Approximately 30 air miles northwest of Wichita, Kansas
5 p.m. CT March 5, 2022
The red squares represent the approximate location of heat detected by a satellite at the Cottonwood Complex of fires, 1:12 p.m. CT March 5, 2022. The fire is east of Hutchinson, Kansas.
A wildfire that was reported east of Hutchinson, Kansas at about 12:30 p.m. Saturday has prompted evacuations. It started in the 800 block of Willison Road in Reno County and later spread east into Harvey County.
From The Hutchinson News:
“With Catastrophic Fire Danger and wind gusts upwards of 40 mph, firefighters had their hands full on arrival,” said Chief Doug Hanen, chief of operations for the Hutchinson Fire Department, at a 4:30 p.m. press briefing. “Units immediately engaged in structure protection and assisting residents in evacuating.”
The fire eventually crossed Buhler Road and spread rapidly through the Cottonwood Hills Golf Course, Hanen said. Winds then shifted to the west, making multiple fire fronts.
In the area of Fourth Avenue and Palamino Road, fire crews rescued several people from their homes or cars, but some residents also refused to evacuate.
Fire east of Hutchinson, Kansas, at 1:55 p.m March 5, 2022. Image from First National Bank-Hutchinson camera.
There are reports that multiple homes were damaged or destroyed and several residents suffered burns.
The Kansas Forest Service mobilized an air tanker, Tanker 95, a privately owned S-2 formerly operated by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is now based in Kansas.
Air Tanker 95, an S-2, comes in for reloading with water after battling the Cottonwood Complex of fires east of Hutchinson, KS, March 5, 2022. Image by Heath Hensley.
The Kansas Division of Emergency Management has activated two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the Kansas Army National Guard to assist firefighters beginning Sunday. The helicopters will have external water buckets.
Gov. Laura Kelly issued a verbal declaration of disaster emergency March 3, due to the potential for wildland fires in the state on Friday and Saturday. The declaration allows the state to preposition aerial firefighting assets from the Kansas Forest Service for a quicker response to any fires that may begin.
The video below shows Tanker 95 arriving to be reloaded with water. Smoke from the fire can be seen in the background.
The area is under a Red Flag Warning on Saturday. Strong winds were predicted to come out of the west at 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 50 mph, with relative humidity as low as 10 to 15 percent.
Red Flag Warnings, March 5, 2022. NWS.
On February 8 another fire in the same general area ran for about two miles pushed by winds gusting at more than 30 mph. Shortly after it started Fire Marshal Michael Cain was investigating to determine if it was caused by embers from some of the 75 brush piles that were ignited on private land.
A fire on the east side of Panama City, Florida prompted the evacuation of about 600 homes, according to the Florida Forest Service (FFS). As of Friday evening the Adkins Avenue Fire had burned 1,400 acres in Bay County between U.S. 231 and Tram Road, west of North Star Avenue. The blaze is fueled by vegetation that was affected by Hurricane Michael in 2018.
Friday night the FFS reported that two structures have been destroyed and another 12 were damaged.
Helicopter drops water on the Adkins Avenue Fire. Photo: Bay County Emergency Services.
At least 200 personnel are committed to the fire including 12 tractor plows and multiple helicopters along with fire personnel from local and county departments.
Red Flag Warnings, March 5, 2022. NWS.
The area is under a Red Flag Warning until Saturday evening for 10 to 15 mph southeast winds gusting to 25 mph with relative humidity of 25 to 45 percent.
Tamarack Fire crosses Hwy. 395 July 22, 2021. IMT photo.
Yesterday two US Congressmen, Tom McClintock (CA-04) and Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), introduced legislation directing the U.S. Forest Service to immediately suppress wildfires on National Forest System.
H.R. 6903 requires that “to the extent practicable, use all available resources to carry out wildfire suppression with the purpose of extinguishing wildfires detected on National Forest System lands not later than 24 hours after such a wildfire is detected.”
It further states, the Forest Service “may only use fire as a resource management tool if the fire is a prescribed fire that complies with applicable law and regulations; and may only initiate a backfire or burnout during a wildfire by order of the responsible incident commander.”
