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Scientists confirm that nighttime wildfire activity is increasing

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 9 Comments on Scientists confirm that nighttime wildfire activity is increasing

Firefighting agencies need to make changes to deal with the the new normal

Day-night proportion of fire activity
Fig. 9 from the study below showing the proportions of heat detected on wildfires at night, vs. during the day. The MODIS (black) time series spans 2003–2020 and the VIIRS (red) time series spans 2012–2020. The horizontal dotted line at 28% indicates the CONUS-wide value detected by MODIS from 2003–2020.

In a study of wildfires in the conterminous United States from 2003 to 2020 researchers found that while fire activity increased during the day in the 18-year period, it increased even more at night.

Heat sensing data from satellites showed significant increasing trends in nighttime wildfire fire activity, with a +54%, +42% and +21% increase in the annual nighttime sum of Fire Radiative Power (FRP), annual nighttime active fire pixel counts, and annual mean nighttime per-pixel values of FRP, respectively, in the latter half of the study period. Activity during the day increased also, with rates of +36%, +31%, and +7% respectively.

Analysis of coincident 1000-hour fuel moistures indicated that as fuels dried out, satellites detected increasingly larger and more intense wildfires with higher probabilities of nighttime persistence.

The information above is from the study “Large wildfire driven increases in nighttime fire activity observed across CONUS from 2003–2020,” by Patrick H. Freeborn, W. Matt Jolly, Mark A. Cochrane, and Gareth Roberts.

Average wildfire size, US, 1985-2000 (except Alaska)

The reason wildfires typically exhibit less activity at night is due to diurnal changes in weather. Nighttime generally brings lower temperatures, higher relative humidity, decreasing winds, and higher fuel moistures in light fuels.

But a warming climate with occasional multi-year droughts and higher temperatures can lead to nighttime higher temperatures and lower humidities. Drought will lower the fuel moistures in live and dead vegetation. These changes can result in fuels at night remaining available for significant and continuous fire spread. This is causing wildfires to burn with more intensity, spread more quickly, and have more resistance to control 24 hours a day.

Annual temperature change

About 15 to 20 years ago firefighters could usually count on wildfire activity slowing significantly at night as long as the wind was not extreme. Night shift crews could make good progress constructing direct fireline near the edge of fires. In the last few years weather and fuel conditions that permit direct attack by ground personnel, day or night, are less common. Fires are getting larger. Megafires that blacken 100,000 acres are no longer rare.

So now what?

As fires show increasing resistance to control we need to ramp up our fuel treatments, including prescribed fires, by a factor of 10. Less than full suppression of carefully selected fires when the season-ending weather event is on the horizon can have a place also, if they are very carefully planned and actively tracked and managed using all of the predictive tools available run by very smart, experienced personnel.

We also need to realize that we will never be able to prevent all wildfires from burning into populated areas, so property owners must realize they have to live with fire, using FireWise principles. Here are six things that need to be done to protect fire-prone communities.

And, community destruction during extreme wildfires is a home ignition problem. Here is an excerpt from the article written by Jack Cohen and Dave Strohmaier:

Uncontrollable extreme wildfires are inevitable; however, by reducing home ignition potential within the Home Ignition Zone we can create ignition resistant homes and communities. Thus, community wildfire risk should be defined as a home ignition problem, not a wildfire control problem. Unfortunately, protecting communities from wildfire by reducing home ignition potential runs counter to established orthodoxy.

We also have to realize that the fire suppression manpower staffing model that was created 50 years ago is obsolete. The agencies that fight wildfires, especially the federal agencies, need to increase the numbers of Interagency Hotshot Crews and engine crews. The crews must be configured and managed to allow personnel to have a reasonable amount of down time at the home unit even during the busiest times of the fire year. They can’t be away from home 90 percent of the time and expect to have a decent work/life balance. One National Forest will begin a pilot program in 2022 increasing the sizes of Hotshot and Engine crews to 30 and 10 people, respectively. This is intended to improve work/life balance and increase the availability of resources.

The reforms in the just-passed infrastructure bill to improve the pay and working conditions of firefighters must be implemented immediately. Slow-walking those improvements, a tactic too often used by the Federal agencies, should not be tolerated.

Technology needs to be adopted to make firefighting more safe and efficient. Firefighters down to the crew supervisor level should have access to real time data about the location of the fire and other firefighting resources 24 hours a day. Communications capabilities need to be robust and bomb proof.

On the afternoon of November 16, 2021 we initiated a 24-hour online poll on Twitter, asking for firefighters’ observations about nighttime wildfire activity.

CAL FIRE Director Thom Porter announces his retirement

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 4 Comments on CAL FIRE Director Thom Porter announces his retirement
Chief Thom Porter
Chief Thom Porter Oct. 28, 2019. CAL FIRE photo.

