Map of the Parleys Canyon Fire at 9 a.m. MDT Aug. 15, 2021. Mapped by Incident Management Team.
More accurate mapping Sunday found that the Parley’s Canyon Fire east of Salt Lake City has burned 619 acres, much lower than the earlier estimate. Firefighters reported at about 2 p.m. that the spread of the fire has been “minimal” so far on Sunday.
7:37 a.m. MDT August 15, 2021
Map showing heat detected by satellites on the Parley’s Canyon Fire at 4:02 a.m. MDT Aug 15, 2021.
After sunset on Saturday the spread of the Parley’s Canyon Fire slowed after an aggressive attack by firefighters from the air and on the ground. Sunday morning fire authorities said night crews reported there was little overnight growth. There is no official accurate mapping yet but they estimate it has burned 1,500 acres.
The fire is east of Salt Lake City on the south side of Interstate 80, 10 miles east of I-215 between Lambs Canyon Road and Summit Park. It is approximately 4 miles west of Kimball Junction and 9 miles northwest of Park City.
The Northern Utah Type 3 Incident Management Team has assumed command of the 120 personnel on scene. Approximately 2,000 structures are threatened.
The weather forecast for the fire area Sunday could be concerning for firefighters. The elevation in the fire area ranges from 6,500 to over 8,000 feet. For the higher slopes the prediction is for 10 mph winds out of the west beginning at 9 a.m. increasing after noon to 14 mph from the northwest. The relative humidity will be around 20 percent with the temperature in the high 70’s at 8,000 feet. There will be 50 percent cloud cover decreasing to 10 percent after 3 p.m. After sunset the wind will slow to 7 mph but will shift to come out of the southeast after 11 p.m.
3-D map looking east, showing heat detected by satellites on the Parley’s Canyon Fire at 4:02 a.m. MDT Aug 15, 2021.
The video below shows a retardant drop by a single engine air tanker and one by Bomber 210, a 737 on loan from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia.
Parley’s Canyon Fire. Photo by Utah Highway Patrol.
Interstate 80 at the Parley’s Canyon Fire east of Salt Lake City has reopened in both directions, but with lane restrictions.
Map showing the location at which the Parley’s Canyon Fire started August 14, 2021.
The Parley’s Canyon Fire spread rapidly after it started Saturday at about 3 p.m. on the south side of Interstate 80, 10 miles east of I-215. The fire is between Lambs Canyon Road and Summit Park.
Photo by Air Attack.
The US Forest Service reported at 3:20 p.m. Saturday that I-80 was closed in both directions. At that time the aircraft responding included 2 Very Large Air Tankers, 4 Large Air Tankers, 6 Single Engine Air Tankers, helicopters, and numerous ground resources from state and federal agencies.
Utah Fire Information said at about 4:45 p.m. MDT the fire had burned an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 acres. The areas under evacuation orders included Summit Park, Pine Brook, Lambs Canyon, and Mill Creek affecting 6000-8000 homes. They said the fire was caused by a malfunctioning catalytic convertor which ejected hot particles along the highway. The photo above appears to show at least two origin locations which is consistent with that type of incident.
A Type 2 Incident Management Team has been requested, but that has to be approved first by the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group in Boise under a new policy created July 18. A Type 3 IMT was ordered earlier.
Satellite photo showing heat and smoke on the Parley’s Canyon Fire detected by a satellite.The 3-D map looking east shows the origin area of the Parley’s Canyon Fire. It started on the south side of I-80 and initially spread uphill to the south.
The Modular Airborne FireFighting Systems have not changed much since the 1970’s
Training MAFFS personnel, Boise, April 20, 2017. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
(This article was first published on Fire Aviation)
This wildfire season in the 48 contiguous states so far is turning out to be one to be remembered. Today nearly 25,000 personnel are working on suppressing 93 large fires across 14 states. In addition, another 47 fires are being managed under a strategy other than full suppression.
In May the Forest Service said they would have 34 large air tankers (LAT) if needed — 18 on Exclusive Use Contracts guaranteed to work, plus 8 “surge” LATs guaranteed to work for a shorter period of time, and another 8 on Call When Needed (CWN) status. Of those 16 surge and CWN aircraft, only 5 could be produced in July. One LAT, a 737 owned by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia, has flown across the Pacific to lend a hand.
