News and opinion about wildland fire
Desiree Horton, the helicopter pilot who writes the blog The Adventures of Chopper Chick! is now working for Midwest Helicopters out of Chicago and just recently ferried one of their S-58T’s to Boise “for fire season”. Her blog is always interesting to read.
She pointed out that the DIY Network featured her company in a 20 minute segment in which they were lifting heavy equipment to the tops of buildings in downtown Chicago. It’s fascinating to watch.
On July 31 we published the results of a study by Bob Zyback which concluded:
Our basic finding is that the US experiences 10 to 50 times more costs and losses due to wildfire every year than the $1-2 billion in suppression costs commonly reported by USFS representatives and the media.
Now there is another study which brings more bad news about the costs of fires. Here is an excerpt from the Missoulian, the entire article is HERE.
The cost of protecting homes from wildfires could more than double in the next 15 years due to a combination of continued housing development and increasing temperatures, according to a study by Headwaters Economics.
Higher average temperatures would cause longer, more intense fire seasons. That, paired with an increase in the number of houses near forestland, would mean more homes would be susceptible to fires, the group said. The safety of residents and firefighters would be the main concern in that situation, but there are also significant economic costs that come along with it, said Headwaters policy director Chris Mehl.
In the past, protecting homes from forest fires cost the state of Montana $28 million a year. The majority of those costs are paid for by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency – that is, they come from federal taxes, according to Headwaters Economics. As housing development continues, Headwaters predicts the cost will increase to an estimated $40 million by 2025. Adding a 1-degree increase in average summer temperatures, which Mehl termed a fairly moderate figure, would increase that cost to $84 million by that year, the report states.
Thanks Dick
Today I took some photos of action around the Fossil fire, which is about 8 miles northwest of Hot Springs, South Dakota, west of Wind Cave National Park. The last I heard, air attack was estimating the size at approximately 10 acres and the spread had been slowed.
It was a walk-in, and in addition to the firefighters on the ground, they had one single engine air tanker, one helicopter, and a dozer. A second helicopter, a national guard Blackhawk, and a heavy air tanker from Grand Junction, Colorado were also ordered; I don’t know if they ever arrived.
UPDATE at 10:30 a.m. MT Aug. 12
The local Type 3 Incident Management Team was ordered, but the fire was contained Tuesday night after burning 12 acres. Good job by the firefighters on this lightning-caused fire which initially at least, was not accessible by engines.
Oh, and the Rapid City Journal published my photo of the helicopter dipping out of the portable tank in the meadow.
A helicopter dipping at Cold Brook reservoir.
A helicopter dipping out of a portable tank near the fire. There were 3-4 water tenders shuttling water from quite a distance to keep the tanks full.
Single Engine Air Tanker #839 doing a hot refuel and reload at Hot Springs Airport.
The air tanker base that was down-graded earlier this year from a full-time base to a call when needed base is again seeing very heavy use as air tankers reload there while working on the La Brea fire 24 miles east of the base. In May during the Jesusita fire the Santa Maria air tanker base set a new national record for the most fire retardant pumped in a single day–158,000 gallons, according to an article in the Santa Barbara Independent by Nick Welsh.
On Saturday, the first day of the La Brea fire, eight air tankers worked the fire. For Tuesday, ten air tankers have been requested, including four heavies, four S-2s, and one single engine air tanker. And, the 7,200-gallon Martin Mars will arrive in the area at noon today to work the fire and will be refilling its tanks by scooping water from Cachuma reservoir which is 24 miles south of the fire.
Five type 1 helicopters (three Aircranes, one S-61, and one Vertol 107) and at least four type 2 helicopters (all Bell 212s) are expected to be working the fire today.
HERE is a link to a video at KSBY about the air tanker base and the La Brea fire.
Timothy Ingalsbee, the executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, wrote an article that appeared in the Redding Searchlight. Here is an excerpt:
For wilderness wildfires, is there some kind of middle path between the extremes of either aggressive-attack or let-burn strategies? The answer is yes, and recent changes in federal fire policy by the Obama administration allow us to take that middle path forward, managing fires for both ecological restoration and community protection goals simultaneously.
First of all, we need a new language for fire management that gets us away from the “war metaphor” and the mentality of “fighting” fire or “battling” blazes. Essentially, this mentality has us annually making war on America’s wildlands — a war we ultimately cannot win and can no longer afford in terms of taxpayer dollars or firefighter lives. We should neither aggressively fight nor passively ignore any fire — instead, we should actively manage every fire. Thus, for example, when a fire is first detected, it needs an initial action, not initial “attack.”
Second, we need to stop blindly reacting to wildfire ignitions as if they were unforeseen, unpredictable emergencies, and begin to proactively plan and prepare for them as anticipated, predicted seasonal events.
This means developing fire management plans that provide guidance for firefighters on how to maximize the social and ecological benefits of fire while minimizing the risks to firefighters, costs to taxpayers, and impacts to the land from fire management actions. It is utterly preposterous that the Six Rivers National Forest has no fire management plan, and thus must blindly attack all future blazes no matter how unsafe, expensive, or ecologically destructive a given firefight may be.
The La Brea fire 26 miles east of Santa Maria, California could be another one of those weeks-long, or months-long campaign fires that the Los Padres National Forest has become very familiar with recently. It started at 2:45 p.m. on Saturday and grew from 150 to 1,200 acres in three hours. The last reported size was 1,300 acres.
(UPDATE AT 1:30 p.m. PT: air attack estimated it at approximately 10,000 acres)
(UPDATE, January 4, 2010; the fire was contained on August 22 after burning 89,000 acres.)
The factors that will make this fire difficult to control include:
The fire was very active Saturday night and made some major runs. Fire behavior will most likely increase on Sunday due to lower humidities and higher temperatures.
Eight air tankers worked the fire on Saturday and they were scheduled to be ready to launch again Sunday morning at 8 a.m. Pincha-Tulley’s Type 1 incident management team has been ordered.
Some of the radio traffic has been available HERE.
A video report from KSBY:
