On October 16, 2011 during the Pagami Creek Fire on the Superior National Forest in northeast Minnesota an incident occurred that resulted in a motorized canoe being swamped in the middle of a large lake. As a result, three firefighters were totally immersed in cold water and exposed to hypothermic conditions for approximately 25 minutes until they were rescued by floatplane.
It occurred when a Division Supervisor and a Task Force leader were being ferried out to meet a Beaver (deHavilland) floatplane that was going to extract them.
Mizzy Zdroj was one of 20 firefighters who lost their homes while they were fighting the wildfires near Bastrop, Texas in September. The family did not have insurance and this weekend planned to move into a an 8 by 20-foot portable shed. Thanks to fellow firefighters who made some calls, the local television station ran a story on their plight and it got the attention of the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Starting today over 100 workers plus many local volunteers will begin rebuilding the home for the member of the Heart of the Pines Volunteer Fire Department, her husband, and three children. Next week after the family returns from an all expenses paid vacation in New York City, they will move into a $250,000, 2,500-square-foot home to replace the 724-square-foot house that burned .
Off-duty USFS firefighters and citizens suppress fire
Frazier Park fire. Photo by Peter Bogdanoff
Two off-duty U.S. Forest Service firefighters and some other nearby citizens took it upon themselves to knock down a wildfire burning in Frazier Park, California (map) on Monday. The firefighters used a chain saw and a shovel to construct fireline on the perimeter of the fire while one of the citizens used a garden hose.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Mountain Enterprise submitted by Peter Bogdanoff:
…We were at Chatterpillar across Mt. Pinos Way and saw the flames shooting up above the roofs. We first thought it might be Judy’s Mini Storage or Lions Daycare burning, but it turned out to be the hillside below Lions Daycare and the Western Motel toward Cuddy Creek.
It took about 10 minutes for the fire department to respond. Meanwhile, we used a garden hose to slow it down. Marie Bogdanoff helped with the garden hose. A couple of off-duty U.S. Forest Setrvice fire fighters living nearby worked on the fire with a chain saw and shovels before the fire trucks arrived. Eventually, USFS and Kern County personnel arrived to put the 100-foot-long fire out.
Hard times in Arkansas and Texas: Merry Christmas — and goodbye
Both Arkansas and Texas are experiencing major budget cuts to their land management agencies. The Arkansas Forestry Commission is laying off 36 workers in January to help make up for a $4 million budget shortfall due to declining timber sales. The agency which oversees fire suppression and conservation in the state forests told the workers on Friday that the layoff would be effective on January 13.
The Texas State Parks and Wildlife agency is asking for donations to help make up for a $4.6 million deficit caused by wildfires, drought, and declining visitation numbers. The state is asking for people to make a tax-deductible donation at their web site, or to check off a block when renewing their vehicle registration to give $5 to the agency.
San Diego County builds new innovative web site for emergency information
The County of San Diego recently unveiled a new web site designed to provide information about ongoing emergencies. It is unique in three areas:
It was designed at no cost by Microsoft.
Microsoft used the opportunity to showcase an innovative method to handle extremely heavy loads during emergencies when large numbers of people attempt to access the site. “Cloud technology” makes it possible to handle a high volume of visits without paying for storage space during non-emergency times.
It takes advantage of social media by displaying feeds from several Twitter accounts maintained by county and state emergency services agencies.
When firefighters arrive at a fire, they face a problem — the fire. In most cases they are directed to suppress it, but unless the fire is very small the best tactics and strategy may not be immediately obvious. You could “cowboy up”, aggressively and directly attacking the perimeter of the fire, but that is not always the best choice. A seasoned firefighter and leader may choose to step back and look at alternatives.
