While performing a stunt on top of a ladder truck during a parade in Tijuana, Mexico, 19 firefighters fell and were injured November 20.
The truck was moving very slowly while firefighters were doing handstands on top of other firefighters. When the truck suddenly stopped, they all fell, with most of them going all the way to the ground. There is one report that first, a firefighter lost his balance at the front of the truck, and the driver hit the brakes so as not to run him over. But very rough Google automatic translations leave some of the details in question.
Below is an excerpt from LaJornada, translated by Google:
Tijuana, 20 November.- The Sunday morning accident was recorded during the parade on November 20 in Tijuana, in which 19 members of the Fire Department were injured.
Firefighters were performing stunts aboard one of its units-above boulevard Paseo de los Heroes, at the height of the Glorieta Independence- when the truck stopped making them off balance.
According to the office manager of the Ministry of Public Security official Jose Luis Lopez, the injured are being treated, none seriously injured, however, two of them have possible fractures collarbone and leg, while others already they were discharged.
When I worked for the U.S. Forest Service, forms that had to be completed after every accident had one section that asked: “How could this accident have been prevented?” Well, I have some ideas about this one.
Firefighters with leaf blowers on the Chestnut Knob Fire. The fire is 6 miles south of Morganton, NC and at the last report grew by 9 acres. InciWeb.
While several large fires in the southern states are still actively spreading, firefighters have made progress on dozens of others.
On Monday the Southern Geographic Area reported 52 large uncontained fires, for a total of 133,146 acres. There were 185 new fires of all sizes for 1,477 acres; most of those were suppressed while still small. That was considered “moderate” initial attack activity.
Firefighting resources assigned in the South:
78 aircraft
83 hand crews
1,011 pieces of equipment
4,476 personnel
Map showing the location of some of the large fires in the southern states. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 2:22 am November 21, 2016.
On Sunday evening four fires reported 24-hour growth of more than 100 acres:
Rock Mountain Fire
Map of the perimeter of the Rock Mountain Fire at 6 p.m. ET November 20, 2016.
The Rock Mountain Fire that started about 10 miles northwest of Clayton Georgia has spread north into North Carolina. At the last report it had burned 11,287 acres, an increase of 862 acres. On Sunday it was very active, moving through the hardwood leaf litter in all directions at a rate of about one mile each day. Evacuations are still in place for Dream Catcher Cove north of Tate City, Georgia.
On Saturday strong winds pushed the blaze across the Appalachian Trail on the north end of the fire. Winds blowing leaves still falling from trees are creating problems for firefighters, covering existing firelines and causing some areas to re-burn.
East Miller Cove
The East Miller Cove Fire is just east of Walland, Tennessee, 16 miles south of Knoxville. On Sunday evening the incident management team reported it had burned 1,492 acres, an increase of 1,292 acres, threatening 100 structures north of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Big Branch
The Big Branch Fire is in southeast Kentucky three miles south of Roxana and five miles northeast of Cumberland. It has burned 625 acres, an increase of 175 acres.
Oakwood 1 Fire
This fire is in Arkansas, listed at 468 acres, an increase of 278. No other information is available.
A firefighter on the Chestnut Knob Fire. InciWeb.
For the latest articles at Wildfire Today about how smoke from the wildfires is affecting various locations in the South, check out the articles tagged “smoke”.
Since at least 1972 there have been investigations, lawsuits, and consent decrees that were spawned from sexual misconduct and discrimination against women in the U.S. Forest Service. A significant portion of it originated within the fire management organization. In spite of the attention this issue draws at somewhat regular intervals it is difficult to detect a great deal of long term improvement.
But it is not confined to the USFS. In a September 22 hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, two National Park Service employees testified as “whistleblowers”, possibly putting their careers in jeopardy and risking retaliation as they described allegations of sexual harassment and a lack of accountability.
One of them was Kelly Martin, Yosemite National Park’s Chief of Fire and Aviation Management, who has had a 32-year career with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. She described a hostile work environment in Yosemite and the sexual harassment she was exposed to while working for the USFS. Six days later the Superintendent at Yosemite announced his retirement.
Members of that House Committee and other Senators and Congresspersons, a total of 13, signed a letter on November 10 requesting that Phyllis K. Fong, the Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General, conduct an audit of the USFS to find out if progress has been made after allegations surfaced in 2014 of “sexual misconduct and retaliation in Region 5 [California] of the FS”. At that time the IG investigated and found that:
The Forest Service is making progress and is focused on improving the environment of its workplace.
Below is an excerpt from the November 10 letter:
In addition, given the recent findings of rampant sexual harassment in the Department of the Interior National Park Service, now is an appropriate time to consider whether the Forest Service’s improvements have succeeded in improving the workplace environment. If the new procedures implemented by the FS have been successful, they may serve as a model for other federal agencies. If the new procedures have not been successful, it is critical that they be modified as soon as possible.
In March of this year the Huffington Post published a stunning article outlining a culture of sexual harassment at Grand Canyon National Park, as well as other examples in the USFS. The author, Kathryn Joyce, described numerous disturbing examples of female employees, including a wildland firefighter, being aggressively degraded and humiliated with little if any repercussions for the assailant. In some cases the victims were fired.