Chief Thom Porter announced Monday that he is retiring from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection after leading the agency for the last three years.

Porter was appointed acting Director of the Department by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. on December 14, 2018. Three weeks later he was named Director by Governor Gavin Newsom.

He first started with CAL FIRE in 1999 after working as a forester since 1992 with private industry in Washington, Oregon and in the Sierra Nevada. The positions he held with CAL FIRE included the San Diego Unit Fire Chief, Assistant Southern Region Chief, and Southern Region Chief before becoming Chief of Strategic Planning in Sacramento Headquarters January 1, 2018.

The Associated Press reports that Porter took the blame in June for Gov. Gavin Newsom overstating the amount of land that had been treated with prescribed burns and fuel breaks. Newsom said 90,000 acres had been treated, when Capitol Radio first reported that the actual number was 87% less. Porter said his Department had done a poor job educating the governor and the public about its efforts.

Porter’s last day is December 10, a CAL FIRE spokesperson said. The Governor has not announced a replacement.

Porter is a 5th generation San Diego native who married his high school sweetheart and life partner Rebecca. They enjoy spending time with their two sons and their partners, and three family dogs, all of whom live in California. He said he plans to return to San Diego to focus on his family and aging parents.

One National Forest will have two 30-person hotshot crews next year

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , , 18 Comments on One National Forest will have two 30-person hotshot crews next year

And, three 10-person engine crews

Angeles National Forest pilot program for Engine crew to have 10 personnel
Angeles National Forest pilot program for Engine crew with 10 personnel, working 12-hour days. “D/O” means day off.

During the last three weeks there has been a surprising amount of discussion about increasing the size of wildland fire crews. One national forest is hiring 30-person hotshot crews and 10-person engine crews.

  • October, 20, 2021: Tim Swedberg recommended 30-person hotshot crews in an article on Wildfire Today;
  • October 27, 2021: In testimony before the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Jaelith Hall-Rivera, Deputy Forest Service Chief for State and Private Forestry said, “We need to have larger crew sizes, so that people can take time off so they can rest and have a work/life balance. That’s going to mean we are going to need more firefighters.”
  • November 9, 2021: Ms. Hall-Rivera sent a memo to all U.S. Forest Service Regional Foresters directing them to add five firefighters to Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC) to bring the size up to 25.

However, the effort to increase the size of USFS crews had been seriously discussed earlier. Wildfire Today has learned that the Angeles National Forest (ANF) in Southern California developed a proposal in 2018 for 30-person Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC). Not only that, but we have obtained two memos written August 12, 2021 by the Fire Chief of the ANF recommending a pilot program for IHCs to be staffed with 30 people and engine crews to have 10.

Below is the ANF memo dated August 12, 2021 about 30-person hotshot crews.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ANF-IHC-staffing.pdf” title=”30-person Interagency Hotshot Crews”]

 

And next is the ANF memo dated August 12, 2021 about 9 or 10-person engine crews. (Since then, they have decided on 10-person engine crews.)

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ANF-Engine-Staffing.pdf” title=”ANF Engine Staffing”]

 

The Angeles National Forest (ANF) is not only proposing larger IHC and engine crews, they are stepping out ahead of the crowd according to a person who prefers not to publicly disclose their identity. In recent weeks they completed hiring to have two 30-person hotshot crews and three 10-person engine crews in 2022. The newly selected personnel (promotions of existing permanent employees) will be effective in January, 2022. The crews will be fully staffed to start annual training in April.

One of the ANF memos states, “Although this [20-person IHC] model was effective for decades the current standard does not provide the depth to meet the higher demands for crew availability to provide employee wellbeing or meet the needs of crew availability across the fire year…This proposed module will increase capacity from 12 pay periods (6 Months) of availability to 18 Pay Periods (9 Months) of availability. This proposal will significantly improve work life balance for Hotshot firefighters… Although the IHC will have a full 3rd squad, the IHC will maintain the current deployment/mobilization standards of 20 personnel. Adherence to the current mobilization standard of 20 personnel will allow for an ongoing rotation for the 3rd module to stand down and remain “local only”. This stand-down period will help to provide ample opportunities for hotshot firefighters to manage annual leave and balance work with time at home. This will also help to provide the workload pacing to sustain a crew for 9 months while better managing the effects of cumulative fatigue and burn out. Finally, it will provide increased capacity for employees to develop for the next level of leadership through single resource assignments.”

Configuration of the 30-person ANF IHC

Two ANF IHCs will each add seven apprentice/Permanent Seasonals working at least 18 pay periods, a third hotshot Captain, a third squad leader, and two senior firefighters.

ANF IHC staffing pilot program
ANF Interagency Hotshot Crew pilot program staffing pattern.

Configuration of the 10-person ANF Engine Crew

To the standard USFS Region 5 (California) Type 3 engine crew of seven people working five days a week, the upgraded crew will add three positions — a second Engineer, a second Assistant Fire Engine Operator, and a third Senior Firefighter. With the 12 hours per day staffing pattern, which we have been told the ANF has selected, they will work three days one week and four the other, with three days off in a row and four days off in a row during a two-week pay period. All of these staffing patterns call for five on each day.

History of IHC crew size

Since the early 1970s IHCs have been comprised of 20 people, or recently in some cases as many as 22 to help account for attrition, difficulty hiring, personal time off, sickness, and injuries. In 1970 El Cariso Hotshots had 36 people. When the size was reduced the next year, the story we were told was that the Forest Service wanted to use 20-passenger de Havilland Twin Otter aircraft, which began production in 1966, to move crews around. So their decision was to cut the size of the crews to fit that airplane. There may have also been other reasons.

As a crew foreman at the time, I thought 20 people was too many to work together efficiently as one unit to dig line in most fuels, and a 10-person squad was too few. I felt that 13 to 14 crew members was the most efficient size to work together while digging line, which you would have with a 28 to 30-person crew broken into two squads, allowing for the Superintendent and lookouts. Those numbers can change in very light or very heavy fuels.

Forest Service intends to increase size of Hotshot crews

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags 53 Comments on Forest Service intends to increase size of Hotshot crews
Richard Spring Fire Montana
Richard Spring Fire in Montana, August 11, 2021. Burnout along Highway 212. InciWeb photo.

A document is floating around on Reddit indicating that the Washington Office of the US Forest Service wants to add five firefighters to Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC) to bring the size up to 25.

The memo dated November 9, 2021 said the Agency has been investing in the modernization and standardization of national aviation resources for the past 10 years, but it is now time to shift focus to ground-based suppression resources, beginning with Type 1 hand crews, IHCs. With the growing length of the wildfire season, the memo says, “our wildland fire system was not built to sustain this level of response activity and stretching our outdated model to meet the increasing demand for response is having a detrimental impact on our employees, on their physical and mental health, their opportunities for rest and recovery, and their work-life balance.”

The new structure will have two GS-6 Lead Firefighter positions on the crews, creating a continuous career ladder from the GS-4 temporary firefighter to the GS-9 permanent full time superintendent. Another goal is to create a longer period of crew availability for these critical resources, and provide opportunities for mandatory stand-down periods and other controls to establish more deliberate work-rest ratios.

The memo recognizes that not all crews have the infrastructure to support 25 people per crew, so the minimum number will remain at 20 for those who can’t increase to to 25.

A copy of the November 9 USFS memo as seen on Reddit is below.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IHC-increase.pdf” title=”Interagency Hotshot Crew increase 25″]

 

Another alternative to the the 25-person crew is the 30-person, 3-module crew advocated in an article by Tim Swedberg we published October 20.

Tim wrote:

Rather than dispatch all 3 modules, only 2 modules would respond. This leaves a 10-person module at home for a week of quality rest exclusive of travel. After 7 days the module left at home would replace one of the modules on the fire and one of the modules on the fire would return home for a week. This weekly rotation would continue throughout the fire season and could be accomplished without exceeding the 14-day assignment standard as no crewmember would work beyond 14 days. The rotation provides certainty for families that once every three weeks the firefighter will be working at their home unit.

In September of 2020, the first year of the pandemic, Area Command Team 2 led by Tim Sexton was assigned to the Southern California Operations Center in mid-September to assist with strategic planning for the rest of the fire year. They put together a wealth of information about resource availability, including the chart below showing how the number of available IHCs that year dropped from 113 to about 30 by late October, and to about a dozen by mid-November.

Interagency Hotshot Crews availability, 2020
Interagency Hotshot Crews availability, 2020. Data compiled by Area Command Team 2 September 30, 2020. Notations on the chart made by Wildfire Today.

One reason for the shortage of firefighting resources reported on fires this year was the large number of vacant positions. Many hand crews and engines were not able to respond because they could not hire people for the jobs, and many left for better pay and working conditions in state, county, municipal, or private organizations. It remains to be seen if the $3.3 billion appropriated in the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week for wildland fire will help turn around the hiring and retention problems.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom.

Who should receive credit for the wildland firefighter provisions in the recently passed infrastructure legislation?

Author BillPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 7 Comments on Who should receive credit for the wildland firefighter provisions in the recently passed infrastructure legislation?
Wildland firefighters
Wildland firefighters. USFS image.

The infrastructure bill passed by Congress last week will significantly change the employment landscape for federal wildland firefighters. We covered the details earlier, but it includes pay raises, a distinct “wildland firefighter” occupational series, mental health support, conversions of 1,000 seasonal wildland firefighters to permanent full-time, and many other issues — totaling $3.3 billion for fire management.

