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Texas Forest Service gets new leader

Bill GabbertFebruary 17, 2010Uncategorized

Tom G. Boggus has been selected as the new Director of the Texas Forest Service (TFS). In a very unusual system, the TFS is an integral part of the Texas A&M University System, and their Board of Regents made the selection for this position which has been vacant since May, 2008. Boggus has been serving as interim director, replacing the retired director James Hull.

The TFS has been the target of some criticism related to firefighting safety and the qualifications of their personnel. The most notable critic was the very well respected Tim Stubbs, who passed away on January 28. On his blog, Tim pulled no punches. Here is an excerpt from his December 26, 2009 post:

These folks (TFS) have made it very clear that they are going to do things their own way (described below) and to Hell with any of us who have a problem with that. What they seem to forget is that we (most of us) are still federal employees when we work for them and that all of their funding comes from FEMA, a federal agency. Then their threat becomes something akin to “if you don’t like the way we do things in Texas then you just won’t work here anymore”. I absolutely agree with that: I will not work there anymore. The issue is safety both of the public and certainly of firefighters consigned to TFS on a temporarily suspended agreement that they will keep us safe with the nationally recognized SOP’s, i.e. 10 and 18, LCES, Principles of Safe Flight, Anchor/Flank/Pinch, etc. “We do things different in Texas”.

We wish Mr. Boggus well in dealing with some of these problems.

Washington state Senate passes no man’s land bill

Bill GabbertFebruary 17, 2010August 25, 2019Uncategorizedno man's land1 Comment

In a response to the controversies that followed the Dry Creek fire, which burned 49,000 acres and the Silver Dollar Restaurant in central Washington in August, 2009, the Washington state Senate has passed Engrossed Senate Bill 6462 which requires firefighters to take action on a fire even if it is outside their fire protection district, or in “no man’s land” as it has been called. Wildfire Today has written several times about this issue.

There was criticism after the fire that the landmark restaurant and some private property burned because no fire protection district was responsible for fire suppression in the area.

The bill also provides some protection from liability for firefighters working in no man’s land.

Here is the full text of the bill, minus the preamble verbiage, approved on Monday, which now heads to the House.

China to build amphibious air tanker

Bill GabbertFebruary 16, 2010December 26, 2010Uncategorized1 Comment

China has started the development of a large, four-turboprop aircraft that is intended to be used as an air tanker as well as a platform for long-range air-sea rescues and anti-submarine missions. Named JL-600, the aircraft will be about the size of an Airbus 320 and is scheduled to be flight tested in 2013 and ready for mass production in 2015.

Concept, for JL-600 Chinese amphibious air tanker

It will be able to take off on land or water and is expected to hold about 3,000 gallons of water or up to 50 passengers. Supposedly, it will be able to take off with waves up to three meters high. Its maximum speed will be about 348 mph and a range of of 3,200 miles. It will be a “scooper” and can be refilled in 20 seconds while skimming along on the surface of a lake.

One statement at Chinadaily.com was interesting:

As it flies at a height of 30 to 50 m over the treetops, the success rate of spreading water over a fire could reach 98 percent.

Railroad charged with felonies for starting fires in Michigan

Bill GabbertFebruary 16, 2010October 5, 2010Uncategorizedrailroad

According to Paul Kollmeyer of the DNR, the Grayling fire was one of few capable of jumping a 4-lane highway and median. This photo depicts the fire as it continues its charge toward Grayling. It also shows the fire has already jumped across I-75. DNR photo. — According to Paul Kollmeyer of the DNR, the Grayling fire was one of a few fires that were capable of jumping a 4-lane highway and median. This photo shows the fire as it spread toward Grayling after it jumped across I-75. DNR photo.

From alpenanow.com:

Lake State Railway is facing criminal charges for allegedly starting the 2008 fire that torched some 1,300 acres of forest, several homes and other buildings in Grayling.

The railroad company is also accused of starting another fire in Arenac County. Attorney General Mike Cox believes both fires were started by a train engine that threw burning embers from the exhaust system because it was not equipped with standard safety equipment called spark arresters.

Lake State is charged with two felony counts of setting fire to a forest land and two misdemeanor counts of operating an engine without spark arresters.

If found guilty, a court could order the railroad company to pay fines and full restitution, including property damage and response costs. The Grayling fire resulted in an estimated $464,000 in timber damage, $370,000 in personal property damage and $100,000 in fire suppression costs.

In a press release, the Attorney General said the railroad “knowingly operated an unsafe train engine” without functioning spark arrestors. In addition, “When a company ignores standard safety practices and threatens not only the environment but human lives, we will hold them accountable.”

Too often railroads get away with felonies, including murder or manslaughter, for starting fires, because the responsible agencies fail to adequately investigate the cause and origin of railroad-caused fires….and because law enforcement agencies fail to file charges when a case can be proven. Congratulations to Michigan’s Attorney General Mike Cox for having the courage to pursue these cases in Michigan.

