He also said the USFS hopes to obtain the C-27J aircraft that the Air Force may decide to declare surplus, and the agency would outfit them with scaled down versions of the Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) retardant tank systems that are used in military C-130s, rather than conventional gravity-powered tanks.

More information is at Fire Aviation:

• Chief Tidwell testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee
• USFS Chief Tidwell wants to install MAFFS units in the C-27Js

Below are excerpts from an article at eenews:

****

“It’s an allocation that would have devastating impacts for our lands, water and wildlife,” [Alan Rwosome] said. “At these funding levels, we would see massive and devastating park and wildlife refuge closures, less and less law enforcement officers protecting the public, and almost no resources to fight wildfires across the country.”

[...]

The House’s Interior-EPA allocation could change, especially if the chamber receives a new top-line funding level as a result of a budget agreement with the Senate, a House aide said. But it is unclear whether the two chambers will be able to reach such an accord.

The current allocation would put significant pressure on subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) over how to fund programs important to constituents including conservationists, park and wildlife advocates, clean water groups, states, and Indian tribes.

[...]

Simpson last month warned that if Congress continues to tackle the deficit through discretionary spending — which accounts for about one-third of overall spending — he may soon be forced to zero out funding to some Interior programs.

“Do we come to the point where we say there are just some things we’re not going to do, and eliminate them and at least concentrate on the parts that we do well?” he asked at an April budget hearing for Interior. “That’s a tough choice.”

Cutting funding for Simpson’s agencies is particularly difficult given the high fixed costs of programs like wildfire funding — which consumes roughly half of the Forest Service budget — and the Indian Health Service, according to one former House appropriations aide.

“They’re going to have to figure out sizable things to just stop doing,” the former aide said.

Then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in April told Simpson his agency was “limping along” under sequestration cuts, which have resulted in fewer park police, reduced services at parks, more than $110 million in cuts in payments to states, reduced youth hiring and furloughs.

Thanks go out to Chris

An air curtain is not terribly sophisticated. It simply pumps air into the area where material is burning. The extra air flow and oxygen greatly shortens the time it takes to burn the fuel.

Wednesday I visited a site near Custer, South Dakota where Bayfield, Colorado based NRG Consulting Services is conducting contract work on private land. They are thinning and reducing the fuel around structures as well as cutting and burning beetle-infested trees.

Some of the thinned and  bug trees they are cutting are green, partially green, or at least have a moisture content high enough to make it impossible to burn in a conventional slash pile right away. But if they wait for the wood to dry out enough to burn, the beetles will hatch and disperse to other trees.

The air curtain makes it possible to burn the high-moisture content wood immediately.

The brand new portable unit they were using Wednesday has a movable ceramic-lined firebox mounted to a trailer. The box is raised and lowered by a hydraulic lift system. Once on site, the fire box, which has no bottom or floor, is lowered to the ground. So the burning occurs on the ground, surrounded by the box. If you notice the line of holes in the wall of the box in the photo below, that’s where the air comes out at a fairly high velocity. A small diesel engine powers the blower and the hydraulics that raises and lowers the fire box.

While I was at the site the system was producing virtually no smoke. The photo below shows what was left after a full day of use. At the end of the day they let it sit overnight, then the next morning they may raise the fire box and move it to a different location.

While a fire in an air curtain is less likely than a burn pile to escape, there is some fire hazard associated with the system. At one point I happened to look down at the sleeve of my cotton shirt and saw a small burning ember about the size of a gnat. I brushed it off and saw that it left a small burn mark on my shirt. Then I noticed that the cotton shirt of the crew boss had at least a dozen holes just like the new one in my shirt. The gentleman closest to the machine, the person feeding it, was shrewdly wearing a Nomex shirt. I looked around and didn’t see any spot fires in the area. A burning permit is required to operate an air curtain in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which these folks had.

