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.

State Foresters concerned about Administration’s desire to reduce funding for state and private forestry programs

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After reviewing President Donald Trump’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget request, the National Association of State Foresters will expand its efforts within the Beltway to illustrate the long-term and far-reaching benefits of actively managed forests and the urgent need to invest in their health and resiliency.

Pleasant Valley Prescribed Fire South Dakota
Pleasant Valley prescribed fire, South Dakota, March, 2016. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

(Press release from the National Association of State Foresters)

WASHINGTON – The nation’s 59 state and territorial foresters were disconcerted this week by a presidential budget request for FY20 that asks for significant funding cuts to state and private forestry programs, which support much-needed management on nearly two-thirds of the nation’s forests.

“When President Trump’s executive order to promote forest management nationwide was released in December, we were eager to work alongside the men and women of the USDA Forest Service to address the nation’s most pressing forest threats,” said Lisa Allen, NASF president and Missouri state forester. “But the president’s budget would eliminate or cut all but one Forest Service State and Private Forestry program and reduce investments in state and family forests to just 2.5 percent of the overall Forest Service budget.”

Per the president’s budget request for FY20, funding for the Forest Stewardship program, the Forest Health Management Program on Cooperative Lands, and the State and Volunteer Fire Assistance programs would be cut by a combined $29.65 million from FY19 enacted levels. Funding for the Landscape Scale Restoration, Forest Legacy, and Urban and Community Forestry programs would be eliminated.

“More than once the Trump administration has stated its support for rural America and its commitment to managing federal forests in partnership with state forestry agencies. Now, with this budget proposal, we see a direct contradiction,” said Jay Farrell, NASF executive director. “What we know for sure is that more work needs to be done throughout the Beltway to show all the benefits forests provide – better water quality, stronger industry, healthier families, and more – every day, for every American. Because without essential investments today in our forests, we simply won’t have them tomorrow.”

More information at Wildfire Today about how the Administration’s proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2020 which begins October 1, 2019 would affect wildland fire.

Researcher finds that Native Americans ignited more fires than lightning

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Data was collected in the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains in California

A California professor’s dissertation has won a prestigious award for her work that determined fires 1,500 years ago in the Sequoia National Forest in Southern California were predominantly ignited by Native Americans rather than by lightning. Until the last 100 years or so most forests in the Western United States had far fewer trees per acre than today. Suppressing fires caused by lightning, arson, and accidents has resulted in overstocked forests that can lead to very large wildfires that threaten lives and property and are very difficult to control.

Prescribed fires can over time lead to stand densities that replicate the pre-Columbian condition, but in modern times the practice has not been widely used in the Western United States at landscape scale.

Professor Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson
Professor Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson. (Photo courtesy of Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson)

“We should be taking Native American practices into account,” said Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson, a Sacramento State assistant professor of geography, whose dissertation on the subject recently won the J. Warren Nystrom award from the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

“After all, they are stakeholders who have been here a heck of a lot longer than we have,” she said. “We should probably be looking at their traditions and incorporating them” into forest management.

Klimaszewski-Patterson uses paleoecology – the study of past ecosystems – as well as environmental archaeology and predictive landscape modeling in her current work, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. She won the Nystrom award after presenting her paper at the AAG’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

Using computer models and pollen and charcoal records to track changes in the forest over time, she has found that forest composition dating back 1,500 years likely was the result of deliberate burning by Native Americans, rather than natural phenomena such as lightning strikes. Those forests featured wide open spaces, resembling parks.

More information about the research.

Wildfire burns area scheduled for prescribed fire the next day

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Virtually the entire 274-acre project area burned

Tolleston 1 Fire Indiana Dunes National Park
Tolleston 1 Fire in Indiana Dunes National Park, April 12, 2019. Photo: NPS Great Lakes Fire Management Zone.

A wildfire Friday in northwest Indiana burned virtually the entire area that was going to be burned today in a prescribed fire.

The fire was reported at 4:30 p.m. CDT in the Tolleston Dunes area in Indiana Dunes National Park west of County Line Road between highways 12 and 20. It was within the area that had been prepped for a prescribed fire. Since firelines had been established the blaze was easier to battle than your typical wildfire. However strong winds Friday afternoon were a factor. A nearby weather station recorded 29 percent relative humidity and winds out of the south at 18 to 28 mph with 30 to 40 mph gusts.

The forecast for Sunday calls for 34 degrees and almost an inch of precipitation consisting of a rain/snow mix.

Micah Bell, Fire Information Officer for the Great Lakes Fire Management Zone, said virtually the entire 274-acre project area burned before it was contained by the 15 firefighters at 9 p.m. Friday.

