Above: 747 Supertanker making a test drop with water at Colorado Springs May 4, 2016. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
A Colorado county on Tuesday approved a deal that sets the stage for a response from the largest firefighting aircraft in the world if and when major wildfires flare up near Denver, marking the culmination of a first-of-its-kind contract.
Commissioners in Douglas County on Tuesday approved the one-year, $200,000 deal with Global SuperTanker Services LLC that gives the county access to the mammoth Boeing 747-400 aircraft that can drop roughly 20,000 gallons of water or retardant — nearly double the capacity of its closest rival, the DC-10.
The deal is unique in that it gives the 800-square-mile county situated between Denver and Colorado Springs exclusive access to the SuperTanker.
“Douglas County is establishing a model for wildland fire-prone municipalities to follow,” Bob Soleberg, senior vice president and program manager for Global SuperTanker, said in a statement Tuesday night to Wildfire Today and Fire Aviation. “Their planning is comprehensive and designed to protect lives, property and the natural resources.”
Additional details about the new deal and information about Douglas County’s partnerships with other aircraft entities in the region is available on FireAviation.com.
Above: Roads through areas prone to wildfire act as fuel breaks, disrupting the fuel continuity, potentially reducing the rate of fire spread. The areas on either side of the road have also been mowed to reduce vegetation height. Photo courtesy of BLM.
The U.S. Geological Survey is gearing up for a project across the Great Basin studying how effective fuel breaks are, simultaneously evaluating their ecological costs and benefits.
Fuel breaks like sandy roads or other barriers are intended to reduce fire size and frequency by slowing or altogether halting fire’s spread to the other side of the break. Still, questions remain about whether fuel breaks protect sagebrush and sage-grouse, the USGS said in a comments discussing the new research.
“We want to determine the extent to which fuel breaks can help protect existing habitat from wildland fires, paying particular attention to how such breaks affect sagebrush habitat, sage-grouse, and other sagebrush-dependent species,” the USGS said in a statement.
— MS Forestry Commission (@MSForestryComm) May 18, 2017
The Mississippi Forestry Commission this summer will have to axe 75 positions as part of a reorganization and effort to comply with state-mandated budget cuts, officials announced last week.
The Commission said in a news release it had to address a $2.67 million shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year — a figure that represents a 16 percent decrease from the current fiscal year. To meet the mark, the state’s seven districts will be consolidated into four new regions. Approximately 75 positions — two-thirds of them reportedly firefighting jobs — will be eliminated when the reorganization model takes effect July 1.
“Preserving the Mississippi Forestry Commission’s statutorily mandated responsibility to protect forestland, lives and homes from wildfire is our top priority. After much deliberation, the difficult decision was made to consolidate and reorganize districts, leaving as many wildland firefighting ‘boots on the ground’ in place as possible — within the constraints of our current budget restrictions,” Charlie Morgan, State Forester for the Mississippi Forestry Commission said in a news release announcing the changes.
“The decision to reorganize our districts was not made lightly. We are deeply saddened to lose these faithful employees and appreciate their years of service to the state of Mississippi.”
Some employees will be allowed to apply for new positions in the new regions, though additional details were not immediately available on how many would be eligible.
Mississippi’s fall wildfire season has grown in intensity over the past two years. The Mississippi Forestry Commission responded to and suppressed 1,228 wildfires that burned 13,983 acres in fiscal year 2016 fall wildfire season, officials said. More than 31,000 acres burned statewide in fiscal year 2016, and the governor issued burn ban proclamations in each of the past two years due to dangerous drought conditions.
That’s troubling context, especially given this additional reporting last week about the new round of cuts from The Clarion-Ledger newspaper:
Last year, the commission laid off 25 workers, including all its arson investigators and equipment mechanics, and eliminated six vacant positions because of state budget cuts. With $1.2 million in cuts to personnel last year, the commission is up to nearly $4 million in staff cuts in two years.
“This one will be testing our limits,” said Charlie Morgan, state forester with the Mississippi Forestry Commission. “There was no fat. We took care of that last year if there was fat then.”
A new documentary published online last week chronicles the terror and heartbreak ranchers faced in areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas when wind-swept fires tore through their communities in March.
Titled “Fire in the Heartland,” the 16-minute film includes interviews with fire personnel and ranchers about the firestorm that ripped through the prairie lands. The video is the latest enterprise work to come out of the disaster — this New York Times piece also detailed some of the tragedy.
The wildfires tore through cattle country, feasting on grasses made dry by long-term drought and exacerbated by recent warm weather. Once the fires were started, strong winds whipped the flames, helping them spread more rapidly. According to Reuters, a wildfire in Texas during the beginning of March moved at speeds up to 70mph as it raced across the Texas Panhandle. By the third week of March, the fires had killed at least seven people—not to mention thousands of livestock—and burned more than 2 million acres.
