Month: October 2013

Measuring live fuel moisture from space

Southern California researchers at Chapman University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are trying to develop a model that would use data from satellites to determine the amount of moisture in live vegetation. This is an important variable that planners and fire behavior analysts need when managing preparedness and predicting the spread of wildfires. The NASA funded work is in the preliminary stage. If the effort is successful it would be possible to obtain daily updates of live fuel moisture using information collected by two satellites, Terra and Aqua, the first passing overhead in the morning and the second in the afternoon.

When I was Captain at Descanso Station in southern California it was an official fuel moisture monitoring location. Every 10 to 14 days our engine crew would drive out on Viejas Grade Road and fill one-quart paint cans with clippings from chamise bushes. This is still being done all over the western United States, but with different species in other areas. In the basement back at the station we would weigh the unopened cans, then after removing the lids the cans would be placed in a convection oven overnight at moderate heat, and weighed again the next day. The entire building had the smell of cooked chamise. After accounting for the weight of the empty can, we would calculate the percent moisture that was lost. I plotted the data on a graph on a piece of paper along with the readings from the previous year, then made copies and snail-mailed them to the other fire stations on the District. Obviously this was before everyone had a computer on their desk and in their pocket.

Research: red stage needles do not recover moisture overnight

Preliminary research indicates that red stage lodgepole pine needles do not recover fuel moisture overnight, as occurs in other fine, dead surface fuels. The study was conducted on foliage from trees that had been attacked by mountain pine beetles. If this is confirmed it will have implications for predicting the rate of spread of fires in bug-killed stands.

Time Magazine: firefighting tactics in a warming world

Bryan Walsh, a senior editor at Time, writes about the increasing number of fires and considers a less than aggressive suppression strategy for some of them. In the article he used a phrase we have written many times:

The U.S. fights wildfires like it once fought wars—with overwhelming force aiming for unconditional surrender.

We do not entirely agree with Mr. Walsh. The federal land management agencies at one time DID fight fires with the overwhelming force they could muster, but budget cuts, a leadership vacuum, and timid initial attack policies have made that a distant memory. However some organizations still do have overwhelming force strategies, such as CAL FIRE.

Another “wildfire”

We take notice when the word “wildfire” is stolen and attached to something that has no connection to a fire that burns vegetation. There have been Wildfire songs before, but The Saturdays recorded a new version this summer.