Marc Rounsaville, the former Deputy Director of Fire and Aviation for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, and a former Area Commander, recently posted an article on his web site about framing the problem BEFORE you attempt to solve it. Here is an excerpt, reproduced here with Chief Rounsaville’s permission:
…My incident management experience frequently had me in the role of listening for the problem frame and asking the questions to ensure we weren’t missing some critical aspect of the problem. Emergency responders are trained to respond, to have a bias for action. It is easy to jump in and start doing before you figure out what to do. Many wildland fire units have a default setting of going “direct” on a fire. This means get as close as you can and keep the fire as small as possible by working right on the edge. The problem frame is simply, “Keep the fire as small as possible.” This doesn’t leave many options. Now, think about opening the frame a bit to, “Keep the fire as small as possible while maintaining the highest degree of safety.” If actually applied this requires some level of analysis for risk and safety. A different range of alternatives begin to emerge.
Opening the frame a little wider to, “Provide for a high level of safety and keep the fire as small as possible using the best natural control features.” Again, an even wider range of possible solutions emerge as well as the requirement to think a little more deeply about the situation. This thinking or reflecting will most likely bring more ideas to the surface. This new ideas may not have ever emerged had the responders focused strictly on physically doing something.
Robert Baird will be the new of Deputy Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the U.S. Forest Service.
Ben Walters, a self-described “reformed party animal, former firefighter, and former school teacher” has published a book about fighting wildfires with the Bureau of Land Management titled Fire Crew: Stories from the Fireline.
There are a lot of books about wildfire, but this one is unusual because Mr. Walters knows how to use words — words that convey to the reader what he was seeing through his eyes and put you there with him. His descriptions of events, what was going on and why, and what he was thinking are gripping, and are told in a self-deprecating and sometimes humorous manner without ego.
Early in Mr. Walters’ firefighting career he was a little wild and crazy. For example, when drinking his way through a boring evening at a fire station he climbed aboard a backhoe and attempted to dig a swimming pool for the engine crew. Without spoiling your future reading experience, lets just say it did not end well.
But it is not all about bad personal choices. Firefighters will see themselves or their coworkers in many of the well-told stories which were were collected from Mr. Walters’ 11-year wildland firefighting career with the Bureau of Land Management from 1993 through 2003. He started as a GS-2 rookie and worked his way up to an engine module leader, crew boss, and Type 3 Incident Commander. Then he taught junior high school for three years and later worked with a team that dismantled nuclear reactors and other radiological facilities. Along the way he collected a couple of college degrees and now is working with a team that does studies on nuclear fuel fabrication processes. He told us he “really loved fighting fire and there’s a lot of times I wish I’d never quit doing it. But you know how life goes.”
The book will be an excellent addition to your lap this month when the weather outside is frightful and you have some extra time around the holidays. It is edited by Kelly Andersson, a former editor at Wildland Firefighter magazine and author of the The Montana Ranch COOKHOUSE COOKBOOK. The cover photos were taken by Kari Greer, whose photos we have featured previously on Wildfire Today.
You can get it electronically from Smashwords where copies are available that you can read on a computer or various e-book readers. You can also get electronic or paper versions of the book at Amazon. The cost is $9.99 for electronic copies, and $17.95 for paper. If you don’t already have a Kindle e-book reader, you can get one at the Amazon/Wildfire Today store.
Yesterday we told you about the new contract that the U.S. Forest Service is offering for what they call “New Generation Air Tankers”. On this contract, aircraft must be able to cruise at 300 knots, have turbine engines, and have a “target” capacity of 3,000 to 5,000 gallons, with 2,400 gallons being the minimum acceptable.
The agency plans to add three of these air tankers in 2012 and another four in 2013, with options to bring on up to 28 more, for a total of 35 additional air tankers.
This number, 35, reminds us of the Wildland Fire Large Air Tanker Strategy, last modified August 24, 2009 which recommended 26 large and water scooper air tankers in 2012, increasing to 35 by 2018. The report took into account attrition through age of retiring P-3s and P-2Vs.
The number of firefighting aircraft on exclusive use contracts, not CWN, projected through 2018. Source: page 21 of the report referenced above.
But what aircraft are available that could meet the goals of the new USFS contract solicitation? Below is a table with specifications of some of the air tankers currently in use in North America and Europe, plus one aircraft that has the potential to be converted into an air tanker.