Above: A helicopter carries a bucket of water on a drop at the fire in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Photo via InciWeb, posted May 14, 2017.
Seven helicopters, two air tankers, 135 wildland fire engines, 62 bulldozers, five hand crews, and 1,025 personnel were assigned to the blaze Sunday.
“The fire remained relatively inactive,” officials said in an update.
While “inactive” is the name of the game for the West Mims Fire — and for spring fire situations across much of the U.S. inundated with spring storms and abundant moisture — it’s anything but quiet in the Sunshine State.
Twenty-eight fires in excess of 100 acres burned over the weekend within Florida Fire Service jurisdiction, charring 36,000 acres, according to state figures.
Such blazes blackened 109,415 acres of land so far this year.
Fire danger indices were “high” or “very high” in more than a dozen Florida counties this weekend. Citrus growers “are irrigating daily to keep moisture on the trees,” the USDA reported, and “ditches and canals are very dry in all [citrus] areas.” Plus, livestock producers are having to have hay shipped in as a result of the dry conditions.
And even though some rain was in the forecast for some Florida residents, state officials said they’re not out of danger by any stretch of the imagination.
“We are buckled up for a very long and very hot wildfire season,” said Adam Putnam, the commissioner of agriculture in Florida, according to Bloomberg News.
U.S. Drought Monitor report May 18, 2017.
Meanwhile, others around the country are enjoying a relatively unusual drought-free reality as June nears.
Feet — yes, feet — of snow fell in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountains late last week as a potent spring storm plowed through the region. And places accustomed to persistent drought, like California, continue to bask in aftermath of an especially soggy winter.
18 to 36 inches of snow has fallen in the foothills with this spring storm. An additional 6" to 12" is expected by morning. #cowxpic.twitter.com/R9hAGJCE6s
“An active weather pattern continued to result in widespread showers, with some of the heaviest rain falling across the Plains, Midwest, and mid-South,” the U.S. Drought Monitor reported last week.
“Another area of significant precipitation stretched across the middle and northern Atlantic States, while showers also dotted the Northwest. In contrast, mostly dry weather prevailed from California to the lower Rio Grande Valley, as well as large sections of the lower Southeast.”
National drought snapshot, via U.S. Drought Monitor May 18, 2017, report.
Though hot temperatures are forecast for parts of California early this week, a cold front is expected to move through the Pacific Northwest, bringing cooler conditions and more moisture, according to the National Weather Service.
Floridians in the meantime will have to keep waiting for the rainy seasons to finally begin, later this month and into June.
“It’s kind of like an ugly cycle. Hot breeds dry and dry breeds hot,” meteorologist Grant Gilmore told the Tampa Bay Times last week. “…It doesn’t look like the cycle breaks in a big way any time soon.”
No structures have been damaged, and no injuries were reported.
Rising overnight humidity levels allowed firefighters to make meaningful progress toward complete containment, Cal Fire reported. The fire was primarily burning in grass with some sparse brush and was 30 percent contained by Sunday morning.
— CAL FIRE/San Diego County Fire (@CALFIRESANDIEGO) May 20, 2017
A wildfire east of San Diego quickly charred 500 acres and forced evacuations Saturday as hot temperatures and low humidity settled into the region, ending a string of cool and soggy weather.
First reported shortly before noon, the Gate Fire had a “dangerous rate of spread” in a remote area near the community of Jamul, Cal Fire reported via Twitter.
Five airtankers and three helicopters were making drops on fire at one point, said Cal Fire Capt. Isaac Sanchez, according to the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper. Fire crews from several agencies were helping on the ground.
Above: Southern California fires, October 2003. The smoke plumes rising from the fires. Moving northwest to southeast along the coast, the first cluster of red dots is a combination of the Piru, Verdale, and the Simi Incident Fires; The next cluster-to the east of Los Angeles-is the Grand Prix (west) and Old (east) Fires; To their south is the Roblar 2 Fire; Next is the Paradise Fire; Then the massive Cedar Fire, whose thick smoke is completely overshadowing the coastal city of San Diego; Finally, at the California-Mexico border is the Otay Fire. (A fire in Baja California is also visible.) NASA photo.
Firefighters in Southern California will soon be able to check their smartphones to monitor a fire’s behavior in real-time — and in some cases predict the future.
Fire agencies convened Friday in San Diego for a Wildfire Preparedness Summit hosted by San Diego Gas & Electric in conjunction with the San Diego Fire Foundation.
Weather stations around the region already record wind speed and humidity levels, vegetation maps document moisture and growth levels, and historical data already informs risk analysis. The utility provider has plans to combine all of those variables in a smartphone app that doubles as a predictive tool, the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper reported.
The tool would compute scenarios in real time and better inform firefighters about resource needs and future fire behavior.
“San Diego Gas & Electric owns and operates the largest weather utility network anywhere in the country,” said Brian D’Agostino, a meterologist for the utility who has overseen the weather networks construction which began eight years ago following the 2003 and 2007 firestorms that swept large parts of San Diego County.