On July 14 the National Interagency Fire Center upgraded the Preparedness Level to 5, which was the earliest date in 10 years.
There is a shortage of Incident Management Teams (IMT). All available Type 1 IMTs, 14 of them, are assigned, plus 24 Type 2 IMTs. The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC) decreed on July 18 that all requests for Area Command, National Incident Management Organization (NIMO), Type 1, and Type 2 IMTs must be approved by them.
All of the LATs available and under contract to the US Forest Service are being used. There are no more. So what’s left?
The FS frequently says they can call on eight military C-130’s equipped with 3,000-gallon Modular Airborne FireFighting Systems (MAFFS). Since the 1970s the agency has committed a great deal of time and taxpayer funds coordinating with the Defense Department, annual training and certification, and when activated, paying the large costs associated with operating the aircraft. Each requires a seven-person crew, additional support personnel, and often a third conventional C-130 for every two MAFFS that are activated. They have not changed much since the 1970s. Instead of spraying retardant out of the lowered cargo ramp it goes out the left side troop door. They have two onboard air compressors that occasionally work, but still rely on huge industrial grade compressors on the ground to pressurize the spray system.
MAFFS training, Boise, April 21, 2017. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
Until a couple of days ago only five of the eight MAFFS had been working for the last several weeks. Late this week a sixth was brought on. Four military bases each have two MAFFS and are responsible for having personnel available to activate them in less than 48 hours. Two National Guard bases have activated only one. Wyoming’s 153rd Airlift Wing and California’s 146th Airlift Wing each have one parked.
During a virtual meeting July 27 with Western Governors to discuss wildfire preparedness, President Joe Biden was told that their states need more aviation resources, help with obtaining aviation fuel, and more boots on the ground.
On August 4 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Governors’ request for additional aviation resources, “… Came to my desk. One of the challenges we’re working on right now is making sure we get the Defense Department personnel necessary to fly the planes. So sometimes it’s not even the planes, it’s the pilots, the people who know how to fly these planes…I was given instructions to… make sure we have the people in the planes to fly them.”
The Secretary was most likely referring to the MAFFS. But it is the Secretary of Defense who needs to take action to provide flight crews.
OPINION
The Forest Service was only able to acquire, to help protect our homeland from wildfires, 31 percent of the CWN aircraft they said they expected, and 75 percent of the MAFFS.
If what we’re doing is not working, will continuing to do the same thing bring different results?
If the Air Force can’t 100 percent support the MAFFS, an evaluation of the program by a completely independent group is warranted. Is there a better way to provide this service, or should a MAFFS 3.0 be designed and built? The analysis must be configured to insure that the FS does not have the ability to skew the objectives or the findings to fit any preconceived biases. And I’m not recommending a multi-million-dollar “study” that could take years. Simply get 8 to 10 subject matter experts in the same room to come up with a plan.
The President needs to order the Department of Defense to take care of two important issues:
Staff the MAFFS with qualified personnel so the equipment can be used to help protect our homeland.
Order the Air Force to complete the conversion of the seven Coast Guard C-130’s into air tankers. They have been slow-walking this project and the $150 million Congress appropriated to get it done since December, 2013. Coulson Aviation has converted a C-130 into an air tanker in six months. It may not have required a new wing box, but eight to ten years is not reasonable.
If the President does nothing to kick the Air Force in the butt, Congress should hold hearings.
Apparently no viable contingency plans have been developed for this shortage of LATs by NMAC, Interagency Airtanker Board, and the leaders in the FS, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Land Management.
Not surprisingly, having only 18 LATs on exclusive use contracts is a strategy doomed to failure. That number is 26 fewer than were on EU contracts in 2002. Is this progress?
One of the lessons learned this year and others like it, is, Congress must appropriate adequate funds for the five land management agencies to pay firefighters a living wage, conduct more prescribed fires, and have at least 40 large air tankers and 50 large Type 1 helicopters on exclusive use 10-year contracts instead of 1-year contracts.
We often say, “air tankers don’t put out fires”. Under ideal conditions they can slow the spread which allows firefighters on the ground the opportunity to move in and suppress the fire in that area. If the winds are too strong or firefighters are not nearby, in most cases the flames will often burn over, through, or around the retardant. During these unprecedented circumstances brought on by the pandemic and drought we need to rely much more on aerial firefighting than in the past. And there must be an adequate number of firefighters available to supplement the work done from the air. It must go both ways. Firefighters in the air and on the ground supporting each other.
