Wildfire Today

Fire managers notify 18,000 DOI employees about brief compromise of their personal information

Bill GabbertJanuary 5, 2012Uncategorized

If the information that the Department of Interior is providing is accurate, the following information about a “brief compromise of personal information” of 18,000 DOI employees may amount to nothing. Perhaps we are just overly sensitive about our personal information ending up the wrong hands, or maybe this had the potential to cause major problems for a lot of employees.

Below is the text of a memo distributed by the National Interagency Fire Center on January 5, 2012:

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United States Department of the Interior

NATIONAL INTERAGENCY FIRE CENTER

3833 South Development Avenue

Boise, Idaho 83705-5354

NEWS

Contact: Randy Eardley, 208-387-5895

DOI Fire Managers Take Precautionary Measure in Notifying 18,000 Personnel About Brief Compromise of Personal Information

(January 5, 2011) Boise – Fire program leaders of the four Department of the Interior bureaus represented at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, are taking a precautionary step in notifying 18,000 employees and contractors across the country that electronic personal information was outside secure government systems for several hours in November. The incident occurred when an employee emailed a spreadsheet containing the information from NIFC to the employee’s unsecured home computer with the intent of teleworking.

Sophisticated security software detected the information immediately as the email was traveling out to the internet and within hours the spreadsheet had been removed from both the sending computer and, with full cooperation of the employee, the receiving home computer. An investigation determined there was no malicious intent on the employee’s part and there is no indication the information was intercepted or has been illegally used.

“This was detected and resolved so quickly that the risk of the information having been intercepted is extremely low,” said Howard Hedrick, acting director for the Bureau of Land Management’s Fire and Aviation program, one of the bureaus affected by the incident. “We certainly have no evidence the information was taken or used in any fraudulent manner, and our notification to personnel is very much a proactive and precautionary step.”

The notification includes mention of the low risk and lack of evidence regarding fraudulent use of the information but also provides advice and guidance on how to monitor credit reports and be vigilant for potential issues indicating a misuse of personal information.

This incident affects employees within and contracted by the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service throughout the nation. Other partner agencies at the National Interagency Fire Center are not affected.

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Six Chilean firefighters killed in wildfire

Bill GabbertJanuary 5, 2012January 6, 2012Uncategorizedfatality, lodd

UPDATE January 6, 2012:

The body of the seventh firefighter killed while trying to contain a blaze on the property of the Mininco Forestry company was recovered early Friday.

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Six firefighters working on a wildfire in Chile were killed on Thursday when they were entrapped and overrun by flames. Local governor Miguel Mellado was quoted as saying, “the fire suddenly surrounded them because of the wind, they drew closer together, one against another, and saw the fire pass above them”.

During the incident, the group of ten firefighters working for a forestry company were entrapped while they were suppressing the wildfire in a forest near Carahue in Araucania. Six of them were killed, two were badly burned and evacuated by helicopter, one escaped, and one is listed as missing.

Authorities suspect that since multiple fires started almost simultaneously in the regions of Biobio, Maule and Araucania, that the fires were ignited by arsonists.

Our sincere condolences to the family, friends, and coworkers of these firefighters.

Fire season in January

Bill GabbertJanuary 5, 2012January 5, 2012Uncategorizedweather

Along with news of the 45,000 to 55,000 acres that have burned near Browning, Montana over the last 18 hours, comes more news that several cities in the United States are setting records today for high temperatures for the date. Below are the highest recorded so far today, which are already new records, with a few more hours of heating left:

Fargo, ND 44
Grand Forks, ND 43
Mitchell, SD 52
Kalispell, MT 52

Record high temperatures can mean more wildfires and more opportunities for prescribed fires. Steve Ispwitch, the Fire Management Officer of the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota and North Dakota, wrote to us today:

I have submitted my third severity request so far in fiscal year 2012 for Standing Rock Agency, all of which have been approved. It has been unusually warm and dry since October, and we have had a couple of 170 acre fires in October and November that we caught with our engines and a SEAT. We have also been taking advantage of the ability to conduct prescribed burning when possible. We burned on December 28 and January 4, the latest and earliest perscribed fires (respectively) in any given year so far. Stay safe…

Right now, at 12:03 p.m MT, it is 61 here in southwest SD. I don’t know if that’s a record, but it has led to my decision to go hop on the motorcycle and take advantage of this great January weather. See ya!

Wildfire news, January 5, 2012

Bill GabbertJanuary 5, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorized

Areas of Canada may be approaching a critical wildfire threshold

Scientists studying wildfires in Canada have developed a model that makes some predictions about fire occurrence in the decades to come. They concluded that some areas in the country are approaching a threshold after which changes in the number of fires and their average size will increase substantially. The three ecozones in Canada that are close to reaching this threshold are the Hudson Plains south of the Hudson Bay, the Boreale Plains in the Mid-West, and the Boreale Shield stretching from the mid-west to the east coast.

The researchers’ model is similar to those used for predicting the spread of epidemics and human populations. Here is a table and note from their paper that shows what some models of these processes have in common:

Note. Burning area is part of the population of a fire that ultimately becomes extinct. The burned area is not part of the fire population; rather, it consists of dead ancestors.

Much of the paper is extremely technical. Here is an example that summarizes the algorithm

A fire starts if a spark hits a cell with fuel. All burning cells are kept in a queue. A random number is drawn to decide whether a burning cell extinguishes (with probability ) or whether a direct neighbor of one of the burning cells starts to burn (with probability ), provided that it has suitable fuel. We call the controlling parameter the reproductive ratio of fire, or fire spread success. We go through neighbors in the order of the burning cells in the queue. A fire stops once the last burning cell fails to ignite a neighbor. If run long enough (about 10,000 fires), the model reaches a quasi-stationary state in which the density of fuel-carrying cells, pt, fluctuates around a well-defined temporal mean.

