Map of smoke from wildfires, morning of Aug. 25, 2015, AIRNow,gov
Areas of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana have “unhealthy” air quality advisories, due to wildfire smoke. AIRNow.gov forecasts show that areas along the Idaho, Washington and Oregon border are expected to reach the “very unhealthy” level on Tuesday.
As of 8 a.m. MDT, Washington is the only state with Red Flag Warnings. These warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps. For the most current data visit this NWS site or this NWS site.
Air quality affected by wildfire smoke. AIRNow.gov
To see the most current smoke reports on Wildfire Today, visit the articles tagged “smoke” at https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/smoke/
A “Managed Fire” sign was in place to inform the public about the Camillo Fire on the Coconino National Forest.
This has not been a typical fire season in the southwest United States. A series of spring storms kept the high country wet and cool, even bringing snow to the upper elevations in late May. The remnants of two hurricanes off the west coast of Mexico imported moisture and moderated temperatures on the deserts until recently.
Many of the forests in both Arizona and New Mexico have been using the few lightning starts to date as a chance to use naturally occurring low intensity fire to play a crucial role in restoring forest health and fuels reduction.
Ed Olague, with Coconino National Forest Engine 483, finishes a firing operation on the Camillo Fire. This burnout had 27 people firing; each one chain (66 feet) apart, putting a dot of fire every half chain. The 1000 acre block was burned in four and half hours.
The Camillo Fire southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona is one of the largest of these fires. Starting with a lightning strike near Mormon Lake on June 14, officials on the Coconino National Forest began to manage the fire rather than suppress it. Brady Smith, the forest’s Public Affairs Officer explains their objectives: “Overall, we seek to maintain a healthy ecosystem by reintroducing natural fire back into the forest that will burn at a lower intensity and ‘creep’ across the forest floor, acting as a natural janitor cleaning and restoring the forest to a healthier condition. Ultimately, this type of fire helps reduce buildup of down and dead wood and forest fuels, making it safer for communities and lessening the chances of a large severe wildfire in that area.”
At the time of this writing, the fire was 17,596 acres and while the Maximum Management Area (MMA) is nearly 46,000 acres, Don Muise, Fire Staff Officer on the Coconino National Forest explains that: “Not all 46,000 acres will see fire. We have excluded acres from the MMA due to a variety of reasons including protection of critical wildlife habitat (particularly Mexican spotted owl habitat), protection of archeological and cultural resource sites, exclusion of private inholdings, protection of critical range pastures and range improvements, etc. Additionally, along the eastern edge of the MMA, the continuous ponderosa pine ecosystem transitions to a pinyon/juniper grassland that may not burn given the current and predicted conditions. Right now our best guess for total acres burned is from 25,000 to 30,000 acres.”
The monsoon season brings frequent thunderstorms into Arizona and New Mexico, usually beginning in late June and lasting into September. Asked about the monsoons, Mr. Muise continued: “We will continue to manage fire within the MMA as conditions allow. If the monsoon sets up in earnest and we get significant moisture, we will reduce our committed resources to an appropriate level and monitor the area until the fire is out. If drying conditions follow the moisture, and, if there is still the potential for the fire to grow (if the fire survives the moisture), we will ramp up our operations to an appropriate level and continue our restoration efforts until all the available operational blocks within the MMA are completed.”
The Camillo Fire backs through piles of masticated material under a 345 Kv power line which brings electricity from Glenn Canyon Dam to the Phoenix Metro area. The power company, Arizona Public Service, maintains the right of way.
The following article was contributed by Rae Brooks.
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Hotshots could face a tougher work-capacity test in the future, including carrying a heavier pack over hilly, instead of level, terrain and performing pushups to demonstrate upper-body strength.
Dr. Joe Domitrovich, an exercise physiologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Missoula Technology & Development Center in Missoula, Mont., will recommend this summer to the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies that the work-capacity test for hotshot crews be upgraded.
