In a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday night, Representative Steve Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, heavily criticized the U.S. Forest Service, mentioning the name of Tom Tidwell, Chief of the Forest Service, many times. During the 22-minute speech which can be viewed on C-SPAN, he displayed to television cameras and a mostly empty chamber a poster-size photograph of the Little Bear fire as it burned near the town of Ruidoso.
Rep. Pearce was very critical of what he described as the USFS’s policy of reintroducing fire to the forest and the abandonment of the 10 a.m. policy of attempting to suppress fires by 10 a.m. the next morning, or failing that, by 10 a.m. the next day. Pearce said he talked with Chief Tidwell about the 10 a.m. policy who told him that “it worked too well”, which did not please Rep. Pearce.
The Representative also said the USFS should do more thinning, and cited an example along with another poster of a thinned forest that was visited by last year’s Wallow fire in Arizona. He pointed out that the crown fire slowed and dropped to the forest floor when it entered the thinned area.
Some of the statements that Rep. Pearce made about long term fire effects could be questioned by wildfire experts, but he also indirectly recommended prompt aggressive initial attack on emerging fires. Surprisingly, he only mentioned air tankers once or twice, and that was in relation to them not being used, he said, on the Little Bear fire until late in the fourth day.
He did not say anything about sponsoring legislation or restoring funding for the federal land management agencies.
What set Rep. Pearce off appeared to be the management of the Little Bear Fire which has grown to 43,000 acres and has burned 242 residential and commercial structures. According to the Representative, the fire was 1/4 acre for a day, then grew to four acres for the next three days, during which time there were no air tanker drops until late on the fourth day.
Rep. Pearce then said: “I think that the decisions locally are made by people who are trying to follow the policy of reintroducing fire into the forest.”
The size and the time line he mentioned are fairly consistent with the details provided by the Operations Section Chief on the fire, Carl Schwope, in a video we posted June 18. However, Mr. Schwope did not address the use of aircraft during the first four days. We wrote then about the information he provided in the video:
The fire started June 4 and the Forest Supervisor authorized the use of chain saws and dozers in the wilderness area. Firefighters contained it at four acres with a line around it. After “several days” of mop up, on June 7 an interior pocket of unburned fuel flared up causing some trees to ignite and torch, sending burning embers across the line. The weather on June 8 “caused the fire to make a significant run”, then it was off to the races.
Dave Warnack, the USFS District Ranger where the Little Bear Fire is burning, has been very defensive about the reports that the fire was contained during the first four days. In an article in the Ruidoso News, Ranger Warnack blamed “miscommunication” for those reports.
We have ranted before about the confusion and misuse of the terms “contain” and “control”. Contain simply means there is a fireline around the fire which can reasonably be expected to stop the fire’s spread. There is no guarantee that the fire will never spread any further. Control means that the Incident Commander stakes their reputation on their belief that no additional acres will burn. These definitions in more formal language can be found in the National Wildfire Coordination Group’s Glossary. If someone declares a fire OUT, they are saying nothing is burning on the fire and there is no chance in hell that it will spread.
According to the Ruidoso News article, the fire which started June 4 was being managed under a full suppression strategy. There were some helicopter water drops on day four, June 7, but they were largely ineffective due to the tree canopy. The helicopters had difficulty lifting 300-gallon water blivets to the fire at the 10,200-foot elevation, so they settled for 75-gallon blivets, which were used for filling backpack pumps.
The article explains what happened next:
“By the morning of (June 8, day 5), when this thing blew up, we had completed a preliminary hand-line around (the fire),” (Ranger) Warnack said. Crews were beginning to mop-up the edges, working their way towards the center of the fire with shovels and backpack pumps, each containing five gallons of water, he said.
Then the winds increased, gusting to 40 mph, he said.
“Inside of that (hand-line) a couple of trees torched, (the fire) climbed up into the crown of those trees,” he said. “There were only a few, but with the winds, some of those embers got pushed out to the other side of the line into the grass.”
Two air tankers were ordered on the fire, but were unsuccessful in stopping the expanding blaze, which was starting spot fires far ahead of containment efforts, the report stated.
