Eight percent higher than the average of the previous 10 years
Updated Feb. 2, 2022
The number of acres that burned in the United States in 2021 according to the annual report from the National Interagency Fire Center, was more than the average of the previous 10 years. The 6,872,286 acres in the lower 49 states is 8 percent higher than the average of the previous 10 years, and 33 percent above the average in the decade before that, 2001 – 2010.
This is contrary to statements from some fire officials in December who said fewer than average acres had burned. That is only correct if Alaska is counted. When it is, the numbers can be misleading. Alaska is a huge state with a very low population for its size. Many fires there burn far from any structures or private property and are not suppressed. On some fires the only action taken is “point protection,” just keeping a small village or single cabin from burning. A fire can burn hundreds of thousands of acres over a period of months with few if any firefighters assigned.
The burned area in Alaska varies wildly from year to year, for example, about 62,000 acres in 2008 and more than 5,000,000 in 2015. In 2015 more acres burned there than in the other 9 geographic areas combined. (Alaska is it’s own geographic area. Map.) However, so far this year, Alaska has ranked only third in number of acres burned in geographic areas, outranking only the Rocky Mountain and Eastern Areas. Including the Alaska numbers in a calculation of fire activity in the 50 states is misleading and can radically skew statistics.
Fires continue to grow larger
The average size of fires 2021 was the fifth largest in the last 36 years. Since 1984 the six years with the highest average size have all occurred in the last 11 years, according to the available reliable data from the National Interagency Fire Center after 1984.
The total number of fires is on a downward trend
The number of fires in 2021 was the sixth lowest in the last 36 years.
All of the statistics for 2021 are from the annual report for 2021 published by the National Interagency Fire Center. Data from previous years also came from NIFC.
The U.S. Forest Service produced this video about the 2021 wildfire season of a fire crew based on the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California — the Smith River Interagency Hotshots.
John Hawkins, retired CAL FIRE Unit Chief and County Fire Chief, sent us a .pdf copy of the publication, Forest Fire Fighting Fundamentals, which I had not seen in many years. It may have been considered part of basic training for wildland firefighters, written by the US Forest Service and the agency then known as California Department of Forestry (CDF).
I’m not sure when the 58-page document was first published. As you can see above, it was received on the Medicine Bow National Forest in 1953. The National Museum of Forest Service History says it was published around 1945 (“1945 ca.”), but I wonder if there were multiple editions throughout a couple of decades.
Forest Fire Fighting Fundamentals, p. 23
There are many hand-drawn illustrations, many of which are attention-grabbing or funny, which may have made it easier to retain the lesson being taught.
Forest Fire Fighting Fundamentals, p. 32
There are no chain saws or air tankers, but you will see a dozer and a very early model helicopter. Numerous times it mentions “men” being used to fight fire, “Only physically fit men should be used,” for example.
Forest Fire Fighting Fundamentals, p. 40
It mentions aggressive initial attack, saying that when using direct attack, “You either ‘hit the head’ (point of most rapid spread) or start at the rear and work forward on both sides (flanks) at the fire edge and thus pinch out and control the head.”
Forest Fire Fighting Fundamentals, illustration on page 39
It is very out of date in many respects, but the physics of fire and general principles of fire suppression and firefighter safety remain basically the same. It has been a while since I looked at what rookies are shown in basic firefighter training, S-130/190, but it would not hurt to let them peruse this document to help reinforce some fundamentals.
The jury did not convict the defendant of starting the 3,300-acre Maple Fire in the Olympic National Forest
Maple Fire, Olympic National Forest, Washington, 2018. IMT photo.
The lead defendant in a scheme to unlawfully harvest maple trees from the Olympic National Forest that resulted in the 3,300-acre Maple Fire in 2018 was sentenced November 8 to 20 months in prison. Justin Andrew Wilke, 39, was convicted in July 2021 of conspiracy, theft of public property, depredation of public property, trafficking in unlawfully harvested timber, and attempting to traffic in unlawfully harvested timber.
Maple trees are so valuable and prized by woodworkers, especially those who manufacture musical instruments, that it is a violation of the law in Washington to transport the wood without a state-issued specialized forest products permit. Armed with a permit that authorized the harvesting of maples from private land, Justin Andrew Wilke and Shawn Edward (Thor) Williams and others camped for several days in the Olympic National Forest scouting for big leaf maple trees with the highly desired figured wood pattern. They identified trees containing figuring by “checking” the trees, that is, using an axe to peel back the bark to expose the pattern of the wood, sometimes doing it at night to avoid detection.
When they found a tree they liked they would fell it with a chain saw, buck it up, and transport the wood to a mill in Tumwater, Washington, presenting the permit and saying it had been harvested with permission from private property. According to the federal grand jury indictment, Wilke and/or Williams made more than 20 trips to the mill between April and August of 2018, collecting more than $13,000 by selling illegally harvested National Forest timber.