“I don’t think I’ve had a hotshot tell me that they don’t agree with a fitness requirement that’s a little more strenuous,” said Domitrovich, himself a former hotshot. “They feel it will better prepare young firefighters for what the physiological demands of the job actually are.”
The new test would require a hotshot to carry a 55-pound pack over mountainous terrain in a time calibrated according to the elevation gain. Domitrovich hasn’t yet finalized the pushup requirement, but expects it will be “in the mid-teens.”
The current arduous pack test requires firefighters to walk a three-mile flat course, carrying a 45-pound pack, in 45 minutes or less. There is no pushup requirement.
Although more than 20 incident command positions currently require the arduous category test, the recommendation for the new test will apply only to hotshots. Hotshots already rank among the fittest people in the country, placing within the top 10 to 15 percent of national fitness norms. Some female hotshots rank in the top 5 percent.
Ryan Conray leads James Robbins along a ridge line trail during the run portion of the Mesa Hotshots Desert Assesment.
Text and photos by Tom Story.
Crews in the Southwest Region (Arizona, New Mexico & a little bit of Texas) get ready early in the calendar year for the beginning of fire season, and the preparation of the Tonto National Forest’s Mesa Hotshot Crew northeast of Phoenix is typical.
The crew was formed in 1973 and was based on the Pleasant Valley District until the move down to the Sonoran desert of the Mesa Ranger District two seasons ago. When the hiring process was all over for this year Superintendent Pat Moore had 7 new hires, “the most I’ve ever had” he commented, to begin their third season on the desert.
The crew’s week long critical training period included the usual pack test, safety refresher, first aid and CPR training, equipment issue and lots of other details.
Jesus Lopez and Justine Bundy inventory their freshly issued equipment as the Mesa Hotshots began their critical training prior to the start of the season.
Since the crew moved to the desert, they have begun to build a new set of physical training traditions. One is called the “desert assessment”, a timed event at the Coon Bluff Recreation site just down the road from the crew’s base at the Goldfield Work Center. It consists of a 1.7 mile run with a 600-foot elevation gain (and loss) followed by tire pounding with a sledge hammer (10 times each side), 20 pushups, 50 total step ups, and 3 per side sandbag getups.
After four rotations of the exercises, participants don a 45-pound weight vest and hike the same route in reverse. The best time of the day recently was 54 minutes, 10 seconds.
Slower than the record, but this year running with the weight vests was not allowed. The idea was to see what shape they were in, while being careful to not cause injuries. The test combined pure aerobics, hiking, and work capacity with the various exercise motions typical of firefighting. Superintendent Moore said the assessment “ isn’t about checking fitness, it is about mental toughness”.
Corey Hall does pull ups as other members of the Mesa Hotshot watch and wait during the crews physical training test.
Field exercises and a camping shakedown were held both on the Payson and Pleasant Valley Ranger Districts on the Tonto National Forest. The site for their chain saw refresher, brushing along some overgrown fence lines by the Ranger station, was at their old home base in Young, AZ. The “final exam” held the following day was constructing about a mile of fireline in steep country to simulate a fire scenario. The crew returned to Mesa to finish up with some classroom work.
Roman Gerriets moves an armload of blackberry brambles as the Mesa Hotshots do some saw work along a fence line at the Pleasant Valley Ranger Station in Young, AZ. The crew combined their saw refresher with some needed project work on the district. Joe Schoenemann keeps his chain sharp after refueling during a saw work refresher session at the Tonto National Forest’s Pleasant Valley Ranger District in Young, AZ.
The first day they were available, the 2015 fire season began for the Mesa Hotshots — they were sent to a fire on the east side of the Superstition Mountains on the edge of their home district.
A member of the Mesa Hotshots runs along a ridge line during the crews desert assessment session near the crews base along the Salt River, northeast of the Phoenix metro area.
The Montana town of Seeley Lake will host its first ever Norman Maclean literary festival this summer, celebrating the author’s works and his life fishing and exploring in Montana.
