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Wildfire potential, February – May, 2014

Bill GabbertFebruary 6, 2014February 6, 2014Uncategorizedpotential, weather

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for February through May, 2014. If their prediction is correct there will be elevated wildfire potential in most of the mountainous areas in California and below normal potential in the southeast. Here is their summary:

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“Outlook Period – February, March, and April through May 2014

Executive Summary

The February, March, and April through May 2014 significant wildland fire potential forecasts included in this outlook represent the cumulative forecasts of the eleven Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.

February

Above normal significant fire potential will continue over most of the southern and central California mountains and foothills, including the San Francisco Bay area.
Most of the southeastern U.S. will remain in below normal significant fire potential.

March

Above normal significant fire potential will continue over most of the California mountains and foothills.
Below normal significant fire potential will continue from central Texas to the central Appalachians.

April through May

Above normal significant fire potential will continue over most of the California mountains and foothills.
Below normal significant fire potential expected across the central and eastern Gulf states and the Tennessee Valley.”

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Judge orders CAL FIRE to pay $30 million for conduct in Moonlight Fire case

Bill GabbertFebruary 6, 2014August 25, 2019UncategorizedCAL FIRE, California, Moonlight Fire

A judge has ordered the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to pay more than $30 million in penalties, legal fees, and costs to Sierra Pacific and others for their actions related to a lawsuit over the 2007 Moonlight Fire. Retired Superior Court Judge Leslie C. Nichols in a 28-page order issued Tuesday accused CAL FIRE of “egregious and reprehensible conduct” in pursuing a lawsuit against the company.

The Moonlight fire burned about 65,000 acres in 2007, including 46,000 acres in the Plumas and Lassen National Forests in the northern part of the state. CAL FIRE and U.S. Forest Service investigators said the fire was started by a bulldozer operator for a company hired by Sierra Pacific, which denied any involvement in the fire.

In 2012 Sierra Pacific, in order to settle the suit presided over by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller and prevent further actions by CAL FIRE, agreed to pay nearly $50 million and donate 22,500 acres of land to the USFS. The company thought CAL FIRE was ultimately seeking $1 billion, and they were aware that Judge Mueller had ruled earlier that the company could be liable even if it had nothing to do with starting the fire.

Below is an excerpt from an article in the Sacrameto Bee, which said Sierra Pacific…

…was a victim of stonewalling by Cal Fire in that agency’s Plumas County suit, including the alleged withholding of thousands of pages of key internal documents relevant to the legal struggle.

In a 28-page order issued Tuesday, retired Superior Court Judge Leslie C. Nichols essentially agreed with all of Sierra Pacific’s points, adopting a separate, 57-page order proposed by Sierra Pacific and the other defendants almost word-for-word, and excoriating the behavior of Cal Fire and two lawyers from the office of Attorney General Kamala Harris, which represented the agency.

“The court finds that Cal Fire’s actions initiating, maintaining and prosecuting this action, to the present time, is corrupt and tainted,” the judge wrote. “Cal Fire failed to comply with discovery obligations, and its repeated failure was willful.”

The agency withheld documents for months, “destroyed evidence critical (to the case) … and engaged in a systematic campaign of misdirection with the purpose of recovering money from (Sierra Pacific).”

Sierra Pacific, according to the Sacramento Bee, claimed there is evidence that a USFS employee in a fire lookout tower may have been smoking marijuana during the early stages of the fire, which delayed the detection, and they reported that “defense lawyers had to work hard to pry that information out of the Forest Service”.

CAL FIRE was also involved in questionable behavior before the case went to trial. In their billing sent to Sierra Pacific in 2009, they demanded the company make two payments; one for $7.7 million to the state, and another for $400,000 to an account belonging to a nonprofit organization administered by CAL FIRE. The funds in that account had been used for off the books purchases of items such as 600 digital cameras and 26 evidence sheds. In Sierra Pacific’s investigation into CAL FIRE’s demand for payment, they discovered the very unusual account, named “Wildland Fire Investigation Training and Equipment Fund”, sometimes referred to as “WiFiter”.

That account, as we wrote in January of 2013, was not exactly secret, however it was not commonly known that it was an off-the-books account not subject to the standard state regulations for managing and spending money. We found a memo from former CAL FIRE Director Walters, apparently written in 2009, summarizing the year’s fire season in which he mentioned the account:

Office of Program Accountability (OPA) finalized three audits (Volcan Incident, Wildland Fire Investigation Training and Equipment Fund, and Indirect Cost PCA 99200)…

The current Director of CAL FIRE, Ken Pemlott froze the fund in August, 2012 after, according to the LA Times, “receiving a briefing from his staff, said Janet Upton, a Cal Fire spokeswoman”.

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Dick, Sunil, and Kirk.

