Early last week the United States requested help from Australia and Canada in battling the wildfires in California and other states. The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group, through the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), asked Canada for four to five 20-person hand crews and requested 55 overhead personnel from Australia.
The three 20-person crews from Quebec will be arriving in Boise Wednesday September 2. They will receive a briefing orientation and participate in fire shelter deployment training. After a one-night rest in Boise, the crews will fly to Reno, Nevada and board ground transportation to their fire assignment on the North Complex in California. The North Complex consists of numerous lightning fires being managed as one incident on the Plumas National Forest.
As for the status of the request for 55 overhead positions from down under, “Australia is on hold for now,” Ms. Cobb said. “They are assessing the need for the types of personnel being requested as our fire situation evolves.”
Australia is approaching the beginning of their 2020-2021 summer bushfire season.
From The Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
The ABC understands anyone who wants to go to California will have to pass strict health tests and age will be taken into consideration because of COVID-19.
Those who go to California will have to quarantine for two weeks when they return to Australia, which [Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council CEO Stuart] Ellis said he expected would play a role in deciding who goes.
“That needs to be factored into each (fire) commissioner’s consideration of their people’s availability,” he said.
“Not only will they be absent for the period they are in the United States, but they will also need to spend two weeks in quarantine on return to Australia.”
Queensland will not send anyone because the state is about to enter their fire season and Victoria will not assist due to the health crisis. New South Wales, the ACT, and Western Australia are considering their options.
The final decision is up to each state and territory, but Ellis said he is optimistic Australia will either meet or come close to the requested number.
California has asked for help to arrive by September 6.
It is possible that the fire authorities in Australia may be in a very awkward position. During their extraordinarily busy 2019-2020 summer bushfire season, the U.S. deployed more than 200 U.S. Forest Service and Department of the Interior wildland fire staff to the Australian Bushfire response.
Firefighters in Australia asked to travel to America could think they would be entering a more risky environment by accepting an assignment where the COVID-19 death rate is 21 times higher per 100,000 population — 2.63 in Australia compared to 56.12 in the U.S. The death rate in Canada is less than half of the U.S. rate, 24.75.
Australia and New Zealand sent 44 fire specialists to assist the United States in 2008, and 68 in 2015. They may have helped out in other years also.
I recently became aware of an article that appeared in the Spring, 1998 edition of “Ranger”, a publication of the Association of National Park Rangers. It was written by Jennifer Blake, the daughter of Bill Blake who when he retired was the Chief Ranger of the National Park Service’s Midwest Region. Bill and I have spent much time together on incident management team assignments and ridden thousands of miles on multi-week motorcycle trips.
Jennifer’s piece describes what it is like for a child to grow up in a National Park Service family. When she wrote it as a 21-year-old majoring in journalism at Northeastern University in Boston, her parents worked at New River Gorge National River in West Virginia where he was the park’s Chief Ranger and she worked in payroll.
Her experiences are probably similar to other children whose parents work for land management agencies.
I asked Jennifer if I could republish the article she wrote 22 years ago, and I didn’t leave it at that — I encouraged her to write an epilog as an update. She said yes, and both are below.
Bill Gabbert
Childhood in NPS Packs Many Memories
By Jennifer Blake
My father is Yogi Bear’s worst enemy. He’s Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl wrapped into one. My father is a park ranger. And while he never worked at Jellystone Park, his career moved our family across the country three times and gave me the memories and images that defined my childhood.
I can’t think of my father without thinking of his uniform. The forest green pants and famous Smokey Bear hat are as intrinsic to his appearance in my mind as are the color of his eyes. To this day, I feel strangely at home whenever I see someone wearing one.
Memorable Adventures
That uniform came to represent the small adventures that punctuate and color the lives of young children. I remember visits to ranger stations, drives through apple orchards to spy on bear cubs stranded in trees, and trips to mountain lookouts to spy on forest fires the same way most kids remember learning how to ride their bikes. What strikes me most about these memories is the security I felt knowing that my father and all his powers as a park ranger, which in the mind of a young child were numerous and mighty, were never far behind.
Being a ranger was — and still is — more than just my father’s job; it was part of his identity. I was enthralled with that identity and tried to imbibe as much of it as I could. I was born in Fredricksburg. Va., when my father worked at the national battlefield there. His early tales of my ancestors’ feats on the very grounds on which he worked sparked a passion for history I still carry. I’m probably one of the few people who visited just about every major Civil War battle site before the age of 15.
