Wildfire Today

News and opinion about wildland fire

Wildfire Today

Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

After the Tubbs Fire, homes in California town are being rebuilt without strong building codes

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , , 6 Comments on After the Tubbs Fire, homes in California town are being rebuilt without strong building codes

Above: Homes being rebuilt in the Coffey Park area of Santa Rosa. Screenshot from Sacramento Bee video.

In Santa Rosa, California the 1,200 homes that were destroyed in the 2017 Tubbs Fire are being rebuilt without a requirement that they adhere to the stricter building codes required in rural areas of California that would make them more resistant to being consumed in the next wildfire.

From the Sacramento Bee:

…Coffey Park [neighborhood] is rebuilding quickly: The community organization Coffey Strong says more than half of the 1,200 homes that burned down in 2017 are finished, and hundreds more are under construction.

But some wildfire experts wonder if Coffey Park isn’t courting danger by ignoring a state building code designed for wildfire-prone areas.

“They’re setting themselves up for the next disaster,” said Chris Dicus, a wildfire expert at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. “I was disappointed to see they didn’t build up to code.”

Coffey Park residents seem resigned to the risk of another fire. They consider it part of the cost of living in a neighborhood they love. When asked about building codes, they say yes, another monster like the Tubbs Fire would be devastating — but no amount of fire-resistant roofing would likely change that.

“If it’s going to burn down, it’s going to burn down,” said Charlie Catlett, a retired physician who moved back home a little more than a week ago, after the latest evacuations were over.

Chapter 7A of the California Building Code designed for the state’s areas at high risk from wildfire can be optionally adopted by cities, but is mandatory in rural areas designated by CAL FIRE as being at high risk of wildfires. It lays out standards for roofs, exterior walls, vents in exterior walls and attics, windows, exterior doors, decking, and outbuildings.

Analysts studying the aftermath of the Camp Fire which destroyed much of Paradise, California found that homes built to fire-safe standards had a much higher survival rate than those that were not. Beginning in 2008 new construction in the city was required to follow Chapter 7A. Fifty-one percent of the homes built under that standard survived, while only eighteen percent built before 2008 did.

Headwaters Economics found that the cost of building a fire-resistant home is about the same as a standard home.

Adopting sensible building codes is very important, but a holistic approach is required to keep from repeating wildfire disasters:

  1. Home spacing/ lot size
  2. Envelope of the structure itself
  3. Home ignition zone
  4. Community infrastructure and planning
  5. Wildland-urban interface

In April, 2019, we covered these five categories in more detail.

Report released on the entrapment of firefighter and two civilians on Kincade Fire

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories WildfireTags , , , , , 6 Comments on Report released on the entrapment of firefighter and two civilians on Kincade Fire

The three people shared one fire shelter as the fire burned around them

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, CAL FIRE, has released a Green Sheet, or preliminary report, on the October 25, 2019 entrapment of one firefighter and two civilians. It occurred on the Kincade fire northeast of Geyserville, California about 43 hours after the fire started.

In mid-afternoon a Division Supervisor was scouting his division and searching for firefighters who he had been told were not wearing their Nomex wildland fire jackets. He turned his SUV off Pine Flat Road onto Circle 8 Lane, an unpaved road that reaches a dead end 1.5 air miles from Pine Flat Road.

map Kincade Fire entrapment deployment
3-D map showing the approximate location of the entrapment of three people on the Kincade Fire, October 25, 2019.

Later, seeing that the fire intensity had increased and crossed the road behind him, he realized that he was in imminent danger and decided to ride it out near an old cabin. A dozer operator had already cleared a line around the structure as as well as a line from the road downhill to the drainage.

Below is an excerpt from the Green Sheet as well as more maps, photos, and a video. The Division Supervisor is identified as “DIVS1”.

Continue reading “Report released on the entrapment of firefighter and two civilians on Kincade Fire”

National Firefighter Registry releases time line toward implementation

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 2 Comments on National Firefighter Registry releases time line toward implementation

UPDATED at 10:45 a.m. MDT Nov. 21, 2019

On November 21 the National Firefighter Registry that is being created by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released information about their accomplishments. We are updating this article originally published November 17, 2019 to include the new data.