Wildfire briefing, February 6, 2014

Bill GabbertFebruary 6, 2014August 25, 2019UncategorizedArizona, safety, Yarnell Fire5 Comments

Arizona: specialty license plate for honoring wildland firefighters

An effort is underway to create a specialty license plate in Arizona to honor fallen wildland firefighters. The cost of the plates will be $25 with $17 of that going to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation to help support injured firefighters and families of those firefighters we have lost.

There is only one thing holding this effort back — $32,000 has to be raised to get the program started. The group working on this said:

Our nonprofit is set up, Our account is set up, now we need donations to make this possible! We need your help to reach our goal..and our goal is to start a long lasting/revolving fundraiser that will support injured firefighters and families of those that have lost a firefighter! These plates will be to honor the memory of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Soon you will be able to buy these plates and show your support on your vehicles! But first, we need to raise the money to start them!…every amount helps folks!

You can make a donation at youcaring.com, and more information is on Facebook.

Safety Matters, Topic #1

The Safety Matters group has established their first forum topic:

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“HOW CAN 19 FIREFIGHTERS DIE WITHOUT SOMETHING GOING VERY WRONG?

The idea exists that the Granite Mountain Hotshots died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and sometimes bad things happen. We strongly disagree with this assessment of the situation.

In order to get a clearer view of firefighter fatalities due to entrapment and burnover, we examined wildland fires from 1990 through 2013 where journeyman firefighters have died.

We started with an analysis of all firefighter fatalities that were attributed to entrapment and burnover based on statistics from the NIFC website Historical Wildland Firefighter Fatality Reports. We expanded our analysis to determine the common factors on fires that took the lives of experienced firefighters on eight fires with a total of 44 fatalities.

Fire Escaped Initial Attack – 100%
Type III Incident – 75%
Mountainous w/steep drainages – 100%
Fire Danger Rating (Extreme or Very High) – 88%
Brush a Major Component of Fuel – 100%
Experienced an Exceptional Weather Event – 88%

Question for discussion: If firefighter safety is truly our Number One Priority, then how and why did 44 highly trained and experienced firefighters perish in this manner? (Especially in light of the fact that their actions did not directly result in saving lives or structures).

We will be exploring some of the more specific contributing reasons in the near future. We would now like to hear your thoughts on the question for discussion. Thank you for your participation in Safety Matters!

Safety.Matters@aol.com
Facebook: Safety Matters: A Wildland Firefighter Forum for Change
Twitter: @FFSafetyMatters ”

The Telegraph writes about the Yarnell Hill Fire

Mick Brown has written a long article for The Telegraph about the tragic fire that killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots on June 30, 2013 in Arizona. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but Mr. Brown did quite a bit of research, talking to quite a few people including yours truly.

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Hermione, Holly and David

Report released on escaped prescribed fire at Devils Tower

Bill GabbertFebruary 5, 2014August 25, 2019Uncategorizedescaped prescribed fire, prescribed fire, report, Wyoming3 Comments

Above: Map, showing the approximate location of the planned prescribed fire at Devils Tower (300 acres in white) and the 56 acres (in red) that escaped beyond the planned perimeter. Image from Google Earth. Perimeters by Wildfire Today.

Yesterday after Wildfire Today made inquiries about reports that may have been completed regarding the escaped prescribed fire on May 8, 2013 at Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, the National Park Service released the official review of the incident.

The NPS ignited the 300-acre unit on May 7, 2013. Several spot fires occurred outside the planned perimeter that were contained the first day. But during mopup at 12:50 p.m. on May 8 fire became established again at one of the spot fire locations on the southwest side of the project. At that time the cooperating U.S. Forest Service resources present the day before had been released. Some of the remaining firefighters were concentrating on the previous day’s spot fires at another location, but most of the firefighters were attending an After Action Review of a non-injury tipover of a Utility Task Vehicle (UTV) that occurred the day before. The 56 acres burning outside the burn unit were mostly stopped at the Monument boundary, but a few acres crossed over onto private land leased by Wyoming state Senator Ogden Driskill, but no structures were damaged.

Devils Tower Rx fire, May 8, 2013 — Devils Tower Rx fire, May 7, 2013. NPS photo.

In the interest of full disclosure, Devils Tower was one of the seven National Parks for which I was the Area Fire Management Officer, from 1998 until 2003.

The review pointed out several times that one of the primary issues related to the escape was that in computing the fine dead fuel moisture, it was assumed that the fire would be shaded by the smoke column. However, some of the area was not shaded, and for two hours each day on May 7 and 8, at those locations the fine dead fuel moisture dropped below the 4 to 10 percent allowed in the prescription, down to 3 percent.