No doubt you have heard about the massive and very tragic tornado that devastated large sections of Moore, Oklahoma Monday. Our sincere condolences go out to those that are affected by the loss of life and property.

ESRI has put together the map below which not only shows the path of Monday’s tornado, but you can configure it to also show the paths of the two tornadoes that went through the town in 1999 and 2003 — click on “Layers”, then check the boxes. You may need to zoom out to see all three of them. (All three tornado paths may not display perfectly with Internet Explorer or a mobile device.)

Response of land management agencies and wildland firefighters

We are not aware of any large numbers of widland firefighters or Federal/State interagency incident management teams being assigned. If that changes, we’ll update this area in the article.

UPDATE at 8:58 a.m. CT, May 22, 2013:

There is still no word of large numbers of wildland firefighters or land management agency personnel being assigned to the incident. But here is what FEMA is mobilizing, as of 5:11 p.m. May 21:

• Preliminary damage assessment teams, comprised of representatives from the state, FEMA and the Small Business Administration, are on the ground and will begin assessments today, and more counties and additional forms of assistance may be designated after the assessments are fully completed.
• Three national Urban Search and Rescue Teams (Texas Task Force 1, Nebraska Task Force 1 and Tennessee Task Force 1) and an Incident Support Team have been deployed to support the immediate response efforts.
• One national and two regional Incident Management Assistance Teams are deployed to the state emergency operations center in Oklahoma City to coordinate with state and local officials in support of recovery operations.
• Two Mobile Emergency Response Support Teams are in Oklahoma to provide self-sustaining telecommunications, logistics, and operations support elements, to assist in the immediate response needs and additional teams are being deployed.
• Three Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams are scheduled to arrive later today into communities to perform the Assess, Inform, and Report (AIR) Missions, a tool to help federal, state, local, tribal and territorial partners gather detailed information on the affected areas during the critical first hours, days and weeks after a disaster strikes. DSATs will address immediate and emerging needs of disaster survivors including: on-site registration, applicant status checks, on-the-spot needs assessments, and access to partners offering survivor services.
• FEMA activated the National Response Coordination Center in Washington, D.C., a multi-agency coordination center that provides overall coordination of the federal response to natural disasters and emergencies, to support state requests for assistance, and FEMA’s Region VI Response Coordination Centers (RRCC) located in Denton, Texas remains activated.

UPDATE at 4:43 p.m. CT, May 21, 2013: 

The National Park Service has two two Search and Rescue Liaison Officers assigned. One liaison is working with FEMA at the ESF#9 cell in DC, the other is deployed with the FEMA IST in Moore, OK. NPS has one FEMA Mission Assignment for SAR coordination and planning. The primary focus is on urban and wide-area search and rescue. All forces are still working in a “rescue” posture.

Information from FEMA

Below is information from FEMA about their response as of 5:30 a.m. ET Tuesday:

****

“In response, the Oklahoma EOC fully activated to Level I and the President declared Major Disaster Declaration FEMA-4117-DR for the State of Oklahoma.

FEMA Region VI RRCC is activated to Level II, with a regional IMAT and LNOs deployed to Oklahoma’s SEOC. Additionally, the Regional Administrator remains in contact with State officialsTwo (2) Individual Assistance (IA), Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA)Teams arrived at 1:15 a.m. EDT, May 21, 2013. Denton MERS is deploying one (1) mobile emergency operations vehicle (MEOV) and one (1) initial response vehicle (IRV).

FEMA’s NRCC is activated to Level II (w/ESFs, 1-3, 6-9, 15 and all LNOs). National IMAT-White is activated and deploying to Oklahoma. FEMA Logistics ADVON and Main Body ISB personnel and ISB equipment cache will deploy to Will Roger Airport (Haggar Facility), Oklahoma City, OK. Urban Search and Rescue Task Task Forces TX-TF1, NE-TF1 & TN-TF1 are activated/deploying to Will Roger Airport (Haggar Facility), Oklahoma City, OK.”

Thanks go out to Keith.