The area on the south side of the Alps has not had any precipitation in over a month.
Above: A privately owned helicopters works a wildfire near Soazza, Switzerland. Photo by Niklaus Watchman.
While much of Switzerland is covered with snow, wildfires have broken out on the south side of the Alps. Military helicopters, Super Pumas, are assisting the firefighters on the ground.
Below is an excerpt from an article at Swissinfo.ch:
More than 30 people have been evacuated from their houses due to forest fires in southern Switzerland. Strong winds and the ruggedness of the terrain are hampering efforts to contain the blaze.
The mountainous region south of the Alps hasn’t had any rain for more than a month.
Local fire brigades have been deployed to try to contain the blaze. The defence ministry said five army helicopters helped drop water for aerial firefighting on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, the blaze in the Mesocco Valley managed to spread across an area equivalent to 90 football fields due to dry conditions officials said.
The A13 San Bernardino motorway was temporarily closed and at least four people were evacuated as a precaution in the village of Mesocco. Police expects it will take several days or weeks to put out the fire. It is not known what started the fire on Tuesday.
A smaller fire was also reported from the neighbouring Calanca Valley on Wednesday.
Map showing the location of two fires in southeast Switzerland, December 28, 2016.
This video about the Bulldog Extreme Fire Truck is interesting; 2,000 gallons is pretty impressive. At 2:11, I wonder if the woman standing next to it is no taller than 4′ 6″, making the truck, photographed from that low angle and with a wide angle lens, look huge.
The U.S. Forest Service is advertising for the purchase of at least one new aircraft that will be used as an air tanker. A solicitation issued November 18, 2016 indicates that the agency intends to buy between one and seven “new production commercial aircraft to operate primarily as airtankers”. This procurement would spend the $65 million appropriated by Congress in December, 2014 “for the purpose of acquiring aircraft for the next-generation airtanker fleet to enhance firefighting mobility, effectiveness, efficiency, and safety…”.
As far as we know this will be the first time, in recent decades anyway, that a U.S. land management agency has purchased a NEW air tanker.
The seven HC-130H’s that the USFS is acquiring from the Coast Guard will be operated and maintained by contractors after they are converted to air tankers.
Coulson operates two C-130 type aircraft as air tankers, a C-130Q and an L-100-30 (382G), with the latter being an earlier demilitarized stretched variant of the C-130. As this is written they are both working on firefighting contracts in Australia during their summer bushfire season.
LM-100J. The image shows it equipped with a pressurized MAFFS retardant system, but the USFS aircraft will have a more conventional gravity-powered system. From Lockheed.
There is speculation that the $65 million appropriation was targeted to buy a new variant of Lockheed Martin’s C-130J, the LM-100J, a demilitarized version of the C-130J.
In Fiscal Year 2015 the Defense Department paid $88.9 million for each C-130J. The stripped down LM-130J is expected to sell for about $65 million. Lockheed is planning test flights of the new aircraft in the first half of 2017 with deliveries beginning the following year. Portions of the plane are being made in Marietta, Georgia; Meridian, Mississippi; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and India.
After the appropriations bill passed in 2014, Jason Gagnon, a spokesperson for Representative Ken Calvert of California, said that Representative Calvert, who is Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Interior and Environment, advocated for the inclusion of the provision. The final negotiations were done by House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky.
Mr. Gagnon said the funds will be spent to purchase air tankers, “a C-130 to be specific”. Representative Calvert, Mr. Gagnon said,
…supports the expansion of the airtanker fleet since there is a significant need… This provision is just a step in that direction as more aircraft will be needed… While the Forest Service has been unable to get a request to purchase new aircraft for its fleet, there’s been support within the Forest Service to modernize its fleet by purchasing new aircraft rather than continuing to rely on older aircraft passed along by other federal agencies. This idea has been around for a few years now as the Service has struggled with the costs of maintaining an old fleet. Mr. Calvert made it a priority in the bill and got it across the finish line.
Some important specifications in the USFS solicitation match those of the LM-100J, including max normal takeoff weight, capable of operating from unimproved airfields, payload, cruise speed, multiple turbine engines, and a door that incorporates stairs.
Vendors can choose to equip the aircraft with two options:
A gravity powered retardant delivery system that would hold at least 3,000 gallons, and,
A pallet-based seating system for 40 passengers that can be installed or removed in less than 2 hours.