For new fires that have a suppression objective, attacking them with overwhelming force from both the ground and the air can sometimes keep a small fire from becoming a megafire that burns homes and threatens the safety of our citizens.
A Be-200ES rolls out for the public while another makes a demonstration water drop. May 30, 2016. Beriev photo.
(This article was first published on Fire Aviation)
The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed that a Beriev Be-200 air tanker crashed in Turkey Saturday. There was no immediate word on the condition of the five Russian army personnel and three Turkish officers that were on board.
A low resolution video (below) showed what may have been the aircraft dropping water then continuing toward what appeared to be rising terrain.
The aircraft was being leased from Russia and went down near Adana, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported that rescuers who rushed to the scene had video footage showing plumes of smoke from the site.
Beriev began manufacturing the Be-200 in 2003. It is one of the few purpose-built air tankers, designed primarily for fighting wildland fires. The aircraft can land or take off on water or land, and the firefighting version can scoop water to refill its 3,000-gallon tanks. It can be converted to haul passengers or serve as a search and rescue aircraft, landing on water to retrieve victims if necessary.
Roughly 10 years ago U.S. Forest Service employees traveled to Taganrog, Russia the home base of the Beriev company, to conduct tests to determine if the Be-200 could be approved by the Interagency Airtanker Board (IAB). At the time, we heard unofficial reports that it met the criteria for water-scooping air tankers, but tests were not completed for dropping fire retardant.
The presence of wildfire smoke last year during the pandemic may have been responsible for at least 19,000 additional coronavirus cases on the West Coast, and 700 subsequent deaths, a new study shows.
The study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, offers the most detailed accounting yet of how the devastating 2020 wildfire season is believed to have amplified the coronavirus outbreak. It traces increases in infections to periods of smoke in more than 50 counties in California, Oregon and Washington.
While a correlation between wildfire smoke and COVID-19 doesn’t prove causation, the study’s authors say the tie is no coincidence. Plenty of research since the start of the pandemic has suggested that exposure to smoke’s primary unhealthy component PM 2.5, which refers to particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers in size or smaller, compromises people’s immunity and increases susceptibility to COVID-19. Scientists also hypothesize that the virus may be spread by the particles.
The team’s models crunched coronavirus numbers in 92 counties during non-smokey periods from March 15 to Dec. 16 and how these numbers changed when wildfire smoke brought particulate pollution. The area that the researchers examined covered 95% of the population in California, Oregon and Washington. They excluded areas that did not have sufficient data for modeling.
The fire has burned more than 170,000 acres in the southeast part of the state
7:03 p.m. MDT August 13, 2021
Map of the Richard Spring Fire, 12:31 a.m. MDT August 13, 2021
The Richard Spring Fire reported August 8, 2021 10 miles southwest of Colstrip, Montana has burned along the Tongue River threatening multiple communities. It has been driven by strong winds through brush, short grass, and timber 90 miles east of Billings.
Evacuations are in effect for Lame Deer, Muddy Cluster, and Rosebud Cut Across.
Highway 212 is closed between Broadus and Crow Agency to all non-residents. Highway 39 is currently open, but this could change at any time.
The north side of the fire spread to the massive coal mines west of Colstrip. The south side, 12 miles to the south, jumped across US Highway 212 east of Lame Deer and has moved into heavier fuels. That is the area that showed the most activity in a 12:31 a.m. mapping flight Friday and is where many resources are currently concentrated.
Richard Spring Fire. Burnout along Highway 212 August 11, 2021. InciWeb photo.
Firefighters, including four Hotshot crews, are constructing hand line south of Highway 212 in an effort to contain the fire north of the Lame Deer Divide Road. Air tankers and helicopters are supporting the ground-based crews.
Lame Deer Fire
A fire 4 miles west of the Richard Spring Fire, the Lame Deer Fire, has burned 5,427 acres just north of Highway 212 and the community of Muddy. It is 3 miles west of Lame Deer. Firefighters took advantage of the precipitation to construct line and conduct burnout operations. Those efforts have been successful so far, and crews now have initial control lines constructed around most of the perimeter and will continue to strengthen those lines.
