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As we are writing this article, FloridaToday.com is hosting a live online interactive chat about the Ironhorse fire in Brevard and Volusia Counties in Florida. The fire has burned more than 16,000 acres and is 25 percent controlled.

The chat is hosted by Lee Nessel, a writer for FloridaToday.com, who probably is serving as the moderator. They are using the same CoverItLive system that we have used on Wildfire Today for live chats (we call them “live discussions”). The way it works is, anyone can submit a comment or question, and the moderator approves or rejects each one. In this case the general public is asking questions about the fire and Nessel is answering them while also providing breaking news about the fire.

Here is an example of some of the discussion.

The questions include: what roads are closed, are there any fires in a specific location, what is the condition of the injured firefighter, did the morning rain slow down the fire, why did the fire grow to 16,000 acres so quickly, why is the fire named “Ironhorse”, etc.

The live chat system is also automatically pulling in and posting messages from the Brevard County Emergency Operations Center Twitter account.

This live chat about a developing emergency is ground breaking as far as we know, and could have tremendous potential. Maybe it has been done elsewhere, but we commend FloridaToday for providing the service.  It appears to be an effective way to distribute real time information about a developing emergency to the public.

It is interesting that a journalist is providing all of this information. In a perfect world, an Information Officer from the responsible fire jurisdiction could host a chat like this, but it would take their near-full time attention for the duration of the chat.

This chat session began at 1:36 p.m. ET is and still going as we write this at 10:09 p.m. ET. However, the live chats could be scheduled and run for, say, two hours at a time, three times a day, for example — or more frequently if a fire was moving quickly and threatening communities — as the Iron Horse fire was doing yesterday and today.

 

Other than the 10,000 acre fire in Florida, here is the wildland fire news for today.

Texas wildfire situation

In the past seven days, the Texas Forest Service responded to 71 fires that burned 136,699 acres, but things are calming down, according to the TFS:

After working numerous fires Sunday and Monday, most of the Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System (TIFMAS) strike teams will begin demobilizing Tuesday evening. The 12 strike teams were mobilized from fire departments across the state to provide a rapid response in anticipation of Sunday’s wind event. They played a critical role in dozens of fires, including the Tanglewood Complex, Matador West, Quinn Ranch, the Accident Fire and the fire that burned into Colorado City.

One Regional Incident Management Team (RIMT) remains in Amarillo, assisting a TFS team with post-disaster assessments on the Willow and Tanglewood complexes. Four RIMTs remain in Lubbock, Midland, Brownwood, and Mineral Wells to assist with the TIFMAS demobilization and resource tracking process.

European Union funds prescribed fire research

The European Union is funding research to develop an integrated wildland fire management approach that includes the use of prescribed fire. FIRE PARADOX partner Cemagref (France) said:

Fire is a bad master, but a good servant.

Washington state House passes “no man’s land” wildfire bill

The Washington State House of Representatives on Monday passed by a 96-0 vote a “no man’s land” bill that would in part protect firefighters who suppress a fire outside their fire protection districts. The bill is in response to the 49,000-acre Dry Creek fire north of Sunnyside in 2009. The fire was not within any established fire protection district because the residents in that area had not taken the step of funding one. They were relying on firefighters from neighboring areas to suppress fires on their property.

Wildfire Today has previously covered this issue here, here, here, and here.

New Mexico wildfire burns 70,000 acres

Detailed mapping revealed that a fire in southeastern New Mexico on Sunday and Monday burned 70,000 acres.

 

 

A wildfire in Volusia and Brevard counties in east central Florida shut down two major highways Monday night, but by 9:00 a.m. on Monday the highways, I-95 and U.S. 1, reopened.

The Brevard County Emergency Management Office estimated Monday night that the fire had burned 10,000 acres and one mobile home. CNN said the fire was spotting 1/2 mile ahead yesterday.

Strong winds and dry fuels were challenging firefighters who may get some relief from light rain that is in the forecast for Tuesday morning.

Florida Today interviewed a firefighter in this video:

Here is a video report from MyFox Orlando:

 

More information:
Brush fire growing near Interstate 95: MyFoxORLANDO.com

 

 

Do you ever wonder where that Pulaski that you carried for that 16-hour shift came from? Many of them are made by the Council Tool Company in Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina. Council has contracts with many government agencies, including the federal government’s General Services Administration, to supply tools to their wildland firefighters.

Here are some excerpts from an interesting article at starnewsonline.com about the company.