The stories my father would tell me on hikes through the woods were more interesting than any children’s story. If he had any doubts about the attention I gave his words, they were erased when my kindergarten teacher sent home a note telling my parents that I had interrupted a story she was telling to the class: “Bears don’t simply sleep in the winter,” I proudly informed my classmates. “They hibernate.” I pronounced the word as if it were a special secret that had been passed from my father to me — and, in a way, it was.
That same class later went on a field trip to my father’s ranger station. We lived in Elkton, Va., at the time and the station was located in the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains amid the painting of fall foliage. I’ll never forget how proud I was that day. Actually, I don’t know if I, as a 5-year-old, had any real notion of pride. But I do know that the feeling of being special I had on that day — because I was the kid whom all the rangers knew, because I was the one who donned an oversized, yellow fireman’s hat and tried to aim the hose, because it was my father who got down on all fours and growled like a grizzly during the bear-trap demonstration — still strikes me as significant.
The Park Service, in the fashion of the military, creates a surrogate family. Rangers are transferred to different parks across the United States — I’ve lived in Virginia (twice), New Mexico, Arizona, Georgia. Pennsylvania, California (twice), and West Virginia — and each new park presents a new group of friends. I’ve spent many a Thanksgiving and Christmas with other rangers and their families and it never failed to feel like anything but home. Once, my brother and I were in a school production that called for us to run into the audience and return with our fathers in tow. We were living in Yosemite, Calif., and my father had been called out on an emergency — but my brother and I didn’t hesitate to grab our “Uncle Jim,” who followed us obligingly. My father’s office is still one of the first places I visit when I go home. I’m greeted with excited hugs that most people only receive when they visit distant grandparents.
Moving Not Easy
Not that moving around often was always easy. Starting new schools is right up there with root canals and major surgery on my list of fun. The culture shock I experienced moving from California to West Virginia was worse than when I left Boston to live in London.
I left the beautiful surroundings of northern California and a four-room, 65-person school to arrive in the rundown, economically depressed southern West Virginia. I was only interesting to the other kids as an object of torture. (I distinctly remember an episode that involved a greasy, unwashed junior high boy grabbing my book and sticking it down his pants.) Beckley didn’t exactly welcome outsiders with open arms. I cried so hard and so often my first three months that my eyes were always bloodshot and a guidance counselor once pulled me aside to ask if I was on drugs.
Many Benefits
But I know the benefits of “growing up Park Service” have far outweighed the detriments. For one, when I left for college I had few qualms at the prospect of being thrown in with hundreds of new kids. And I still proudly demonstrate the knowledge I gained from my father and our countless trips though his many parks: I got a curious look from a few of my friends the other day when one of them picked up a stone off the street and said it looked like an arrowhead: I quickly pronounced it the wrong material for a true Indian arrowhead.
My father’s career had taken him in many directions — park rangers actually do a lot more than secure visitor’s picnic baskets from pesky bears. He’s taught defensive driving at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (a fact that became all too clear when he tried to teach me how to drive); he’s served on presidential protection teams—teams of park rangers assembled whenever a president visits a national park — for Ford, Carter, Nixon and Clinton; he was chosen to work at the bicentennial celebration for the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, where he held the door open for Queen Elizabeth; and he served a 30-day detail on the ’88 Yellowstone fires, which ravaged what my father calls “the Mother Park.”
A few years after the fire, my family visited Yellowstone. The park was still badly scarred from the fires and my father seemed to have a tale about every singed tree. The force of nature was displayed in the strips of green grass and lush forest that stood untouched and juxtaposed to the fire-ravaged portions. I remember my father telling us that while the fires were burning, it seemed as if the sun never set because the force of the fires produced such an enormous glow.
The sight reminded me of a song about Smokey the Bear my brother and I were taught as children.
Smokey the Bear, Smokey the Bear*. Prowlin’ and a growlin’ and a sniffin’ the air. He can find a fire before it starts to flame. That’s why they call him Smokey, That was how he got his name.
In ninth grade I attended a youth-in-conservation conference and the leaders taught us that song as a joke. Everyone laughed because I already knew it, but I sang it with pride.
The Park Service celebrates America’s heritage; I celebrate the Park Service as my heritage. My childhood is wound tightly around it — inseparable. I’ve migrated to the city, but I still have a fondness for those famous hats. There’s a Park Service visitor center in downtown Boston. Occasionally, I drag an unsuspecting friend there because it reminds me of home. The paint in that visitor center is the same color brown as in every other Park Service visitor center (my mother has dubbed this particularly drab shade “Park Service Brown’’); it also has the same books, the same signs for the bathroom and the same donation box next to the cash register.
