Utah: bill withdrawn that would have restricted target shooting during high wildfire danger

A state Senator in Utah, worried that her proposed legislation would enrage the gun lobby, withdrew a bill that would have allowed the state to restrict target shooting on state-owned lands due to fire danger. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Deseret News:

Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said she is a gun owner who had no intention of interfering with anyone’s Second Amendment rights.

So when sparks were poised to fly over her legislative proposal empowering the state forester to restrict target shooting on state-owned lands due to fire danger, she backed off.

Dayton told her colleagues Friday on the floor of the Utah Senate she is not sure her bill, SB120, will be addressed this legislative session because she wants it to get a full airing before the public.

“They deserve a right to have their voices heard, especially those people who oppose the bill,” Dayton said afterward. “Gun issues are a touchy subject right now. As a gun owner, I understand that.”

Because of the relentless wave of wildfires — some started by target shooting — that burned through thousands of acres of state-owned land last year, State Forester Dick Buehler enacted a host of restrictions last July.

Some of those included bans on types of ammunition, while others shut down target shooting altogether in specific areas of Summit, Davis, Utah and Cache counties.

Because there was some question about the state forester’s ability to enact such a ban — pro-gun groups said the move was not only unwarranted but illegal — Dayton sought to have that authority clarified in state law.

In October, 2012 when we wrote about the increasing number of fires started by target shooters using exploding targets, we found 10 fires started by these devices in Utah over a 5-month period last year. One of them burned over 5,500 acres.

UPDATE February 3, 2013: The Salt Lake Tribune has more details about the death of the bill that would have limited target shooting during periods of high fire danger.

How climate change may affect wildfires

Changes in area burned w-1 degree C increase in global temp
From National Academy of Sciences. Map of changes in area burned for a 1ºC increase in global average temperature, shown as the percentage change relative to the median annual area burned during 1950-2003. Results are aggregated to ecoprovinces (Bailey, 1995) of the West. Changes in temperature and precipitation were aggregated to the ecoprovince level. Climate-fire models were derived from NCDC climate division records and observed area burned data following methods described in Littell et al. (2009). Source: Figure from Rob Norheim.

Most of us have heard the predictions that climate change and higher temperatures will increase the number of acres burned in wildfires. But I experienced a Holy Crap moment when I saw the map above that illustrates where those changes will occur and by how much. According to a National Academy of Sciences paper titled Climate stabilization targets: emissions, concentrations, and impacts over decades to millennia, a 1°C increase in global average temperature will cause the annual area burned in the western United States to rise from 74 percent to 656 percent relative to the median annual area burned during 1950-2003.

Climate change is happening now, as we told you on January 8, 2013 (and in other articles tagged “climate change”):

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is reporting that last year was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States, shattering CRUSHING by a wide margin the previous record set in 1998. The average temperature of 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit was 1 degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees higher than the average for the 20th century. That is a huge difference.

Average size of wildfires by decadeWhat is wrong with this picture: fires are getting larger, and budgets for fire suppression are decreasing. If the predictions are correct, the number of acres burned will continue to increase even more. The people that beg for our votes and then get sent to congress need to not just write strongly-worded letters about the shortage of fire suppression resources, they need to realize that they hold the purse strings and it is their job to actually take action by approving budgets and passing legislation, instead of what happened in December. Letters are meaningless, meant to be a smoke screen to obscure the reality that little is being accomplished.

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Below is a brief version of the paper referenced above:

Climate Stabilization Targets, Report in Brief

 

Cigar-smoking firefighter

Bill w-cigar

The footage of the cigar-smoking Fire Boss in the 1969 US Forest Service film “Man Against Fire” reminded of a couple of photos from 1972. Pictures of, uh, some guy who only smokes them occasionally these days.

I miss the aluminum hard hats.

Bill w-cigar

I’m not sure who took the photos, but it may have been Tom Sadowski.

Wildfire potential, February through May, 2013

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for February through May, 2013. If the predictions are accurate wildfire activity in February and March should be normal or below normal, except for portions of Colorado, Kansas, Hawaii, and Florida.

February wildfire potential

March wildfire potential

April-May wildfire potential

More details from the NIFC report:

February

  • Precipitation deficits and long term extreme drought contribute to above normal significant wildland fire potential in the central Plains.
  • Periodic precipitation across the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, central Gulf States and the mid-Atlantic will keep below normal significant wildland fire potential in much of the east.
  • Long term drought in Hawaii will keep above normal significant wildland fire potential on the Big Island.

March

  • The seasonal increase in fire across Florida will be amplified to above normal significant wildland fire potential by ongoing very dry conditions.
  • Late winter storm track will continue across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, keeping significant wildland fire potential below normal.
  • Drought continues in Hawaii.

April and May

  • Spring pre-greenup potential and long term drought keep parts of the Southeast, Oklahoma and Arkansas in above normal significant wildland fire potential.
  • Good winter precipitation and lingering spring precipitation keep the southern Appalachians and parts of mid-Atlantic below normal significant wildland fire potential.

The future of wildfire management? The Minority Report?

Minority Report
A scene from the movie Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security, must have seen the movie Minority Report too many times. The video below which been around for a couple of years teases how the lab is developing future work environments for the emergency management community called Precision Information Environments (or PIEs). PIEs will hopefully provide tailored access to information and decision support capabilities in a system that supports the multiple user roles, contexts, and phases of emergency management, planning, and response.


Do you think the windshield of a fire vehicle will ever be able to instantly transform into a huge computer monitor?

Thanks go out to Jim

NPS releases report on Lassen National Park’s Reading Fire

Reading Fire
Reading Fire. Photo by Lassen National Park.

The National Park Service has released a report about last summer’s Reading Fire in Lassen Volcanic National Park in California which, after being monitored for two weeks and burning 95 acres, grew to 28,079 acres, escaping the park boundaries. The fire started from a lightning strike on July 23, 2012 and was contained on August 22. For the first two weeks it was managed under a “Wildland Fire for Resource Benefit” strategy.

Reading Fire, final perimeter
Final perimeter (in red) of the Reading Fire. The green line is the boundary of Lassen Volcanic National Park.

The expectation was that they could stop the fire when it reached the Lassen National Park Highway, about a mile north of the point of origin. On August 6 when the fire was 140 acres the Type 4 Incident Commander transitioned to a Type 3 IC. Later in the day the fire ran for about a mile and a half, blowing right across the 2-lane highway. Then a Type 2 Incident Managment Team was ordered, which eventually transitioned to a Type 1 IMTeam on August 13. When the fire was contained it had burned 11,071 acres of US Forest Service land outside the park boundaries and 75 acres privately owned, for a total of 28,079 acres. By August 23 the National Park Service had spent $15,875,495 observing, managing, and later suppressing the fire.

As we have stated before, managing a fire with your hands tied by utilizing little to no aggressive suppression action, is extremely difficult, requiring an extraordinary amount of skill, knowledge, expertise, experience, and luck. Especially if the fire starts in mid-July, leaving 6 to 12 weeks of weather ahead that is conducive to rapid fire spread. Few people can do this. It is impossible to predict accurately how weather will affect a fire more than 10 days ahead.

Here are some some excerpts from the 53-page report:
Continue reading “NPS releases report on Lassen National Park’s Reading Fire”