Smoke plume from the burning of wheat residue on the Nez Perce Reservation. The field was burned using a head fire. The dark color of the smoke plume indicates high soot content. Photo by Emily Lincoln.
The production cycle of cereal crops and grasses in many areas of the United States includes burning fields of post-harvest residue such as wheat stubble. Like smoke from forest fires, smoke produced by agricultural burning can have harmful effects on public health.
The U.S. Forest Service and the Washington State Department of Ecology conducted a study to determine the effects different ignition tactics had on the smoke produced by agricultural burning of wheat residue.
Smoke plume from the burning of wheat residue north of Walla Walla, Washington. The field was burned using a backing fire. The light color of the smoke plume indicates low soot content. Photo by Emily Lincoln.
They found that smoke plumes produced from burning wheat residue using head fires contained more soot than plumes produced using backing fires.
Soot particles are black aerosols composed primarily of elemental carbon. The World Health Organization reports that soot particles may have significantly greater negative health impacts than other particle types found in smoke and air pollution since these particles can act as a carrier for toxic combustion-derived chemicals.
The National Weather Service has posted Red Flag Warnings or Fire Weather Watches for areas in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.
The Red Flag map was current as of 9:15 a.m. MDT on Thursday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps. For the most current data visit this NWS site. However, that site has not been properly displaying warning areas in recent days. This one may work better.
A House of Representatives committee will hear testimony on Thursday September 22 from Kelly Martin, Yosemite National Park’s Chief of Fire and Aviation Management. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s stated purpose is to look further into cases of sexual harassment and misconduct in light of new reports about what they call serious wrongdoing.
Generally this committee has been very critical of the administration over a range of topics.
Earlier this year we wrote about an article in the Huffington Post in which Kathryn Joyce described what appeared to be a stunning culture of serious sexual harassment being virtually tolerated in some locations within the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. Ms. Joyce described numerous disturbing examples of female employees, including a wildland firefighter, being aggressively degraded and humiliated with little if any repercussions for the assailant. In some cases the victims were fired.
In a description of the hearing on the Committee’s web site, they wrote:
In many cases, managers in senior leadership positions were not held accountable for their actions and were able to move laterally or retire to escape disciplinary action. Since these reports have become public, additional allegations of serious harassment and misconduct have to come to light at some of the country’s most prominent national parks.
Two other National Park Service employees will also be testifying on Thursday, Michael Reynolds, the NPS Deputy Director for Operations, and Brian Healy, Fisheries Program Manager at Grand Canyon National Park.
Chief Martin’s prepared testimony has not yet been made public.
The hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 1 p.m. EDT in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building. It should be available on a live stream on the Committee’s website.
Map of the Canyon Fire and a new fire (Washington Fire) at 1 a.m. PDT September 23, 2016.
The 12,518-acre Canyon Fire on Vandenberg Air Force Base has not spread over the last 24 hours.
However a new fire, named Washington, broke out on Thursday east of the 15,000-foot runway on the base and burned vigorously until it was knocked down by firefighters. As of 1 a.m. Friday it had blackened about 204 acres and is being described by the Air Force as controlled. The preliminary cause is a powerline downed by strong winds. It generated a 0.6-acre spot fire over a mile south of the main blaze.
(Originally published at 1:56 p.m. PDT September 21, 2016)
3-D map of the Canyon Fire looking east. The red line was the perimeter of the Canyon Fire at 11 p.m. PDT September 20, 2016. The white line was the perimeter approximately 24 hours before. Click to enlarge.
According to overnight mapping the Canyon Fire on Vandenberg Air Force Base on the southern California coast has burned 12,353 acres, an increase of over 2,000 acres from the previous day’s report. Approximately 1,056 firefighters from Vandenberg AFB, U.S. Forest Service, CAL FIRE, and Santa Barbara County Fire are combating the blaze.
Crews saw very little growth in the fire overnight, due in part to the heavy marine layer and calm winds. This allowed ground teams to further construct and improve containment lines along base boundaries and key rocket launch support facilities. Firefighting aircraft are being used today to assist firefighters ahead of anticipated increases in wind speed, which could gust as high as 30 mph later in the week.
Ventura County Fire Department reported that Fire Engineer Ryan Osler lost his life this morning in a line of duty vehicle accident while assigned to the fire.
Above: Fatal water render rollover, September 21, 2016. Screenshot from KEYT video.
This morning the rollover of a water tender enroute to the Canyon Fire on Vandenberg Air Force Base resulted in the death of a firefighter. Ventura County Fire Department reported that Fire Engineer Ryan Osler, a passenger in the truck, lost his life in a line of duty vehicle accident while assigned to the fire. The driver of the truck self-extracted and was transported to a local hospital with minor injuries.
The water tender had designations indicating that it was a California Office of Emergency Services apparatus. OES vehicles are often farmed out to local fire departments, such as Ventura County FD.
KYET reported the accident occurred at about 6:20 a.m. on state Route 246 at Purisima Road in Lompoc which is near the fire burning on the military base on the southern California coast.
Unfortunately rollovers of fire vehicles, especially water tenders, happen far too often.
Our sincere condolences go out to the family, coworkers, and friends of Engineer Osler.
Beginning in 2000 the costs of suppressing wildland fires suddenly got more expensive, as you can see from the chart.
One fire this year that is still going strong has added over $208 million to the total for this year, according to the September 20 national situation report.
The Soberanes Fire on the central coast of California south of Monterey has been burning since July 22. New evacuations were ordered Monday for this fire that has blackened more than 121,000 acres of brush, grass, timber, and large quantities of poison oak. The current uncontained fire perimeter is 95 miles. Fire managers expect they will have 191 miles of fireline by the time it is over.
It is very difficult to determine the exact costs of suppressing large wildfires. Many months can pass before most of the bills come in, get approved, and are paid. Costs are often shared among multiple agencies, making it even more complex to come up with one figure. And if you want to compare the historical costs of individual large fires, you have to decide which formula to use while adjusting for inflation.
Not deterred by these difficulties, the Associated Press published an article yesterday reporting that the costs of suppressing the Soberanes Fire is the largest ever spent on one fire.
BIG SUR, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire burning for nearly two months on California’s scenic Big Sur coast has surpassed $200 million in firefighting costs, becoming the costliest to fight in U.S. history, according to data released Monday.
The fire has cost $206.7 million to fight so far, the National Interagency Fire Center said in a report. And with the blaze at only 67 percent containment, there could be weeks left before the firefight is done.
That puts it well past the previous high of $165 million established by a blaze that burned in California and Oregon in 2002. [From Bill: probably the Biscuit Fire.]
The figure does not include the actual damages done by the fire like destroyed homes, only the costs of extinguishing and containing it.
It also is not adjusted for inflation, which would put the 2002 fire and others ahead of it.
The cost is mostly attributable to the long duration of the fire, and the need to pay thousands of firefighters for their daily work, the U.S. Forest Service said. The daily costs got as high as $8 million at the fire’s peak, though they’ve settled at closer to $2 million as it has calmed…
The AP was a little vague about where they got their data.
But as they said, these figures only include the actual costs of suppressing the fires. Often the indirect costs can exceed the cost of putting it out. These can include temporary housing while evacuated, lost wages, rebuilding structures, declining retail sales at nearby communities, reduced tourism, lower sales tax receipts, medical treatments for breathing smoky air, and repairing the damaged land.