Maclean, best known for his novella “A River Runs Through It” and “Young Men and Fire” — his recounting of the Mann Gulch fire of 1949 — will be honored with lectures from former students, fishing hole tours and trips to the Mann Gulch burn area. Maclean’s son, journalist and author John Maclean, will speak, and National Book Award winner Pete Dexter will deliver a keynote address. Dexter is also the author of “The Old Man and the River,” about Norman’s life in Seeley Lake.
The three-day event will also feature tours of conservation efforts on the Blackfoot River, and full day trip to Mann Gulch with a forester who toured the area with Maclean while he was researching for his book.
Red Flag Warnings or Fire Weather Watches have been issued for areas in Colorado, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The map was current as of 9:15 a.m. MDT on Wednesday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps. For the most current data visit this NWS site or this NWS site.
Fred Rungee, Alaska resident, forest fire control veteran and humanitarian died on Friday, March 27th, 2015, at the age of 93 after valiantly fighting several health problems. Born in City Point in New Haven, Connecticut, he attended Wesleyan University and was immensely proud of his service to his country as a conscientious objector with the fledgling Smokejumpers of the Civilian Public Service program during World War II. He diligently worked toward a world at peace throughout his entire life.
As a woodsman, Fred Rungee qualified as a True Alaskan. He was an adventurer who looked comfortable in a canoe or kayak, on snowshoes or a motorcycle, in an ice boat, helicopter, or Oldsmobile. More often than not he could be found in the woods, on foot with his double bit axe (of which he was one of the last masters), his model 70 Winchester hunting rifle and a 60 pound pack. He was a true leader by example, who after a brief residency in Montana made his home in Alaska where he worked for the Bureau of Land Management as the Fire Management Officer of the Glennallen District responsible for all forest fire control in that area –about the size of New York State.
In the early 1950’s it was only Fred Rungee and “Judge” Henderson who handled all of the fires in the district and it was not unusual to come back to the station after camping out on a fire for a few days to find a number of notes tacked to the door reporting new fires in the area. He is credited in reports as far back as 1953 for “dedication and fortitude… in keeping fires of this area within manageable limits”. In 1972 he was awarded a Bronze Smokey Bear Award –the highest national honor for outstanding contributions to statewide fire prevention efforts. In one incident, he chanced upon a slow moving fire while in the back country in Alaska on a dirt bike in the vicinity of the Klutina “road”. Unable to get help and refusing to leave a potentially disastrous fire, he took a good deal of time and effort to cut a line around the fire –with his pocket knife.
Of his more than 70 years in Alaska, he resided primarily in the town of Glennallen although he was an avid traveler. Upon retirement in 1978, he moved to the Slana area to a cabin which he himself built two and a half miles from the nearest road. Packing all the materials and even a massive wood stove he needed for the cabin on foot, he did concede using a buckboard to move in his piano. Over the years, hundreds of people made the 5 mile round trip hike just to visit and experience his rare charismatic charm.
He had a huge influence on people because he was unusually kind and exceptionally tolerant. He was more than willing to listen to everyone and offer them his genuine, heartfelt support. He was more than generous; he was magnanimous and notwithstanding this greatness, he was genuinely humble.
New recruits assigned to his district were sometime suspicious of his delightful demeanor as they felt no one man could be that nice. He had courtesy to spare and his own brand of wilderness grace. Newcomers might have tested him but his niceness was invariable and unassailable. Fred Rungee would win people over and then they would start being nice –or more agreeable than they had been. Some even competed to be nicer than Fred but that top spot of human decency had already been claimed through a lifetime of practice –a lifestyle of generosity and a lifelong commitment to peace and harmony.
Rungee never discounted people. It didn’t matter if they were spurned by society and semiconscious in some substance induced stupor, he always reached out to help. Fred was a model to all he met. Never preaching, he taught human decency by example. He also taught piano and hockey to young Alaskans and befriended so many local Alaskan Natives that he was named an honorary member of the Mentasta Tribe. His quiet notoriety was widespread as the State of Alaska honored Fred with “Fred Rungee Day”.
