3-D Map of Planet Ranch Fire looking southeast June 26, 2021.
A new fire, the Planet Ranch Fire, broke out near the Colorado River Friday 16 miles southeast of Lake Havasu City. As of Saturday morning it has burned 1,259 acres just east of Highway 95.
It was attacked aggressively Friday by fire engines, 2 single engine air tankers, 2 air tactical aircraft, two Type 1 helicopters, 1 Type 3 helicopter, 2 Type 2IA hand crews, and scooping multi-engine air tankers.
Most of the fire is within the Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge.
Highway 95 was closed for an hour or two Friday, but reopened.
Planet Ranch Fire. Photo by Marianna, June 25, 2021Map of the Planet Ranch Fire June 26, 2021. USFWS & BLM.
Recruiting, retention, and inept contracting is degrading the nation’s preparedness and ability to suppress wildfires
The San Carlos Type 2 hand crew and the Bear Jaw Type 2IA Crew teamed up on a large spot fire on the west flank of the Mescal Fire June 8, 2021. BLM photo by Mike McMillan.
A U.S. Forest Service document written June 22 said that of the approximately 110 Federal hotshot crews, 25 percent, or about 27 crews, are not able to meet the required standards. This is due to vacant positions and the agency’s difficulties in hiring and retention. Each crew should have 20 firefighters if all the positions can be filled with qualified personnel. So we’re talking about 550 firefighters.
This report comes from NBC Montana which obtained the document. Below is an excerpt from their article.
The June 22 document, written before the Forest Service started awarding some private Type 2 contracts, reads, “We anticipate exhausting our current crew availability within a week or so, based on our Interagency Predictive Services outlook and current trends. Compounding our lack of crews this year is hiring and retention issues within our own ranks, which the Secretary of Agriculture discussed during his town hall with the Chief of USDA Forest Service recently.”
It goes on to say, “We already do not have as many of our own crews available as we normally do. Our Interagency Hotshot Crew ranks have been hit the hardest with roughly 25% of them not meeting Type 1 status, or even not being able to field a 20-person crew. Additionally, our Interagency partners and cooperators are having crew staffing issues as well, diminishing the total number of crews overall.”
The article also has quotes from Riva Duncan, a retired staff officer for the Forest Service who is now the Executive Secretary for the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit group advocating for proper classification, pay, and benefits. For example:
“We know that a lot of engines and crews were not able to fill all of their vacant positions,” Duncan said. “And so that has affected staffing levels. It’s affected hotshot crews being able to get type one Hotshot status. There are several engines that are only staffed five days effective instead of seven days effective.”
In addition to the inability of the Forest Service to fill all of their firefighter positions, another problem related to contracting with private companies to supply 20-person Type 2 hand crews is developing. Until this year, the Forest Service relied on the Oregon Department of Forestry to administer those contracts, which expired in April. But this year the Forest Service took over the process and awarded contracts for only 258 out of about 350 potential crews.
Multiple companies that provide crews filed protests with the Government Accountability Office which would prevent any crews from working that received a new contract. But the Forest Service has filed an override with the GAO this week, which will allow them to go forward with awarding contracts.
Another contracting problems is with Type 2IA hand crews which are more capable and highly trained than Type 2 crews and can make initial attacks on new fires. Those contracts for 41 crews expired in December but has been extended to June 30 — Wednesday of next week. If the new contract is not awarded it will take 840 firefighters off line.
Our opinion
With the June 22 Forest Service document reporting, “anticipate exhausting our current crew availability within a week or so,” this contracting issue for hand crews appears to have reached a crisis stage.
Last year there was a severe shortage of firefighting resources. This year could be even worse, with nearly 9,000 firefighters committed today and the National Preparedness level at 4, one below the highest level — and it is still June, just six days into Summer. The peak of the wildland fire season is in July and August. The Forest Service needs to recognize that filling firefighter positions and contracting for hand crews is a critical necessity, and should not be subject to the typical inept processes of their contracting section.
If the Type 2IA hand crew contract is awarded in the next couple of days before the current contract expires, judging from what happened with the Type 2 contract, it will be protested with the Government Accountability Office. That would prevent any crews that did receive a new contract from working unless the Forest Service files another override with the GAO.
If you talk with any private company that has to work with the Forest Service under a contract, they will tell you that process is horrendous and is an ongoing scandal. It takes months and sometimes more than a year to award a contract after it has been announced. At Fire Aviation we follow closely the contracting process for aerial firefighting resources. Check out this search for articles at the site using the search terms “protest contract”.
Too often, as we see in the recent Type 2 hand crews contract debacle, the Forest Service procrastinates and drags their feet, not awarding contracts until just days before the last one expires. Then most of them are protested, which shuts down work under the new contract for months.
I don’t know why the Forest Service’s contracting process is incompetent, so I can’t say specifically how it can be fixed. But an investigation is needed, or a consultant could be hired so that the entire contracting section can be torn down and rebuilt, or at least their processes, work flow, goal setting, and standard operating procedures could be evaluated and improved.
Someone must be held accountable for this very important system that has degraded our preparedness and ability to suppress wildfires.
A drone is assisting with aerial ignition on the fire southwest of Flagstaff, Arizona
Rafael Fire map. The red line was the perimeter at 8:28 p.m. MDT June 26, 2021. The white line was the perimeter two days before. The red areas represent heat detected by satellites at 3:48 a.m. MDT June 26, 2021. The northernmost red area is a tactical burnout intended to stop the spread of the fire beyond that point.
Firefighters on the Rafael Fire southwest of Flagstaff are using tactical burnouts ahead of the fire to build a barrier to the spread to the north and east. The burning operations are being conducted primarily from existing roads and are expected to continue for the next few days as long as weather conditions allow.
To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Rafael Fire, including the most recent, click HERE.
On Saturday firefighters will continue Friday’s burnout, bringing fire south from the Sycamore Falls Climbing Area to White Horse Lake. They will also begin to back the fire down the slopes into Sycamore Canyon by aerial ignition with helicopters and drones. Fire managers said this activity is designed to minimize fire effects to soils and vegetation on the steep terrain of Sycamore Canyon. Burning operations are expected to continue for the next few days as long as weather conditions allow. Smoke will be more noticeable the next few days due to burnout operations.
File photo of the Lakeview Hotshots using a drone to assist with a burn operation in Alaska in 2019.
With the firing activity taking place 2 to 5 miles north and northeast of the fire, the Rafael Fire is now:
6 miles south of Interstate 40
11 miles southwest of Flagstaff
7 miles west of Highway 89A, and
8 miles northwest of Sedona
Evacuation information is available on Facebook for Coconino and Yavapai Counties.
On Friday widespread cloud cover and lighter winds reduced active fire movement throughout much of the fire area. But it picked up in the early afternoon in Sycamore Canyon, Hog Hill, and Mooney Canyon.
The Incident Management Team reported Saturday morning the fire had burned 45,899 acres. That number is likely to increase after the overnight mapping is accounted for.
The Rafael Fire now involves the Prescott, Kaibab, and Coconino National Forests and Yavapai and Coconino Counties.
On June 24 the Southwest Area Type 1 Incident Management Team 2 led by Incident Commander Dave Bales assumed command of the fire.
An Air Tanker drops on the Oil Springs Fire to protect a natural gas plant south of Rangely, CO. The retardant did not cover the plant. Posted 6-23-2021 on InciWeb.
Colorado has six wildfires larger than 500 acres. The fires have not been extremely active over the last couple of days and there is a chance of thunderstorms over most of the western part of the state through the weekend.
Oil Springs Fire, 11,933 acres, 18 miles south of Rangely. The Great Basin Incident Management Team 3 assumed command of the fire at 6:30 a.m. on June 22. Firefighters are still seeing active fire behavior due to dry conditions, receptive fuels and wind.
Muddy Slide Fire, 4,056 acres, 22 miles south of Steamboat Springs. The Rocky Mountain Area Type 2 Incident Management Team Blue assumed command of the Muddy Slide Fire at 6:00 a.m. Thursday. Evacuation information is available HERE. On Thursday, the fire area is forecast to receive afternoon showers, thunderstorms, and increased moisture, reducing fire behavior in the short-term, giving firefighters an opportunity to safely engage the fire.
Sylvan Fire, 3,752 acres, 12 miles south of Eagle. The Rocky Mountain Type 1 Incident Management Team, with Dan Dallas as Incident Commander assumed command of the fire at 6 a.m. Thursday. On the east side of the fire, crews are focusing on working from Sylvan Lake to the west creating a direct fireline from the lake to the power line road. On the west side firefighters are completing direct fireline on the southeast corner where the fire has crossed the Mount Thomas Trail.
West Fire, 3,401 acres, 41 miles southeast of Rock Springs, Wyoming on the WY/CO border. On Thursday crews are securing and strengthening fire lines on all sides of the fire. Unburned fuel inside containment lines will continue to burn and may produce smoke that will be visible as these interior pockets of fuel continue to burn inside established fire lines.
Trail Canyon Fire, 881 acres, 10 miles northwest of Red Mesa. The spread of the fire has been stopped.
Wild Cow Fire, 553 acres, 26 miles north of Fruita. The fire is being managed by Ross Wilmore and the Upper Colorado River Type 3 Incident Management Team. Not much additional information is available.
Despite widespread recognition that treating forests and grasslands with prescribed fire can be a major step toward reducing the negative impacts of wildfires, only one primary Federal land management agency made a substantial increase in the number of hectares accomplished from 1988 to 2018 — the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A higher proportion of tribal lands managed by the BIA have been subject to prescribed fire than for any other agency, with a mean of 7.5% of tribal lands burned each year.
This conclusion was expressed in a paper written by Crystal A. Kolden of the University of Idaho, titled, “We’re Not Doing Enough Prescribed Fire in the Western United States to Mitigate Wildfire Risk.” The last section of the document, the Discussion, is below. It begins with the statement that many may disagree with — the Southeastern states have fewer wildfire disasters than the rest of the country because they accomplished over twice the amount of prescribed fire as the entire rest of the US combined between 1998 and 2018. However, later she writes about the West, “[T]he topography is more complex and inaccessible, burn windows are narrow, and fuels have built up throughout decades of fire exclusion.” There are also challenges in the West in dealing with restrictions imposed by air quality agencies, more so than in the Southeast.
The paper also points out another rarely mentioned factor that limits the use of prescribed fire on Federal lands. “[Agencies] have not made sufficient policy changes or budgetary allocations to carry out the Cohesive Strategy.” Which, she writes, “…specifically identified prescribed fire as the most cost-effective solution over the largest potential area of the US, as compared to managed wildfire and non-fire vegetation treatment.”
Below is the Discussion section of the paper.
Discussion
The Southeastern US accomplished over twice the amount of prescribed fire as the entire rest of the US combined between 1998 and 2018. This may be one of many reasons why the Southeastern states have experienced far fewer wildfire disasters relative to the Western US in recent years. The amount of prescribed fire reported in the Southeastern US is also likely underreported, as the Southeastern states have purportedly accomplished millions of hectares of prescribed fire annually for decades. However, until 1998 there was no central prescribed fire reporting in the US. Even after 1998, non-federal entities did not necessarily report the full scope of their accomplishments in the federal reporting system.
The dramatic difference in prescribed fire completed between east and west reflects both a broad socio-cultural divide over fire and a problematic dichotomy between federal and non-federal fire management. Biophysical conditions have often been highlighted as a challenge to prescribed burning in the Western US; the topography is more complex and inaccessible, burn windows are narrow, and fuels have built up throughout decades of fire exclusion. By contrast, the Southeastern states have both the most extensive Wildland–Urban Interface in the US and some of the worst air quality challenges associated with prescribed fire due to higher humidity (e.g., increased smog formation). That agencies are able to accomplish so much prescribed fire in such a populated region likely also reflects social acceptance in addition to more conducive conditions. It is also telling that no single Southern state is driving the regional trend. State summaries in the Historical Wildland Fire Summary reports indicate that Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas all completed an average of over 40,000 ha per year each from 2002 to 2017.
Prescribed fire is widely accepted as a tool in the Southeastern states, where residents are more accustomed to using controlled fire to enhance timber production, control the rapidly growing vegetation, and enhance game species habitat. Some states, such as Florida, even have laws that recognize prescribed fire as being in the public interest and protect landowner rights to utilize it. Although studies throughout the US have shown that residents in all regions broadly support the concept of prescribed fire, they fear the potential for escaped fires and they are also highly concerned about smoke impacts [41]. However, Engebretson et al. found significantly higher tolerance of prescribed fire smoke from Southern-state residents than those in Western states, which suggests that this tolerance may translate into less opposition to using prescribed fire in the Southern GACC. This is true for either federal or non-federal agencies in the region; the Historical Summaries indicate that much of the USFS annual prescribed fire accomplishment occurs in the Southern GACC states (particularly along the Gulf Coast) rather than in the Western states where the greatest proportion of USFS land lies.
By contrast, fire managers in the Western US face considerable social barriers to using prescribed fire, including negative public perceptions of risk of escapes and smoke. This high perception of risk has been cemented by the occasional escaped prescribed fire, but it has likely also become entrenched due to the absence of prescribed fire demonstrated here. Fire managers, particularly federal fire managers, receive insufficient incentive to use prescribed fire under current agency policies that incentivize fire suppression (e.g., with overtime pay and promotion) but penalize risk-taking, particularly when escaped prescribed fires occur. Additionally, federal funding for prescribed fire and other fuel reduction activities has been drastically depleted over the past two decades as large wildfires force federal agencies to expend allocated funds on suppression rather than prevention.
Of the federal agencies reporting individually (i.e., separate from the ST/OT class), only the BIA has been able to substantially increase the relative use of prescribed fire. This increase is particularly striking because a higher proportion of tribal lands managed by BIA have been subject to prescribed fire than for any other agency, with a mean of 7.5% of tribal lands burned each year. This may reflect the more recent efforts of tribes seeking to reclaim sovereignty on their ancestral lands through increased self-governance and drawing upon TEK to re-introduce extensive intentional fire in these landscapes, particularly following the 2004 Tribal Forest Protection Act. The push for more prescribed fire among tribes is also reflected in the BIA budget for prescribed fire, particularly compared with the fire suppression budget. BIA devotes the second-highest budget of the five primary land management agencies to prescribed fire (behind USFS), but the prescribed fire budget is between 50% and 80% of its fire suppression budget, while no other agency’s prescribed fire budget has exceeded 25% of its fire suppression budget in the last five years. It is also worth noting that the more detailed Historical Wildland Fire Summary reports suggest that the strong positive trend in the Eastern GACC region is potentially partially a function of increased tribal burning in that region.
Despite changes in federal fire management policy meant to increase prescribed fire use, only one region of the US has considerably increased the amount of prescribed fire completed, and credit for much of this increase goes to non-federal agencies. Given the evidence that federal agencies have not accomplished more prescribed fire across the US over the past two decades, this suggests that while the Cohesive Strategy incorporates the best available science in a top-level holistic management framework, federal agencies have not made sufficient policy changes or budgetary allocations to carry out the Strategy.
There is considerable evidence in the scientific literature that prescribed fire is the most effective means of reducing the risk of wildfire disasters and increasing ecosystem resilience across much of the US. However, only one primary federal land management agency has substantially increased prescribed fire use, and the only widespread use and acceptance of prescribed fire is in the Southeastern states. Federal and non-federal entities have used the prescribed fire expertise of the Southeastern region as a training ground for fire and fuel managers across the US, but this has not translated to increased prescribed fire use. This suggests that a larger cultural shift in public sociocultural perceptions of prescribed fire is needed to truly capitalize upon the utility of prescribed fire and more aggressively reduce wildfire risk. Without such a shift, more catastrophic wildfire disasters are inevitable.
The graphics are from the paper written by Crystal A. Kolden.
Fire 2019, 2(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire2020030
Map showing heat detected by satellites on the Muddy Slide Fire at 3 a.m. MDT June 23, 2021.
The Muddy Slide Fire 21 miles south of Steamboat Springs, Colorado has burned approximately 3,000 acres at elevations ranging from 8,300 to 10,000 feet. A few decades ago forests at these elevations were too wet to burn frequently. Last year and this year we have seen it happening on a number of fires. Right now the 3,500-acre Sylvan Fire is burning above 9,000 feet 13 miles south of Eagle, Colorado.
Mandatory evacuations have been ordered on the Muddy Slide Fire for residents on County Road 16 between mile markers 12 and 21.
The fire was very active Tuesday spreading south and southeast with crowning, wind driven runs, and long-range spotting. It continued to burn actively throughout the night.
The Rocky Mountain Blue Type 2 incident management team has been ordered. Tuesday evening firefighting resources assigned to the fire included 3 hand crews, 4 engines, and 4 helicopters, for a total of 101 personnel. An additional eight hand crews are on order.
Smoke from the Muddy Slide Fire as seen from the Incident Command Post at 8 p.m. June 22, 2021. InciWeb photo.