Other than how the weather affected the fuel moisture, the review barely mentioned the weather conditions and the forecast. Two spot weather forecasts were issued before the escape — one at 7:57 a.m. MDT on May 7 and another at 9:29 a.m. on May 8, the day of the escape. For May 8, both forecasts predicted fairly strong northeast winds, of 7 to 15 mph and 8 to 14 mph.

The Remote Automatic Weather Station at Devils Tower is very close to the location of the prescribed fire, in a low-lying area partially sheltered by trees from winds from all directions (see map above). Northwest, north, and northeast winds are additionally partially blocked by higher ground and the Devils Tower itself. Below are the weather observations from the weather station between 17:23 on May 7 through 17:23 on May 8. They show mild sustained wind speeds, with gusts around mid-day to late afternoon on May 8 of 13 to 22 mph. If the weather station was in a more exposed location the recorded speeds would have been higher.

The NPS committed four people to the facilitated learning analysis of the non-injury slow tip over of the UTV, and three to the review of the escaped prescribed fire.

UTV at Devils Tower — Photo from the FLA for the UTV tip over, that presumably shows a UTV in the approximate location of the accident. NPS photo.

We initially covered the prescribed in 2013 fire HERE and HERE.

Weather cited as primary issue in escaped prescribed fire near Hettinger, ND

Bill GabbertFebruary 4, 2014November 17, 2017Uncategorizedescaped prescribed fire, Pautre Fire, prescribed fire, report, South Dakota7 Comments

A report issued by the U.S. Forest Service for a prescribed fire that escaped on the Dakota Prairie National Grasslands in northern South Dakota last year cited weather as being one of the primary factors in losing control of the fire.

The Pasture 3B prescribed fire was planned at 210 acres, but strong winds on April 3, 2013 caused by the predicted passage of a cold front pushed the fire across a mowed fire line into tall grass and ultimately burned 10,679 acres, (3,519 acres federal and 7,160 acres private). The wildfire, named Pautre Fire, was stopped at 11 p.m. that night.

On April 3, 2013 we wrote about the wildfire:

An article in The Rapid City Journal has more information about the impacts of the fire on the ranchers. Privately owned grazing, hay stacks, and miles of fencing were damaged or destroyed during the ranchers’ calving season. Here is an excerpt:

“Laurie Casper, 36, said the fire destroyed 95 percent of her family’s farmland, which is more than 1,000 acres.

‘We lost all of our calving pasture, we lost our summer grazing, we lost our fall grazing, we lost 100 percent of our alfalfa— which we cut for hay bales in order to feed the cattle this oncoming winter— all that’s completely gone,’ she said. ‘And there’s just just miles and miles of fences that are completely gone.’ “

The prescription in the project’s burn plan for the maximum wind speed at eye level was 15 mph and the maximum wind speed at the 20-foot level was 20 mph. One of the spot weather forecasts for the morning of the prescribed fire predicted the passage of the cold front, with winds shifting from the south at 5 to 11 mph in the morning, to northwest at 25 mph with gusts to 30 mph in the afternoon. The actual weather that day was very similar to the forecast.

About a month later, another prescribed fire not too far away, at Devils Tower National Memorial in western Wyoming, also escaped, due partially to strong winds. That report still has not been posted on the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center website. We were told today that was due to a glitch, and it will appear there very soon, possibly as early as today, February 4. (UPDATE, February 5, 2014: the National Park Service arranged to have the Devils Tower report posted late in the day on February 4. We wrote about it here.)

The report said firefighters concluded they would not do much different next time (page 12):

Firefighters did an excellent job of planning, organizing and executing this prescribed fire and adhering to the prescribed fire plan. Following the control of the escaped fire some firefighters had difficulty thinking of anything they would do differently next time. While it is true that we work in a dangerous environment with unexpected changes in weather, we strive to be a learning culture and continuously improve our ability to make decisions that evaluate risk and get work done on the ground.

Some of the issues listed by the Facilitated Learning Analysis team included:

Improved weather forecasts are needed.
Consider additional research on methods to predict effects of drought on fire behavior in grass fuel models.
The nearest remote automated weather station (RAWS) is more than 90 miles away.
The project was conducted at the critical edge of the prescription.
Consider gaming out worst case scenario “what ifs” during the planning process, and discuss with participants during the on-site briefing.
There were problems with radio communications [note from Bill: I don’t remember EVER seeing a report like this that did not cite radio communications as being an issue].

The commendations section included this:

The personnel involved in all levels of the Pasture 3B prescribed fire were motivated, worked well as a team, were adequately trained, and appropriately briefed. They had a keen awareness that this was the first burn of the year, and took numerous precautions to ensure successful completion of the prescribed fire.

We did not see any mention in the report of damaged fences, hay, or pastures.

Some ranchers in western North Dakota donated hay to the South Dakota ranchers who lost theirs in the escaped prescribed fire.