News and opinion about wildland fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Lessons Learned Center revises their web site 
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center just went through a major revision of their website. If you were wondering what to do for the next 48 minutes, you could check out the video of the webinar that Brenna Macdowell hosted which was a walk through of the changes.
One thing I like about the site — now it is easier to find incident reviews. The link is very visible on the front page.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Boise has reached a settlement agreement over a wildfire that was caused by an exploding target in Idaho. The Ten Mile fire in Lemhi County started July 18, 2012, on land owned by Jeffrey and Paula Kerner. Mr. Kerner was shooting at an exploding target on a ninety-five degree day when the target blew apart and ignited the fire which spread and threatened at least two homes and burned 440 acres of federal land.
The settlement reached with Mr. Kerner’s insurance company requires $168,596 be reimbursed to the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management for their costs of suppressing the fire.
Idaho law prohibits exploding targets on public lands from May 10 to Oct.10, but Mr. Kerner was target shooting on private land.
Exploding targets have caused many fires since they became more popular in recent years. They have been banned in some areas, and caused the death of one person. In June a man attending a bachelor-bachelorette party in Minnesota was killed after shrapnel from the device struck him in the abdomen causing his death.
An experiment — We have selected a few posts on Twitter, called Tweets, on the subject of wildland fire. They are assembled in the panel below — you can drag the slider bar down to see more. They can be also be viewed on Twitter. For now, Twitter has not established a way to follow or subscribe to a customized timeline like this. Maybe they’ll figure it out later, but for now your best bet is to either bookmark this article or the link mentioned above.
We will continue to update this for a while. Let us know if you find it useful.
I was looking through some photos taken in March of the prescribed fire along the Fall River in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The flames in this picture got my attention — small chunks of flames continue to exist several feet from the main body of the flames. The photo was taken at a fairly fast shutter speed, 1/500 second.
Click on the photo to see a larger version. I manipulated the colors a bit to make the flames show up more clearly.
Below is a video shot at the project.
More photos of the prescribed fire
Before and after photos of the prescribed fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on One of the first times a fire shelter was used A former member of the El Cariso Hotshots, a southern California crew based on the Cleveland National Forest, sent us a copy of a newspaper article from August 9, 1964 that described a “new three-pound bodyguard” carried by U.S. Forest Service firefighters. It was one of the early versions of the tent-like aluminum fire shelters which are now standard issue for most wildland firefighters in the United States.
But what was news to me was an entrapment of 36 members of El Cariso on June 22 of that year when they deployed the shelters on a fire near San Bernardino County’s Cajon Pass. The article said they set an escape fire, then deployed the shelters in the freshly blackened area. No one was burned, except for one crewmember who was in a different location and did not use his fire shelter. He suffered serious burns which could have been worse, Lynn Biddison the Forest Fire Control Officer said, if he had not been wearing another new piece of equipment, a cotton shirt treated to be fire resistant.
The Hotshots were told at the time that it was the first time fire shelters had been deployed in a life-saving situation.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe when 12 members of El Cariso were entrapped and killed on the Loop Fire on the Angeles National Forest two years later on November 1, 1966, they were not carrying their fire shelters because a decision had been made that it was not necessary because the fire was relatively quiet.
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(UPDATE November 13, 2013)
Concerning the use of fire shelters on the Loop Fire, below is a passage from the report on that fatal fire:
Thanks go out to Rogers
Wildland firefighters who carry pup tent-like aluminum foil fire shelters hope they never have to unfold and climb into them as a wildfire approaches. Quite a few firefighters have deployed and survived inside them, but too many have died using the limited protection it provides.
The investigation that followed the deaths of 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots June 30 on the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona found that all of the fire shelters were very seriously damaged during the burnover. The outer foil shell was 95 to 100 percent burned away on 17 of the 19 shelters, while the foil on the other two was 80 percent burned away. The shelters are constructed of numerous panels of material that are sewn together with heat-resistant quartz and fiberglass thread which failed in some areas on most of the shelters, causing some of the seams to separate, allowing super-heated gasses to enter.
Quartz thread becomes brittle and can break at 2,000°F, aluminum foil will melt at 1,220°F, and silica cloth, one of the layers in the shelter, becomes brittle at 2,000°F, according to data in the investigation report. The failure of the seams and the brittle silica cloth found in some areas indicates that the temperature of the fire was over 2,000°F, hotter than many fires.
With the spectacular failures of the shelters on the Yarnell Hill Fire, some are calling for firefighters to be outfitted with designs that are more survivable. I received a call several weeks ago from a father of one of the Granite Mountain 19 that is exploring options for better shelters.
A company in Valencia, California is asking for donations so that they can build a prototype of a shelter made with ceramic fiber that, depending on the grade, can withstand continuous use up to 1,472°F or 2,462°F. Jim Moseley is the CEO of the company, SunSeeker Enterprises, Inc. which in addition to designing a new-generation fire shelter sells “fire blankets to 3000°F” for structures. Mr. Moseley is featured in the video below in which he is seen wearing clothing advertising a golf course and a shark-watching tour company. He also is the principle in The Great Trombonist, LLC, based in Los Angeles.
Finding high-temperature-resistant material is one step toward producing a practical fire shelter. But the finished product and everything that goes into it has to be high temperature resistant, foldable into a small space, easy to quickly deploy, durable enough to be carried by firefighters for years, affordable, and not too heavy.
A better fire shelter is needed. We hope that Mr. Moseley or someone else can come up with a better design that meets the requirements.
Some will no doubt say that firefighters should avoid a situation where a fire shelter, a last resort, is needed. Of course that is true, and no firefighter should DEPEND on a shelter to save their lives. And, no firefighter should DEPEND on aircraft to serve as a lookout, drop life-saving water or retardant, or extricate them before an entrapment or at the end of a shift. But, firefighters, in spite of their best intentions and wildland firefighting experience, find themselves forced into fire shelters. That is the reality. If possible, we should take steps to improve their chances of survival.
