The Branscombe Fire that began Sunday morning east of Fairfield, California destroyed one residence, one barn, and two vehicles, a spokesperson from the Solano County Sheriff’s office said Sunday evening.
After it started near Travis Air Force Base the fire ran south crossing Highway 12 and bumped up against Cutoff Slough near Grizzly Island Road and the larger Montezuma Slough. Those water courses stopped the spread in some areas but the Sacramento River farther south should serve as a more formidable fire break if it continues to grow in that direction. However, Sunday evening firefighters were starting to get a handle on it and released resources from outside Solano County.
The Red Flag Warning that was in effect for the area Sunday is slated to end Monday at 1 p.m., but following that, firefighters will still have to deal with fairly low humidity in the 20s and north winds of 14 gusting to 18.
Tune into the Solano County Sheriff’s Facebook to view FACEBOOK LIVE footage of information on the #BranscombeFire pic.twitter.com/zHFbhIk6pg
The Branscombe Fire at 5:42 p.m. PDT, October 7, 2018. From ABC7 live video. Click to enlarge.
A fire that broke out Sunday morning east of Fairfield, California had burned approximately 4,500 acres by 5 p.m. according to estimates from firefighters on scene. The Branscombe Fire started near Travis Air Force Base and spread south, crossing Highway 12 which was closed in both directions until about 1 p.m. It is 38 miles northeast of San Francisco and the smoke is spreading into the South Bay area.
The media reported that at least one structure was destroyed based on observations from a news helicopter.
Satellite photo showing the location of the Branscombe Fire east of Fairfield, California. The red dots represent heat. Smoke can be seen streaming south.
Live video from a helicopter is occasionally available at ABC7.
At 5:50 p.m. Sunday, judging from the helicopter video, the fire had spread across Cutoff Slough near the intersection of Grizzly Island Road and Joyce Island Road, but had not crossed over the larger Montezuma Slough. Beyond that is the Sacramento River which should serve as a more formidable fire break.
In addition to the firefighters on the ground, aircraft have been working on the fire, including air tankers, helicopters, and dozers.
The fire is burning in a sparsely populated area with few structures.
The area is under a Red Flag Warning until Monday at 1 p.m. On Sunday afternoon a weather station at Travis AFB recorded temperature in the low 80s, relative humidity of 14 percent, and winds out of the north at 20 to 24 mph gusting up to 38 mph. Conditions like that can present a serious challenge to firefighters.
A Union Pacific firefighting train on the Delta Fire. Screenshot from footage filmed by Dan Ryant.
Firefighting trains have been around for well over 100 years — the first ones were pulled by steam locomotives, but you rarely see them since they are used in remote areas near a fire that has limited access by the public. The apparatus usually consists of one or more tank cars that each hold more than 10,000 gallons of water and a high-volume pump that can support a master stream and additional hand-held hose lines.
The concept is to protect the railroad infrastructure, keeping the right of way open for trains. And sometimes the railroad will serve as a fire line — the application of water could keep the fire from crossing to the other side.
The videos below of a Union Pacific firefighting train were shot at the Delta Fire, the 63,000-acre blaze north of Redding, California. The first one is from ABC news, featuring fire photographer Dan Ryant. The one after that is raw footage shot by Mr. Ryant mostly from the top of the train.
Ferguson Fire. Photo uploaded to InciWeb July 15, 2018.
Fire officials in California have released the cause of the Ferguson Fire that burned 96,901 acres of the Sierra National Forest, Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite National Park, and state lands. They determined that it was caused by a hot catalytic converter on a vehicle that parked in dry grass at 8:30 p.m. Friday, July 13, along eastbound Highway 140 near the Savage Trading Post.
A vehicle associated with the cause has not been located. However, officials are asking anyone with information to contact the Sierra National Forest at (559) 297-0706.
Catalytic converters are part of the exhaust system on the underside of vehicles and can heat up to 1,200 degrees. After a vehicle has been traveling at speed, under a load, or not working properly the catalytic converter can get even hotter. If it is parked over dry grass, it can ignite a fire.
U.S. Forest Service personnel working on the investigation received assistance from the National Park Service and CAL FIRE.
A group of people knowledgeable about wildland fire have produced a 52-page document that attempts to assemble and summarize areas of agreement and disagreement regarding the management of forested areas in the western United States. Calling themselves the Fire Research Consensus Working Group, they looked for areas of common ground to provide insights for scientists and land managers with respect to recent controversies over the role of low-, moderate-, and high-severity fires.
Here is how they hope their conclusions will be used:
Our hope is that stakeholder groups will avoid the selective use of particular scientific papers to argue for their particular ends. Instead, they will be able to point to key shared assumptions, common understandings considering the entire body of fire science literature, and terminology to support decision-making in constructive ways. In particular, land and fire managers are a key audience for this report, as are other stakeholders and the interested public engaged in discussions about land management.
