Unfilled air tanker orders increased in 2011

The number of unfilled orders for large air tankers increased to 29.8 percent in 2011, while the number of air tankers that were available on contract fell. In 2010 there were 19 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts and the unable to fill (UTF) rate was 15 percent.

In 2011 the number of air tankers decreased to 11 in July after the U.S. Forest Service cancelled their contract with Aero Union saying certain aircraft inspections were not completed. Aero Union, now in the process of selling their assets, is appealing the USFS allegations. Neptune brought on one additional air tanker, a leased BAe-146, in November on an “interim” approval basis.

The higher UTF rate is at least partially due to a busy fire season in the southwest, compared to the slower years of 2009 and 2010. The number of acres burned in the lower 49 states in 2011, which excludes Alaska, was 8.4 million, exceeding the average of 5.1 million between 2000 and 2011.

Acres burned wildfire US 2000-2011
Acres burned in wildfires in lower 49 states, US 2000-2011. Data from NIFC.

While the data about UTF rates is difficult to interpret, perhaps we can be safe in saying that if more than 4,000,000 acres burn in the lower 49 states, having 21 or fewer large air tankers tends to result in 25-30% of the air tanker orders being UTF, which is about triple the UTF rate when fewer acres burn. In 2000 with 40 air tankers on contract, 6,600,000 acres burned, and the UTF rate was 7%.

You have to wonder how often incident commanders do not place orders for needed air tankers if they already know that none are available.

UPDATE at 9:00 p.m. MT, January 25, 2012:

We received an email from Scott and we asked him if we could post what he wrote. Here it is:

You wrote “You have to wonder how often incident commanders do not place orders for needed air tankers if they already know that none are available.” This statement is hauntingly similiar to those found in John McLean’s “Fire on the Mountain”, where the author reported airtankers were not ordered during early phase of South Canyon Fire because of assumption “none were available”. The Lesson Learned was don’t assume. Place the orders, justify the need, and push for priority. Still may not get AT, but you tried. Obviously, the reduction in total number AT is ominous for the future. Thanks for keeping it on the front burner.

 

Followup on the Washoe fire: 1 fatality, 29 burned structures

Firefighters have contained the Washoe fire south of Reno, Nevada, thanks to the efforts of firefighters, diminishing winds, and eventually two inches of rain that fell in the area. More accurate surveys and mapping have shown that the final size is 3,177 acres and that 29 structures burned.

An elderly man admitted accidentally starting fire by tossing out fireplace ashes that were still hot. Officials said he contacted them on his own and that he was “remorseful”.

The person that died during the fire has been identified as June Hargis, 93, who was living the studio apartment of her daughter, Jeannie M. Watts. Ms. Watts told the Reno Gazette-Journal that she was getting rehab for a shoulder she injured in an automobile accident when someone told her about a fire that was burning near her house.

Meanwhile, Ms. Watts younger brother, Jim Blueberg, also heard about the fire and tried to drive to his mother’s apartment to help her evacuate, but was turned away at checkpoints. He called her and told her to leave, but she decided to stay. She walked out the front door and told her son that she smelled smoke but didn’t see any fire. What she didn’t know was that the fire was approaching from the back side of the apartment.

Ms. Watts and her husband rushed back home from the rehab center but were stopped at road blocks. Eventually, after explaining about her mother who was in the apartment, they were allowed through but had to detour around areas that were on fire. When they arrived at her house they saw the burned out studio apartment, the burned horse barn, and her home that was starting to burn. She asked a firefighter if her mother made it out of the apartment. He went over and looked and said she did not make it out.

The official cause of death of Ms. Hargis will not be determined until an autopsy is performed, but earlier officials said they believed it to be “smoke inhalation”.

Our sincere condolences go out to the family of Ms. Hargis.

Photos and video of the Washoe fire

Washoe fire
Washoe fire. Photo by Gary Pearl

Gary Pearl, of Gary Pearl Photography sent us these photos and the video below. Thanks Gary. The images are of the Washoe fire south of Reno, Nevada which burned about 4,000 acres and approximately 26 structures on January 19. We covered the fire HERE.

Washoe fire
Washoe fire. Photo by Gary Pearl

 

Thousands evacuate from Washoe fire south of Reno

10:35 a.m. PT, January 20, 2012

The Western Great Basin Coordination Center reported at 9:30 a.m. that the Washoe fire has burned  approximately 4,000 acres and is 50% contained The Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center web site which was updated at 9:30 this morning says 3,766 acres have burned.. At least 26 homes have been destroyed, according to the WGBCC. Highway 395 remains closed due to guard rail and other damage. Washam’s Type 3 incident management team assumed command at 6:00 a.m. today. Approximately 2,000 people are still without power due to downed power lines.

This is the second major fire for the Reno area in the last two months. On November 18 the Caughlin fire burned 1,847 acres and caused the evacuation of 10,000 residents on the southwest side of the city. It was also mopped up by a snowfall a day or two after the primary spread of the fire. The Caughlin fire destroyed 15 structures and damaged 40 others.

Here is some very impressive video footage that shows how the very strong winds, gusting up to 82 mph, made the Washoe fire extremely difficult to control.

5:55 a.m. PT, January 20, 2012

The Washoe fire south of Reno, Nevada is 50 percent contained and the spread has been stopped, according to Reno Fire Batallion chief, Tim Spencer. Approximately 27 homes have burned but 800 homes were saved in the East Lake area. There has been one fatality but no information has been released about the circumstances or the identity of the person. An estimated 3,700 acres have burned.

