Fire allegedly set by firefighter burns 430 acres in Idaho

BAe-146 on Karney Fire
A BAe-146 air tanker makes a drop on the Karney Fire northeast of Boise. (Inciweb photo)

The Karney fire that according to Boise County Sheriffs office officials was allegedly set by an 18-year old volunteer firefighter, has burned 430 acres 6 miles northeast of Boise, Idaho. The fire is about a mile west of the community of Robie Creek and is being managed by a Type 2 incident management team led by Incident Commander Mike Wilde.

More information about the Karney Fire.

Real time fire video now available to firefighters

CAL FIRE has installed an infrared (IR) video camera in one of their OV-10 Bronco Air Tactical Aircraft that can transmit real time live video to battalion chiefs on the ground in the San Diego area. The IR sensors can “see” through smoke to enable the aerial supervision and ground-based personnel to know the location and intensity of the fire. The system even has the capability for firefighters on the ground to control the camera.

The equipment was paid for with two grants of $100,000 each from San Diego Gas and Electric and San Diego County.

I am amazed that this technology has not been available to firefighters for a long time. Local television stations have been streaming live video of fires from helicopters for decades. The people that really need it, firefighters, have only recently started to have access to it.

The Firewatch Cobra helicopters that the USFS is experimenting with also has infrared capabilities and can stream video to a specially outfitted van that follows the helicopter around.

The camera would be part of a  “next generation incident command system” providing data on where people and equipment are deployed, a technology that would also provide greater safety and situational awareness for firefighters.

UPDATE September 20, 2012: Below is a video that illustrates the new system:

Putting real time aerial IR images into the hands of Battalion Chiefs that are in a remote area actively engaged in suppressing a fire, is huge. Huge. It adds a whole new level of situational awareness. This could save lives of both firefighters and residents that might be endangered by the fire. $200,000 for this? If it performs like it sounds like it can, that is a cheap price for something so valuable. I wonder if it could have saved the lives of the five firefighters that died on the Esperanza fire? If a Division Supervisor or Branch Director had known where Engine 57 was in relation to the fire that day in 2006, I am convinced it would have made a difference. A $200,000 piece of equipment might have saved their lives.

Timber faller dies on a fire in Washington state

An individual working as a timber faller on the Wenatchee Complex Fire near Entiat, Washington became ill on the fire line Monday afternoon, September 17. According to a news release by the Incident Management Team, he was treated by incident medical personnel and transported to a nearby hospital. He passed away later Monday evening.

At the request of the family, the individual’s name is being withheld.

We offer our sincere condolences to the family.

UPDATE at 12:19 p.m. MT, September 19, 2012:

Today the Incident Management Team on the Wenatchee Complex Fire identified the deceased as Chris Seelye, a timber faller from Darby, Montana.

 

Thanks go out to Kelly

Fires have gotten larger since 1970

We can debate the reasons for it, but there is no question that over the last 40 years the average size of wildfires has increased. The data we collected from the National Interagency Fire Center when grouped by decade shows that the average size of fires between 1970 and 2009 has more than quadrupled.

Ave size of wildfire by decade, 1970-2009Climate Central has also noticed this and issued a report about the change in fire activity over the last 42 years. Here are some highlights:

  • The National Research Council reports that for every degree Celsius (1.8°F) of temperature increase, the size of the area burned in the Western U.S. could quadruple.
  • For the last decade, compared to the 1970s, there were 7 times more fires greater than 10,000 acres and nearly 5 times more fires larger than 25,000 acres each year.
  • Since the 1970s the average number of fires over 1,000 acres each year has nearly quadrupled in Arizona and Idaho, and has doubled in California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
  • The burn season is two and a half months longer than 40 years ago.
  • Rising spring and summer temperatures across the West appear to be correlated to the increasing size and numbers of wildfires. Spring and summer temperatures have increased more rapidly across this region than the rest of the country, in recent decades. Since 1970, years with above-average spring and summer temperatures were typically years with the biggest wildfires.

In spite of this clear trend of increasing wildfires, Congress and the Administration have been reducing the budgets of the federal land management agencies, and have cut the number of large air tankers on exclusive use contracts by 80 percent since 2002, from 44 to 9. However, seven more air tankers may be added over the next year, bringing the total to 16. William Scott, a fire aviation expert who also has experience in the National Security Agency, thinks that terrorists could, and perhaps already are waging economic war inside the United State by starting wildfires which can cost the government and residents billions of dollars.

 
Thanks go out to Kelly

Video of fire tornado in Australia

Outback fire tornadoes-Australia from chris tangey on Vimeo.

Check out the strong indrafts going toward the fire vortices in this video. Very impressive.

We have written quite a few articles about fire tornadoes, sometimes called fire whirls. The more scientific name for them is fire vortices. Our posts about them can be found under the tag “fire tornado“.

Here is the description of the above video on YouTube:

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THERE’S something mean and magical about Australia’s Outback. An Alice Springs filmmaker captured both when a whirlwind of fire erupted before his eyes.

Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station, about 80km from Ularu, last week when confronted by a fiery phenomenon.

He had just finished his tour of the station when workers encountered difficulties with a grader. So he went to help them.

A small fire was burning in nearby bushland, so Mr Tangey decided to start filming.

He caught the sight of his life.

A twister touched down on the spot fire, fanning it into a furious tower of flame.

“It sounded like a jet fighter going by, yet there wasn’t a breath of wind where we were,” he told the Northern Territory News.

“You would have paid $1000 a head if you knew it was about to happen.”

The column of fire danced about the landscape for about 40 minutes, he said, as he and the station workers stood transfixed.

There was talk of making a quick getaway, Mr Tangey said. But everyone was too hypnotised to feel scared – and he continued furiously filming.

“The bizarre thing was that it rarely moved,” he said.

“These things just stood there because there was no wind to move them … but it was flickering incredibly fast.”

Darwin weather forecaster David Matthews said small twisters were common in isolated areas. But the fiery vortex was highly unusual.

“The flames would have assisted by trying to suck in air and that could have helped generate those circular winds,” Mr Matthews said.