In some cases a severe wildfire can leave the ground charred, barren, and unable to absorb water. That means even light rain can potentially turn into a financially devastating flash flood or mudflow. Watch the video below to learn more about the importance of flood insurance.
File photo of a jumper cable on a high voltage electrical transmission tower.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) told a judge on November 29 that it is investigating whether there is a systemic problem with a piece of hardware on their high voltage electrical transmission towers that can start wildfires, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Investigators with PG&E and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are looking at the possible failure of jumper cables on towers near the points of origin of two huge recent fires, the 2017 Camp Fire at Paradise, California and the Kincade Fire that started near the Geysers north of Santa Rosa October 23, 2019.
The Chronicle reported that “PG&E is also seeking more generally to determine whether there may be jumper cables that may be susceptible to failure for any reason in PG&E’s system,” the company told U.S. District Judge William Alsup.
It has been determined that PG&E equipment started the Camp Fire, but officially the cause of the Kincade fire is still under investigation.
On October 24 PG&E filed a required preliminary report with the California Public Utilities Commission that stated “at approximately (9:20 p.m.) on Oct. 23, PG&E became aware of a Transmission level outage on the Geysers No. 9 Lakeville 230kV line when the line relayed and did not reclose. At approximately (7:30 a.m.) on Oct. 24, a responding PG&E Troubleman patrolling the Geysers No. 9 Lakeville 230 kV line observed that CalFire had taped off the area around the base of transmission tower 001/006. On site CalFire personnel brought to the Troubleman’s attention what appeared to be a broken jumper on the same tower.”
Jumper cables are used on high voltage lines to route the wires around the metal tower so the electricity is not conducted into the structure. If a piece of hardware that supports the jumpers fails, the jumper wire breaks, or if it comes in contact with the steel tower, massive arcing will occur sending sparks and molten metal flying, which can ignite anything on the ground that is flammable.
The video below shows the ignition of the Kincade Fire on October 23 as seen in near infrared from a camera at Barham near Geyserville, California. Keep your eye on the bright light on the horizon left of center. It disappears at about 21:19:55 and 15 seconds later the fire can be seen growing rapidly.
Football players and Vets help each other — maybe the program can be adapted for firefighters
Merging Vets & Players photo.
With the suicide rate of wildland firefighters being described as “astronomical” according to information developed by Nelda St. Clair of the Bureau of Land Management in 2017, we need to be situationally aware of any proven or innovative programs that can help mitigate the issues that lead firefighters to think that’s the only option they have.
Today I learned about a program designed to merge former professional football players with veterans of the military. The goal is to give them a new team to tackle the transition together. Called Merging Vets & Players, or MVP, it shows them they are NOT alone.
Fox Sports analyst Jay Glazer and Nate Boyer, retired NFL player and former Green Beret, created MVP in 2015 to address this important challenge.
So far MVP is active in four cities where once a week the former football players and military veterans meet for one hour and 45 minutes in gyms.
Here is how it is described:
The program starts with a 30-minute workout with a warrior to their left and right to get that familiar “burn” going again in them.
The magic of the MVP begins right after with The Huddle, an hour and fifteen minutes of peer-on-peer support, a group of badasses building up fellow badasses. It reminds us of our strength, even when it doesn’t seem clear.
Merging Vets & Players photo.
The Huddle is where they share their challenges in transition and offer each other support and resources. MVP coaches our vets and athletes to be PROUD OF THEIR SCARS, and to use what they experienced on the battlefield or football field to EMPOWER them through the transition. We don’t run from mental health challenges, we tackle it as a team.
Too many combat vets and former professional athletes think they are alone, MVP is here to show you’re not alone. Whether it’s combat camouflage or a sports jersey, our MVP members help each other find a new identity, — find greatness again — after the uniform comes off.
Wildland firefighters have some things in common with vets and professional football players. Wildland firefighters are tactical athletes, they are members of a team, they depend on each other for success and safety, what they do can be extremely mentally and physically difficult, they are often away from their friends and families, and there are times of the year when they suddenly transition to a much different life style away from their “team”.
Maybe the MVP program could be modified, merging vets with current or transitioned firefighters. Or, it could be just firefighters.
Take a look at the two-minute video that Fox aired on Thanksgiving before the football games.
I’d love to see a group of firefighters doing the “WHO’S GOT MY BACK” call and response.
Code Green Campaign, a first responder oriented mental health advocacy organization.
Would you rather communicate with a counselor by text? If you are feeling really depressed or suicidal, a crisis counselor will TEXT with you. The Crisis Text Line runs a free service. Just text: 741-741
Students at the BLM’s all-female fire camp in Oregon. Screenshot from the BLM video below.
From the Bureau of Land Management:
Students came from all over the country for this year’s BLM’s all-female wildfire camp in eastern Oregon.
For the class final, the all-female crew of wildfire students dug fire line, rolled hose, and burned slash piles in the eastern Oregon snow.
The live burn exercise was the climax of the second annual Women in Wildland Fire Boot Camp, a BLM recruitment and retention tool that organizers hope will add diversity to the applicant pool for wildfire jobs.
The boot camp is really a paid training opportunity, part classroom and part field work, for women to become certified for federal fire jobs, an industry long dominated by men.