And yesterday, November 20, Darryl Fears of the Washington Post wrote about similar difficulties female firefighters in the federal government and other organizations are faced with. The author quotes several women, including Katie Sauerbrey of the Nature Conservancy who embeds with the Forest Service and the National Park Service when needed:
I know a lot of women who have left fire because they did not feel supported or felt there was no room for them to grow. It’s sad for me to see women who have that desire who don’t continue because of the culture. It’s hard to describe the passion people have for this job. There’s no other job I’d rather be in.
And there is at least one other encouraging sign. Ms. Martin, the Chief of Fire and Aviation Management at Yosemite who testified before the House Committee, told Wildfire Today on September 30, two days after the Park’s Superintendent announced his retirement:
The thing that is surprising is that post my testimony our Regional and National offices, our leadership in the Park Service, is taking the allegations of the hostile work environment complaints seriously. They have also dispatched the Department of the Interior’s Office of Inspector General to complete additional interviews. It sounds as if, I don’t know this for sure, that additional people are willing to come forward based upon my testimony, but they still fear retaliation.
Above: the fatality site in Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park honoring the 19 firefighters. Arizona State Parks photo.
A new state park that honors the 19 firefighters who were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire is set to open to the public on November 30, 2016.
On June 30, 2013 the Granite Mountain Hotshots were fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire near Yarnell, Arizona, 90 miles northwest of Phoenix. A passing thunderstorm created very strong outflow winds that suddenly changed the direction the fire was spreading, forcing it to make a right turn. The fire raced toward 19 men on the crew, trapping and killing them in a box canyon.
A bench at Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park. Photo by Arizona State Parks.
Legislation appropriated funds to purchase the 308 acres of land on June 30, 2015. The park came to life thanks to public donations, volunteers, staff from Arizona State Parks, and a generous donation from the Arizona Public Service Foundation.
From the trailhead on Highway 89 approximately two miles west of Yarnell, hiking 2.85 miles up a steep slope then along a ridge will take the visitor to an observation deck overlooking the fatality site. Another .75 mile downhill and you will be at the location where the Hotshots deployed their fire shelters. There is an approximate 1,200 foot elevation gain.
Along the trail are 19 stone plaques honoring each of the fallen Granite Mountain Hotshots and six interpretive signs that tell their story. At the end of the trail steel and stones now surround the barren earth to protect and preserve the area where the hotshots bravely made their last stand. A quiet path and benches offer a space to reflect.
The 19 firefighters that were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
“The families and the communities of Prescott and Yarnell have worked hand-in-hand with the state to develop Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park,” said Sue Black, Executive Director of Arizona State Parks. “We truly want the memorial to be a place for healing and to honor the lives and legacy of 19 hotshots.”
A dedication ceremony for family members and involved officials is scheduled for November 29, and the park will open to the public the following day.
The National Weather Service has posted Red Flag Warnings or Fire Weather Watches for areas in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland.
VIRGINIA: Relative humidity minimums ranging in the upper 20%s to low 40%s. NW wind 10-20 mph, gusts to 40. High wind advisory for the Southern Blue Ridge: NW Gusts 30-60 mph. GEORGIA: RH minimums low teens to low 20%s, NW winds 10-20 mph, gusts to 25. FLORIDA: Western Panhandle: Long duration teens to low 20%s RH mins. Wind moderately gusty to 18 mph. A few Central and Southwest Coastal Counties: Min RH low 20%s, North wind 8 to 12 mph. lowering during the day. Similar conditions expected Monday.
The map was current as of 9:05 a.m. MT on Sunday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps.
They paddled furiously through two to three-foot waves in the smoke-created darkness looking for a fire shelter deployment site.
This video is a must-see.
It is the enthralling story of how six U.S. Forest Service employees had near misses and entrapments in 2011 on the Pagami Creek Fire within the Superior National Forest in Minnesota.
The video is well done, with the wilderness rangers telling in their own words, very eloquently, how they fled in their canoes from the fire that had been managed, rather than suppressed, for 25 days, until it ran 16 miles on September 12, eventually consuming over 92,000 acres of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. If the video was a book I’d say you would not be able to put it down.
It tells how the USFS employees were caught out in front of the rapidly spreading fire in canoes while trying to evacuate the recreating public from the area. At one point when they were fleeing the fire, the smoke was so thick they could not see the fronts of their canoes.
Pagami Creek Fire. USFS photo.
Two people bailed out of a canoe to take refuge in the cold water, deploying a single fire shelter over their heads as they floated away from the canoe, suspended by their life jackets.
Two others were flown out at the last minute by a float plane when the pilot somehow found a hole in the smoke and was able to find them, land on the lake, and extract them. (These two were not mentioned in the video.)
Four people paddled furiously in the strong winds, dense smoke, darkness, and two to three-foot waves. Unable to find a fire shelter deployment site on the shore and heavily forested islands, the four finally located a small, one-eighth acre barren island where they climbed inside their shelters as they were being pounded with burning embers.
