Above: Extreme temperatures in Southern California Tuesday afternoon, October 24, 2017.
(Originally published at 2:05 p.m. PDT October 24, 2017)
Weather conditions appear conducive to wildland fires in Southern California today. The temperature even reached 96 degrees on San Clemente Island, and triple digits in some inland areas. Meanwhile, it’s only 93 in Phoenix.
Weather conditions at 2:27 p.m. PDT October 24, 2017 in Southern California.Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches , October 24, 2017.
Traffic sits at a stand still on the 210 east at the 15 as firefighters battle a brush fire northwest of the interchange. pic.twitter.com/tNmq90E1kR
This film can be a learning opportunity for firefighters.
Mike Olbinski spent months putting together these time-lapse videos of storms, mostly in Arizona.
I hope wildland firefighters find this interesting, informative, and see it as a learning tool. Keep in mind that it was a storm with very strong outflow winds that caused the fire behavior leading to the deaths of 19 firefighters in Arizona on June 30, 2013.
The film includes shots of impressive outflow winds — examples are at 2:08 and 4:45. It is rare to see this enormous threat to firefighters so graphically illustrated.
The video and text below are from Mr. Olbinski’s Vimeo page.
Early on this summer when I found myself down by Santa Rosa, AZ watching a gorgeous hail core fall on the stunning desert landscape, and then later that day staring at a haboob with a stacked shelf cloud above it near the border of Mexico, I had a feeling it would be a unique monsoon. It’s funny how every year is different. That’s the beauty of chasing the summer storm season out here in the desert southwest. You never know what’s going to happen or what you might see.
This year I ventured far and wide. Phoenix never saw a good dust storm all summer, but I still was able to capture a few good ones in southwest portions of the state. The cover photo for this film was halfway to Yuma standing in the middle of Interstate 8 watching an ominous wall of dust roll down the highway towards me with lightning flashing behind it. It was an incredible moment.
One bonus this summer was a few successful chases up at the Grand Canyon. Finally. A couple of gorgeous sunsets, rain dumping into the Canyon, lightning at night, Milky Way…it all worked out and I’m stoked for the footage I captured there that made it into this film. I also ventured over into New Mexico twice to chase some wonderful, plains-like structure to end the monsoon this year.
All told I covered about 13,000 miles and chased as far west as Desert Center, CA, as far east as Wilna, NM and as far north as Tonelea, AZ. And two great storms down in Organ Pipe National Monument, which is only about 10 miles from Mexico.
I loved what I saw this year. It felt so unique. I found myself submerged in cacti and desert flora a few times with stunning light and structure. Explored places in New Mexico I hadn’t seen before. Smiled at the gasps of amazement from the crowds at the Canyon when a lightning bolt would strike. Finally discovered that the Santa Rosa area is a hotbed for supercell activity. And while it didn’t make it on time-lapse, I captured a brief tornado over downtown Phoenix!
So…the film. So much effort and energy went into it. I shot over 110,000 frames of time-lapse and likely only half of it ended up in the final cut. The editing has taken me weeks and even right up until Monday evening I was still fixing and tweaking. The music is all custom, thanks to the amazing work of Peter Nanasi. PLEASE check out his website and buy his albums! I love how we work together to develop a track that seems to fit exactly with the clips I capture. I am so incredibly blessed that his work crossed my path.
A quick thank-you to the workshop guests I had this summer. You guys were amazing troopers, staying out to all hours and being around for some awesome storms. In fact, I am not sure that I would have even been on the shelf cloud in the final scene of this film if it hadn’t been for my workshop. Thank you, thank you!
As always though, what made it fun was sharing a lot of it with my kiddos. They made the trip up to the Grand Canyon with me once and it was such a blast of an experience. Asher joined me in New Mexico one day, just he and I, and I got to see his face light up when he captured his first ever lightning strike on video on his little iPad.
To my wife Jina…we’ve come a long, long way since we started this storm chasing journey years ago. It’s not been easy all the time, especially with me being on the road so much between April and October these days. But we’ve slowly figured things out and I’m unbelievably grateful to you for your support and belief in what we’re doing together.
To everyone else…thank you for your continued support of my work. I am constantly blown-away at the kindness that you show to me.
And now…I hope you enjoy this film.
Technical Details:
I used two Canon 5DSR’s along with a Canon 11-24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 135mm and Sigma Art 50mm. Manfrotto tripods. The final product was edited in Lightroom with LR Timelapse, After Effects and Premiere Pro.
Above: Firefighter working on a smoky wildfire at Buffalo Gap, South Dakota, March 3, 2016.
