The recent warm and dry weather in the northern great plains has created conditions favorable for a 2,000 acre grass fire to occur near Flasher, ND. A spokesperson said it originated from a burn barrel.
Man arrested for assaulting firefighter with ATV
From the Palestine Herald-Press in Texas:
An elderly Anderson County man was arrested late Saturday afternoon after he allegedly attempted to run over volunteer firefighters who were battling a grass fire on his property.
Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor said deputies arrested John T. Vinson, 73, Saturday on a charge of assaulting a public servant after the man reportedly drove a four-wheeler into a Westside Volunteer Fire Department firefighter and threatened to harm others.
Firefighters from Tucker and Westside Volunteer Fire Departments were called to fight a grass fire on ACR 2134 around 4 p.m., Taylor said, which apparently started when sparks from an earlier fire ignited in Vinson’s pasture and blew across a fence into a wooded area on a neighbor’s property.
When firefighters came onto Vinson’s land to put out the fire on his side of the fence, the man reportedly became upset, Taylor said.
“He came up to one of the firefighters on his four-wheeler and said not to put it out,” Taylor said.
When firefighters continued to try to extinguish the fire, the man drove the four-wheeler at them, striking and injuring a Westside volunteer, Taylor said.
“He purposely ran into the fireman,” he said. “(The firefighter) was transported from the scene with a knee injury.”
Vinson also allegedly threatened to get a gun from his home but was prevented from doing so, said the sheriff, who responded to the call along with deputies and Constable Doug Lightfoot.
Ice storms in Missouri increase fuel by a factor of ten
The ice storms that swept through parts of Missouri and Oklahoma this winter damaged trees to the point where now the fallen trees and broken branches have, in some places, increased the fuel load from 3 tons per acre to over 30 tons per acre.
From the Joplin Globe:
……. “That’s because repeated ice storms have put more fuel on the ground in timbered areas than at any time in recent memory, officials say. The ground is crisscrossed with limbs and downed trees that not only provide fuel, but limit access and mobility for firefighters.
Andy Nimmo, chief of the Redings Mill Fire Protection District, experienced what the future could hold on March 2, when a small fire broke out on Reinmiller Road, southeast of Joplin. It became a large wildfire in a matter of seconds.
“We got our first glimpse of the danger then,” Nimmo said. “Fifty mile per hour winds in a heavily timbered area with lots of fuel on the ground made it 10 times more difficult to fight. We had to drop back and punt. We had to go to the nearest road we had access to to stop it.”
Duane Parker, a fire-protection consultant with Southwest Missouri Resource Conservation and Development, said a wooded area normally has 3 tons of fuel from leaves and fallen limbs per acre.
The average now is 30 to 34 tons per acre because of ice storms in 2007, and that does not include “hangers,” those limbs that are broken but still hanging in trees, he said.
Parker predicted the threat of serious fires this spring will be high in Southwest Missouri.”
CAL FIRE proposes to close 20 fire stations
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which now prefers being called CAL FIRE, may have to close 20 fire stations due to a $50 million budget cut for the agency being ordered by the Governator. To help solve the state’s budget woes, Governor Schwarzenegger is also pushing a 1.25% surcharge on all residential and commercial insurance premiums.
More information from the Auburn Journal:
Proposed state budget cuts could close 20 Cal Fire stations statewide including Auburn’s Bowman station.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked Cal Fire to cut more than $52 million from its budget, which amounts to about 10 percent of its general fund.
“To do that we are going to have to close a number of our facilities and reduce a number of our positions,” said Daniel Berlant, department information officer for Cal Fire.
He said the positions cut would not be in fire protection but in resource management and at the State Fire Marshal’s office.
He said Auburn’s Cal Fire station is on a list of stations targets for proposed closure.
“There are other stations (in the Auburn area) that can respond in a timely manner if there were to be a wildfire,” Berlant said.
He said if the Auburn station were to close employees would be redistributed to other locations.
“No current employees would lose their jobs,” Berlant said.
The governor has also proposed a wildland firefighting initiative within the budget that would recommend a surcharge to property owners statewide, which would pay for all facilities to remain open, Berlant said.
A 1.25 percent surcharge on residential and commercial insurance, like homeowners insurance, could bring in as much as $120 million to the state fire agency.
“It would increase our funding and we could increase our staffing to respond to wildland fires before they become infernos like the San Diego fires of last October,” Berlant said.
7 firefighters die on forest fire in Honduras
Damn, here’s another one. From a story at eitb in Spain:
“The firefighters, four soldiers and three forestry workers, were part of a 200-strong team been battling to contain the fire on a mountainside close to Tegucigalpa since Friday.
Seven firefighters died in Honduras on Sunday overwhelmed by a raging forest blaze on the outskirts of the capital, the military said.
They were working to put out the fire and suddenly there was a change of wind direction and they were engulfed by flames, Gen. Orlando Vasquez told local radio. Honduras is at the start of its summer and forest fires at common at this time.”
I wish there was some better wildland fire news to report, than all these firefighters dieing. We will all morn for our fallen brothers.
