Three fires in northern Nebraska are now being managed by one Type 2 Incident Management Team. The Fairfield Creek, Wentworth and Hall Fires, which we told you about yesterday, are now called the Region 24 Complex of fires. A catchy name, don’t you think?
The fires range from 15 to 56 miles east of Valentine, Nebraska. On the map above the town of Valentine is on the west side of the map near the “Miller Fld” airport.
Below is some information about the fies from InciWeb:
The lightning caused fires started Friday, July 20, 2012. Within the complex, the Fairfield Fire has grown to 66,745 acres, Wentworth Fire 3,278 acres and Hall Fire 2,382.
Ten homes were destroyed and over 100 hundred residences and livestock have been threatened. The Team is working cooperatively with several local Volunteer Fire Departments and the Red Cross is assisting local residents.
Crews made steady progress throughout the day by using helicopters to drop water. Existing fireline was strengthened and new line constructed.
Doug Fox, Region 24 Emergency Management Director, stated, “We currently have sufficient resources on the incident. If additional resources are needed local Fire Chiefs will put out a call for assistance.”
It seems rather obvious that we need to use our scientific knowledge to develop more modern and effective methods of fire fighting. There is much data on higher tech fire fighting that should be put into application, including cooling technologies and fire suffocation barriers. A program involving Nebraska’s universities in conjunction with the fire fighting community to test practical and improved equipment and tactics would quite useful.
Right, Greg. And we can drop huge sponges out of airplanes to soak up the moisture in Hurricanes…. Or we can drop huge amounts of ice out of airplanes in the ocean off of the west coast of Africa, so that the water temperature is so cool, that they never form in the first place. But just so that we are clear, those technologies already exist for wildfires, and have been being used for many many many years. A shovel of dirt smothers, and a stream of water from a hose cools.