It does not stop there. If a wildfire is used as a resource management tool or if a backfire or burnout was not authorized by the incident commander, the bill stipulates that “any person aggrieved by a violation [of those two requirements] may bring a civil action against the United States…”
There have been a number of fires in the last couple of years that received a lot of criticism for a lack of suppressing them or for adopting a strategy of back off and burn out thousands of acres rather than construct direct fire line.
The most notorious initially unattacked fire recently was the Tamarack Fire near Markleeville, CA. It started as a single tree on July 4, 2021 and was monitored but not suppressed for 13 days while it was very small until it suddenly grew very large. It burned at least 15 structures and more than 67,000 acres as it ran from California into Nevada jumping Highway 395 and prompting the evacuation of 2,000 people.
In a Congressional committee hearing September 29, 2021 Randy Moore the new Chief of the U.S. Forest Service was asked several questions by Rep. LaMalfa, including about the Tamarack Fire. The Chief said that after the fire started the Forest Service “spiked out a small crew to monitor” the fire. If that was the case, they apparently took no action, because the USFS reported on July 10 that it was 0.25 acre, they were not going to insert crews due to safety concerns, and it “posed no threat to the public, infrastructure, or resource values.” The Chief gave grossly incorrect information about the number of fire personnel that were assigned to fires at that time and the number of large uncontained fires, in both cases inflating the numbers by factors of three or four. That appeared to be justification for not attacking the fire — a shortage of firefighters. However, a quarter-acre fire would only need a handful of personnel for a day or two. On July 23 the incident reported that 1,353 personnel were assigned.
Rep. LaMalfa tried to get the Chief to say the Forest Service is committed to aggressive initial attack on new fires, but he preferred to use the term “aggressive forest management.” (He later said that they already do aggressive initial attack.)
If the name Tom McClintock sounds familiar, he was the Representative who when asked about the difficulties in recruiting and retaining wildland firefighters last July, said,”Wildfire firefighting is hot, miserable work, but it is not skilled labor.”
Our take
“Fire science is not rocket science—it’s way more complicated.”
Robert Essenhigh, Professor Emeritus, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Ohio State University.
It is possible to manage a fire while not suppressing it, but is extremely difficult to do successfully. It takes smart, very experienced firefighters who are able to play the “what if” game, as firefighting legend Rick Gale used to say. You have to anticipate what COULD happen, and have a plan in your pocket for how to mitigate it before or after it happens, without significant unpleasant repercussions. I never heard him use the term, but in other words, consider the second and third order effects.
I have heard people say that we have too much fuel because fires have been suppressed, so this means we should greatly ramp up the use of less than full suppression fires. Many of those folks do not have a complete understanding of the full complexities.
As a member of an interagency incident management team whose sole duty was to manage less than full suppression wildfires, I learned that it is extremely difficult to allow a wildfire to successfully burn for weeks or months with little or no suppression. It requires highly skilled and long-experienced firefighters in key positions to make it work. Another ingredient that is necessary, which can’t be entered on a Resource Request, is luck. All it takes is one or two days of very strong winds and you can find yourself in a nightmare scenario. A less than full suppression fire which goes on for months will probably encounter at least one wind event. After the fire quadruples in size, changing the strategy to suppression is not a situation an Agency Administrator wants to find themselves in.
Selecting this strategy at the beginning or even the middle of the fire season is, to put it bluntly in clear text, stupid. Especially when the fuels are extremely dry. It would make more sense four to six weeks before the average date of a Season Ending Event brought on by heavy rain or snow. However as we have seen in recent years, “average” conditions are not a sure thing.
Prescribed fire — Yes
While encouraging widespread use of less than full suppression fires is not the the best solution, we can and should, greatly increase the use of prescribed fire. To pick a number out of the air, escalate it by a factor of 10. And, let’s be careful about igniting large expanses of grass or prairie just to hit a number where you can burn for $5 an acre. Make it meaningful, where it is needed.
Firefighters are making good progress on the Jim Fire in the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California. On Thursday several air tankers and helicopters were assisting firefighters. There has been no mention of the fire spreading any more Thursday.
There has been no reported change in the size, and is still 553 acres.
The cause of the fire is officially still under investigation, but the Desert Sun reported that U.S. Marines were working with explosives in the general area about the time the fire broke out.
