South Carolina lawmakers considering law that would protect prescribed burners

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

Ignition of the Bison Flats prescribed fire, Wind Cave National Park. Photo by Bill Gabbert

The South Carolina legislature is considering a bill that would eliminate frivolous lawsuits over smoke created by a prescribed fire. House Bill 3631, the “Prescribed Fire Act” would protect the property owner unless gross negligence is proven. This would change the present language of “negligence” to “gross negligence”, raising the bar in proving damages in a lawsuit. The bill is in the hands of the Senate Fish, Game and Forestry Committee and should be placed on the calendar within the next few weeks.

It would stipulate for prescribed fires:

A prescribed fire plan must be prepared before the State Commission of Forestry authorizes the prescribed fire.
At least one certified fire manager must be present.
Prescribed fires are considered to be in the public interest and not constitute a public or private nuisance when conducted pursuant to state air pollution statutes and smoke management guidelines.
Prescribed fires are considered the property right of the property owner.

Current South Carolina law, Section 48-34-50 reads as follows:

No property owner or lessee or his agent or employee conducting a prescribed fire pursuant to this chapter is liable for damage, injury, or loss caused by fire, resulting smoke, or other consequences of the prescribed fire unless negligence is proven.

The new bill removes smoke from the “negligence” category and requires “gross negligence” for any lawsuits.

Below is the full text of the bill, H. 3631, as of February 22, 2012 at 10:16 AM:

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

A BILL

TO AMEND SECTION 48-34-40, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO THE REQUIREMENTS FOR CONDUCTING A PRESCRIBED FIRE, SO AS TO FURTHER SPECIFY SUPERVISION REQUIREMENTS FOR A PRESCRIBED FIRE MANAGER AND TO REFERENCE SPECIFIC REGULATORY AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS APPLICABLE TO CONDUCTING A PRESCRIBED FIRE; AND TO AMEND SECTION 48-34-50, RELATING TO LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED BY A PRESCRIBED FIRE, SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT A PROPERTY OWNER, LESSEE, AGENT, OR EMPLOYEE IS NOT LIABLE FOR DAMAGES CAUSED BY THE RESULTING SMOKE OF A PRESCRIBED FIRE UNLESS GROSS NEGLIGENCE IS PROVEN.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Section 48-34-40 of the 1976 Code is amended to read:

“Section 48-34-40. Prescribed fires conducted pursuant to this chapter:

(1) must have a prescribed fire plan prepared before authorization to burn is given by the State Commission of Forestry, and the plan must be on site and followed during the burn;

(2) must have at least one certified prescribed fire manager present ~~and~~ who must consider both fire behavior and smoke management issues while supervising the burn from ignition until it is declared safe according to certification guidelines;

(3) are considered in the public interest and do not constitute a public or private nuisance when conducted pursuant to state air pollution statutes, smoke management guidelines, as provided for in Regulations 61-62.2, or a successor regulation thereto, and ~~regulations~~ other statutory provisions applicable to the use of prescribed fire, as provided for in Chapter 35 and Chapter 2, Title 50; and

(4) are considered a property right of the property owner.”

SECTION 2. Section 48-34-50 of the 1976 Code is amended to read:

“Section 48-34-50. No A property owner or lessee or his agent or employee conducting a prescribed fire pursuant to this chapter is not liable for damage, injury, or loss caused by fire, ~~resulting smoke~~, or other consequences of the prescribed fire unless negligence is proven. A property owner or lessee or his agent or employee conducting a prescribed fire pursuant to this chapter is not liable for damage, injury, or loss caused by the resulting smoke of a prescribed fire unless gross negligence is proven.”

SECTION 3. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

—-XX—-

Wildfire news, February 26, 2012

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

There were no earth-shattering stories related to wildfire over the weekend, but here are a few that we noticed:

Fires in western Arkansas

KFSM, a television station in Arkansas, tweeted this satellite photo of fires burning in the west Arkansas counties of Le Flore, Logan, Scott and Johnson. It is dated Saturday, February 25 at 4:30 p.m.

