News and opinion about wildland fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Arson fire burns home near Lake Placid, FL 
On Monday a fire that was intentionally set, according to investigators, burned one home, damaged several others, and blackened 300 acres in Highlands County near Lake Placid, Florida. By 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday the fire was 75 percent contained. More information is HERE.
These photos were taken on February 7 and are courtesy of the Florida Division of Forestry.
The National Park Service has been holding “Fire and Aviation Photo Contests” since 2002. The first, second, and third place winners for the 2010 contest were recently announced for the eight categories. According to the NPS web site:
The contest fosters community interest and involvement in NPS fire and aviation management activities and encourages entries from not only the National Park Service, but other government employees and the public.
The web page that shows the winners has some excellent photos. If you go to the site, you will see thumbnails of each one, and if you click on them they will open in a much larger size, of one to three MB each.
Over the next week or so we will display some of the winners on Wildfire Today.
The above photo took second place in the Fire Apparatus category, and was shot by Bob Greenburg of Death Valley National Park and submitted by Matthew Martin of the same park. The web site says it was taken in “DELA”, which is Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania. But we think that’s is typo, and should read “DEVA” which is Death Valley NP. We are attempting to confirm the correct location. (UPDATE @ 8:50 a.m. MT, Feb. 12: we inquired, but have not received an answer from the NPS about this. However we just checked their web site again and noticed that they quietly changed the photo’s location to “DEVA”, Death Valley NP.
How to decode the NPS’ four-letter designator system
The NPS uses four-letter designators for all of their 394 units. The secret to decoding them is this: if a unit has only one word, such as Denali National Park, the designator is the first four letters, in this case “DENA”. The type of unit, such as National Park, National River, or National (whatever) is ignored. If the unit has two or more words in the name, such as Little River Canyon National Preserve, the first two letters of the first two words are used, in this case “LIRI”.
To visit the web site any NPS unit, just add the four-letter designator to the end of this: nps.gov/
This afternoon the Riverside County (California) Board of Supervisors voted to give a $50,000 reward to a person who provided key testimony that helped to convict Raymond Lee Oyler of five counts of murder and 37 counts of arson, including starting the 2006 Esperanza fire and many others. The testimony was vital in Oyler’s conviction. The witness was not identified because of a concern for their safety, and the fact that they were harassed after the trial.
The Supervisors only awarded half of the $100,000 that had been offered by the county for the arrest and conviction of the arsonist. They did not say why they did not award the entire $100,000. Outside donors pledged another $400,000.
On October 26, 2006, five U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighters were entrapped on the Esperanza fire near Cabazon, California . Killed were engine Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 44, of Idyllwild; engine operator Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; assistant engine operator Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and firefighter Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto. A fifth firefighter Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley, who was injured along with the other four, passed away on October 31. The five firefighters comprised the crew of a wildland engine, Engine 57, from the San Bernardino National Forest. They were assigned to a state managed fire approximately 60 miles east of Los Angeles and were entrapped while protecting a structure.
Oyler was sentenced to death for starting the Esperanza fire, which in addition to killing the USFS engine crew, burned 43,000 acres and destroyed 39 homes.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Australian fire update: 64 homes burned 
Most of the fires that have devastated parts of Western Australia are becoming controlled, but the number of homes that have burned has risen to 64, while 32 were damaged. On Monday some residents of the Kelmscott and Roleystone areas first heard the fates of their houses when a role call of addresses was rapidly read at a public meeting.
As firefighters began to control the fires, Premier Colin Barnett declared an area around the Perth foothills a disaster zone. He announced that the government was going to give $3,000 to those who had lost their homes, and $1,000 to those whose properties were damaged.
Since the Black Saturday fires, the government has been touting a new early warning system for bushfires, but some families whose homes were destroyed said they either did not receive warnings from fire authorities or telephone and text alerts arrived hours after they had fled areas that burned. Fire and Emergency Services Authority officials said the fact that no one died in the fires is proof that the system worked well.
Roger Underwood, a former senior West Australian forester, has called for a public inquiry into the fuel management program, saying insufficient prescribed burning has led to a buildup of fuels. He blames the “greenie opposition to prescribed burning” and the “babes in the woods” who have moved from the city to the hills.
There are reports out of China that six people died Saturday, February 5, while fighting a wildfire in east China’s Zhejiang Province. Some reports say that villagers or unspecified people died fighting the fire, while others say the six were firefighters. Two or three others were injured.
The fire started when people set off fireworks at the graves of relatives in Fulin Village, Chun’an County in tribute to their ancestors.
The Super Bowl, which is the climax of the American football season, just ended and there were two commercials that made me think of wildland fire.
One was the Snickers ad that had Richard Lewis and Rosanne Barr playing the parts of loggers working at a landing, operating, or at least holding, chain saws.
The other was a Coca Cola ad that featured warriors and a dragon. It began with lookouts in a fort who looked through a telescope and spotted a raging forest fire. It was unclear what part the fire played in the storyline, but any commercial that includes wildland fire can’t be all bad. Below is a screen grab. You can see the entire ad HERE.
I am not sure if the white areas on the trees in this computer generated imagery are supposed to be snow, but if so, it raises the question of the wildfire qualifications of the executives at Coca Cola who approved the ad.