This prosecution was the first use of tree DNA evidence in a federal criminal trial. At the trial, a Research Geneticist for the USDA Forest Service testified that the wood Wilke sold was a genetic match to the remains of three poached maple trees investigators had discovered in the Elk Lake area. The DNA analysis was so precise that it found the probability of the match being coincidental was approximately one in one undecillion (one followed by 36 zeroes). Based on this evidence, the jury concluded that the wood Wilke sold the mill had been stolen. The DNA evidence also concluded that Wilke had unlawfully harvested and sold wood from seven additional maple trees – but the precise locations of those trees have not been determined.
Maple Fire, Olympic National Forest, Washington, 2018. IMT photo.
On August 3, 2018, Wilke led a group of two other individuals in deciding to cut a maple tree that contained a wasp’s nest near the base of the tree. To remove the nest, the group sprayed insecticide and likely gasoline on the nest and then lit the nest on fire. The group failed to extinguish the fire, which developed into the Maple Fire which cost approximately $4.2 million to suppress. The other two members of the poaching group testified at trial that Wilke was standing next to the nest when it was lit on fire, and therefore appeared to have set the fire. However, because the fire was set at night, they were not able to see his exact actions, and testified that they did not know exactly how the fire started. The jury did not convict Wilke of the two federal counts related to the forest fire: setting timber afire and using fire in furtherance of a felony. The jury did convict Wilke of attempting to cut down the tree where the fire was set on the night of the fire.
Prosecutors recommended a 36-month sentence, noting that Wilke led the three-person tree-poaching ring that indisputably started the fire, and that Wilke likely set the fire himself based on the testimony at trial. At sentencing, Judge Benjamin H. Settle concluded that the evidence was clear and convincing that Wilke was present when the fire was set, that a member of Wilke’s poaching crew set the fire, and that Wilke more likely than not personally set or directed one of his crew to set the fire. But Judge Settle noted that Wilke had made positive strides while on pretrial release, and that prison time is more difficult during the COVID pandemic. Judge Settle therefore imposed the 20-month sentence.
Wilke was also ordered to forfeit the proceeds of his illegal poaching. He will be required to pay restitution to the United States Forest Service. The exact amount will be determined at a later hearing.
Maple Fire, Olympic National Forest, Washington, 2018. IMT photo.
Personnel at San Bernardino Air tanker base, June 30, 2020. Edward Godinez is second from the right. USFS photo.
The Acting Air Tanker Base Manager of the base at the San Bernardino Airport in Southern California died Saturday November 13. Edward Godinez was 32 and passed away from COVID-19 after spending three weeks in an ICU. He had recently been selected to serve in that role permanently.
Fire Aviation has learned that Mr. Godinez had not been vaccinated and that several other unvaccinated Forest Service employees at the base also tested positive for COVID.
Exhibit 2 in the Gary Maynard Detention Memo, showing the Ranch Fire shortly after it was discovered. Gary Maynard was charged with starting the fire and three others. Photo courtesy of US Attorney’s office.
A federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment November 18 against Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, of San Jose, charging him with arson to federal property and setting timber afire, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court documents, Maynard engaged in an arson spree in the vicinity of the then ongoing Dixie Fire in areas of the Shasta-Trinity and Lassen National Forests. Some of the fires he set were new fires behind the firefighters fighting the Dixie Fire. Maynard is charged with setting the Cascade Fire (July 20), Everitt Fire (July 21), Ranch Fire (Aug. 7), and Conard Fire (Aug. 7).
He was not charged with starting the Dixie Fire, but was investigated for his responsibility in starting five others. They were all suppressed before growing large, in part because for some of them his vehicle was being tracked and after obtaining warrants arson investigators had access to the approximate location of his cell phone every 15 seconds. In a couple of cases US Forest Service Agents reported the new fires immediately, were the first on scene, and did what they could to knock down the blazes until firefighters arrived.
Mr. Maynard is a former instructor at universities in California including Santa Clara and Sonoma State.
From CNN:
Maynard was a part-time lecturer at Sonoma State University in its Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice during the fall of 2020, a university spokesperson told CNN. He taught two seminars on the topics of criminal justice and deviant behavior, according to school officials. Maynard was filling in for a faculty member who was on leave and was not reappointed for Spring 2021, the school spokesperson said.
Sonoma State University welcomed him as a new lecturer on August 31, 2020. Their description:
Dr. Gary Maynard graduated from Bowling Green State University, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Stony Brook University. He has three master’s degree (political science, theater arts, and sociology) and a Ph.D. in sociology. His teaching and research focus on the following topics: sociology of technology/social media, social psychology, sociology of health, deviance and crime, sociology of the mass media, youth and adolescence, global sociology, environmental sociology, the sociology of sports, the sociology of drug abuse and alcoholism and quantitative research methods.