He could play Rachmaninoff on his Alaska wilderness piano, recite Southey, and cook dinner for twenty. A skilled story teller and humorist, he could tell first-person bear attack stories and tales that few residents knew. His spontaneity transformed dinners into parties; he was fairly adept at throwing serving spoons into large bowls of mashed potatoes from across the room. He would put joy into conversation and enthusiasm into the tired but his trademark gesture was the promotion and consumption of ice cream which was always shared with friends, any time of the day, during warmish summers and brutal Alaska winters.
He may have never married but he was the father figure to so many fire fighters who got to know him. His virtual immediate family is extensive and he will be greatly missed. Fred is predeceased by his sister Elinor Rungee Smith and survived by his nephew Kent Smith, and his niece Deborah Smith and his many, many good friends in the Copper River Valley, throughout Alaska, the Lower 48 and abroad. We may have lost him but his example lives on in those of us lucky enough to learn from him. What the world needs now is for us to remember how he showed us to live: in peace and good humor.
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Tom Sadowski was a crew foreman of the El Cariso Hot Shots, U.S. Forest Service. He also worked in Alaska as an Assistant Fire Management Officer of the Glennallen District for the Department of Interior. Presently he writes a regular weekly humor column called “Just Saying…” from mid-coast Maine where he now lives. Contact: sadowski at tidewater.net
View from #ilm of woods fire burning off Hwy 74/76 in Compass Pointe area of #brunsco. @ncforestservice on scene. pic.twitter.com/QRBAgjetoi
— Jon Evans (@JonEvansWECT) April 6, 2015
The Compass Pointe fire in Brunswick County has forced nearly a 100 households to evacuate as the fire spread to 500 hundred acres in southern North Carolina.
Here’s a few facts about the blaze, from the North Carolina Forest Service:
— Fire is contained at 500 acres. It spread from 15 acres at initial attack.
— 89 homes threatened and evacuated. The Compass Pointe subdivision, off U.S. Route 74 and and U.S. Route 76 was emptied. Residents were allowed back in by 6 p.m. on Monday, a local TV news station reported.
–5 homes damaged. 1 outbuilding lost, 1 boat damaged and 1 pull-behind trailer lost.
— 8 tractor plows, two helicopters and 3 SEATs responded.
Access to the fire, which is burning in the southern tip of the state, proved tricky for crews. Trains going through the area had to be stopped, and fire crews had to work around tracks and pipelines transporting flammable gasses. The fire threatened a local water treatment plant, and sent embers into flower beds, onto roofs and across many roads.
The fire’s cause remains unknown, said county Fire Marshal Scott Garner. There were no prescribed burns in the area.
Red Flag Warnings or Fire Weather Watches have been issued for areas in Colorado, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The map was current as of 8:15 a.m. MDT on Tuesday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps. For the most current data visit this NWS site or this NWS site.
Details about the firefighters injuries were not released; both were hospitalized. Officials said that the 21 acre brush fire — which triggered evacuations and damaged two homes — was started on Monday afternoon when a local homeowner dropped a blow torch.
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Original story:
A New Jersey brush fire that sent up heavy smoke on Sunday was one of many that hit the eastern state during a weekend of high fire danger.
Smoke from the fire near Tewksbury blanketed suburban neighborhoods, the Hunterton County Democrat reported on Sunday. Fire crews from three counties responded to the blaze, which had burned the deck and the porch of at least two homes.
Over the weekend, the state saw a spate of small brush fires. The state has remained on alert for high fire danger, with high winds and low humidities into Monday, the Asbury Park Press reported. At least five central New Jersey cities reported brush fires over the weekend.
Active wildfire seasons tend to follow heavy winters in New Jersey, firefighters told the newspaper last week. Severe winter weather stalled the local forest service’s prescribed burns, typically a crucial element to managing fire danger in the heavily wooded state.
