President Michelle Bachelet declared “a catastrophe zone and a state of emergency in the areas affected by the fires”.
Above: the red dots represent heat at fires in Chile and Argentina detected by a satellite January 21, 2017. NASA photo.
As Chile experiences its largest siege of wildfires in a decade the President has taken steps to enable the military to assist firefighters. Many fires are burning near the capital, Santiago, and within 200 miles south of the city.
More than a dozen blazes have burned almost 50,000 hectares (123,000 acres). Reuters reported that the largest has consumed 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) 87 miles south of Santiago.
The video below is from CHV News. It is in Spanish, but has several minutes of video of the fires. Google translated the title and description: “37 fire assets affect the south central zone of Chile – CHV NEWS -President Bachelet announced this day that international aid was requested, as the outbreaks do not provide.”
Yarnell Hill Fire at 7:30 p.m. MST, June 29, 2013, approximately 21 hours before the 19 fatalities. Photo by ATGS Rory Collins, Oregon Department of Forestry.
A former hotshot superintendent is suing the Department of Agriculture to get information the U.S. Forest Service so far has not released about the Yarnell Hill Fire. On June 30, 2013, 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew were entrapped and killed on the fire near Yarnell, Arizona.
Fred Schoeffler is seeking recordings or transcripts of radio transmissions with aircraft that were working on the fire.
Below is an excerpt from an article in the Republic:
Schoeffler, a former hotshot supervisor in Payson for 26 years, alleges that the Forest Service answered his Freedom of Information Act request by claiming they “did not find any responsive records.” Wildfire officials previously have acknowledged the study was underway, and Schoeffler’s complaint notes that air-to-ground voices of those taking part are audible in Forest Service videos released after the fire.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Jeff and Dick.
Gizmodo is reporting that all bureaus in the Department of Interior, including the U.S. Park Service, have been banned from using Twitter. This may or may not be related to a retweet by the NPS on Friday that showed pictures of the crowds at the 2009 and 2017 Presidential inaugurations.
From Gizmodo. Click to enlarge.
Gizmodo said the text below is from an internal NPS email:
All:
We have received direction from the Department through [the Washington Support Office] that directs all [Department of Interior] bureaus to immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice.
PWR parks that use Twitter as part of their crisis communications plans need to alter their contingency plans to accommodate this requirement. Please ensure all scheduled posts are deleted and automated cross-platform social media connections to your twitter accounts are severed. The expectation is that there will be absolutely no posts to Twitter.
In summary, this Twitter stand down means we will cease use of Twitter immediately. However, there is no need to suspend or delete government accounts until directed.
This does not affect use of other approved social media platforms. We expect further guidance to come next week and we will share accordingly.
Thanks for your help!
Presumably this ban includes messages about road conditions and real time information about fires and other emergencies.
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UPDATE at 10 a.m. MT January 22,2017: As the submitted comments began to veer away from the decision to ban tweets that could include important, urgent information for citizens, and the conversation moved into the political realm, we closed comments for this article.
These can be effective as long as the wind is at the firefighter’s back. If it is not, embers can be lifted and then blown across the fireline, spreading the fire.
As the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources conducted a hearing to consider the nomination of Montana Representative Ryan Zinke to be the new Secretary of the Interior, Smokey Bear became an issue.
Today the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources conducted a hearing to consider the nomination of Montana Representative Ryan Zinke to be the new Secretary of the Interior. I watched a portion of it and two items caught my attention.
Mr. Zinke said in no uncertain terms that he was against turning over federal land to states or other organizations. In fact it has been reported that he resigned from the Republican National Committee this summer when they insisted on making land divestiture a part of their platform.
The other issue was the Chimney Tops 2 Fire that in November burned from Great Smoky Mountains National Park into Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We captured this 3-minute portion of the hearing in the video above. The fire killed 14 people and destroyed 2,013 homes and 53 commercial structures. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander wanted assurance from Mr. Zinke that he would commit to “paying close attention” to a scheduled review of the incident “so that we can see if there are any lessons to be learned for the future”. Mr. Zinke said, “Senator, I will absolutely commit to that.”
Mr. Alexander also made a pitch to increase the funding for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, arguing that the agreement when the land bought by the people and given to the federal government stipulated that entrance fees could not be charged. He said Yellowstone NP has half as many visitors as Smoky MNP but twice the budget. The Senator did not mention that Yellowstone is almost four times as large, 522,427 acres vs. 2,219,791 acres
After the hearing concludes a video recording of the entire event will be available at the Committee’s website.