Helicopter pilot volunteers for local fire department

A helicopter pilot who owns and operates a helicopter in Burnet, Texas has been volunteering the use of his helicopter his services as a pilot to assist the Burnet Volunteer Fire Department. When called, Rick Neeley, a professional pilot, donates his time and even the fuel for the helicopter when the fire department needs some eyes in the air to provide additional situational awareness when large vegetation fires are burning in Burnet County.

John Smallwood, a Captain with the department, was quoted by KWTX as saying: ”He’s handy for us. We tell dispatch that we need help with air support and we mention his name. They have his number and he always comes out to help us.”

“(I’m) just kind of giving them some eyes in the sky and letting them see things or know things that they would have no other way of knowing,” Neely affirmed. “God’s just blessed us with a way to help and all these guys are helping out in the way they can and we just get out and help the way we can.”

Smoke from wildfires in Thailand creating issues

Smoke from wildfires is causing problems in Thailand, including health issues and the cancellation of commercial flights for at least one airline. On Sunday officials had planned to survey from a helicopter the Thai-Myanmar border area to assess the fires before sending in firefighters, but poor visibility forced the mission to be cancelled. Here is an excerpt from an article at bangkokpost.com:

The forest fires are spreading on both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border, obstructing air and land transport. A thick haze of smoke is seen over most parts of the border town.

Many residents are being treated for eye irritation and breathing difficulties. The smoke crisis was expected to continue for the next few days as authorities are struggling to put out the fires, Mr Suriya said.

Police have set up security checkpoints on several major roads to warn motorists to exercise extra caution and turn on headlights while driving in poor visibility.

Nok Air, the low-cost airline serving Mae Sot, has been forced to land its aircraft in Phitsanulok for the fourth day because of the poor visibility.

Tanker 40 returns to Missoula

Tanker 40 arriving at Neptune's hangar at the Missoula airport on Sunday

The jet-powered BAe-146 air tanker that Neptune Aviation is leasing from Tronos returned from Prince Edward Island in Canada today after completing a lengthy scheduled maintenance which normally takes about 21 work days. Tanker 40 arrived at Prince Edward Island on December 24 and returned to Missoula Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

Both Neptune and Minden, with nine and two large air tankers on contract respectively, have been asked by the U.S. Forest Service to begin deploying their air tankers earlier than usual this year, due to the fire seasons becoming longer.

Researchers estimate global mortality from smoke

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

Wildfire Today recently reported on a study that linked wildfire smoke with increased physician visits. Now other researchers claim they can estimate the number of people that die each year as a result of breathing smoke particulates, PM_2.5. Their principal estimate for the world-wide average mortality attributable to smoke exposure for 1997-2006 is 339,000 deaths annually. According to the researchers, the mortality could be substantially reduced by curtailing burning of tropical rainforests, which rarely burn naturally.

Spatial locations of the 14 terrestrial Global Fire Emission Database (GFED) regions used in global fire emissions modeling. The warm colors (red, orange, pink) represent the fire-affected area. (from the study)

HERE is a link to “supplemental material” which explains the researchers’ methodology. Below, is the abstract from the paper.
Continue reading →

Researchers quantify effects of wildfire smoke on residents

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

Researchers in British Columbia took advantage of smoky conditions from wildfires near Kelowna (map) and other areas in southeastern B.C. in 2003 to study the effects of smoke on the residents. The fires that year burned over 67,000 acres, destroyed 238 homes, and forced 33,000 people to evacuate.

The study not only evaluated the particulate data from air quality monitoring stations, but also the human health impacts, especially in urban settings.