“I think we’re acknowledging we need to add diversity to our workforce,” said Jeff Fedrizzi, the top BLM fire official for Oregon and Washington, “And we’re putting our money where our mouth is.”
Twenty women attended last year and more than half of that first class ended up getting a job in firefighting, said Cassandra Andrews-Fleckenstein, the BLM program manager for the camp. This year, 25 women attended the two-weekend camp, once again coming from across the country. Students slept outside in 10-degree weather, used portable toilets, and wore the classic wildland firefighter uniform of yellow shirt and green pants, just like any other fire camp.
Kathleen Mascarenas, who is studying forestry and fire science at Colorado State University, said she came to the Women in Wildland Fire Boot Camp to get her foot in the door for a future job.
“I really just wanted to get a hands-on experience,” said Mascarenas, as a controlled burn crackled behind her last month. “I thought it would be a great experience to get started and meet some of the women that I would be hopefully working with in the future,” she said.
One of the attendees from Oregon, Kelli Creekmore, said she recently got her emergency medical technician license and is hoping to get a job providing first aid to wildland firefighters.
In addition to the typical fire coursework, students also received special presentations, for example, what it is like to be pregnant during a wildfire pack test, and how to successfully apply via USAJobs.gov.
Since many of the camp attendees are coming in with advanced education and other valuable prerequisites, it is imperative that they become fluent in the federal hiring process, said camp manager Andrews-Fleckenstein.
“They are frustrated because they don’t really know how to get into these fire jobs,” said Andrews-Fleckenstein, listing the main gripe she heard from students at the camp. “I’m finding that this camp is kind of a bridge for them.”
Bob Narus, the fire manager for the BLM’s Vale District, an area that spans more than 5 million acres in eastern Oregon, said simply making more applicants aware that the BLM is an option for firefighting jobs is important.
“I think there’s value in having these women in wildfire camps, so more people can become aware that, ‘Hey, I can go fight fire with the BLM also, not just the Forest Service,’” said Narus.
While camp attendees are compensated for their time, they are not reimbursed for their travel to and from rural eastern Oregon. Last year, one student flew round-trip from Chicago between university midterms to attend the boot camp, said Andrews-Fleckenstein, noting the clear and unique value of the all-female BLM fire camp.
“I think if we had more of them across the country, or offered a couple more, you might get a lot of people coming into it,” she said.
Red Flag Warning issued at 1:57 a.m. PST Nov. 25, 2019. NWS.
8:24 a.m. PST November 25, 2019
Strong north winds gusting up to 50 mph in the Southern Sierras on Monday with humidity in the low teens has generated a Red Flag Warning for Owens Valley. The wind behind a cold front is expected to reach Bishop, California around 10 a.m. and then spread down to the rest of the valley by noon, continuing into the early evening before gusts decrease to less than 35 mph.
It will also be very windy in Northern California on Monday but no Red Flag Warnings have been issued for that part of the state as of 8:15 a.m. Monday.
The enhanced wildfire danger will be followed by a winter storm warning from late Tuesday afternoon through Friday morning. Significant snow accumulations are predicted for much of Inyo County, the southern Great Basin, and higher elevations of the Mojave Desert. Forecasters expect total snow accumulations of five to 10 inches in the Owens Valley and 12 to 36 inches in the mountains, with winds gusting up to 45 mph.
(Red Flag Warnings can be modified throughout the day as NWS offices around the country update and revise their weather forecasts.)
The poll below about alternatives for modifying our website home page has closed. The final tally was 44 percent favoring a change to a magazine style or tiled home page, and 56 percent wanting to retain the format that we have always used, multiple full-length articles that you can scroll down through. At the bottom of this article is a screenshot of the modified trial version of the home page showing the experiment with the magazine tiled format. We have converted the format on Wildfire Today back to the original version.
Thanks go out to everyone that voted or left comments. We’re going to consider the input and make a decision about what our next step will be.
Originally published at 9:27 a.m. PST November 23, 2019
We are experimenting with a new website design on Wildfire Today. For the next couple of days (as this is written at 9:25 a.m. PST on November 23) we will try out a rough draft of a new style on the Wildfire Today home page (here). It’s called a magazine theme. The home page has one photo for each article (usually), with a headline and a sentence or two. You can click each one to read the entire article. After you go to the full version, you can click on the left or right arrows at the bottom to go to the next.
The previous style is still being used at Fire Aviation (click here), where the full versions of eight articles can be seen as you scroll down the page.
This version of the home page is a rough draft, using a standard out-of-the-box style, or Theme. The left side bar will be eliminated, the right side bar will be prettied up, and there will be a header graphic at the top smaller than what is now at Fire Aviation. And less empty space.
What I’m most interested in is how folks feel about converting from what we see on the home page at Fire Aviation — where the full versions of eight articles can be seen as you scroll down the page, and changing to a magazine format where we see tiles with a sample of each article.
Let us know which style you like better, the home page on Wildfire Today or the home page at Fire Aviation. And, it would be helpful if you tell us why in a comment.
Thanks!
The poll closed at 6 p.m. PST November 24, 2019.
Screenshot of a possible modified version of the home page showing the magazine tiled format. The sidebar on the left was cropped out, since it for sure will NOT be used.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on FEMA – After a fire your flood risk goes up 