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Made in America – every bit of it. And in Lake Waccamaw, N.C.

And by the same Columbus County family for 125 years.

Council Tool Co. doesn’t make what most would consider sexy products. But they are sexy enough to have appeared on national television – namely, on an episode of the History Channel’s “Modern Marvels”, “The History of the Ax.”

Customers W.S. Darley and Forestry Suppliers go back to 1940, and Monroe Hardware of Morrisville goes back to the 1920s, Pickett said.

But other Council customers and markets have changed over the decades.

During 20 of the 30 years John Council has been at the plant, “we were in what we call the hardware business. We made a product that ended up in a retail hardware setting.”

Ten to 15 years ago, retail was 60 percent to 70 percent of Council Tool’s revenue, John said, and now it’s less than 5 percent.

Today, nearly half of its products are for fire-fighting and law-enforcement uses.

The company will design and manufacture tools under its own brand, but a big part of the business has been making products that are branded by other companies.

“We make stuff for Fortune 500 companies, for small companies that would equip a fire truck, or for companies that sell to the military, into that kind of world,” John said. “And they know the exact the specifications, what they want, and they expect us to be discreet.

The company needs to keep a low profile, Margo said. No tours, no visitors, they emphasized. And, they don’t sell the axes from their plant.

“It’s one of the reasons we’re here and that includes visibility and being discreet about who we make things for,” Pickett said.

There’s nothing discreet, however, about how the products are used.

The axes and forced-entry tools aren’t light, but they still are carried by the firefighter.

Most of Council’s products are made for the American market, but export “is a small but growing aspect of what we do,” Margo said. “We tend to export wildland fire fighting tools, and there is demand for that all over the globe. We shipped to 17 foreign companies.”

Some European companies have been producing and marketing axes to the high-end American market. Now Council has gotten into that game.

“We’re coming out with these premium lines of tools,” Margo said. “We have the first one almost ready to ship – a 4-pound Dayton that is known as a workhorse,” she said, referring to an engraved ax on the table next to a special carrying box.

The ax is made from an existing pattern but with special alloy and a special handle – a throwback to something you might have bought in the ‘20s.

It’s trademarked Velvicut, and costs $169.95.

 

In west Texas on Sunday strong winds pushed 21 wildfires across 110,000 120,000 acres, destroyed about 68 homes, and caused one death.

Smoke from a 21,000-acre fire blanketed Interstate 20 near Midland causing a traffic accident that killed a 5-year-old girl on Sunday. In dense smoke a tractor-trailer hit the pickup the girl was riding in, according to Trooper John Barton of the Texas Department of Public Safety. A man and another child were also injured in the seven-vehicle crash.

Mywesttexas.com has more details about the accident:

A Corvette slowed to a stop at 2:35 p.m. on the interstate west of Loop 250 when the driver couldn’t see past smoke caused by a grass fire that started in the median, said Department of Public Safety Trooper John Barton.

The trooper said a Ford F-250 then crashed into the stopped car, followed by a BMW, Chevrolet truck and tractor-trailer. Three other vehicles also added onto the pileup shortly after, Barton said. The driver of the Corvette, 58-year-old Luis Inguanzo of Cedar Hill, was hit several times as his car skidded, and he was in stable condition at Midland Memorial Hospital as of Sunday night, Barton said.

One firefighter suffered second-degree burns while working on a fire near Colorado City, about 240 miles west of Dallas. That fire also destroyed three large oil storage tanks and two homes.

Firefighting aircraft were grounded on Sunday due to the winds, according to Texas Forest Service spokesman Lewis Kearney, but they are expected to be able to fly on Monday. He said the largest fire burned about 30,000 acres and 27 homes in the Panhandle northeast of Amarillo. A firefighter, Daniel Cook, was forced to evacuate because of the fire and found out later that his home was one of those that burned. He said someone told him that his “whole street was ash.”

Sunday night in Barnhart, Texas, 50 miles west of San Angelo, about 100 people gathered at the community center, ready to board three school buses if a fire approached the town. But the wind shifted and the fire moved in a different direction.

The high fire danger was caused by a cold front that moved across west Texas on Sunday, resulting in relative humidities in the teens along with winds of 20 to 30 mph or greater. By Monday morning the humidities had increased and most of those red flag warnings were cancelled. However the cold front is now passing across east Texas causing much of the central and southeast part of the state to be affected by red flag warnings.