(Originally published at 10 p.m. MDT October 23, 2017)
This report by NBC News about the rising rates of cancer among firefighters exclusively shows the structural side of the job. Obviously they are exposed to different toxins than their wildland brothers, so it is unknown how much the data crosses over. One of the big differences between the two disciplines is that for structure and vehicle fires a breathing apparatus (BA) is always available. Firefighters on wildland fires NEVER have access to BAs, which only last for minutes, while they can be exposed to smoke for most of their shifts which on large fires are typically up to 16 hours. And wildland firefighters rarely have the opportunity to, as the video recommends, change clothes and shower within an hour after exposure.
In 2010 we began calling for the wildland fire agencies to conduct a study led by medical doctors and epidemiologists to evaluate the short and long term effects of smoke on firefighters. The federal agencies that should take the lead on this are the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service. State agencies with significant numbers of wildland firefighters need to also be involved.
It is possible that the agencies that employ firefighters do not want to expose the facts about the dangers of smoke. It could cost them money to change their practices, provide a safer workplace, and cover the costs of presumptive illnesses.
“On Wednesday [March 15, 2017] a Montana legislative committee voted down a bill that would have provided benefits for firefighters who developed a lung disease on the job. Republican Mark Noland of Bigfork said firefighters “know what they’re doing”, and:
That is their profession, that is what they chose, and we do not want to, you know, slight them in any way, shape or form, but it is something they’re going into with their eyes wide open.
That is asinine, ridiculous, reprehensible, and irresponsible.
Rep. Mark Noland of Bigfork, MT.
He is assuming that when firefighters began their careers they knew there was a good chance they would damage their lungs. If that is common knowledge now, or was 20 years ago when the firefighter signed up, why haven’t the employers already established coverage for presumptive diseases? There is a great deal we do not know about the effects of breathing contaminated air on structure, vehicle, and wildland fires.
Many agencies and government bodies have already established a list of presumptive diseases that will enable health coverage for firefighters. For example the British Columbia government recognizes at least nine “presumptive cancers” among firefighters, including leukemia, testicular cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, bladder cancer, ureter cancer, colorectal cancer, and non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma.
The Montana legislation would have only covered one of these nine illnesses.
When a person enlists in the military and they come home injured or permanently disabled, should we ignore them, saying they knew what they were getting into? Their “eyes were wide open”? How is treating firefighters injured on the job different? One could argue that they are both defending and protecting our homeland; one of them actually IN our homeland while the other may have been on the other side of the world.” [Update October 23, 2017: for example in an African country, Niger, many Americans have never heard of].
Above: A screen grab from drone footage uploaded October 11 of fire damage in Santa Rosa, California. Since then most of the numbers of lives and homes lost have about doubled. Los Angeles Times.
(Originally published at 1:48 p.m. MDT October 22, 2017)
Even many people who were not physically affected by the recent disastrous wildfires in Northern California are still stunned by what happened beginning the night of October 8 when very strong winds, hurricane force in some locations, pushed incredibly powerful fires through neighborhood after neighborhood.
The latest preliminary data reveals that four of the fires have found places in the list of 20 most destructive fires in California history when measured by the number of structures destroyed. Those four fires, Tubbs, Nuns, Atlas, and Redwood Valley accounted for the destruction of over 7,700 homes, commercial buildings, sheds, garages, and barns. Two of the three largest wildfires have occurred in the last four years.
Those who lost their possessions and homes are going to be hard pressed to find places to live for the next year or two. The state already has a severe housing shortage.
But what comes next in the big picture? People wring their hands and send thoughts and prayers. Is that enough? Most accidents and disasters provide a teaching moment. Will this one be squandered like so many times before after floods, hurricanes, mass shootings, and wildfires? Mentally disabled people accumulate assault rifles and homes are replaced in flood, fire, and hurricane-prone zones. Rinse and repeat.
…The state requires that new buildings in zones deemed by the state to be at high risk of fire be made with fire-resistant materials, such as tile roofs. The state and local governments should also consider requiring older homes and buildings in high-risk zones to be retrofitted.
Unfortunately, urban areas often weren’t included by the state in its designated high-risk zones because, well, nobody expected a wildfire to sweep through a city. State officials are now revising the maps, and the fires around Santa Rosa must surely be a wake-up call that suburbia has to be made more fire resistant.
The National Weather Service has issued Red Flag Warnings in areas within California, Nevada, and Arizona for high temperatures, low humidity, and gusty winds.
The map was current as of 9:15 a.m. MDT on Saturday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts.