Milestones from this Quarter
Much of the work this quarter focused on creating the NFR protocol, filling staffing needs, and meeting with firefighters and stakeholders about the NFR. Some of our key milestones for this quarter include:

  • Reviewed Federal Register comments made on the NFR’s Request for Information (RFI). Thank you to those that were able to provide feedback. These comments are very helpful in guiding the development of the NFR.
  • Began development of the protocol, informed consent document, and enrollment questionnaire.
  • Started gathering details on record keeping systems at fire departments to better understand what data are available and potential mechanisms for importing the data.
  • Made progress on developing requirements for the registration web portal.
  • Held discussions with representatives from select state cancer registries and related organizations to better understand cancer surveillance on a national level.
  • Hired a new health scientist, Andrea Wilkinson, formerly of the First Responder Health & Safety Laboratory at Skidmore College.
    Created the NFR webpage https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/firefighters/registry.html
  • Began formation of the NFR Advisory Committee. This committee will include at least 10 members with various backgrounds, expertise, and experience related to firefighter health and research.

Next Steps

  • Finalize protocol and consent form
  • Begin Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance process for enrollment questionnaire
  • Hire Health Communications Specialist
  • Continue conversations with stakeholders and obtain their support
  • Continue conversations with select fire departments throughout the country.

(Originally published at 9:54 a.m. MDT Nov. 17, 2019)

The National Firefighter Registry, originally called the Firefighter Cancer Registry in the authorizing legislation, has released very broad time-based goals for implementing a system which hopefully can identify any relationships between cancer and occupational exposure to toxicants.

Earlier this year the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked firefighters for input on how to maximize participation in the Registry (perhaps working on the first goal in the timeline chart). That comment period ended May 28, 2019.

From the time line, it appears that NIOSH hopes to begin enrolling firefighters sometime between 2019 and 2022.

firefighters smoke
Firefighters in a smoky environment on the White Tail Fire, March 8, 2019, Black Hills National Forest.

Previous studies, including one completed by NIOSH in 2014, have highlighted firefighters’ increased risk for certain cancers compared to the general population. However few previous studies have collected data about wildland firefighters, volunteer firefighters, or sufficient numbers of female and minority firefighters in order to draw conclusions regarding their risk of cancer.

In one study that collected data from wildland firefighters in the field, a group of researchers concluded that firefighters’ exposure to smoke can increase the risk of mortality from lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, and cardiovascular disease by 22 to 39 percent. The project only looked at the wildland fire environment, and was not a long term study of firefighters’ health.

The ultimate goal of the Registry is to better understand the link between workplace exposures and cancer among firefighters. The Registry will include all U.S. firefighters, not just those with a cancer diagnosis. The Registry also has the potential to provide a better understanding of cancer risk among subgroups such as women, minorities, and volunteers, and among sub-specialties of the fire service like instructors, wildland firefighters, and arson investigators.

From the Registry information, CDC/NIOSH will estimate an overall rate of cancer for firefighters. They might find certain groups of firefighters are at a higher risk of cancer than others based on level of exposure, geography, gender, or other factors. They may also find that certain protective measures are associated with a reduced risk for cancer, which could provide additional evidence and support for specific control interventions.

The Registry will be completely voluntary, and no one can force a person to join.

All active and retired as well as volunteer, paid-on-call, and career firefighters will be encouraged to join the Registry, regardless of their current health status.

CDC/NIOSH promises that they will always maintain participants’ privacy and will never share personal information with an outside organization including fire departments, unions, or other researchers without permission of the individual.

Missoula science lab assists firefighters

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

Above: Screenshot from the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab presentation. USFS.

The U.S. Forest Service has produced a fancy “story map” about the science being conducted at the Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula, Montana. I have toured the facility but was not aware of the breadth of the work now being conducted in the Wind Tunnel & Combustion Chamber, Soils Lab, Chemistry & Emissions Lab, Ecophysiology Lab, Tree Ring Lab, and Fuels Lab.

The presentation, which only takes a few minutes to scroll through, is mostly photos with brief descriptions of the work going on in the various departments. With science under attack in recent years, it is heart warming to know that some federal employees in Missoula have our backs.

Missoula Fire Sciences Lab
Screenshot from the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab presentation. USFS.

