Last year’s Black Forest Fire was the most destructive fire in Colorado’s history, claiming two lives, 14,000 acres, and nearly 500 homes. Why did some neighborhoods survive and how do fire fighters determine which homes can be safely defended? This excellent 13-minute video answers those questions and shows many success stories.
Residents in the wildland-urban interface need to see this. It illustrates that clear cutting or removing all trees around a house is not necessary to prevent it from burning when a wildfire approaches — just thinning, reducing ground fuels, and fire-safe home construction is required.
After the video starts, click on full screen at the bottom-right to take advantage of the very good photography.
Heat detected in Washington and Oregon by a satellite at 1:08 p.m. PT, January 24, 2014
Rare winter fires are burning in Oregon’s Coast Range in areas that would normally be cold and wet much of the year, but especially in January. They are not huge, but some fires in Washington and Oregon are large enough to be detected by a satellite as you can see in the image above.
Below is an excerpt from KGW:
ARCH CAPE, Ore. — Rare winter wildfires in the Oregon Coast Range, visible from as far as 20 miles away, continued to burn early Friday morning east of Arch Cape.
The first was reported about 3 p.m. Thursday and second one about midnight south of the original fire, according to Seaside police.
Because it has been so dry and the wind has blown so hard early this winter season, forestry officials believe smoldering slash piles from the fall roared back to life and became new, bigger fires.
The fires, called Falcon and Shingle, were burning about 120 total acres Friday afternoon. A flight restriction was put in the place around the fires.
Gusts that reached an estimated 70 mph had flames jumping logging roads. At least 120 people were involved in the firefighting efforts by early Friday morning, including crews from Cannon Beach, Seaside, Gearhart, Nehalem departments and the U.S. Forest Service.
The High Park Fire northwest of Ft. Collins, Colorado, as seen from Tie Siding, WY June 9, 2012. Photo by Wayne Karberg
Below is an opinion piece written by Gary “Bean” Barrett, a retired Navy Captain.
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Colorado Wild Fire Management, a military view of firefighting in the State
From a military viewpoint, if wildfire were an intelligent adversary it would win every time in Colorado.
Ignition from natural causes is not preventable. Fires will start. The goal must be to limit the damage caused by fires. In a few cases, if the fire is in a remote area, it may be possible or even desirable to let it burn. Given the population density in and around Colorado’s forested lands, this is seldom an option. In the remaining cases, it is critical to keep small fires small. The defensive strategy for fire management is mitigation. If the fuel is not there to burn, the fire becomes manageable. The offensive strategy is to suppress the fire and the quicker the better since it is much easier and less costly to fight a small fire. Both strategies are required in order to manage wildfires in Colorado.
Emergency Support Function 4 of the State Emergency Operations Plan was written envisioning the Division of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) management of major fire fighting operations. It unfortunately ignores the key capabilities and responses needed to keep small fires from becoming major fires. It wrongly assumes existing local organizations and resources are adequate for the Initial Attack (IA) on wildfires in Colorado. I believe this assumption is a significant contributing factor to the frequency of large disastrous wildfires in Colorado over the last few years. Some, perhaps many, of our large wild fires are avoidable.
It appears the state legislature also operates under the same assumption. The legislative focus, including that of the Wildfire Matters Review Committee, and the Governor’s Wildfire Taskforce, has been on low cost (to the State) mitigation of private property. Improving IA has been ignored.
Federal estimates show that a dollar spent on mitigation precludes expenditure of $5 on firefighting. This may be statistically correct but even if mitigation of state and private land was completely accomplished, it would only address approximately one third of Colorado’s problem. Approximately 67% of our forests are on federal lands that depend on federal land management agencies for proper mitigation. Colorado cannot direct federal agencies to conduct mitigation. The majority of Colorado’s mitigation problem is beyond Colorado’s control.
“At current rates of treatment, it would take 60 to 90 years to restore healthy conditions, reducing the risks of catastrophic wildfires for firefighters and homeowners, the federal audit found.” Disastrous wildfire era set to continue in Colorado – Denver Post 09/16/2012
A Colorado state senator will be introducing legislation that would provide $9 million for four helicopters and an air tanker to suppress wildfires. A bill approved last year created the Colorado Firefighting Air Corps (CFAC) but failed to appropriate any funds to run the agency or acquire any aviation assets.
Senator Steve King will file a bill today that would take funds from five state departments that are “most affected by wildland fires”. The departments are Natural Resources ($1.3M), Local Affairs ($0.6M), Agriculture ($0.4M), Public Health and Environment ($2M), and Public Safety ($4.7M). The funds would come from their appropriations for this fiscal year which ends on June 30, 2014.
In one sense, finding $9 million for firefighting aircraft without raising taxes is good news for Coloradans, but it seems likely that the five affected agencies will be less than enthusiastic.
The legislation specifies that a contract be issued for one Type 1 air tanker or a very large air tanker. That could include in the Type 1 category, for example, a C-130, MD-87, or a BAe-146. A DC-10 or 747 would qualify as Very Large.
In addition, contracts would be issued for four helicopters, with three of them being Type 1 that could carry at least 700 gallons of water or retardant, while the other would be used for “command-and-control functions through an arrangement of personnel, equipment, communications, facilities, and procedures employed by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating, controlling, and documenting forces and operations in the accomplishment of aerial firefighting missions”.
One or more of the aircraft could be made available to the federal government or other states if they were not needed in Colorado.
The legislation also requires the CFAC to acquire four large “aircraft”, presumably fixed wing, which would be converted to air tankers by retrofitting them with retardant tank systems by June 1, 2015. The sources of the aircraft could be “the federal excess personal property program, the open market, or any other donation or acquisition means”.