Highway 395 is still closed. Some firefighting resources en route from California were turned around in Donner pass due to the weather and chain controls.

There are reports that 6,000 to 10,000 people were forced to evacuate. Some of those have been allowed to return, reducing the number to 2,000.

Below is an updated map posted by Washoe County. It shows the fire size at  7:20 p.m. January 19 to be 2,000 acres. A larger version of the map can be downloaded HERE (large 3.5 Mb .pdf file). The lake at the bottom of the map is Little Washoe Lake. The red highway running roughly north and south is US 395. RGJ.com produced an easier to read map that shows the evacuation areas.

Washoe_fire_map_1920_1-19-2011
Map showing the estimated perimeter of the Washoe fire, produced by Washoe County at 7:20 p.m. January 19.

RGJ.com has a gallery of photos of the fire. Many of them are excellent.

The National Weather Service predicts that the winds Friday morning will be southwest 10 mph. The wind will increase to 17-31 with gusts up to 49 in the late afternoon, but the chance of rain will increase throughout the afternoon, topping out at 99 percent by 4 p.m. PT. The rain should change to about 1 inch of snow early Saturday morning.

Because of the growing fire, Vice President Joe Biden was forced to cut short a speech he was making Thursday afternoon at a high school in Reno.

6:32 p.m. PT, January 19, 2011

At noon on Thursday a wildfire started north of Washoe Lake, between Reno and Lake Tahoe about 25 miles south of Reno. According to the Western Great Basin Coordination Center (WGBCC) at 5:54 p.m. PT, the fire had burned 3,000 acres, was zero percent contained, and “1,000 structures have been impacted”. They also report that Washam’s Type 3 Incident Management Team is being mobilized for the fire, named Washoe.
Continue reading “Thousands evacuate from Washoe fire south of Reno”

Access to federally funded research threatened

Open Access logo
Open Access logo

Two members of congress have introduced legislation that would prohibit taxpayers from freely accessing research that they have already paid for. The Research Works Act, sponsored by Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, would forbid the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from requiring that their grantees provide copies of the papers they publish in peer-reviewed journals so that the NIH can make them available in the NIH on-line library. If this ill-conceived piece of legislation passes, it could easily spread from the NIH to the rest of the federal government.

We have written about this issue several times before and have provided examples of government funded wildfire research that is not available to taxpayers unless they pay a privately owned publishing company a fee, usually around $25 to $30 dollars for each article.

Thankfully, according to Tim Swedberg, Communications Director of the Joint Fire Science Program which provides a great deal of federal money for wildfire-related research, the JFSP has a written policy about the findings from the research they fund which the authors publish in a journal:

Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to JFSP upon acceptance for Journal publication or thereafter, for public archiving in firescience.gov as soon as possible after publication by Journal.

This proposed legislation has generated some interest, as you can see from this list of dozens of articles written on the subject over the last two weeks.

The New York Times has an excellent story on the topic. Here is an excerpt:

=================================================

…The publishers argue that they add value to the finished product, and that requiring them to provide free access to journal articles within a year of publication denies them their fair compensation. After all, they claim, while the research may be publicly funded, the journals are not.

But in fact, the journals receive billions of dollars in subscription payments derived largely from public funds. The value they say they add lies primarily in peer review, the process through which works are assessed for validity and significance before publication. But while the journals manage that process, it is carried out almost entirely by researchers who volunteer their time. Scientists are expected to participate in peer review as part of their employment, and thus the publicly funded salaries most of them draw through universities or research organizations are yet another way in which taxpayers already subsidize the publishing process.

Rather than rolling back public access, Congress should move to enshrine a simple principle in United States law: if taxpayers paid for it, they own it…

Researchers should cut off commercial journals’ supply of papers by publishing exclusively in one of the many “open-access” journals that are perfectly capable of managing peer review (like those published by the Public Library of Science, which I co-founded). Libraries should cut off their supply of money by canceling subscriptions. And most important, the N.I.H., universities and other public and private agencies that sponsor academic research should make it clear that fulfilling their mission requires that their researchers’ scholarly output be freely available to the public at the moment of publication.

UPDATE January 22, 2012:

HERE is a link to a 3-minute audio recording from KCRW, in which Dr. Michael Wilkes, a Professor of Medicine and Vice Dean for Medical Education at UC Davis, provides his “Second Opinion” about open access to taxpayer-funded research.

Thanks go out to Tim and Lone Ranger

Texas legislature holds hearing on wildfire preparedness

Lawmakers in Texas, looking back at the 26,000 fires that have burned 3,900,000 acres since December 2010, are asking questions. The Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security held a hearing on Tuesday in which Tom Boggus, director of the Texas Forest Service, testified that the annual grants (approved by the legislature and signed by the governor) to volunteer firefighters have fallen from $25 million in 2009 to $7 million today. Boggus said the volunteers, who suppress most of the wildfires in the state, have still been receiving funds for training and personal protective equipment, but the largest negative impact has been for equipment — fire engines, maintenance, tires, hose, and pumps.

Many of the rural fire departments have little or no reliable funding and depend on bake sales, grants, or donations to buy fire trucks and personal protective equipment for the volunteers so that they can protect the state’s citizens. Last year on their Facebook page the Texas Forest Service asked the residents of the state to donate to their local fire departments.