 60 years before, was disbanded. The Ironwood Hotshots first attained Type 1 Interagency Hotshot Crew certification in 2009.

Wildfire prevention at the Iditarod

Iditarod map
Map of the historic Iditarod Trail, which inspired the sled dog race. The race now takes a modified route, and begins at Anchorage instead of Seward. Credit: BLM.

There is a report that a lack of snow in some areas on the course of the Iditarod has organizers of the 1,000-mile long sled dog race concerned about wildfire prevention. We searched and found hundreds of photos of this year’s race which began March 2, but they all had snow. However, I suspect that 99 percent of the route is not easily accessible by photographers.

Below is an excerpt from a Facebook post by Husky Homestead Tours.

…Snowless stretches of trail are wreaking havoc on sleds…

Hydration is a key word right now. With the dry trail conditions dogs are not able to dip snow as they would during a run in “winter”. (By the way – we’re still looking for you folks in the Lower 48 to send us our weather back!) Mushers may not find much snow, if any, along the trail to melt for their dogs, either. Many will carry some, stop along the trail wherever there is open water and let the dogs lap some up, as well as offer plain water to the dogs as soon as they arrive in a checkpoint. Mushers know that keeping a team hydrated (and themselves!) is key.

While on the “dry trail conditions” subject… this years’ race has a fire danger! Dry conditions in Rohn caused Race Marshall Mark Nordman to state that monetary fines would be given to any musher with an unattended fire. How’s that for news we haven’t heard of before??

 

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Keith

Wildfire briefing, March 3, 3014

Wildland firefighter dies in Tennessee

A wildland firefighter with the Tennessee Division of Forestry became ill and died while preparing to respond to a vegetation fire in Tennessee. Jerry Campbell, 61, collapsed while getting ready to deploy to a wildfire in the Cherokee National Forest Friday night. He was transported to the Newport Medical/Tennova Healthcare Center where he was pronounced dead at 1:45 a.m. Saturday morning.

Our sincere condolences go out to Mr. Campbell’s family and coworkers.

Wildlife or wildfire?

Sanibel boat fire
Boat fire south of Sanibel Island

Occasionally people who are not that familiar with wildland fire write or say “wildLIFE” when they mean “wildFIRE”. An article in Florida’s Cape Coral Daily Breeze reported that a boat from the “Fish & Wildfire Commission” responded to a boat fire three miles south of Sanibel Island in the Gulf of Mexico on March 3. But in a subsequent paragraph they referred to a craft from “Fish and Wildlife”.

John N. Maclean teaches course in Iowa

John N. Maclean will be teaching a week-long course in northwest Iowa in May about the history of wildland fire, from the Big Burn of 1910 to the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013. The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, a biological field station administered through the University of Iowa, will be offering the new course with a working title of “Causes and Consequences of Fatal Wildfires” offered by Mr. Maclean, author of “Fire on the Mountain” and three other books on wildfire. Scholarships for room and board are available. More information.