The authors of the paper, Richard D. Zinck, Mercedes Pascual,and Volker Grimm, who made the results of their taxpayer-funded research freely available to the public, included this acknowledgement, which is another vote for OPEN ACCESS:

This work would not have been possible without the open access to data over the Internet…

IAWF offers wildfire scholarships

For the sixth year in a row the International Association of Wildland Fire is offering scholarships to two graduate students studying wildland fire. Here is an excerpt from their announcement:

In an effort to continue to promote the scholarly pursuits and graduate level training within the global wildland fire community, in 2012 the IAWF will again be awarding two graduate-level scholarships to IAWF members who are Master of Science (MSc) or Doctoral (PhD) students studying all wildland fire or wildland fire related topics. We encourage applications from students studying any aspect of wildland fire be it from the perspective of physical, ecological or social science to less traditional subject areas as well: we are looking through this scholarship to recognize and support any type of research relevant to the global wildland fire community.

The application period will open January 15, 2012 and will close on February 29, 2012. Award winners will be announced by the end of April 2012.

Previous winners of the IAWF scholarships are listed HERE.

Editorial about mandatory retirement age for firefighters

An editorial in the Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle makes the point, using a law enforcement ranger at Yellowstone National Park as an example, that mandatory retirement ages for firefighters, law enforcement officers, and pilots may no longer be appropriate. Here is an excerpt:

…Safety is the rationale for forcing a person out of a position. Mandatory retirement for pilots, law officers and firefighters were justified on the grounds that physical and mental faculties were diminished at a certain age. But diminished capacities should not be determined by an arbitrary number – a specific age. They can, and should, be determined by testing…

Thanks go out to Dick

Several large wildfires burning in northwest Montana

Bill GabbertJanuary 5, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorized

UPDATE @ 10:17 a.m. Jan. 5, 2012

The wildfires near Browning, Montana, according to news reports, are much larger than we knew Wednesday night. KRTV reports that the Boy Fire northeast of Browning has burned 15,000 acres and four structures, including one home. Approximately 200 people evacuated from the Seville and Hidden Lake colonies and the Boarding School area.

The Y Fire, which started near the “y” intersection of Highways 89 and 2 south of Browning has burned 30,000 to 40,000 acres and destroyed 10 to 12 structures, including 4 homes.

KRTV said both fires were still active Thursday morning.

The weather forecast for Browning on Thursday:

Wind: 33-37 mph with gusts to 54
Temperature, high: 39
Relative humidity, minimum: 42%
Sky cover: 55%
Chance of precipitation: 44%

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Very strong winds are driving several large grass fires across the plains in northwest Montana near Browning. At least one fire is burning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Spokesperson Wayne Smith said the fire started southeast of Browning in the late afternoon on Wednesday and burned about eight miles east to the community of Blackfoot. The Blackfeet tribe declared a state of emergency.

Browning State Senator Shannon Augare says he believes about 100 people have been evacuated. Senator Augare has been providing information on Twitter Wednesday evening. For example he tweeted:

“Several families, including mine have evacuated from our homes in Blackfeet Country.. An estimated 5 massive fires are in progress..
Local police, fire and EMS crews are everywhere.. Responding where they are able to.
Apparently, the 1st fire was caused by a down power line.. Wind is blowing at a high rate here..
The Blackfeet Tribe has opened our main Tribal Business Office for those who need emergency shelter..”

Browning is about 12 miles east of Glacier National Park and about 30 miles south of the Canadian border (map).

KRTV reported late Wednesday night that several fires have burned over 10,000 acres and at least seven structures have been destroyed. They said the fires stretch from about 3 miles north of Browning to 20 miles south of Browning.

The temperature on Wednesday in Browning was 24 degrees warmer than usual, with a high of 54. The maximum wind gust over the last 24 hours was 54 mph with a steady wind late on Wednesday night of 17 mph gusting to 31. The forecast for Thursday is for a high of 43 with a 40% chance of rain or snow.

Thanks go out to Dick

Wildfire potential, January through April, 2012

Bill GabbertJanuary 4, 2012January 4, 2012Uncategorizedpotential, weather

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their National Wildland Significant Fire Potential Outlook for January through April, 2012. According to their prediction, most of the United States is in for a quiet first part of the year with the exception of parts of Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas (as usual), Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.

According to NIFC, the primary factors influencing these outlooks are:

La Niña: La Niña conditions will continue over the tropical Pacific and typical weather patterns will return to the US after intraseasonal circulations disrupted the classic La Niña patterns over North America in December.
Drought: Significantly above normal precipitation fell in December over parts of the front range of the southern Rockies, the central Plains and the Ohio Valley. Parts of central and west Texas, southwest New Mexico and southern Arizona also received above normal precipitation. Much of the West, the central and southern Rockies, the northern Plains and Florida received less than 50 percent of normal precipitation for the month.
Fuel Dryness: Fuel conditions continue to improve across most of the U.S. As winter progresses and La Niña returns the northern tier of the country will see fuel conditions that are not conducive to significant fires. The far southern portions of the country, however, will begin to experience drier and warmer periods as La Niña sets in. Even though these will not be as strong as last year, expect fuels conditions to dry significantly and support significant fires across the Southwest and the far Southeast.

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