Month: August 2009

These photos were grabbed from amazing live video from ABC7 news (available HERE, occasionally) of the Lockheed fire near Santa Cruz, California, south of San Francisco.

The fire started on Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. and has burned about 2,800 acres near Bonny Doon. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for 500-1,000 structures.

The fire gets its name from the nearby Lockheed Martin Space Systems campus, which is being used as a command post.

A combination of warmer temperatures and fewer fires has resulted in a 24% reduction in the number of large-diameter trees in Yosemite National Park. The findings come from a study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington that compared large-diameter tree densities from 1932-1936 to records from 1988-1999.

Here is an excerpt from a brief article about the study from Science Daily:

“Although this study did not investigate the causes of decline, climate change is a likely contributor to these events and should be taken into consideration,” said USGS scientist emeritus Jan van Wagtendonk. “Warmer conditions increase the length of the summer dry season and decrease the snowpack that provides much of the water for the growing season. A longer summer dry season can also reduce tree growth and vigor, and can reduce trees’ ability to resist insects and pathogens.”

Scientists also found a shift to fire-intolerant trees in some forests that had not experienced fires for nearly a century. In these areas, trees changed from fire-tolerant ponderosa pines to fire-intolerant white fir and incense cedar. In burned areas, however, pines remained dominant.

“We should be aware that more frequent and severe wildfires are possible in Yosemite because of the recent shift to fire-intolerant trees in unburned areas and warmer climates bring drier conditions,” said van Wagtendonk.

It will cost you $31.50 to read the study

But, if you want to read the full results of the study, conducted by U.S. government employees using tax dollars from U.S. citizens, you can’t. Unless you pay Science Direct $31.50. The authors, J. A. Lutz, J.W. van Wagtendonk, and J.F. Franklin in the future should publish their government-funded study results openly on the Internet, available to everyone at no cost.

You, as a taxpayer, already paid for this research. But government employees have struck a deal with Science Direct where the government pays them to publish taxpayer-funded work, then to read it, you also have to also pay Science Direct. It’s a pretty sweet deal for Science Direct, but not so much for taxpayers.

We ranted about this issue previously on August 2 in our “Public access to taxpayer-funded wildfire research” article.

Check out the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, which is dedicated to seeing that:

“..research funded by public dollars is made available to the American public, for free, online, as soon as possible”.

The Montana Supreme Court ruled a fire department can’t refuse to hire someone because of their age.

Steven Jaksha was 38 in 2007 when the Butte-Silver Bow fire department in Montana refused to hire him because he was more than 34 years old. A district judge had previously ruled the fire department’s age restriction was not a violation of Jaksha’s constitutional rights, but after appeals, the state Supreme Court overturned that decision.

UPDATE at 11:29 on August 13

The incident personnel have release some additional information about the fire, putting the best spin possible on the gains the crews made:

Progress was made on the fire lines yesterday and last night. With aggressive firefighting efforts and lighter winds, the fire burning above Cayuma Valley is still holding near the edge of the forest. Last night, a small slop over occurred in the headwaters of Pine and Buckhorn Canyons, and the sheriff evacuated 10 homes located in the lower end of those canyons.

Today, crews will focus on securing line around the northeast flank of the fire, which includes the new slop over area in Pine and Buckhorn Canyons, and to secure the fire line above Cayuma Valley.

Last night the Martin Mars air tanker, which holds up to 7,200 gallons of water, made its first drop on the fire. The Martin Mars is expected to continue working on the fire today, drafting water out of San Antonio Reservoir.

Here is a map of the La Brea fire showing the fire perimeter from early Thursday morning in red and the perimeter from early Wednesday morning in green. The national forest boundary is in light green. We are looking northwest.

(end of update)

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There are no current maps of the fire on the InciWeb site, but the site does show an size increase to 36,108 acres. This is about 6,000 more than the figure given out yesterday afternoon.

From InciWeb, posted on Wednesday:

Today, crews on the La Brea Fire were very successful in holding the line on the Treplett fuel break and south along the upper portion of the Sierra Madre Ridge. Crews will continue construction of contingency lines west of the fire. Direct line is being constructed on the eastern side of the fire where it has reached flat terrain.

As the La Brea fire burns in the San Rafael Wilderness in the Los Padres National Forest, it is a good time to consider the thoughts of Ex-Governor Sarah Palin on the concept of wilderness. During her last speech as Governor she extolled the virtues of wilderness this way:

“It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.”