Oddly enough, on Saturday I will arrive in Honduras to spend a week on Roatan island. I’ll try to get my mind off of all this with some scuba diving, snorkeling on coral reefs, hanging out on the beach, and listening to Jimmy Buffet while sipping a beverage. I might even have a drink with an umbrella in it.
Six people die in forest fire in China
This initially was reported on March 3 by Reuters:
BEIJING, March 3 (Reuters) – Six villagers died in central China’s Hunan province as they tried to battle a forest fire in an area ravaged by severe winter storms, state media said on Monday.
The fire broke out on Saturday, trapping more than 200 people in the village of Xitai, Xinhua news agency reported. “The main cause can be attributed to illegal fires set in the forests,” Xinhua quoted Hu Changqing, vice head of the Hunan Forestry Department, as saying.
Forest fires had killed 22 people in the mountainous southern province this year and more than 1,500 forest fires had raged in 89 counties since Feb. 6, Xinhua said.
China’s most bitter winter in decades had left Hunan’s forests vulnerable to fires, Xinhua said, as heavy snowfalls collapsed power lines and tree branches. “The broken tree branches and the heating and lighting facilities left by the snow disaster relief teams in the forest have become very dangerous now and should be cleared as soon as possible,” the agency quoted Xu Minghua, Hunan’s vice governor, as saying.
Fainting fireman sues to get job back
Story in the Associated Press:
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) — A firefighter fired for fainting is suing the city of Saratoga Springs. Nathaniel King lost his job with the city fire department in December when he failed to complete newly required paramedic training, according to a lawsuit filed against the city in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County. Now he’s suing to get his job back and for back pay.
The problem is, needles are his nemesis. During paramedic training, King fainted dead away every time he had to give an injection or start an intravenous line.
In the lawsuit, King says he successfully completed emergency medical technician training before being hired, but the department later increased job requirements to include paramedic training. That meant he had to use needles.
Assistant Fire Chief John Betor said he couldn’t discuss the specifics of King’s case, but he was aware of the lawsuit.
In his court filing, King says Betor tried to help him with his needle aversion. He says he even tried hypnotism on Betor’s advice, but it didn’t help.
Public Safety Commissioner Ronald Kim said he can’t discuss pending litigation.
Mark Rey: states should pay for suppression in roadless areas
Mark Rey, the ex-timber industry lobbyist who is now the Undersecretary of Agriculture overseeing the US Forest Service, has invited states to give input on where roads should be built in national forests. Now he is saying that if the states do not want roads, the states should have to pay the increased costs for fire suppression.
The state of California recently filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service for adopting a policy that would allow increased road building in the four southern California national forests and drilling for oil in areas of the Los Padres National Forest.
More information can be found at the Modesto Bee.
Patrick Henning, RIP
From Wildlandfire.com:
Patrick Henning, a Fire Apprentice on the Trabuco RD – Cleveland NF, was killed in a single-vehicle accident last Friday evening (Feb. 29) on his way home from work. He was member of the El Cariso Hotshots this past season and currently worked on the district fuels crew. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Patrick’s family and friends during this difficult time. He will be missed !!!
and:
He was recognized by emergency workers because of his El Cariso Hot Shot shirt, green nomex pants and whites boots he had on.
and:
ORC T43 responded to and extricated USFS Firefighter Patrick Henning after his unfortunate passing as result of a single vehicle traffic accident. He was treated with the full respect of a fallen brother. The picture included is all that needs to be said.
and
Services for Pat Henning will be at Ascension Cemetery, 24754 Trabuco Rd., Lake Forest, CA at 1:00 pm Saturday March 8.
More information about his life, his memorial service, and the funeral can be found on the Pat Henning memorial web site.
Our condolences to Pat’s family, and his extended family. I know the El Cariso Hot Shots must be stunned by this. Some comfort is no doubt obtained by the respectful way the firefighters from the Orange County Fire Authority treated him– as a fallen brother. I didn’t know Pat, but I will never forget the picture of him being carried up the hill through the field of lupine flowers, or him, now. From an El Cariso graduate…Rest In Peace, Pat.
Photo is from the PatrickHenning.com memorial web site.
Aldo Leopold died fighting a vegetation fire
You learn something new every day. Aldo Leopold, considered to be the father of wildlife management, died from a heart attack while fighting a vegetation fire near his house. There are conflicting reports about when, but it was either 1947 or 1948.
Here is the account, according to the Des Moines Register:
On a warm spring weekend in April of 1947 he wrapped up his Madison business early and went with Estella and his daughter, Estella Jr. to the Shack. After breakfast on April 21, they smelled smoke and realized one wing of a brush fire was headed to the pines. The fire rapidly moved to a nearby marsh. Pleas for help by Estella to the local fire department went unheeded. Aldo, while fighting the grass fire, apparently suffered a massive heart attack. By the time he was found, he was dead.
The rest of the above article is worth reading too. It covers his early career working for the US Forest Service out of Albuquerque, getting lost in a blizzard, becoming a professor of game management, and his work at the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin.
More about Leopold from Wikipedia:
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was a United States ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness preservation. Aldo Leopold is considered to be the father of wildlife management in the United States and was a life-long fisherman and hunter. Leopold died in 1948 from a heart attack, while fighting a brush fire on a neighbor’s farm.