The “Executive Summary” is 6 pages long. Below is the section about high-severity fire:
“Respondents disagreed about whether large, high-severity fires have increased to a significant and measurable degree in all forest types in comparison to historical fire regimes (i.e., prior to modern fire suppression). There was strong agreement that in dry pine forests at low elevations there has been either an observed increase in high-severity fires or an increase in the potential for fires of elevated severity as the result of increased abundance and connectivity of woody fuels since the late 19th century. There was similar strong agreement about dry mixed-conifer forests in the Inland Northwest, Pacific Southwest, and Inland Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico) that there has been an increase in high-severity fires and an increase in the potential for fires of elevated severity. There was less agreement about the changes in extent, and causes of changes in extent, of high-severity fires in moist mixed-conifer forests. Although there is general agreement that high-severity fires historically played an important role in moist mixed-conifer and cold subalpine forests, there is strong disagreement over the degree of changes in burn severity patch-size distributions and associated successional conditions for these forests between different regions.
“Opinions also vary over the consequences of any increases in fire severity. For most dry forests, although there may be some disagreement about trends in burn severity and their causes, there is broad agreement that under current and projected climate, post-fire forest resilience is less than in the past. Some forest habitats, particularly at drier sites, but also in some moist and cold forest sites, show evidence of converting to more flammable non-forest vegetation or less dense forests following recent fires where large patches burn severely, especially if reburned. Reburn potential may depend on the interaction of vegetation, weather, rate of fire spread, time since prior fire, ignitions and fire suppression. Opinions are varied concerning the ecological consequences of departures from historical patterns of fire severity in various mixed conifer and subalpine forests. For example, one viewpoint supports the historical precedence of mixed-severity fire (including relatively large patches of high-severity fire), and the concept that pyrodiversity begets biodiversity. Another viewpoint asserts that increased woody fuel connectivity in combination with a warming climate trend is setting large areas of landscapes on fundamentally new trajectories, with significant undesirable ecological and societal consequences. Still a third viewpoint emphasizes that climatic changes increasingly are of overriding importance, and that new trajectories are unavoidable and thus may be considered desirable in many cases to incrementally foster necessary ecosystem transitions. The figure below characterizes these divergent viewpoints – typical of many areas of disagreement we addressed – and the potential common ground among them.
“Uncertainties associated with relative proportions of different burn severities and patch-size distributions combine to cloud key points of consensus that have important management implications. We suggest that resolving many fire science disagreements depends on greater consideration of specific geographical context. This may imply that a narrow range of field experience can limit one’s ability to accept findings that depart from that range. A logical way forward is to increase in-depth cross-regional field research experiences of the fire research community. Cross-regional comparisons of top-down and bottom-up determinants of fire activity in similar forest cover types is a fertile area of future research to examine how differences in seasonality, productivity, understory fuels, land use history, and other factors may explain some of the reported geographical differences in historical fire regimes in broadly similar forest types.
“There are several reasons for the disagreements about the amount and roles of past higher-severity fire. Both scientists and managers often transfer concepts and findings from one place to another, yet we know that “no one size fits all” for historical fire regimes, even within the same forest type. Likewise, the extent of change in abundance and connectivity of woody fuels varies across forest types and ecoregions. Some of the disagreement derives from use of different scientific approaches. For instance, there is strong debate about the fire regime inferences made from historical and modern tree inventory data, simulation models, and other approaches. We believe that application of diverse research approaches will be useful going forward. Further, multiple approaches will be useful in “triangulating” interpretations for which there is some scientific consensus (see Topic H). We challenge fire scientists who do not share similar perspectives on historical fire regimes in particular ecosystems to engage in civil discourse to better understand the reasons for their disagreement, and to objectively communicate those reasons to managers and other stakeholders. We are heartened by the positive outcomes achieved by some previous attempts when small or large groups work together to find common ground.”
Moritz, M.A., C. Topik, C.D. Allen, P.F. Hessburg, P. Morgan, D.C. Odion, T.T. Veblen, and I.M. McCullough. 2018. A Statement of Common Ground Regarding the Role of Wildfire in Forested Landscapes of the Western United States. Fire Research Consensus Working Group Final Report.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Ben. Typos or errors, report them HERE.
In addition to the personnel injured in the helicopter crash, two rescuers became victims
An overview of the crash site and the extraction point for the three victims. Photo from the report.
A report has been released for a helicopter crash in a very remote area of Nevada that started a fire, injured two passengers, and resulted in rescuers being burned over. It happened August 18, 2018 about 10 miles north of Battle Mountain.
One of the passengers called 911 on a cell phone at 1357:
We just got into a helicopter crash…three occupants, all of us are alive and managed to get out…started a big fire, fire is burning all around us right now…one of the guys hit his head pretty hard…you’re gonna have to get a helicopter, it’s the only way to get in here.
Adding to the complexity was the fact that several different agencies and organizations had various responsibilities: Lander County Dispatch, Battle Mountain Volunteer Fire Department, local EMS services, a medical helicopter, Elko Interagency Dispatch Center, and Central Nevada Interagency Dispatch Center.
As might be expected the complex communication chain between the victims and the actual emergency responders created some difficulties, including a delay in extracting the three personnel.
The Facilitated Learning Analysis does not speculate what caused the crash of the helicopter that was transporting two biologists on a chukar survey, but it started a fire, which was named Sheep Creek. The biologists and the pilot self-extracted, one of them with what appeared to be a serious head injury, and they all hiked up a steep slope to a flat bench where they awaited a helicopter. About two hours after the 911 call the three were evacuated from the scene by a firefighting helicopter that was on scene, and possibly also a medical helicopter. The report is not clear about this.
A closer view of the crash site. Photo from the report.
Meanwhile a volunteer fire department Type 4 engine that had responded in a search and rescue mode toward the crash site found that the condition of the road they were traveling on deteriorated from a 2-track road to a 4×4 trail, and finally ended. At that point the fire was closing in on their location. The rookie firefighter and the Fire Chief got out, and leaving their wildland fire personal protective gear in the truck, began to spray water around the vehicle.
From the report:
Within seconds, the fire was all around Pumper- 2. Both individuals were caught outside of the vehicle while trying to spray water. Neither had on their personal protective equipment (PPE) when the burnover occurred. The Chief stated, “We were in a rescue mission, so we had no PPE on.”
During the burnover, the firefighter jumped off the back of Pumper-2, started to run around the vehicle and then took refuge under Pumper-2. “I was burning and screaming and hunkered down underneath behind the rear tires.” After the burnover, the Chief yelled for the firefighter, whom he could not see anywhere. He eventually located the firefighter under Pumper-2.
After sustaining significant burns, both the Chief and firefighter got back into the vehicle, with the Chief driving, continuing down drainage. The fire was behind them as they continued driving through the black towards the bottom of the drainage. Pumper-2 drove through the bottom of the drainage over the rough terrain until getting stuck. Both individuals got out of the vehicle and proceeded to hike up the steep ridge until they got on top of the ridge to establish communications.
At 1646, Lander County Dispatch received a 911 call from the firefighter, who said he and the Chief had been burned. “We need help.” Dispatch was asking questions to establish a location, but the cell phone was breaking up. The firefighter said, “We might need a helicopter because we are on the ridge…in the black…wearing a red shirt and just uphill right of the engine.”
Suppression resources were actively engaged on the wildland fire during the burnover of the Pumper-2. The Incident Commander of the wildland fire was unaware that Pumper-2 was on the fire until well after the burnover occurred. The dispatch centers did not know the location of Pumper-2.
At 1745 the injured firefighters were located and extracted by the air medical and suppression helicopters to awaiting ground medical resources at Battle Mountain Airport. At about 1900, fixed-wing aircraft flew the injured firefighters to the University of Utah Burn Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The FLA points out a number of organizational and human issues that are worthy of consideration. One topic that was not thoroughly addressed in the report was the dispatchers and firefighting personnel at times did not know the exact location of the crash site or the victims, and were not aware that the engine was responding or it’s location following the injuries to the two firefighters.
Even when, eventually, the location of emergency responders will be able to be tracked on an incident, biologists and volunteer firefighters will probably be some of the last personnel to employ this capability on a routine basis.
Wildfire south of Porto, Portugal, September 2, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
The climate warming that we have been seeing is expected to continue along with the increased risk of larger, more suppression-resistant wildfires. Scientists have examined how this will affect fires in Europe up to a 1.5°C rise, which is the not-to-exceed target in the Paris climate agreement. Now a study is complete that examines increases of 1.5, 2, and 3°C warming scenarios. Not surprisingly, it found that the higher the warming level, the larger is the increase of burned area, ranging from ~40% to ~100% across the scenarios. Their results indicate that significant benefits would be obtained if warming were limited to well below 2 °C.
Ensemble mean burned area changes. Burned area changes (%) for a the +1.5 °C case with the stationary model SM (i.e., using Eq. 3), (b) the +1.5 °C case with non-stationary model NSM (i.e., NSM). using Eq. (4), (c) the +2 °C case with SM, (d) the +2 °C case with NSM, (e) the +3 °C case with SM, and f the +3 °C case with NSM. Dots indicate areas where at least 50% of the simulations (1000 bootstrap replications × the ensemble of RCMs) show a statistically significant change and more than 66% agree on the direction of the change. Coloured areas (without dots) indicate that changes are small compared to natural variations, and white regions (if any) indicate that no agreement between the simulations is found. Click to enlarge.
The paper, published in Nature, was written by Marco Turco, Juan José Rosa-Cánovas, Joaquín Bedia, Sonia Jerez, Juan Pedro Montávez, Maria Carmen Llasat, and Antonello Provenzale.
