A documentary about the Camp Fire at Paradise, California

There will probably be numerous documentaries released about the Camp Fire that erased much of Paradise, California as it killed at least 86 people and destroyed over 14,000 homes. Below is one of the first.

The fire will be an important part of California history, but it remains to be seen if it will be eclipsed in the next few years by even more unimaginable and disastrous fires as the climate becomes warmer and more prone to extreme events.

The film below, produced by Paradise-area film maker Golden Eagle Films, contains many interviews with residents that survived the inferno.

 

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Dave. Typos or errors, report them HERE.

2018 version of Hotshot Crew history is available

The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has released the 2018 edition of Hotshot Crew History in America. You can download the 296-page, 11 MB document here.

Special thanks go out to Dave Provencio who collected many of the updates and to Brit Rosso of the WFLLS and especially Juli Smith of the National Advanced Fire & Resource Institute for putting it together.

The document has a wealth of information, but the history is not totally complete for every crew. If you have any additions, contact Mr. Provencio: mso_1977 at me dot com

Hotshot Crew History 2018 wildfires

I put together this table of contents, to make it a little easier to find a crew. They are organized by Geographic Area.

Page Geographic Area

  • 3 Alaska
  • 6 Great Basin
  • 30 North Ops
  • 62 Northern Rockies
  • 77 Northwest
  • 101 Rocky Mountain
  • 110 Southern
  • 118 South Ops
  • 174 Southwest
  • 209 Historical Articles

The Eastern Area is not listed but Illinois-based Midewin can be found on page 22.

Hotshots — the board game

One of our readers sent us information about a board game called “Hotshots”. This is the first I have heard of it and can’t make a recommendation one way or the other, but here is how it is described on the game’s website:

Crews of 1 to 4 players take on the roles of wildfire fighters (Crew Boss, Spotter, Swamper, and Sawyer) with special abilities and roll dice on burning terrain tiles to match the combinations shown on the tiles. The more faces you roll, the better you fight the fire. Choose to cut Firebreaks, which prevent fires from being spread by wind gusts, or push your luck to reduce Flames and possibly even generate Reward Tokens. If you bust and fail to match at least 3 of the 6 symbols on the tile, the fire grows. Another option is to maneuver Vehicles (Air Tanker, Helicopter, and Brush Rig) to save the forest.


Flame tokens are added at the end of each player’s turn by the draw of a Fire card, which can bring about light or strong wind gusts, increase the strength of the flames on certain tiles, and start fires. Too many Flame tokens will cause a tile to Scorch and be lost. Losing a terrain tile could also affect the game play. Some tiles are tied to crewmembers’ special abilities, while others help the firefighters and still others cause the fire to spread in unique ways. If 8 tiles or the Fire Camp Scorches, the game is over and the forest is lost. But if your intrepid crew can extinguish the fire, your team wins together.


The press-your-luck mechanic with ratcheting rewards creates a lot of great tension, and the variety of ways to fight the fire makes for interesting choices. The modular tile layout and Fire cards bring high replayability to the game, and the beautiful acrylic Flame tokens provide an enticing table presence.

Hotshots board game

Interestingly, the name of the company is Fireside Games. They list a dozen or so games on the website, and this is the only one that seems to be related to firefighting. They have a search function to find where it can be purchased locally, or you can get it online for $35. The shipping fee for my state was about $8.

The video below is a brief introduction to the game.

If you are familiar with this board game, tell us about it.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Jim. Typos or errors, report them HERE.

Prosecutors looking at a dozen fire investigations that could implicate PG&E

camp fire smoke column
The Camp Fire, Friday morning November 9, 2018. SJSU FireWeatherLab.

Already on probation after the 2010 San Bruno gas line explosion that killed eight, injured 58, and destroyed 38 homes, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company could be responsible for causing November’s Camp Fire at Paradise, California and 12 other Northern California blazes that burned thousands of houses in 2017.

CAL FIRE investigators are looking at two possible PG&E power line failures that may have ignited the Camp Fire resulting in the deaths of 86 people. The agency has already prepared investigation reports on 12 fires from last year for which they believe PG&E likely violated state laws. It is now up to the seven county prosecutors and the state Attorney General to determine if they are going to file criminal charges.

PG&E’s actions before and after the gas line explosion in 2010 could be noted in combination with the recent fires likely caused by the electrical equipment, leading to additional probation controls imposed by the court.

Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the federal charges related to the gas line explosion:

“On April 1, 2014, PG&E was indicted by a federal grand jury in U.S. District Court, San Francisco, for multiple violations of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968 relating to its record keeping and pipeline “integrity management” practices. An additional indictment was issued by the grand jury on July 29, 2014, charging the company with obstruction of justice for lying to the NTSB regarding its pipeline testing policy, bringing the total number of counts in the indictment to 28. Under the new indictment, the company could be fined as much as $1.3 billion, based on profit associated with the alleged misconduct, in addition to $2.5 billion for state regulatory violations.

“On January 21, 2017, PG&E was fined $3 million and ordered to perform 10,000 hours of community service for criminal actions of violating the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act and for obstruction of justice. In addition, it must institute a compliance and ethics monitoring program and spend up to $3 million to “publicize its criminal conduct”. These actions were imposed after the company was found guilty by a federal jury in August, 2016 of six of the twelve charges against the company in US District Court.”

The wildland and prescribed fire programs in Mississippi