Difference in weekly asthma visits for 2003 versus the average of 2002 and 2004 (when there were few fires in the study area) plotted against the difference in average weekly total PM10 measurements for Kelowna, the largest city in the study area. Bars indicate the weekly sum of 2003 asthma-specific visits minus the averages of the 2002 and 2004 weekly sums of asthma visits. The black line indicates the average weekly TEOM-measured PM10 in 2003 minus the average of weekly measurements in 2002 and 2004. (From the referenced study.)

The researchers found that increases in smoke particulates, PM₁₀, were associated with increased odds of respiratory physician visits and hospital admissions, but not with cardiovascular health outcomes. Residents in Kelowna experienced an increase of 100 micrograms of particulate per cubic meter of air, which resulted in an 80 percent increase in respiratory hospital admissions and a six percent increase in the odds of an asthma-specific physician visit.

Thankfully, the University of British Columbia authors, Sarah B. Henderson, Michael Brauer1, Ying C. MacNab, and Susan M. Kennedy, made the entire paper freely available to the public, honoring the principles of Open Access.

Fog and wildfire smoke cause crashes in Florida, 9 dead

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

(updated at 8:04 p.m. MT, January 29, 2012)

A mixture of fog and smoke from a vegetation fire caused multiple vehicle crashes and at least ~~nine~~ ten deaths on I-75 in north Florida early Sunday morning. Authorities said all lanes of the Interstate were closed and at least 17 18 people were being treated at hospitals.

The Florida Highway Patrol had closed the highway briefly overnight because of a mixture of fog and smoke from a marsh fire in the nearby Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park south of Gainesville. Troopers checked the visibility and when it cleared they opened the highway. At 3:45 a.m. the crashes occurred, involving at least ~~four to five~~ seven large commercial vehicles and about ~~six~~ twelve passenger vehicles. Three of the vehicles caught fire. The Gainesville Sun has some photos of the incident.

This brings to mind the horrific 70-vehicle pileup on January 9, 2008 on I-4 in Florida in which five people were killed. That one was caused by a mixture of fog and smoke from an escaped prescribed fire.

Boycott research on firefighters that is not Open Access

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Bill Gabbert

Open Access logo

We all hate paying for something and then not receiving what we paid for. That is what is happening now to taxpayers who pay for government-funded research and then have no access to the findings.

We have ranted about this before, and documented another example a few days ago when we discovered that it will cost us $41 to obtain a copy of the findings from research conducted by the University of Georgia. Associate Professor Luke Naeher and others found that lung function decreases for firefighters who work on prescribed fires for multiple days and are exposed to smoke. Further, it showed that respiratory functions slowly declined over a 10-week season.

This is not the only research that has explored the effects of smoke on wildland firefighters, but it may significantly add to the limited body of knowledge we have on the topic. We won’t know, however, unless we pay a second time in order to see their conclusions.

Researchers at some organizations receive pay raises and promotions based partially on the “publish or perish” meme. A system that requires researchers to publish in journals that are not completely open to the public, is antiquated and has no place in 2011 when a paper can be published in seconds on the internet at little or no cost.

Some of the research that has been conducted on firefighters requires a great deal of cooperation from the firefighters, including for example, ingesting core temperature monitors, carrying a drinking water system that monitors every drink they take, and even lubricating and then inserting a rectal thermistor probe attached to wires.

The Boycott

There is no reason for firefighters to go to extreme lengths to help researchers advance the researcher’s career paths unless the firefighters can receive some benefits from the project. So, we are jumping on the idea proposed by Rileymon in a comment on the University of Georgia article:

Maybe it’s time to suggest that firefighter/research subjects boycott new research studies unless the findings are put into the Public Domain?

Here is what we are proposing:

Firefighters, administrators, and land managers should not cooperate with researchers unless they can be assured that findings from the research will be available to the public at no charge immediately following the publication of the findings, or very shortly thereafter.
Researchers should conform to the principles of Open Access.
Scientists who assist in the peer review process for conferences or journals should pledge to only do so only if the accepted publications are made available to the public at no charge via the internet.

More information: