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BC fire chiefs aim to totally ban all fireworks

Bill GabbertMarch 30, 2010August 25, 2019Uncategorizedfireworks

An article at ArrowLakesNews.com covers the effort to ban all fireworks in British Columbia:

The Fire Chiefs’ Association of British Columbia (FCABC) is trying to ban fireworks permanently throughout the province, and after much debate, the Nakusp council will not be sending a letter of support.

Bruce Mabin, zone four director of the FCABC, wrote that a bylaw should be drafted in each area around the Kootenays banning the sale and distribution entirely.

“It is our belief that the annual increased level for wildland fires each year in our areas makes the use of consumer fireworks a constant threat for instigation of a wildfire,” he wrote.

Nakusp fire chief Terry Warren said it’s just not worth it, because in his opinion the risk isn’t worth the reward.

“They’re just too dangerous,” he said. “The biggest issue is in the fire-ban season, when people from other provinces see these fireworks for sale and start setting them off. It’s a problem throughout the province.”

According to the FCABC, 8,000 children are injured and 20 people die each year in North America from improper fireworks use.

Roughly 120 amputations occur annually to the hands and fingers.

The rest of the article is here.

Wildfire Today has written about the fireworks problem many times.

BC provincial Wildfire Coordination Center moves from Victoria to Kamloops

Bill GabbertMarch 30, 2010March 30, 2010Uncategorized

The British Columbia Forest Service on April 1 is moving the province’s Wildfire Coordination Center from Victoria to the Kamloops Fire Center (KFC). The staff of seven full-time and five part-time employees will move their offices into a new building at Fulton Field which is attached to the Air Tanker Center at the Kamloops Airport. The staff, while working out a the new $4.5 million, 8,000 square foot facility, will organize the overall wildfire response from a provincial level.

BD Fire Centres — British Columbia Fire Centers

The province of British Columbia is divided into six Fire Centers: Coastal, Northwest, Prince George, Southeast, Kamloops, and Cariboo which are each responsible for wildfire management within their area of responsibility.

Fire Centers provide administrative, wildfire suppression and aviation services to all staff within their area of operation. Fire Centers are staffed by forest officers, dispatchers, fire fighters and support staff who coordinate wildfire prevention, detection and suppression activities.

As an example of the fire suppression staffing in one of the Fire Centers, the Kamloops Fire Center (KFC) has:

22, 3-person initial attack crews
6, 20-person “unit” crews
12, 3-person rappell crews

Question: If they have an open house at the new facilities at the KFC, what kind of food should they serve? 😉

Video from prescribed fire, possibly in Utah

Bill GabbertMarch 29, 2010March 29, 2010Uncategorizedprescribed fire2 Comments

Here is some cool flamage from a prescribed fire, possibly in Utah. It was posted by “UtahWildfire” on YouTube today. The name of the video is “Ogden Bay Prescribed Fire”. There is an “Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area” west of Ogden, Utah.

There are some still photos posted on Facebook by “Utah Fire”.

Somalia pirates show poor judgement, mistake navy destroyer for commercial vessel

Bill GabbertMarch 29, 2010March 30, 2010Uncategorized

The Dutch navy has disarmed 12 Somalia pirates after they mistook the destroyer HNLMS Tromp for a commercial vessel. When a German patrol plane detected the location of the pirates, the Tromp was dispatched to their location. The two pirate skiffs saw the destroyer, and thinking it was a commercial vessel moved toward it at full speed.

As the pirates got close to the Tromp, their mistake dawned on them and they made a U-turn and sped away. The Tromp launched a Lynx helicopter and two rigid hull inflatable boats full of Royal Netherlands Marines toward the skiffs. The marines fired some rounds at the skiffs which attempted to evade. Then the crew on the Tromp fired their five-inch gun across the bow of the skiffs, getting their attention.

The pirates, showing a little more intelligence than they had previously, surrendered.

marines capture pirates — Dutch Marines capture pirates

Pirate skiffs and Royal Netherlands Marines

The marines also found and captured the pirates’ “mother ship”. A very impressive vessel, don’t you think?

pirate mother ship — The pirates' "mother ship"

On the boats, the Marines found six AK-47 automatic weapons, a rocket launcher, ladders for boarding ships, and satellite phones, all of which were seized or dumped overboard.

pirate weapons — Some of the weapons seized from the pirates.

After questioning, the Marines released the pirates in the mother ship at an accessible distance from the Somali coast. The skiffs were destroyed.

Earlier this month, another group of pirates mistook the Tromp for a freighter and they suffered a similar fate.

Official cause of Guiberson fire near Moorpark released

Bill GabbertMarch 29, 2010September 13, 2019Uncategorizedspontaneous combustion

On September 22, 2009 Wildfire Today reported that the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said the Guiberson fire near Moorpark, California started from “manure spontaneous combustion from a local ranch.” Now the Ventura County Fire Department has more or less confirmed that initial assessment, saying the fire, which burned 17,500 acres was caused by the spontaneous combustion of a mulch pile.

A map of the fire is HERE. And to remind you, this was the fire on which a lead plane and air tanker “rescued” some horses that were trapped on an extremely steep slope.

1910 fires

Bill GabbertMarch 29, 2010August 25, 2019Uncategorized1 Comment

The US Forest Service has put together a web site that includes a great deal of information about the 1910 fires, sometimes known as the “Big Burn”, the huge fires that burned large areas of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Canada. Here is a recently made map that shows some of the fires of 1910, at least the ones in Idaho and Montana. A more detailed version of the map is HERE, a 2 Mb pdf file.

The USFS site also includes a schedule of events that commemorate the 1910 fires, including a conference in Spokane in October organized by the International Association of Wildland Fire.

But you don’t have to wait to start soaking in some of the history about the fires that occurred 100 years ago. The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula has opened an exhibit named “When the Mountains Roared: The Fire of 1910”. The museum describes it like this:

The great fires of 1910 transformed the face of the West, redefined the U.S. Forest Service, and created today’s forests. With objects, interactive components, and many never-before-seen photographs, this will be the biggest exhibit installation at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula in several years.

The Missoulian has an article that describes the exhibit in much more detail. It appears to be a very worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours.