News and opinion about wildland fire
The precipitation that is occurring over portions of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, which is expected to continue into Tuesday, will most likely slow the large wildfires in those areas.
Another benefit is the forecast for smoke in the Northwest is greatly reduced, but the fires in Northern California are still producing large quantities.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized3 Comments on Holy Fire spots across fireline in Southern California (Originally published at 1:09 p.m. PDT August 27, 2018)
The Holy Fire has been relatively quiet for the last 12 days, with the reported size of 22,986 acres remaining the same since August 15.
But that changed today when a spot fire ignited across the fireline and once again threatened the numerous electronic sites at Santiago Peak. Those facilities supply many of the television, radio, and communications links for the greater Los Angeles area, along with other sites in the area.
The fire originally started August 6 near Holy Jim Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains southeast of Los Angeles.
The #HolyFire flareup has slopped outside of containment lines and has grown to 40 acres. 5 air tankers and 4 helicopters have been assigned. Ground resources will be utilized when it is safe to do so.
— Cleveland NF (@ClevelandNF) August 27, 2018
The fire was burning quiet well, as you can see in these photos, but by noon or 12:30 p.m. local time the intensity had decreased, due in part to drops by air tankers and helicopters.
These images were captured from live cameras on Santiago Peak, HPWREN and KWAVE.
(To see all of the articles on Wildfire Today about the Holy Fire, including the most recent, click HERE.)
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized5 Comments on After one month the Ranch Fire has burned over 400,000 acres It is one of four megafires currently burning in the U.S., all larger than 100,000 acres
(Originally published at 9:32 a.m. PDT August 27, 2018)
The Ranch Fire started east of Ukiah, California a month ago on July 27, 2018. About two weeks later it broke the previous record for the largest in California’s recorded history, the 281,893 acres attributed to last December’s Thomas Fire near Santa Barbara. Today CAL FIRE said the Ranch Fire has grown to 402,468 acres, exceeding by 120,575 acres the record set only eight months earlier. The other fire in the Complex is the 49,920-acre River Fire which has not spread for a couple of weeks.
Firefighters are making progress on the Ranch Fire after having backed off on the north and northeast sides to ignite backfires from dirt roads and dozer lines on ridge tops in the Mendocino National Forest. The rest of the fire is looking pretty good, so if this tactic is successful and the weather cooperates it would be a big step toward stopping the spread.
(To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Mendocino Complex of Fires, including the most recent, click HERE.)
A couple of decades ago it was rare for a fire outside of Alaska to exceed the threshold to become what we call a megafire, 100,000 acres. Now we seem to have multiple megafires each year. Presently there are three others that are presently active in the lower 48 states:
Fire seasons are longer. The U.S. Forest Service has abandoned the term, preferring “fire year” instead. The Thomas Fire broke the previous record in December. DECEMBER! Megafires are not supposed to occur in the dead of winter.
Not only do the fires burn vegetation, destroy homes, change the landscape, require evacuations, disrupt lives, and cause massive air pollution problems, they also kill. Just on the megafires in California this year eight people have died, four firefighters, a power company employee, and three other civilians.
The article was revised to correct the number of fatalities on the two megafires in California this year.
I write about wildland firefighting through the lens of having done the job in California and other regions for several decades. So it is interesting to read how it is perceived by a highly respected author whose specialty is entirely different.
Peter King has covered sports for almost 40 years and has been named National Sportswriter of the Year three times. Every week he publishes a lengthly article analyzing professional football in depth. When he wrote for Sports Illustrated the column was named Monday Morning Quarterback, but after his recent move to NBC Sports it was retitled Football Morning in America.
Mr. King probably does not know that wildland firefighters have been called “tactical athletes”, but in his August 20 column he briefly digressed to mention wildland firefighting and honor a firefighter who was killed by a falling tree on the Mendocino Complex of Fires in Northern California:
“…These are my other thoughts of the week:
“a. Story of the Week: Lizzie Johnson and Sarah Ravani of the San Francisco Chronicle on something too many of us not in the West don’t pay enough attention to—the amazing sacrifices fire fighters make to try to keep huge swaths of the western states from burning down.
“b. Thank you for your sacrifice, Matthew Burchett. Six fire fighters killed in California in this year alone.
“c. Via the fine reporting of Johnson and Ravani, this is how incident commander Sean Cavanaugh, on the front line of the fire, began his morning briefing the next day:
“Hey good morning,” Kavanaugh said at the group briefing. “As many of you are aware, last night we had a tragic incident affect one of our fellow firefighters. A lot of folks were affected by it, and a lot of folks will continue to be affected by it. So I want to start this meeting with a moment of silence.”
“For 22 seconds, no one spoke.
“d. Chills.”
(end of excerpt)
UPDATE: shortly after writing this article I replied to one of Mr. King’s tweets, saying, “Thank you for mentioning wildland firefighters in your Aug 20 FMIA column. Did you know that they have been called “tactical athletes”? Within minutes he replied back.
It is the least any of us can do for their immensely important work. Please tell them they are greatly admired. https://t.co/jT7wyr1rJL
— Peter King (@peter_king) August 26, 2018
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Satellite photo shows smoke from wildfires Six states have Red Flag Warnings in effect, August 26, 2018
The NASA satellite photo above taken August 25, 2018 shows heat (in red) and smoke created by the fires in parts of California, Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho. Cloud cover in Washington and Northern Oregon made it impossible to see the fires in those areas.
Six states have Red Flag Warnings (red areas) in effect for August 26, 2018.
On Sunday forecasters expect wildfire smoke to be transported east or northeast in most areas.
The company throttled the data being used by a Santa Clara Fire Department Command and Control vehicle that was fighting the Mendocino Complex of Fires
When executives from Verizon were summoned to California’s capitol Friday to sit for a tongue lashing by an Assembly Committee, the company announced that just hours before, they had changed their policy about limited vs. “unlimited” data for cell phone accounts used by emergency first responders. They had attracted an enormous amount of criticism after the Verizon account used by a Command and Control vehicle working on the Mendocino Complex of Fires in Northern California was victim to having their data rate reduced to 1/200th of their regular rate.
According to The Verge:
The company says it has since removed all speed cap restrictions for first responders on the West Coast and in Hawaii, with the plan to continue doing so during future disasters. Verizon will also launch a new service plan next week that’ll cater to first responders and will feature unlimited data with no caps on mobile solutions. That plan will include priority access.
The Command and Control vehicle’s primary function is to track, organize, and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed. OES 5262 relies heavily on the internet to do near-real-time resource tracking.
The Santa Clara Fire Department that operates OES 5262 had a Verizon plan advertised as having “unlimited data”. However the fine print in the contract allowed Verizon to throttle the Fire Department’s data to a fraction of the regular rate after a limit was reached.
While fighting the fire, one of the captains operating the equipment complained to Verizon that the command and control unit had been so hobbled that “it has no meaningful functionality”. The battle with the fire morphed into a fight with Verizon as fire department personnel fought with the company about restoring their “unlimited” data rate. Eventually after getting various sections in Verizon and the Fire Department involved, the cell phone plan in OES 5262 was upgraded to a more expensive plan that had more capability.
In a perfect world the fire department might have known in advance that their “unlimited data” was a gross deception by Verizon and could have switched to a more expensive plan that perhaps didn’t have such severe throttling issues. Or, Verizon would not have described the plan as unlimited, since it wasn’t. Or, Verizon could have un-throttled them very quickly after receiving the department’s first complaint and worked out the details later. But none of that happened.
On August 22 in our article about the throttling, we wrote:
The intentionally misleading use of the term “unlimited” by the four cell phone carriers is part of the problem here. The FCC and the Federal Trade Commission should do their job and stop this practice.
The issue has also fired up politicians in Washington. In a letter to the FTC signed August 24 by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and 12 other representatives, they wrote.
…Unfortunately, with its repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order, the FCC has abdicated its jurisdiction over broadband communications and walked away from protecting consumers, including public safety agencies. We, therefore, call on the FTC to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive acts or practices stemming from this incident.
It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers, but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can’t afford to wait a moment longer. The FTC must investigate whether Verizon and other communications companies are being unfair or deceptive in the services they’re offering to public safety entities, and if so, to determine what remedies are appropriate to ensure our first responders have adequate service when lives are on the line.