From the Sun:
Marine engineers from Camp Pendleton were in the area using explosives to demolish old dams, authorities said, as part of a long-running project to restore creek habitat for steelhead trout.
“There was a crew working in the area yesterday, but the fire is still under investigation,” said Nathan Judy, spokesperson for the Cleveland National Forest. “Forest Service law enforcement will be headed into that area to do the investigation.”
The video below from the FIRIS aircraft shows an air tanker dropping, and using infrared, the amount of heat remaining on the fire.
OCFA’s FIRIS Intel 12 on the Jim Incident showing retardant dropping on the Mike/Zulu Divisions. pic.twitter.com/7KBDccKmZO
The Jim Fire that started near Holy Jim Canyon spread very little after the late afternoon on Wednesday. The Cleveland National Forest said Thursday morning it has burned 553 acres. Today crews will continue to build hand and dozer lines around the fire and utilize water-dropping helicopters to assist with any remaining hotspots. Air tankers will be on standby to respond if needed.
It began in Orange County in Southern California Wednesday morning and burned uphill and north across the North Main Divide Truck Trail and into Riverside County.
As you can see in the photo below the fire is fairly quiet Thursday morning, with some interior heat still present.
Jim Fire, looking east-southeast from Santiago Peak at 8:42 a.m. March 3, 2022.
The thermal video below shows heat on the fire at 10:32 p.m. on Wednesday.
OCFA’s FIRIS Intel 12 showing a more detailed view at the head of the Jim Incident at 22:32 hours. pic.twitter.com/IkEwWf4ZYs
The forecast for wildland fire potential issued March 1 by the National Interagency Fire Center predicts that in March the potential for wildfires will be higher than average in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and the central and southern plains.
The data from NIFC shown here represents the cumulative forecasts of the ten Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.
Below:
Excerpts from the NIFC narrative report for the next four months;
Additional NIFC monthly graphical outlooks;
NOAA’s three-month temperature and precipitation forecasts;
Drought Monitor;
Keetch-Byram Drought Index;
Soil moisture.
“Most of the West, Plains, and Texas remain in drought, with abnormally dry conditions now across Florida and continuing in portions of the Carolinas.
“Climate outlooks through spring indicate areas receiving below normal precipitation will likely expand generally south to north across the West, with below normal temperatures likely continuing across the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies. Much of the Great Lakes and Northeast are forecast to have above normal precipitation through spring, with near to above normal temperatures across the central and eastern US. Additionally, there are indications for an active severe weather pattern this spring from eastern portions of the Plains into the Southeast and Ohio Valley. Critically dry and windy periods will accompany the severe weather for much of the Plains, especially the southern and central High Plains.
“Above normal significant fire potential is forecast to expand across Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas during March and April, with lingering above normal potential forecast to remain in Florida during May. Much of the central and southern Plains are expected to have above normal significant fire potential into April, while persisting on the High Plains and eastern slopes of the Front Range into June. Above normal potential is forecast in portions of south Texas and the Hill Country during March, with the westward retreat of above normal potential in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas following the expected green-up procession.
Most of the Southwest is forecast to have above normal significant fire potential in May and June, with potential increasing across southern and western Colorado and southern portions of the Great Basin. Central Oregon is likely to have above normal significant fire potential in May and June, with above normal potential forecast across much of coastal California by June. Alaska is forecast to have below normal potential in its panhandle through April, with below normal potential expected across large portions of the Interior in April and May.
Temperature & precipitation outlook, 1 and 3 month. Feb. 28, 2022.
Cherry Canyon Fire, 58 miles east-northeast of Trinidad, Colorado, May 24, 2020. Photo: Colorado Fire Prevention & Control.
A television station in Denver, 9News, reports that some firefighters in the state, especially volunteers, do not have the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) to reduce their risks when fighting fires.
A bill recently passed by the legislature that appropriates $5 million to help provide the gear is waiting on the Governor’s desk for a signature.
The additional funding will most likely address PPE for all types of fires, including self contained breathing apparatus for hazardous material incidents and structure and vehicle fires. As Wildfire Today reported December 22, 2021, a recent survey conducted by the NFPA asked 26,000 fire departments of all sizes about their readiness and capability for suppressing wildland fires. Here are three of the questions.
Excerpt from the Wildland Fire section of the NFPA Needs Assessment.