The language about contracting for the retrofitting has some interesting recommendations to consider. Such as, will the work be done in Colorado, and, will the bidder “further upgrade or improve the air tankers for nighttime aerial firefighting missions, or preserve or enhance the multipurpose functionality of the aircraft, or develop other methods or systems to make the CFAC’s operations more effective”.
In case you are wondering how far $9 million will go, as a point of reference the federal government will be paying an estimated $7.3 to $8.7 million per air tanker each year on the next generation 160-day Type 1 air tanker contracts. That works out to $45,000 to $54,000 per day. Colorado may decide to contract for less than 160 days each year, but still that does not leave a lot left over for the four contracted helicopters each year and retrofitting the four additional aircraft they expect to acquire. The retrofitting alone could be around $3.5 million each.
The proposal also gives the CFAC the ability to accept a variety of funds, including gifts, sponsorships, advertising fees, licensing fees, and donations from private or public sources. Maybe the CFAC or Senator King took our contest about advertising on their air tankers seriously, such as the idea below from Tim Holmes. By the way, you can still vote for the best ad design.
(The map above is an example of how the Waldo Canyon fire spread into the Flying W Ranch area on the west side of Colorado Springs June 26, 2012. HERE is a link to a map that can zoom in to see more details. MODIS/Google)
Judging from the titles of the bills announced Thursday that may be introduced in the Colorado legislature related to wildfires, it appears that there will be few if any changes that will actually improve the on-the-ground suppression of wildfires, especially initial attack. The bills are about taxes, disasters, agricultural burning, fireworks, loans, prescribed fires, an information center, and death benefits, but we don’t see much to help the firefighter at the sharp end of the spear.
In October the Colorado State Fire Chiefs organization submitted to the Joint Legislative Wildfire Matters Review Committee a detailed list of their seven highest priorities. We can’t see where their recommendations fit into the proposed legislation. The specifics are HERE, but below are the headlines of their recommnedations, with the first three being the most important:
Insure the stability and reliability of the current Colorado state-wide emergency radio system.
Continue to invest in the development, expansion and implementation of the State resource mobilization plan.
Expand the current local, regional and state command, control, and coordination capabilities.
Provide sufficient funding to the Division of Fire Prevention and Control to fulfill its stated missions.
State aviation resources are an essential and integral part of the initial attack on WUI fires.
Develop measurable and clearly articulated performance goals for response to WUI fires to guide the response of local, mutual aid and State resources.
Recognize that while community and individual homeowner mitigation is an essential component of a comprehensive WUI strategy, it is not an effective immediate or mid-term solution to our State’s immediate threats.
Their recommendations close, in part, with this:
The costs associated with fire mitigation and firefighting need to be measured against the real and total costs of fires in the WUI. As expensive as fighting a fire is, the cost of recovery is even greater. Even if the loss of life is not considered, the ensuing flood damage to water quality, roads, bridges, utilities, and private property dwarf the cost of effective fire suppression.
New legislation aims to improve Colorado’s ability to prevent and fight wildfires
DENVER — Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014 — Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and lawmakers from both parties today discussed eight bills aimed at improving Colorado’s ability to mitigate and fight wildfires.
The governor also detailed recent steps taken through the Western Governors’ Association to address wildfire prevention and forest health.
“Colorado has seen some of the most catastrophic wildfires in our nation’s history,” Hickenlooper said. “This package of bills is the product of a legislative interim committee created last year and ongoing work on these issues by state agencies and their local partners. We are committed to doing what we can with the state’s available resources to keep Coloradans safe and reduce as much property loss from fire as possible.”
The eight new bills discussed today were:
HB14-1003: Would exempt non-Coloradan disaster relief workers from having to pay Colorado income tax on money earned while responding to disasters in Colorado, by Reps. Dan Nordberg and Lori Saine and Sens. John Kefalas and Kevin Lundberg.
HB14-1004: Would eliminate the Colorado Emergency Planning Commission and transfer its responsibilities to the Division of Fire Prevention and Control. It would also give the governor the ability to provide financial assistance without a federal disaster declaration, by Reps. Mike Foote and Stephen Humphrey and Sens. Jeanne Nicholson and Kent Lambert.
HB14-1007: Concerning the authority of county governments to limit certain forms of fire, and, in connection therewith, permitting county governments to prohibit agricultural burning during periods of high fire danger and to prohibit fireworks activity during the summer season, by Rep. Millie Hamner.
HB14-1008: Concerning the authorization of the Colorado water resources and power development authority to make loans to private entities for purposes of forest health projects, by Rep. Millie Hamner.
HB14-1010: Concerning corrections to statutory provisions relating to the prescribed burning program administered by the Division of Fire Prevention and Control in the Department of Public Safety, by Rep. Millie Hamner.
SB14-008: Concerning the creation of the wildfire information and resource center in the Division of Fire Prevention and Control in the Department of Public Safety, by Sen. Ellen Roberts.
SB14-046: Concerning a grant program to increase local firefighter safety, by Sen. Jeanne Nicholson and Rep. Tony Exum.
SB14-047: Concerning the payment of death benefits for seasonal wildland firefighters killed in the line of duty, by Sens. Lois Tochtrop and Ellen Roberts.
This package of bills does not address a state firefighting fleet because more work needs to done on this issue. Specifically, there remains unresolved concerns about the cost, management and effectiveness of a state-owned fleet.
“Securing and retrofitting large, fixed-wing airtankers is extremely expensive, especially in Colorado’s unique environment of hot temperatures and high altitudes,” said Paul Cooke, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. “Before investing in these costly tools for suppression, we need to ensure that the current resources are being used to their maximum effectiveness.” Continue reading “Proposed legislation for wildfire management in Colorado”