As we reported on November 5, 2009, a television station found that over the last decade 234 fires in Washington were attributed to railroads. Houses burned and one person was killed, but no citations or criminal charges were issued. Zero for 234. Not a very good batting average for the fire agencies and Washington’s Attorney General Robert McKenna, who has been in that position since January, 2005. At the very top of the Attorney General’s web page is this:

The Attorney General’s Office makes a difference every day for the people of Washington.

Sometimes the difference is positive, and sometimes, not so much.

Video of the original 13 Situations That Shout “Watch Out”

Bill GabbertFebruary 16, 2010August 9, 2021Uncategorized13/18 Situations, Rick Bondar, Tom Sadowski

RamblingsOfAChiefOfficer.com took our images of the original 13 Situations that Shout “Watch Out” and embedded them into a one-minute video. It’s very cool, and something I would never have thought of doing.

Here is more information about the development of these images.

The El Cariso Hot Shots (Cleveland National Forest in southern California), from about 1972-1973, developed the first curriculum for basic wildland firefighter training. It was then referred to informally as the “basic 32-hour course”, and eventually evolved into S-130/190. Originally it was a slide-tape program with an integrated instructor’s guide, tests, and a student workbook, and was later converted to VHS video tape. The course included sections on the 13 Situations That Shout “Watch Out” and the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders. I was on the crew from 1970-1972.

A black and white version of the 13 Situations graphics, each on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, was available to us before we developed the training package. They were sent to us through USFS channels–I don’t know who the artist was. We had an artist on the crew who developed from scratch a lot of the graphics in the basic 32-hour slide-tape program, but all he and we did regarding the 13 Situations graphics was to enhance them a bit and colorize them. Then Tom Sadowski photographed them and the other graphics for the program and made slides. Tom and I and others also took the rest of the photographs that were in the basic 32-hour course.

I have copies of some of the slides from that slide-tape program, and a year ago I had about 700 old slides and prints digitized, and among them were the 13 Situation images.

The original and the enhanced images were developed by the U. S. Forest Service. They are in the public domain, therefore they may be used for training purposes. If you do use them, we would appreciate your letting us know, as Ramblings did.

Here are some photos of the basic 32-hour program being devleoped.

Rick Bondar and Tom Sadowski working on the basic 32-hour wildland firefighter training package, 1972

Making professional-quality graphics in 1972 was much more time-consuming than it is today. Sometimes we used peel-and-stick letters and hand-drawn art. It is very difficult to photograph graphics, getting everything square and perpendicular to the lens to prevent distortion. Once it was photographed, that was it. There was no photo editing, or straightening, cropping, or changing the lighting or correcting the spelling.

Tom Sadowski working on the basic 32-hour wildland firefighter training package, 1972

Catching wildfire arsonists

Bill GabbertFebruary 15, 2010February 15, 2010Uncategorizedarson1 Comment

Miller-McCune has released the fourth in their series of five articles about the latest advances in managing wildland fires.

Part I: THE POWER OF ‘LOOK-DOWN’ TECHNOLOGY
Part II: UNDERSTANDING WILDFIRE BEHAVIOR AND PREDICTING ITS SPREAD
Part III: WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING ON U.S. FIRELINES
Part IV: CATCHING WILDFIRE ARSONISTS RED-HANDED
Part V: SMART SOLUTIONS GOING FORWARD

These are really well-done articles and are worth reading. Here is how the latest one, Part IV, about wildfire arsonists, begins:

Sixty-year-old grandmother Charmian Glassman, aka Ma Sparker, started 11 separate fires at Northern California’s Mt. Shasta in 1995, setting each within 10 feet of where she stopped her new Buick at the side of a winding woodsy road.

Her motive? To give her forest firefighter son enough fires to fight to prove himself a hero.

Consultant Paul Steensland, a veteran fire investigator and retired U.S. Forest Service senior special agent, frequently mentions this case when lecturing fire investigators. It’s a cautionary tale about getting too deeply invested in “profiles” of arsonists derived from the analysis of past offenders.

Although every arson case is different, these profiles — the most notable generated by research conducted by the FBI and the South Carolina Forestry Service in the mid-1990s — are markedly similar: Caucasian males in their teens or 20s, unemployed or marginally employed, blue-collar background, living alone or with parents. The profiles’ acceptance is why, even as officers were desperately searching for their arsonist on Mt. Shasta, Charmian Glassman managed to set a couple of fires right under their noses.

“She literally lit two fires within less than 50 feet of where officers were in the brush,” Steensland recalled, “because they just saw her pull by and could see her in her car and said, ‘She’s a grandmother.’ They had been conditioned to look for young white males.”