Category: Uncategorized

Earlier Wildfire Today covered the fatality of the firefighter, Michael MacDonald, who died Sunday in the crash of the two medical helicopters in Flagstaff. MacDonald, 26, was a member of the Chief Mountain Hot Shot crew. He and his crew were working on the Walla Valley fire in Grand Canyon National Park when had an allergic reaction to medication while being treated at a clinic for a spider bite. He was being transported by a private air ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Flagstaff, Arizona when the crash happened.

The funeral services will be at the Browning High School, 112 1st Ave. SW, Browning, MT July 5 at 2:00 pm.

The lineup for participating fire apparatus will be at noon. Fire agencies wishing to send a vehicle should contact Dustin at 406-450-4273 or Mike at 406-868-8626

Click HERE for a map of the area.

July 6 is the 14th anniversary of the South Canyon fire near Grand Junction, CO.

From the IAWF Wildland Fire Event Calendar:

On the afternoon of July 6, 1994, the South Canyon fire spotted across the drainage and beneath firefighters, moving onto steep slopes and into dense, highly flammable Gambel oak. Within seconds, a wall of flame raced up the hill toward the firefighters on the west flank fireline.

Failing to outrun the flames, 12 firefighters perished. Two helitack crew members on top of the ridge also died when they tried to outrun the fire to the northwest. The remaining 35 firefighters survived by escaping out the east drainage or by seeking a safety area and deploying their fire shelters.

For more information, the Lessons Learned Center has the investigation report. It is a large file, about 4 MB.

Fairfax, Va., June 30, 2008… The International Association of Fire Chiefs Digital Project Working Group today released its Interim Report and Recommendations: Fireground Noise and Digital Radio Transmissions. This report culminates a year’s work with public-safety organizations, manufacturers and the laboratory services of the federal government to determine the extent of radio transmission problems associated with fireground noise.

To review the report, go to DPWG Interim Report on the IAFC website. Two important companion reports also are posted on the site: the IAFC Portable Radio Best Practices presentation; and the National Telecommunications & Information Administration report, Intelligibility of Selected Radio Systems in the Presence of Fireground Noise: Test Plan and Results.

The intent of the IAFC interim report is to alert the fire service that noise on the fireground can interfere with intelligible radio communications. The report is organized into sections that provide background on the issue, the steps the Digital Project Working Group took to investigate the problem in an objective laboratory setting, the results of the testing and corresponding analysis and recommendations, and best operational practices.

HERE is a link to a pretty good map that shows most of the major fires in California, updated July 1 at 1900.

On June 28 we posted a map that showed smoke plumes from California reaching east all the way to Missouri. Today there is even more smoke across the U.S. but most of it is not from the California fires. It originates in Canada, California, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

On the map below, the red dots are fires and the gray areas are smoke.