This is an unprecedented, probably once in a lifetime legislative achievement. Some of the changes are so sweeping that there may be a need to smooth out some unanticipated consequences. There could be opportunities for fine tuning in two other pending bills:  H.R. 4274 Wildland Firefighter Fair Pay Act, and H.R. 5631 Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act. Brief descriptions of the two bills are in the article we published October 26.

All but the most cynical will look at the bill passed last week as a huge step toward improving the work environment for 15,000 firefighters and hopefully will begin to turn around issues with hiring and retention. The fire management section was drafted by legislators, as well as staffers for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Many special interest groups provided input. One of them was Grassroots Wildland Firefighters (GRWFF).

“There is so much noise in the system around the pending legislation,” wrote GRWFF President Kelly Martin in an email last week just before the final passage. “We want to make sure it’s clear that these are not ‘our’ bills. These bill’s are the legislator’s and we’ve only served as subject matter experts for them. We really want to be clear that we are not seeking credit. The credit belongs to the wildland firefighters out busting their asses and to the families of those who have died.”

Ms. Martin submitted the statement below from the organization. She said it was written by herself, Vice President Lucas Mayfield, and Executive Secretary Riva Duncan.

Grassroots Wildland Firefighters (GRWFF) would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who is supporting the wildland fire community and fighting for long overdue reforms, and to thank Bill Gabbert for letting us use this forum for much needed open and honest dialog

We’d also like to help clarify some potential misunderstandings people might be talking about. We’ve seen a few articles, comments, posts that H.R. 5631, Tim’s Act, is “our” bill. No legislative bill is ‘owned’ by any particular special interest group, GRWFF included. Legislation belongs to the legislators and their staffs who write these bills. Rep. DeFazio (D-OR) initially introduced the “Infrastructure Bill” with wide-spread bi-partisan support in the House and Senate, and Reps Neguse (D-CO) and Porter (D-CA) and their staffs wrote “HR 5631, better known as Tim’s Act.” The GRWFF serve as subject matter experts when reviewing and drafting bill language, as do many other groups. We have been extremely fortunate legislators have reached out to us as known experts in the field of federal wildland fire workforce issues. Collectively, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters provide hundreds of years of professional experience to help educate and inform elected officials of needed federal reforms wildland firefighters deserve given the high risk and hazardous workplace conditions. We, along with many other special interest groups, will continue to advocate for long overdue reforms. We owe our elected officials a tremendous  debt of gratitude for their deep interest in these fundamental reforms which will affect federal Wildland Firefighters for generations to come. 

The existing and former workforce and their families deserve the credit. To the firefighters on the firelines, whether they are ground-based, aerial delivered, or arrive by equipment, we are proud you trust us to deliver your stories; it is the fire management officers and duty officers; the dispatchers and the prevention technicians; the fuels technicians; and, sadly, it is the firefighters, and their families, who have paid the ultimate price. All of these dedicated and passionate women and men deserve the credit for the successes so far. They are the ones who face daily risks of severe injury and death; daily hazardous and often toxic environmental conditions and the ones who shoulder the mental, financial and emotional trauma of this very demanding profession. We advocate together for these needed reforms      

We want no credit. We are not interested in any perceived “ownership.” We only want meaningful change and reforms. We want a cohesive effort and voice for the existing workforce that leads to lasting and positive change. 

Tim’s Act builds upon the groundwork that pending legislation offers up. Unlike the Infrastructure Bill, there are no sunset provisions in Tim’s Act. These are permanent reforms that are needed for the workforce. It is the “cup trench” for the uphill battle that wildland firefighters, their families, and friends face in the coming decades. It has broad bipartisan support in the House and in the Senate. Tim’s Act is something that both Republican and Democrat elected officials can agree to. It finally addresses broad reforms as a path to modernizing the federal wildland firefighter workforce. It is bipartisan legislation which works to ensure we recruit and retain highly trained, experienced and qualified federal wildland firefighters to respond, at a federal level, to all-risk, all-hazard disasters throughout the US and when requested, provide international wildfire support as well. 

We are just beginning our journey together. We will continue to speak for those who cannot. We will continue to provide our expertise and experience to those who ask for it and for those who fight alongside us. We are in it for the long-game. You and your colleagues have the ability to speak up, too. We are taught to lead up, and if we see something, we say something. The status quo is no longer acceptable. The demands of the 21st century fire environment require us to work together and commit to the hard work ahead of us. We believe this time is different. Supporting Tim’s Act is the opportunity to lead up. Let your elected officials know how the reforms identified in Tim’s Act will affect you personally if/when this bill becomes law. Your support makes a difference to our volunteers passionately dedicated to these reforms. Join our exciting movement; get engaged and stay informed.  https://www.grassrootswildlandfirefighters.com/get-involved. 

Nothing about us without us.