US Forest Service Fire Director interviewed about suicide among firefighters

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 1 Comment on US Forest Service Fire Director interviewed about suicide among firefighters
Marc Mullenix
Marc Mullenix

In January 2008 a few days after Wildfire Today was created I first wrote about firefighter suicide when someone I had served with on an Incident Management Team, Marc Mullenix, took his life. Some of his past jobs included Fairmont Fire Protection District, Wildland Fire Division Chief for the Boulder Fire Department, and Fire Management Officer for Mesa Verde National Park, all in Colorado. In 2007 Marc was a Type 1 Incident Commander trainee on Kim Martin’s Incident Management Team in the Rocky Mountain Geographic Area. He was married to Shawna Legarza, a former Hotshot who is now the Director of Fire and Aviation for the U.S. Forest Service.

In the last few years we have learned that the suicide rates of wildland firefighters is “astronomical”, according to information developed by Nelda St. Clair of the Bureau of Land Management in 2017. It is high even when compared with structural firefighters, which is also higher than the general population.

In an article published at REI.com this week, Jenni Gritters interviewed Director Legarza about firefighter suicide. The piece is titled, “Reports show wildland firefighters may struggle in secret once the season ends.”

The article shines a light on the issue and is very much worth reading, but below are excerpts:

Back in 2008, Lagarza says no one knew how to react to firefighter suicides. She wondered what to say to people, and what people would say to her. She wondered how she had missed the signs. She wondered if she should go back to work at all. Eventually, she returned to school to get her Ph.D. in psychology, to try to understand suicide better. Now she runs fire programs for the U.S. Forest Service, with a special emphasis on firefighter education.

[…]

There’s no denying that there is a problem when it comes to suicide: Wildland firefighters are dying by suicide at startling rates each year, far more often than people in the general population. This is a fact that has been known within the fire community for years, often whispered and mourned, but not spoken about directly until recently, Legarza says.

Part of the reason for the silence—and lack of information—around death by suicide comes from an issue with reporting. Jeff Dill, the founder of the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance (FFBHA), says that many firefighters experience mental health struggles after they’ve gone fully off-duty for the season, which means their deaths often go unreported within agencies like the National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS).

[…]

In 2018, a Florida State University professor and clinical psychologist who studies military suicides released a study that ruffled some feathers when it showed that wildland firefighters, in particular, were more likely to report clinically significant suicide symptoms than non-wildland firefighters. In the study, 55% of wildland firefighters reported experiencing thoughts about death by suicide, compared to 32% of non-wildland firefighters. Both of these percentages are staggering compared to NIH suicide data on the general population, which shows that 20% of people, on average, experience some suicidal thoughts.

Help is available for those feeling really depressed or suicidal.

Suicide Warning Signs
Suicide Warning Signs

Other articles on Wildfire Today about wildland firefighter suicide:

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Bill. Typos or errors, report them HERE.

1,300 firefighters are working on 35 uncontained bushfires in New South Wales

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories WildfireTags ,

Above: Satellite view of the bushfires in New South Wales, Australia. Impressive zoom of the @CopernicusEU#Sentinel3 OLCI instrument. Via @tonyveco, posted on Twitter November 14, 2019 U.S. time.

 

So far in this fire season in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, which  officially runs from October 1 to March 31, six people have lost their lives, four in the last week or so. The NSW Rural Fire Service reports that 259 homes have been destroyed in the state since last Friday, but more than 2,100 in the direct path of the fire were saved.

As of early Friday morning local time, more than 1,300 firefighters are working on 35 uncontained bushfires in NSW, with five being at the Watch and Act alert level. The fire danger in the province is elevated on Friday with winds expected to reach 60 to 75 kph.

Late Wednesday night (U.S. Time) Air Tanker 911, a DC-10, was over the Pacific Ocean on the way to Australia when it had to return to its base in Albuquerque due to a problem with a radio. About 50 minutes after departing from San Bernardino the pilots discovered that the High Frequency radio used on long range international flights was not working, even though it appeared to have passed earlier tests on the ground. There had been no need for the HF radio on T-911 since its last international assignment approximately seven years ago. The radio was repaired by connecting the antenna cable and the new ETA at RAAF Richmond in New South Wales is Saturday morning, local time. (more information at FireAviation.com)