“We run weather models and we’re getting to the point now that we’re taking all of this information and data and integrating it into world-class fire behavior models that have never been built before,” he said. “They are being built for the first time right here in San Diego.”
A developer working on the new smartphone app program said it is already semi-operational and should be refined for more widespread use before Santa Ana winds arrive in the fall.
The utility company’s efforts on the weather prediction front have made headlines in the past. Those weather stations — more than 170 in total — monitor every electrical circuit in SDG&E’s highest fire risk area, providing real-time readings of wind speed, humidity, and temperature every 10 minutes, Dave Geier, vice president of electric transmission and system engineering, wrote in a 2016 piece for The Energy Times.
The company in 2014 worked with the U.S. Forest Service, UCLA and the National Weather Service to develop another tool dubbed the “Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index” for Southern California.
San Diego County, of course, has repeatedly been ground-zero for destructive and deadly wildfires. Among the most notable: the 2003 Cedar Fire and the 2007 With Creek Fire.
Utility equipment has been found to have ignited fires in the past, including during the 2017 firestorm. In turn, that has ignited a debate about fault and who should be held accountable to cover ensuing costs.
Efforts are underway in Colorado to better evaluate how water enhancers delivered from a single engine air tanker can be more effective than retardants in fighting wildfires.
Colorado historically has only loaded long-term retardant into SEATs. These chemical concentrates are mixed with water and alter fuels so they do not support combustion. Retardant is dropped adjacent to — or ahead of — the fire to create a chemically induced fire break at its perimeter.
Molecular bonds from water enhancers, however, slow evaporation by creating a thermal protective coating. SEAT drops of water enhancers are mainly used in direct attack to slow or halt the fire’s rate of spread long enough for ground resources to access the fireline and mop up or supplement the knockdown process.
These gels have generally been limited in use in recent years, and field testing has been minimal. Information about water enhancers’ availability, use and effectiveness is sparse at best.
Observe and evaluate drops of water enhancers on wildfires and record information about 1) whether the water enhancer stopped or slowed the forward advance of the fire; 2)whether the water enhancer reduced fire intensity to a sufficient level for ground crews to manage the fire; and 3) whether the water enhancer persists on the surface fuels long enough to prevent hotspots from redeveloping or the fire from burning through the drop.
Determine whether water enhancers delivered from a SEAT are effective on wildfires in Colorado. Effectiveness will be viewed in terms of how effective the products were in achieving the desired suppression objectives.
Collect as much data as possible regarding the effectiveness of water enhancers used during initial attack and on emerging fires.
Share lessons learned from the evaluations with interested parties, including cooperators and researchers.
Test and evaluate newly developed ground-based mixing/batching equipment to assess the efficiency of the mixing and loading processes and the ability of the equipment to reduce response times.
“SEATs loaded with water enhancers will respond to fires on State and private land, as well as to fires under the jurisdiction of BLM, the National Park Service, and USFS. Mixing will be at the recommended ratios in the USFS Qualified Products List for each product on all drops. For the first load on each fire, State and Federally contracted SEATs will respond to the incident with water enhancer unless the ordering unit clearly specifies the need for LTR instead.
Decisions regarding where, when and how to apply a particular aerial retardant or suppressant are typically under the discretion of the Incident Commander, so if at any time the Incident Commander or the Air Tactical Group Supervisor feels that the enhancers are not performing as desired, the Incident Commander can immediately order that the SEATs be loaded with retardant.
The three water enhancers being evaluated in the study are: FireIce HVO-F, BlazeTamer 380, and Thermo-Gel 200L — each is approved by the U.S. Forest Service for use in SEATs.
The Center of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting, with support from the Division of Fire Prevention and Control’s Aviation Unit and the Bureau of Land Management, is conducting the study.
After weighing input from researchers and firefighters, investigators will compile a preliminary and final report about the project’s findings.
Above: The High Park Fire in Poudre Canyon about 15 miles from Ft. Collins, Colo., June 18, 2012. (Official Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Jess Geffre/RELEASED)
A University of Colorado fire ecologist testified during a Congressional hearing this week that climate change stands to exacerbate fire size and intensity in the West.
The Wednesday hearing — previewed in this memo — focused on “the impacts of wildfire, disease and infestation on America’s overgrown and fire-prone federal forest lands and the need to significantly increase forest management activities to improve the health of our nation’s forests.”
Among those called to testify:
Dr. John Ball, professor and forest health specialist at South Dakota State University
Steven A. Brink, vice president of public resources for the California Forestry Association
James L. Cummins, executive director of Wildlife Mississippi
Dr. Tania Schoennagel, Department of Geography and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
Schoennagel said increasing temperatures, drought, and earlier snow melt lead to longer fire seasons and increased fire risk.