I know if I asked enough of the rangers, one of them would at least know someone who knows my father. And because of that, they know an intrinsic part of me.
Epilog, August, 2020
It has been more years than I care to admit (ok – 26 years) since I lived with my family in a national park. And yet, national parks across the country still feel like home to me.
I recently drove 13 hours to hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. We never lived there, but it still felt like sort of a homecoming the minute I saw an arrowhead. It’s the gift I was given as the kid of a park ranger and I will always cherish and keep it. My brother must feel the same way because he’s a proud park ranger himself now.
A few years ago I was working in San Francisco. I was at a bar and seated next to a party who had just come back from Yosemite National Park (where I was lucky enough to live from the time I was 7 until I turned 13). I couldn’t help but listen to them as they spoke in awe of what they’d seen. And then one of the women mentioned the small schoolhouse in the valley (my old schoolhouse!) and said she’d love to talk to a someone that had attended school there. I was proud to turn around and introduce myself.
National parks are one of the most constant things in my life. I’ve continued to move around as an adult and my career path is nothing like I thought it would be when I wrote the original article so many years ago. But I still smile whenever I see someone wearing a green and grey uniform with a Smokey Bear hat. I’ve pretty much been a city girl since I moved to Boston for college, but national parks will always be one of my touchstones.
*From Bill: When the Smokey Bear fire prevention campaign began in 1944 he was known as just that, “Smokey Bear” without “the” in the name. But in 1952 Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins wrote what became a successful song named “Smokey the Bear”. They said adding “the” enhanced the song’s rhythm. A Little Golden Book published about the bear in 1955 followed the songwriters lead and also used the incorrect “the” version of the name. All this created confusion, but the name of the fire prevention icon is and always has been Smokey Bear. A new version of the song has been written correcting the name.
Maps are a great way to communicate with a public that may be starving for information about an ongoing fire, or to inform them about conditions that could lead to more fires. They can provide information very quickly — if thoughtfully created.
The two maps below distributed by Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACC) on Twitter attempt to warn the public about the elevated danger of wildfires caused by actual or predicted lightning. I would venture a guess that the general public would have great difficulty figuring out what part of the country they represent based solely on the images. There are no state boundaries that can be easily identified and no cities or highways to make the guessing game easier. The polygons within the maps (which are not counties on the RMACC map) do not convey any worthwhile information to the casual Twitter user, only adding to the confusion.
Wet/dry thunderstorms in E/Co today; lightning activity in the RMA for the past 24 hours showed 10,714 strikes. Strikes blanketed CO, S/WY & E/KS. Western SD saw strikes across the western part of the state w/some in central SD. pic.twitter.com/6pqenkCKFn
I am a harsher critic of maps than most, having spent many fire assignments as Situation Unit Leader and Planning Section Chief, producing maps for firefighters and the public. Map making continues at Wildfire Today, producing graphics to illustrate the location of fires.
When the public sees smoke or they hear about new fires, many of them have one overriding question. Where is the fire? Unless they have property in the area, the typical person does not need to know that the fire is 300 feet west of Forest Service Road 24D3. They also don’t care about division breaks or helicopter dip sites. They need a map so they can figure out, in many cases, where the fire is in relation to them or their community. A map that is zoomed in so tight that the geographical context of the fire can’t be seen, is often not helpful to the public. A person can get oriented more easily if they can see highways and one or more cities/towns/communities. But if the incident is in a very remote area, that can be difficult.
I visited InciWeb today and found some good, bad, and ugly examples. All of the images below were large files that needed to be reduced in size to show here; the original images have more detail.
The map below of the Castle and Shotgun Fires on the Sequoia National Forest appears to be based on the standard Forest Service recreation map that forest visitors can purchase — on paper. It is shaded, which may represent vegetation and/or topography and also includes virtually every Forest Service site or feature that exists, including dirt roads. The result is clutter that unless a person has a high-resolution copy of the image and plenty of time, it is difficult or impossible to find paved roads, highways, or communities that could help a person to get oriented. At least it has a vicinity map at upper-right so we know it is in central California.
The base map used for fire public information maps should not be topographical lines or the standard F.S. recreation map.
Map of the SQF Complex of fires on the Sequoia National Forest, August 28, 2020.
