News and opinion about wildland fire
Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches for elevated wildfire danger have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas in California, Oregon, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida.
The Red Flag Warning map was current as of 9:30 a.m. MDT on Thursday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts. For the most current data, visit this NWS site.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Wildfire briefing, January 23, 2014 Island fire to be allowed to burn out
A wildfire on an island in Suisun Bay east of San Francisco Bay will be allowed to burn out, according to Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Capt. Robert Marshall. Wednesday afternoon U.S. Coast Guard and fire protection district equipment responded to the fire on Winter Island (map) , which is mostly uninhabited, having just one structure that was not threatened by the fire. They figured it could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days for the fire to burn out. The island is two miles long and about 0.3 mile wide.
Three men charged for Colby Fire
The three men that were arrested January 16 soon after the Colby Fire started above Glendora, California east of Los Angeles, have been charged in federal court. The men, who allowed an illegal campfire to escape, were identified as Jonathan Carl Jerrell, 24; Clifford Eugene Henry Jr., 22; and Steven Robert Aguirre, 21, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Aguirre and Henry were ordered to remain in custody without bail, while Jarrell was scheduled for a Friday detention hearing. All three are scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 11.
Two of the men seen hurriedly moving away from the fire were apprehended by a Glendora police officer. The third was found and taken into custody by an employee of the U.S. Forest Service. The fire destroyed five homes, damaged seven, and burned 1,952 acres.
Mike Wakoski’s incident management team is calling the fire, which has not spread since January 17, 98 percent contained.
After the men were arrested there were discussions between the Glendora PD and the U.S. Attorney’s office whether to charge them with state or local crimes or use federal statutes, since the fire burned both U.S. Forest Service land as well as private property within the city. But the decision was made to charge them in federal court.
Black Forest fire department hires PR firm
The fire-rescue district that managed the Black Forest Fire during the first hours has hired a public relations firm to deal with the fallout caused by the intense criticism directed at the district by El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa. The Sheriff has been carrying on a war in the media against the fire district, saying they should have turned the fire over more quickly to the Sheriff. Colorado is one of a few states that still have the elected county sheriff responsible for suppressing wildland fires in unincorporated areas. The fire killed two people, destroyed 486 homes, and damaged 37 others in June.
The sheriff’s office has been investigating the cause of the fire, in addition to a separate investigation by the fire district, which, according to the Chieftain, has paid an investigator $13,000.
Researchers test new firefighting gel
Researchers with Texas A&M recently tested a new gel that can be used for suppressing active structure or wildland fires, and may have the potential to be effective if used for pre-treating fuel in advance of a fire.
Called TetraKO, it is claimed by the company to be “biodegradable and non-toxic to water, fish, plants and mammals by independent research organizations”.
In a MyFoxAustin video report on the test, the reporter seemed to be surprised that gel applied the day before to the vegetation was not effective in stopping the spread of the fire. However it did keep some treated fence posts from igniting.
In 2008 and 2012 two massive car pile-ups on Florida Interstate highways were caused by poor visibility due to combinations of wildfire smoke and fog. A total of 16 motorists were killed in the crashes. At the location where 11 people died on I-75 in 2012 the Florida Department of Transportation will be installing sensors and warning systems to detect dangerous conditions and notify drivers of the deteriorating conditions.
Standard and infrared cameras, visibility sensors, dynamic messaging signs and vehicle detection devices will be set up south of Gainesville where I-75 crosses Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. The infrared camera and 18 visibility sensors will monitor will measure fog, while other devices will detect moving traffic.
The equipment will be installed in a low-lying area where cold air settles, sometimes causing fog. If a vegetation fire is nearby, as was the case in both pile-ups, the mixture of fog and smoke can cause very poor visibility.
The crash in 2008 on Interstate 4 was caused by fog that combined with the smoke from an escaped prescribed fire.
A retired public information officer for the Black Hills National Forest, Frank Carroll, has written an op/ed column for the Rapid City Journal in which he mentions the possibility of “hard cuts” to the budget for South Dakota’s Wildland Fire Suppression Division. In the article he quotes Joe Lowe, the Director (or Fire Chief) of the Division who retired last January. Chief Lowe can be credited with rebuilding the organization over his 12-year tenure into one of the best state firefighting agencies in that part of the country.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
…“I had a good organization and the story needed to be told to the Legislature. … If they wanted to keep the [Black] Hills safe, they needed to spend the money,” [Chief Lowe] said.
[…]
“All of our fires involved private, state, and federal lands,” he said. “We kept fires small through sustained initial attack. We needed hand crews first, then fire engines, dozers, and aircraft, and we got them because the Legislature understood the need. Building a Type Two national fire team allowed our firefighters to hang on three or four days until help could arrive.”
Every year the Legislature has to buy in to the vision through the appropriations committees and this year is no different. There is talk of hard cuts to the organization it took so long to build, cuts that could cripple our firefighting capacity.
It’s important to remember our strong fire community happened for a purpose. Now is not the time for cutting back.
The state of Colorado, which probably has a much larger budget, could learn some lessons from South Dakota about how to build a state wildland fire organization. Hopefully, the South Dakota legislature will not dismantle it, and it can continue to serve as an example.