Tolleston 1 Fire Indiana Dunes National Park
Tolleston 1 Fire in Indiana Dunes National Park, April 12, 2019. Photo: NPS Great Lakes Fire Management Zone.

Obviously the planned prescribed fire was cancelled. Firefighters are mopping up at the blaze today.

Tolleston 1 Fire Indiana Dunes National Park
Firefighters mopping up the Tolleston 1 Fire in Indiana Dunes National Park, April 13, 2019. Photo: NPS Great Lakes Fire Management Zone.

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was upgraded to a National Park February 15, becoming the first National Park in Indiana.

British Columbia may expand firefighter occupational disease coverage to wildland firefighters

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Minister calls firefighting dangerous, says it can have severe impacts to physical and mental health

Massachusetts firefighters British Columbia
Firefighters from Massachusetts board an aircraft on the way to the Elephant Hill Fire near Kamloops, British Columbia. Photo by Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation.

The United States government does not have a presumptive disease policy for their 15,000 federal wildland firefighters, but British Columbia is seeking to expand their program.

From The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

Firefighters who have battled British Columbia wildfires, fire investigators, and fire crews working for Indigenous groups will be eligible for greater access to job-related health compensation under legislation introduced Thursday.

Labour Minister Harry Bains tabled amendments to the Workers Compensation Act that extends occupational disease and mental health benefits to more people who work around fires.

The proposed changes will expand cancer, heart disease and mental health disorder presumptions to include the three other job categories, because Bains says those workers are often involved in the traumatic issues related to fires.

Presumptive illnesses faced by firefighters are recognized under the act as conditions caused by the nature of the work, rather than having firefighters prove their issue is job related to receive supports and benefits.

Bains says the government expanded the presumptive job-related conditions last year to include mental-health disorders for police officers, paramedics, sheriffs, correctional officers and most urban firefighters. He says firefighting is dangerous work that can have serious impacts on an individual’s physical and mental health.

“They will enjoy the same coverage as the other firefighters — the first responders — receive as part of giving them certain cancer protections, heart disease and injuries and mental health,” Bains said during a news conference after the legislation was introduced.

“These steps are very necessary to ensure our workplaces are the safest in the country.”

13 videos about fire shelter deployments on wildland fires

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags
fire shelter
Fire shelter, with one side removed to show the position of a firefighter. USFS.

Fire shelters are small foldable pup tent-like fire resistant devices that a wildland firefighter can unfold and climb into if there is no option for escaping from an approaching inferno. Many firefighters have used the devices successfully, but others have been killed inside them.

The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has put together a playlist of 13 videos about deployment of shelters. The next time you have an extra three or four hours, check it out.

Below is a screenshot of the list:

fire shelter video
Playlist of videos about fire shelter deployments. WFLLC.

CAL FIRE vehicles receiving Automatic Vehicle Location equipment

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It will improve the situational awareness of firefighters.

A year and a half ago the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) signed a contract to provide technology in 1,200 state-owned vehicles to facilitate mission critical data communications. The Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) equipment being installed now will improve the situational awareness of firefighters by allowing full Computer Aided Dispatch connectivity and position updates of frontline fire response vehicles. The AVL systems are being used in Battalion Chief vehicles, Fire Engines, Crew Transports, Dozers, and Dozer transports.

CAL FIRE's Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) equipment
CAL FIRE’s Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) equipment being installed now in vehicles in the San Bernardino Unit. CAL FIRE photo.

The equipment CAL FIRE selected has triple redundancy. Cellular, VHF, and satellite communication methods allow for usage even in the most remote areas.

Installation of AVL hardware began in the Fresno Kings Unit of CAL FIRE in 2017 and has continued to present. The San Bernardino Unit is the eighteenth unit to receive AVL during this process.

CAL FIRE San Bernardino Unit Chief Glenn Barley said, “Implementation of AVL is a significant step forward to help assure the most efficient and effective deployment of CAL FIRE resources, and provide for their safety, both locally and across the state.

Wildfire Today has  been an advocate for the Holy Grail of Wildland Firefighting, which is knowing the real time location of firefighters and the fire. This system will implement a portion of that, tracking the location of firefighting vehicles and other mobile equipment (but probably can’t track dismounted personnel). It will also have the capability of displaying a map, and when data is available it could show the location of the fire. For example, it could show a sketched-out hand drawn map of the fire, or live video from an air attack ship or drone orbiting 10,000 feet over the fire. And, importantly, it could indicate the location of all firefighting resources that have location tracking enabled.