Currently there are 38 fires in the south that have each burned at least 100 acres.
Above: Local residents keep an eye on the Dicks Creek Fire near Sylva in western North Carolina. Photo by Jason Farmer, The Sylva Herald.
Most areas in the southeast United States have not received any significant rain in dozens of days. It has been more than 70 days for some locations in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. This has resulted in many wildfires breaking out in recent weeks.
Southern Area Coordination Center.
Currently there are 38 active fires in the Southern Geographic area that have each burned more than 100 acres, prompting the Southern Area Coordination Center to raise the preparedness level as high as it will go, to Level 5, something that does not happen very often.
Graphic by the Southern Area Coordination Center
Large numbers of firefighting resources have moved into the south to help combat the blazes. The figures below include those that were en route, committed, or staged in the area as of Monday morning.
5 Incident Management Teams (2 Type 1 and 3 Type 2)
56 hand crews (8 Type 1, 22 Type 2, and 26 fire suppression modules)
5 air tankers (3 large, and 2 Single Engine Air Tankers)
29 helicopters (9 Type 1, 4 Type 2, and 16 Type 3)
1,632 Overhead personnel
The audio in the video below is an interview with Mike Dueitt, the Incident Commander of a Type 1 Incident Management Team from the Southern Geographic Area currently managing multiple wildfires in North Carolina. The images in the video were taken October 24 through November 6, 2016.
These still photos were taken at or near the 532-acre Dicks Creek Fire, which is about 1.5 miles northwest of Sylva, North Carolina. They were all shot by Jason Farmer of the Sylva Herald. About 31 structures are threatened by the fire, which is being fought by 59 personnel.
Smoky skies near Sylva, North Carolina. Photo by Jason Farmer, The Sylva Herald.
Above: Photo of the Lone Pine fire at Port Stephens. The fire crossed the Pacific Highway near Tarean Road and was moving east toward Scotts Road. New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
Numerous wildfires have been keeping firefighters in New South Wales busy for the last several days.
November 5, 2016 U.S. time. 52 bush and grass fires burning across NSW, with 17 yet to be contained. The Lone Pine Fire (Port Stephens) closed the Pacific Highway again, mainly due to smoke.
This video has some great shots of some of the activity:
North American air tankers under contract during the Australian summer, Coulson’s Tanker 132, an L-382G, and 10 Tanker’s T-910, a DC-10, have been used extensively over the last three days.
Last month a firefighter suffered serious burns when gasoline forcefully vented while he was removing the fuel cap on a Stihl MS461 chainsaw.
The incident occurred October 10, 2016 (we first reported it here) on the Pingree Hill prescribed fire near Rustic, Colorado. For years the land management agencies have been warning firefighters about the dangers of gasoline being forcefully released from chain saws. Some of these incidents have occurred with saws that have the new quarter-turn gas caps. After a chain saw has been running for a while pressure can build up in the gas tank causing vapor lock, which can prevent the saw from running. Thinking it may be out of fuel, the operator opens the quarter-turn gas cap and the pressure in the tank forces out fuel and vapor. If there is an ignition source nearby, it can quickly ignite and cause very serious injuries.
Below is an excerpt from a report issued about the October 10 incident. We pick up the narrative as the saw team is finishing a break:
…After roughly fifteen minutes, the sawyer sizes up the second snag and identifies a rock adjacent to the tree that he can stand on to make his cuts. He enters the burned area, steps onto the rock, and pulls on the starter cord. The saw starts but quickly sputters and dies, he opens the choke and tries again with the same result. After two or three more tries he thinks the saw may be out of gas. The saw is equipped with the newer “1/4 turn” quick release fuel and oil caps making it easy to simply flip the saw on its side and open the cap while remaining in a standing position. On older model saws with the threaded caps, this process involved using a scrench to loosen and unscrew the cap, making it difficult to open the tank without setting the saw down.
As he opens the cap the fuel sprays out in two distinct bursts spraying liquid and vaporized fuel on his stomach area and right arm. He quickly realizes this is a very dangerous situation… “I had an oh s*** moment!” The swamper looks, and notices fuel “boiling and bubbling” out of the fuel tank and sees open flame beneath the sawyer’s feet. He yells to the sawyer, but it’s too late. Fuel ignites from the ground, running up toward the saw and the sawyer. Immediately the sawyer’s nomex shirt ignites around his right arm and stomach area. He swings the saw to the left, drops it in the rocks, then sprints downhill through the black to the unburned area beneath the handline and drops to the ground. The swamper reacts and jumps on top of the sawyer and helps extinguish him by throwing dirt on the flames and rolling around to smother the fire.
Once the fire is extinguished the sawyer grabs a radio and calls the Supt. and initially gets no response. He calls the Crew Boss Trainee who responds immediately. The sawyer calmly states “I am burned pretty bad, code red, need an air transport, need to go to the hospital now.”
[…]
The patient is in good spirits and is recovering well but did say:
“The one thing I hope comes out of this is that people will give it one last second thought…before you pop the cap”.
The firefighter received 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his right arm and abdominal area.
The report says the extraction of the firefighter went smoothly, thanks largely to the incident within an incident training the crew conducts on a regular basis. About an hour elapsed between the injury and the helicopter taking off to fly him to the burn center.
The National Weather Service has posted Red Flag Warnings or Fire Weather Watches for areas in Alabama and Georgia. Miraculously, Mississippi and Tennessee escaped the Red Flag Conditions.
The map was current as of 10:25 a.m. MDT on Friday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps.
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