An armchair Incident Commander with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight might wonder why there were not enough ground and air resources on hand to not just complete a fireline around the four-acre fire and “begin mopup” on day five, but to do 100 percent mopup during the first four days. And assuming that the IC had an accurate weather forecast predicting the wind event on day five, that forecast could have provided even more incentive and plenty of justification to bring in a helicopter to wash the four-acre fire off the hill, and enough ground resources to turn over every square inch of the four-acre fire during those first four days. On most 4-acre fires in a remote location that are moving very slowly or not spreading, this can usually be done by one helicopter and a hand crew over one to three days. Of course all of this is easy to say from an armchair.
I’ve always wanted to get some politicians and put them with a crew or engine all season and see for themselves what it is like. Or better yet, attached them to a FMO or IC.
When a “contained fire” even with 200-300 feet of mopped up line is hit by the right combination of winds, low rhs and temps interior fuels can flare up and jump the lines with one quater mile or more spotting. I watched the Ouzel lake fire in RMNP do it in 1978 as a fire guard. Gusts were 40mph plus and heavy tanker drops in a hour did not even slow it any.
It’s called responsible forest management. It works, and only someone that has never worked on a wildland fire or seen those that risk their life to save a strangers property would criticise. I know that in Montana some of them even came back and volunteered to help find and herd their cattle back or cleanup burned trees. Those firefighters care.
I don’t think any one here, would say a negative thing about a firefighter or the support team at a fire. I just think that if we are going to spent $25M on a fire we should spend $10 M before the season starts to have the resources ready.
Is there anyone who thinks the USFS will not spend the same amount this year on the dc-10 that would have been spent on the contract?
Mark
You are using too much common sense……something that has been lacking this very fire season considering all the “professionals” indicated we had enough assets to cover this fire season.
But you are speakin to the choir here and again….maybe Congress will take these folks to task and initiate some fourth point of contact kickin!!!
Maybe congressman McCaul, who held hearings on Homeland Security after the Bastrop fire, could get together with the congressman from CA that wants to work at having the old C-130 made ready to fight fire. They could talk to Congressman Steve Pearce from New Mexico who heavily criticized the U.S. Forest Service after the fire there. They could work together to get funding for the VLAT.
The Evergreen 747 could even from its home base have reached all of the fires that are now burning .
Congress AND USFS need to get off their collective asses and reevaluate EVERY NFMA, NEPA, and Wilderness Act to come into the 21st Century.
With everyone screaming global warming the last 10 yrs…..it IS about time that the antiquitated policies of the last 40-100 yrs get REWORKED to identify something useful in the the area of wildland control because the “policies” have only worked for the few and not very well for the collective well being of the Nation or that of fire control
Little Rosubud fire of august 1996
same thing,,
http://www.montanaforum.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5987
If congress really wanted to give fire managers the tools to manage federal lands effectively, they really need to look at changing the NFMA and NEPA. So many projects have been shut down, or minimized to be ineffective, by environmental groups that really have no clue about fires effects to the land. If there wasnt supposed to be fire; there would be NO lightning
It always amazes me when an honorable member of Congress (especially a Republican member) complains about the USFS. Uh, excuse me, but Congress makes the rules, Congress is the body that created the rules that govern wilderness areas, Congress controls the money, they are the ones who cut the budget, force layoffs, deny money for replacement aircraft, scream at the USFS when they spend too much money to control a fire, then scream at the USFS when they DON’T control a fire, complain when the USFS doesn’t burn enough land, then complain when they DO burn and one gets away. Congress needs to get off your collective asses and do something .
“Reintroducing fire into the forest” Excellent job! What is the big deal? The only thing is that I would hate to be a trout down stream this winter. Fires are good for the economy. I wish I owned a auto dealership in Fort Collins. Why is R-3 using the DC-10 on initial attack, their screwing up the fire economy?
Although the federal fire agencies need more funding, they also need scolding for the inability to suppress this fire in a timely fashion due to mis-directed wilderness fire policy. This is hopefully the opening salvo to open this can of worms including prescribed fire escapes, two of which are burning with IMT’s involved, the property and loss of life within these events. On one hand I hear clamoring about climate change and how the fires are getting bigger while on the other we light fire in record dry situations and fail to suppress fires that are clearly a threat to areas other than federal land. Granted the federal agencies need to come to a decision on aircraft but that is only a minor component of this giant issue. If nothing else get it together out of respect for the fire fighters on the ground the the citizens they protect.
It’s particularly galling for him to complain when it is Congress that is not giving the USFS the resources needed to do the fuel treatments necessary on the landscape scale required. We need millions of acres treated by one means or another to prevent megafires and Congress will only allow hundreds of acres treated each year.