The map of the Griffin Fire below is better. It is zoomed out providing geographical context, and is not cluttered. But much of the very small text is difficult or impossible to read.
Griffin Fire, Arizona, August 30, 2020.
The map below shows five widely separated fires in Arizona so it has quite a bit of context. It shows many, many dirt roads, but that helps to show the location of the three fires on the east side. I don’t know that the shaded relief background adds value, but it has a vicinity map, which is a plus. Overall, a very good map.
Medicine and other Fires in Arizona Augut 30, 2020.
The map of the P515 and Lionshead Fires in Oregon deserves praise for its simplicity and lack of clutter. The colors showing ownership are all very different from each other, making it simple to compare them to the helpful legend. It is effective and easy to comprehend. The Lionshead Fire is so close to the edge it makes me wonder what is just off the map to the west. Probably more of the same, but still…
(One of my pet peeves is when six similar shades of brown, for example, represent different features. Not a problem on this map.)
P515 and Lionshead Fires in Oregon, August 29, 2020.
The best map that I ran across during my quick perusal of InciWeb today is the White River Fire on the Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon. The map maker made sure to include at least one community and several highways. They even went the extra step of adding three labels to features with which the public may be familiar. It is pleasing to the eye, has a useful legend, and the highways near the fire are identified. Even though much of the fire is on Forest Service responsibility land, they resisted the urge to use the FS recreation map as a base map. Great job, White River Fire. (Contact us and we’ll send you a prize, a Wildfire Today cap.)
After training, they are expected to be fire-ready by September 3
File photo. Jay Karle, center right, a crew boss assigned to assist Soldiers of 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade, points out boundaries to be used during wildland firefighting training near Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Aug. 20, 2015. The “First Round” Soldiers were activated to help suppress fires in the Pacific Northwest due to civilian resources running low. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Porch, 28th Public Affairs Detachment.)
Approximately 200 active duty U.S. Army soldiers are being mobilized to assist with wildfire suppression efforts.
The Department of Defense approved the request for the personnel that was submitted by the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group through the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
After receiving training, the soldiers will serve as firefighters. Above normal fire activity is occurring in northern California, Arizona, and Colorado.
The last use of active duty soldiers for firefighting duty in the United States was in 2018. Wildfire Today has articles about mobilizations in 2008, 2015, 2017, and 2018.
The personnel will be trained in the basics of wildland fire suppression and firefighter safety by wildland fire agency personnel beginning Sunday, August 30 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington. The soldiers will be outfitted with wildland fire personal protective equipment and other gear. Training is expected to conclude by Wednesday, September 2, with the soldiers beginning work on a wildfire thereafter. While deployed they will be accompanied by experienced wildland fire strike team leaders and crew bosses from wildland fire management agencies.
File photo. Personal Protective Equipment is distributed to soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in preparation for deployment to the Umpqua North Fire in Oregon. September 7, 2017. USFS photo.
These maps show the forecasts for the distribution of near surface smoke from wildfires. The map above is for Wednesday evening August 26, and the other is for Thursday morning August 27.
Smoke forecast 5 a.m. MDT Aug 27, 2020. RealEarth.
File photo of Incident Management Teams from the United States arriving in Victoria, Australia. Photo posted February 11, 2020 by Emergency Management Victoria.
The United State is reaching out to Canada and Australia, hoping to get more than 130 firefighters to assist with the battling the 93 uncontained wildfires in the country.
In spite of the travel difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group is “working on a request for 55 overhead wildland fire personnel from Australia and about four to five crews from Canada”, said Kari Cobb, an Acting Public Affairs Officer at the National Interagency Fire Center. In the United States, hand crews usually consist of 20 people.
If the Australian’s accept the assignment, they will be leaving a continent where the virus has been nearly controlled, to come to a country where the opposite is true.
The international assistance has worked in both directions. In July, 2008, 44 Australian and New Zealand firefighters came to the United States to assist with fires in California. The first deployment of firefighters from Australia to the U.S. was in 2000.
Although Australia is no stranger to wildfires, the 2019-2020 season was one of the worst fire seasons on record. Major bushfires began in June, 2019, and by September were stronger, more intense, and more frequent. The fire situation continued to worsen, and by November, Australia requested international assistance to suppress the thousands of fires on the landscape.
Over a span of four months, the United States responded to the request for firefighters by providing personnel from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service. In total, The U.S. deployed more than 200 USFS and DOI wildland fire staff to the Australian Bushfire response.
