Author: Bill Gabbert

Below, is a portion of an article from the Missoulian about using sand table exercises for wildland fire training at Clearwater Junction, Montana. The entire article is here.

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CLEARWATER JUNCTION – First came the car crash – two people ejected after a rollover on Highway 200. Then came the car fire – a vehicle engulfed in flames. And then all hell broke loose.

“The vehicle fire has spread into the tall grass,” a call echoed over emergency radios throughout the county. “The fire is spreading in a northeast direction.”
Whipped by winds gusting at 24 mph, the fire quickly spread in 94-degree heat, threatening a stand of tiny trees and forcing the evacuation of a bunch of little plastic orange Army guys.

Already, the accident had injured two of the Army guys, who were quickly whisked away by a Hot Wheels ambulance back to Missoula. One had an injured plastic head; the other, a broken plastic femur.

This is how disaster unfolds at one-eightieth scale. At full scale, of course, this horrific wreck-turned-wildland fire could never fit in a sandbox. But this was just a drill.

So the Missoula County Fire Protection Association had to secure a small fleet of Hot Wheels emergency vehicles, five gallons of sand, two dozen tiny fake plastic trees, yards of colored shoestring, a handful of cotton and, of course, the orange Army guys to simulate a disaster of miniature proportions.

On Wednesday morning, dozens of emergency responders from the multiple agencies that make up the MCFPA played out this disaster as a training exercise, honing their radio and communication skills to prepare for the real deal.

“That’s what’s nice about this form of training,” said Cindy Super, a fire prevention coordinator and supervisor of the training session held at the Clearwater unit of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. “It’s pretty portable.”

More than two dozen real-world emergency workers from the DNRC, and municipal, county and state agencies barked out orders and information as the disaster unfolded.

“Right now, there are no structures threatened,” said Steve Beck of the DNRC helitack crew, as he peered down at the Google Earth-modeled sandbox terrain from the helicopter that existed only in his head. “My suggestion is to get a bucket on it and try to stop it at the top of the ridge.”

Good suggestion. But the fire spread anyway, as the orange shoestring continued to broaden in circumference and plumes of thick cotton rose from the plastic trees.

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Thanks Dick

Here is an excerpt from an article at KPHO.com in Phoenix:

This could be one of the worst fire seasons in years, according to local fire officials. Cpt. Eddie Smith with the Glendale Fire Department said all the rain this winter turned the desert landscape green across the Valley.

However, all that green is not good when it comes to fire danger, Smith said. As the weather heats up in a few weeks, all of the green brush will turn brown and become a fire hazard.

“We know summer will come and we wont have much more rain,” said Smith. “When that happens, the brush dries out and the potential is that much greater for extreme fire danger in Arizona.”

The fire danger doesn’t stop there. CBS 5 News found that the budget for Arizona’s Forestry Division has been cut by $1 million as a result of the state’s budget crisis. Also, fire response crews have been reduced from 15 to 12.

Google has produced a 2.5-minute video in which US Forest Service and Cal Fire employees describe how wildland fire agencies are using Google Earth for real-time tracking of firefighting aircraft and for fire suppression decision support. The “cast” includes Bob Roth and Ron Ruston of the USFS, and Jim Hollingsworth of Cal Fire.