The Coulson company has the contract to install retardant delivery systems in the seven HC-130H aircraft the USFS is acquiring from the Coast Guard. It is likely those will be similar to the two systems already in use in Coulson’s two C-130 type aircraft.
Mark Rey who oversaw the Forest Service as the former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment, has been a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin since he left the federal government through that proverbial revolving door. The company hired him to lobby the federal government to buy the company’s “firefighting equipment”. Since 2009 Mr. Rey has been paid at least $522,000 by Lockheed Martin according to Open Secrets.
Tom Harbour
Tom Harbour, the former National Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the U.S. Forest Service who retired at the end of last year has mentioned several times his affinity for the C-130 platform as an air tanker. In what we called his “exit interview”, he talked about it at 9:27 in the video, saying:
I like the 130-J and I told folks before and I’ll tell folks after, I like that 130J.
But he said he had no plans to work for Lockheed Martin after his retirement.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced last week that travel company Expedia donated $50,000 dollars to Team Rubicon, a veteran-led disaster response organization, to fund wildland firefighting training in 2017. The funding will provide wildland fire training courses for Team Rubicon volunteers, so they can become certified as wildland firefighters and work on federally managed wildfire incidents.
In April 2015, the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) formed a partnership with Team Rubicon because many of the skills veterans learn in the military translate to wildland firefighting, such as teamwork; decisive leadership; risk mitigation and management; logistics and emergency medicine. Team Rubicon volunteers trained as wildland firefighters have responded to wildfires in Alaska, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, and most recently, the wildfire in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
“This generous donation from Expedia will allow us to train even more veterans as wildland firefighters, bolstering our wildland firefighting response capabilities across the country. In a time of climate change and thus, longer, more intense fire seasons, we are constantly looking to further our partnerships, such as this one, to expand our wildland firefighting force,” says Chuck Russell, BLM’s Veteran Coordinator.
The BLM plans to hold wildland firefighting training sessions for Team Rubicon members in California, Texas, Florida, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Washington D.C. throughout the next year. The sessions educate Team Rubicon members in wildland fire suppression tactics, including communication techniques, fireline construction, equipment operation, and other critical wildland firefighting skills.
By engaging veterans in disaster response, Team Rubicon seeks to provide them with a sense of purpose, community, and identity often missing following their military service. Since two Marines founded Team Rubicon in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the organization has responded to over 160 floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and other severe weather damage, helping disaster survivors all over the globe.
“It just makes sense to match our veterans’ skills with wildland firefighting,” said Russell. “Team Rubicon volunteers already understand critical aspects of the wildland fire program, such as our Incident Command System, and veterans have the work ethic we need in wildland firefighting. Expedia’s donation will not only allow us to train qualified veterans as wildland firefighters, the money will provide opportunities for veterans to pursue wildland firefighting jobs, which are often a great opportunity for post-military service careers.”
Above: Sage Fire, December 20, 2016. Photo by Ventura County Fire Department.
After studying 16 wildfires that killed firefighters between 1937 and 1956 a task force commissioned by USDA Forest Service Chief Richard E. McArdle developed a list of 10 Standard Firefighting Orders. It was hoped that if followed, it would reduce the the number of fatalities.
I was reminded of two of those orders when I saw the information Ventura County Fire Department was providing, not only to their firefighters, but to the public during a wildfire that eventually burned 61 acres in a southern California community. A map distributed on Twitter and Facebook showed the approximate location of a fire that was threatening dozens of homes. It also had icons marking the location of firefighting resources.
Map of the Sage Fire showing the location of firefighting resources. Ventura County Fire Department.
The near-real time information about the location of both the fire AND firefighters, which I call the Holy Grail of Wildland Firefighter Safety, relates to numbers 2 and 9:
2. Know what your fire is doing at all times.
9. Maintain control of your forces at all times.
Technology has changed in extraordinary ways since the 10 orders were written in the 1950s, but many of the agencies responsible for fighting wildland fires are far to slow to adopt new procedures that could save lives.
As a politician recently in the news would say, this is “sad”.
The current U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell needs to reconvene a task force. Since the 1950s methods have been developed that can reduce the number of fatalities — to work toward the Holy Grail. It is time to implement them.