If you want to read the entire article it can be found here at the Rapid City Journal website. But be warned that a huge, loud, annoying, offensive, video advertisement may take over your screen for a while. I recommend that you don’t visit the site.
Thanks and a hat tip go out to Steve.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized14 Comments on Sources for the Neill/Maclean Yarnell Hill Fire analysis Holly Neill and John N. Maclean compiled and sent to us the detailed information about the Yarnell Hill Fire videos in which they found the radio conversations that they referenced in their analysis that we published January 19. In the videos, fragments of radio conversations can be heard from nearby radios as various people shot the videos. The words are difficult to decipher, as they just happened to be in the range of the video camera’s microphone, in the background, but they were not specifically planned to be recorded.
The videos were shot at the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2013 near Yarnell, Arizona. Nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew were entrapped and killed on the fire. These recordings, along with other investigatory data, may shed a little light on the circumstances surrounding that tragic event.
Information regarding how Holly and John developed their analysis is in another article, The Yarnell Hill Fire recordings — the back story.
As we promised on January 20, we are providing information about the sources of the data below. As far as we know, the first one is not in a public location on the internet, but many people have the Freedom of Information Act files, so perhaps soon it also will be available to everyone, if it is not already. We discovered today that Items 2 through 4 were uploaded to YouTube by Elizabeth Nowicki between January 1 and January 20 and are embedded below. We thank Ms. Nowicki for posting the files.
1. “DivA-Ops Musser”:
SAIT Investigation Record:AO5-20130630: AerialFirefightingStudyPhotosVideos F: PhotosAndVideos: Panebaker:Video:20130630_154232_fire_behavior_EP.MOV
2. “Marsh talking to Abel about making his way off the top”:
SAIT Investigation Record: F: PhotosAndVideos:A2520130630RobertCaldwellVideos:RobertCaldwell_IMG_0749_2389
*This video was posted by EN on You Tube on Jan 1, 2014.
3. “Marsh at house”:
SAIT Investigation Record:AO5-20130630: AerialFirefightingStudyPhotosVideos F:PhotosAndVideos: Panebaker:Videos:20130630_161620_VLAT_SPLIT_1_EP_MOV
*This video was posted by EN on You Tube @1700 on 1-20-14.
4. “Coming from the heel of the fire”:
SAIT Investigation Record: F: PhotosAndVideos:AO8-20130630BlueRidgeHotshotPhotosVideos: Yarnell_Gamble
*This video was posted by EN on You Tube on Jan 2, 2014.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized8 Comments on The Yarnell Hill Fire recordings — the back story The article below by Holly Neill and John N. Maclean provides the background story of how they developed the information that we reported January 19 about the Yarnell Hill Fire and the location of Eric Marsh. The Granite Mountain Hotshot crew, 19 wildland firefighters, became entrapped and were killed while fighting the fire near Yarnell, Arizona on June 30, 2013.
While Holly and John are not equipped to upload and store huge video files online, others are doing so. Tomorrow, we will provide on Wildfire Today the video file names and folder locations in the Serious Accident Investigation Team record where the videos we refer to are located.
(UPDATE, January 21: today we published an article containing information about sources of Holly and John’s information: Sources for the Neill/Maclean Yarnell Hill Fire analysis )
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A Note About the Accuracy of the Marsh Tapes
By Holly Neill and John N. Maclean
Our story about the previously undisclosed radio transmissions by Eric Marsh, superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, has caused a surge of interest on this site and elsewhere. Out of respect for the seriousness of most of that interest, here is a short account of how the transmissions were found and what attempts were made to verify them before we published them on the Wildfiretoday.com site.
Holly Neill made a public records request through the Arizona State Forestry Department on October 31; this was a specific request for the Aerial Retardant Study Videos that were filmed during the Yarnell Hill Fire. Holly thought that these audio-visual records, documenting the use aerial retardant on the fire, might reveal important information – if only by recording background conversations. She received these records, which are voluminous, on December 16. (Holly and John also requested and received the broader data package, the material from the Serious Accident Investigation Report, which includes the retardant study and much other material.)
Within a few days, she discovered the most significant transmission that we’ve reported, in which Marsh says he is at “the house where we’re going to jump out at.” The remaining audio conversations were transcribed and put together in a timeline from 1542 hrs to 1630 hrs.
Holly then took the “house we’re going to jump out at” recording to a professional audio company, who cleaned the audio file, and then cleaned it again with an audio program. The quotes can be heard without this treatment, but they are clearer after treatment. Holly’s husband Wayne and John both listened to the transmission and agreed on what was heard, which was reproduced in yesterday’s story. Outsiders, with a professional interest in the fire, also listened and did not dispute the transcript.
We then faced a decision about what to do next.
Holly wanted to pass along the material to the Granite Mountain Hotshot families before it went to anyone else. She did so on December 21, to the one family with whom she has direct contact.
On January 6 Holly provided the audio information to the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health and their investigators, Wildland Fire Associates. The state agency is conducting further studies, which will take time.
We waited a while longer, but ultimately decided that the findings, which come from public documents, should be made public.
This may seem like, and is, a convoluted explanation. But the interest level in this story is high and questions have been raised about our methodology. We used public documents, took our time, and did our own work.
