Wildlandfire.com has some photos of Marc Mullenix. As you may know, he passed away on January 28.
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Virginia Has Already Spent Their Fire Suppression Funds for the Year
Due to fire activity much busier than usual, the Virginia Department of Forestry has already spent their budgeted wildland fire suppression funds for the year. They intend to ask the Governor’s office for more.
From the Richmond Times Dispatch:
“Entering the second week of the spring fire season, the Virginia Department of Forestry already has spent its entire 2008 funds for firefighting.
Preliminary estimates indicate that the outbreak of wildfires across the state two weeks ago that led Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to declare a state of emergency may have cost the department about $500,000, spokesman John Campbell said.
That’s the agency’s budget for firefighting for the entire year, Campbell said. “We are thinking we are tapped out . . . and we are just beginning the year.”
The estimate includes expenses such as overtime payments and gasoline, as well as the use of helicopters and other heavy equipment. It doesn’t include the localities’ expenses, he said.
The National Guard, which was sent to help several counties, may have spent an additional $175,000, Campbell said.
Across the state, officials are still trying to calculate the financial losses from the 348 wildfires two weeks ago.
The fires, fueled by high winds, were caused mostly by downed trees that hit electrical wires. The fires consumed nearly 16,000 acres, about 4,000 more acres than burned in all of 2007, forestry officials said.”
Esperanza Fire: One Trial or Six?
The 5-person crew of Engine 57 from the San Bernardino National Forest was killed while trying to protect a house during the Esperanza Fire in Southern California on October 26, 2006.
From the Press-Enterprise :
“Raymond Lee Oyler, charged with murder and arson in the deaths of five U.S. Forest Service firefighters, wants the 45 charges against him divided into six separate trials.“Very weak charges have been joined with particularly strong ones,” Mark R. McDonald, Oyler’s attorney, argues in the motion filed Friday.
The defense attorney claims putting all the charges in one trial, especially when some carry a death penalty, “will substantially prejudice Mr. Oyler in his right to a fair trial.”
The motion, which will be heard March 21, “is not unusual; it’s an effort to sever the capital counts from the non-capital counts,” said Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin. He said he will file a written response with Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Prevost.
McDonald argues that Oyler should face six separate cases with the charges arranged on the types of evidence gathered from May through October 2006, when 62 fires struck the Banning Pass area.
Oyler is charged with starting 23 of them. He also faces five murder counts and 17 charges of using a device to commit arson.
He was arrested shortly the deadly Esperanza Fire, which began Oct. 26, 2006. Arson investigators said the 43,000-acre blaze was started by a device made of six wooden matches attached to a lit cigarette with a rubber band.
Driven by Santa Ana winds, the fire moved from its 1 a.m. flashpoint near Cabazon up the side of the San Jacinto Mountains. The five firefighters who perished were trapped by flames as they defended a home.
During Oyler’s preliminary hearing last year, investigators described six distinct devices used to set the fires the former Beaumont mechanic is charged with.
“Only two of the fires bear any forensic connection to Mr. Oyler,” McDonald argues. DNA was collected from the remains of cigarettes laid across wooden matchsticks on arson fires set June 9 and 10, 2006, in the Banning Pass area.
McDonald wants the case broken down into cigarettes placed over matches; matches bound by a rubber band to a cigarette (including the Esperanza Fire); “open flame device” fires which investigators declared arson by process of elimination; wooden matches; cigarette-and-paper match devices; and matches affixed to a cigarette with a strip of duct tape.
Oyler, 37, remains in custody without bail. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.”
Mark Rey Hopes to Stay Out of Prison on Tuesday
The Associated Press and The Oregonian both have interesting stories about Mark Rey, the Undersecretary of Agriculture, and how there is a chance he could be sentenced to prison for charges that he violated the law regarding the use of aerial fire retardant.
Here is an excerpt from The Oregonian:
“An irritated federal judge in Montana appears ready to go along with the request by Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, based in Eugene, to hold the Bush official who oversees the Forest Service in contempt of court for disobeying his orders.
The judge, Donald Molloy of Missoula, has said that at a hearing Tuesday, he could either jail Mark Rey, the undersecretary of Agriculture, place him under house arrest or suspend all use of fire retardant – the red slurry dropped to slow wildfires.”
The Associated Press had this to say, in part:
“WASHINGTON (AP) — He overhauled federal forest policy to cut more trees — and became a lightning rod for environmentalists who say he is intent on logging every tree in his reach.After nearly seven years in office, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey still has a long to-do list. Near the top: Persuade a federal judge to keep him out of jail.
Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist who has directed U.S. forest policy since 2001, also wants to set up state rules making it easier to build roads in remote national forests and restore overgrown, unhealthy forests by clearing them of small trees and debris that can stoke wildfires. And he wants to streamline cumbersome regulations that can paralyze actions on public lands.
A Montana judge, accusing Rey of deliberately skirting the law so the Forest Service can keep fighting wildfires with a flame retardant that kills fish, has threatened to put him behind bars.
For Rey, who faces a court date Tuesday, the prospect of jail time is daunting. But it’s just one more obstacle as he attempts to rid federal policies of pesky paperwork and endless litigation that slows forest managers from cutting down trees.”
Fighting Fire With Hay Bales and a Tarp
An article by J. P. Plutt on the University of Montana Extension site describes how to quickly construct a helicopter dip tank or water reservoir with hay bales and a tarp. Add a pump and some fire hose and it can be used to protect a structure. Here is a portion of the article:
“The components of Liggett’s structure protection system include hay bales, a tarp, a pump, fire hose, and a few valves. You take the fire hose, drill holes in it and attach it around the structure. You arrange the hay bales in a rectangle, cover it with the tarp and fill it with as much as 12,000 gallons of water. If fire approaches, the owner need only turn on the pump and get out of there. The system can keep the structure soaking in water for up to 12 hours, which conceivably would protect the building from reaching ignition temperatures until the fire front passes and firefighters can safely enter the area to do the mop-up work.”
This could actually work until you get a spot fire in the hay. But in a remote dry site, a dip tank quickly constructed like this could be invaluable.
Outsourcing Fire Suppression?
An article in the Washington Post claims the Administration intends to reinstate the competitive sourcing program within the U.S. Forest Service in 2009. The author, Stephen Barr, raises some interesting issues about how this could affect responses to fires and other emergencies.
Here are some excerpts:
“The Government Accountability Office faulted outsourcing projects at the Forest Service in a report released yesterday, prompting renewed calls for more scrutiny of the Bush administration’s effort to contract out federal jobs, a plan known as competitive sourcing.
The Forest Service does not have a realistic long-term plan for determining which agency jobs should be given to the private sector and does not have reliable data to back up claims of cost savings, the GAO said.
In addition, outsourcing substantial numbers of Forest Service jobs to the private sector could, over time, reduce the agency’s ability to fight fires in the wilderness and to respond to emergencies such as Hurricane Katrina.”
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“According to the GAO, the Forest Service plans to consider putting nearly two-thirds of the agency’s workforce into job competitions against the private sector.
The success of such a “massive undertaking” will hinge on clear guidelines and “a strategy to assess the cumulative effect that outsourcing a large number of federal jobs could have on its firefighting capability. Unfortunately, the Forest Service has none of these in place,” the GAO concluded.
The Forest Service has about 37,000 full-time employees. About 10,000 hold a job related to firefighting, and another 20,000 are certified to fight fires and respond to national emergencies.
In its report, the GAO questioned whether contractors can be expected to provide emergency services, compared with Forest Service employees who know they may be asked to volunteer for one to three weeks each year on a fire line.”
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“Because of the controversy over job competitions and estimated savings, Congress shut down the Forest Service’s competitive sourcing program for fiscal 2008. The administration wants to reinstate it for 2009.”
Update: Feb. 29, 2009
HERE is a link to the GAO report.
