Uncategorized Archives - Page 601 of 1619

Effects of increasing fire suppression costs on USFS programs

Bill GabbertOctober 27, 2015October 27, 2015Uncategorizedlegislation1 Comment

The U.S. Forest Service has released a report that addresses the effects of the rapidly increasing costs of suppressing wildfires. Below is an excerpt:

…This report documents the growth over the past 20 years of the portion of the Forest Service’s budget that is dedicated to fire, and the debilitating impact those rising costs are having on the recreation, restoration, planning, and other activities of the Forest Service.

In 1995, fire made up 16 percent of the Forest Service’s annual appropriated budget—this year, for the first time, more than 50 percent of the Forest Service’s annual budget will be dedicated to wildfire.

Along with this shift in resources, there has also been a corresponding shift in staff, with a 39 percent reduction in all non-fire personnel. Left unchecked, the share of the budget devoted to fire in 2025 could exceed 67 percent, equating to reductions of nearly $700 million from non-fire programs compared to today’s funding levels. That means that in just 10 years, two out of every three dollars the Forest Service gets from Congress as part of its appropriated budget will be spent on fire programs.

As more and more of the agency’s resources are spent each year to provide the firefighters, aircraft, and other assets necessary to protect lives, property, and natural resources from catastrophic wildfires, fewer and fewer funds and resources are available to support other agency work—including the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat.

The depletion of non-fire programs to pay for the ever-increasing costs of fire has real implications, not only for the Forest Service’s restoration work that would help prevent catastrophic fires, but also for the protection of watersheds and cultural resources, upkeep of programs and infrastructure that support thousands of recreation jobs and billions of dollars of economic growth in rural communities, and support for the range of multiple uses, benefits and ecosystem services, as well as research, technical assistance, and other programs that deliver value to the American public…

Legislation that would pay for wildfire suppression like other natural disasters are funded has been talked about in Washington for years but Congress has not been motivated to address the issue.

USFS appropriations fire FY 1995 — USFS appropriations in FY 1995

USFS appropriations fireFY 2015 — USFS appropriations in FY 2015

(The graphics are from the USFS report.)

Wildfire briefing, October 26, 2015

Bill GabbertOctober 26, 2015November 6, 2015UncategorizedArizona, Missouri, Oregon, research, Yarnell Fire3 Comments

Oregon declares wildfire season to be over

Bald Butte area fire — A fire in the Bald Butte area started near Springfield, Oregon October 10 when a burning car ignited vegetation above Forest Service Road 23. Dry fuels and gusty winds left 24 acres of burnt timber and brush on national forest lands. Oregon Department of Forestry photo by Greg Wagenblast.

The Oregon Department of Forestry has declared the 2015 wildfire season to be over. Rain and the arrival of cool, moist weather patterns prompted the declaration as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Oregon experienced a third consecutive difficult wildfire season this year. As of Sept. 11, total wildfire costs totaled more than $211 million in Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. (That figure may include costs incurred by all agencies in the state, including federal, not just the ODF.)

The Oregon state government has an insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London which provides up to $25 million of state government fire suppression costs that exceed $50 million. The $3.5 million cost of the policy is split between the state and private timberland owners.

Board approves design for Yarnell Hill Fire memorial

The Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board has approved a conceptual design for a memorial to commemorate the site where 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were entrapped by fire and killed June 30, 2013. According to the Daily Courier, the design by architect Bill Gauslow “consists of 19 white marble crosses, each placed where a man fell, surrounded by 19 low walls, spaced a short distance apart, and built of rip-rap rock.” The memorial would be placed at the fatality site which will be purchased by the Arizona State Parks department. Interpretive signs, one for each of the 19 firefighters, would also be placed every 1/10 mile along the 1.9 mile trail from the parking lot to the memorial site.

Researchers think fires were more common 300 million years ago

Scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London together with colleagues from the USA, Russia and China, have discovered that forest fires across the globe were more common between 300 and 250 million years ago than they are today. This is thought to be due to a higher level of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time.

Full text of the research article.

Landfill near nuclear waste site has been burning for six years

From the Chicago Tribune:

Beneath the surface of a St. Louis-area landfill lurk two things that should never meet: a slow-burning fire and a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste, separated by no more than 1,200 feet.

Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially “catastrophic event” that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city’s main airport.

Although the fire at Bridgeton Landfill has been burning since at least 2010, the plan for a worst-case scenario was developed only a year ago and never publicized until this week, when St. Louis radio station KMOX first obtained a copy…

Colorado’s Multi Mission aircraft enhance firefighter safety

Bill GabbertOctober 26, 2015October 26, 2015UncategorizedColorado, Holy Grail3 Comments

Colorado MMA — One of the two Multi Mission Aircraft owned by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. CDFPC photo.

The two Multi Mission Aircraft (MMA) recently purchased by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control could be significant progress toward what we have called the Holy Grail of Firefighter Safety — knowing the real time location of a wildfire and firefighters.

The Pilatus PC-12 single-engine aircraft have sensors on board combined with communications and software capabilities that can provide a version of the Holy Grail to office-bound fire managers as well as firefighters on the ground.

Operating well above firefighting air tankers and helicopters, the MMAs have two cameras, color and infrared. The color camera provides video similar to that used by news helicopters orbiting over a wildfire in California. The heat-detecting infrared sensor can map the location of large fires and can find small ones that can be difficult or impossible to spot from the air using just human eyesight. The cameras can be used to monitor the locations of firefighters on the ground, however their identities or resource designators would not be automatically provided.

The suite of communications and software, called Colorado Wildfire Information Management System (CO-WIMS), transmits the data from the sensors in a usable form to a network where it can be accessed by authorized personnel in offices, fire apparatus, and firefighters on the ground with hand held devices.

Half of the Holy Grail appears to be provided with the MMAs — the real time or near-real time location of the fire. The other half, knowing the location of firefighters, can be determined to a certain extent, but only if the equipment operator devotes a significant amount of their time using the cameras to follow personnel and equipment on the ground. On a small fire this could be done while still maintaining the big picture of the spread of the fire, but on large incidents with hundreds or thousands of resources, it would be impossible. However, if a crew reported that they were in a dangerous situation (think Yarnell Hill Fire, where 19 firefighters died), perhaps the operator could use the infrared and visual sensors to locate them and relay that information to resources on the ground or in the air that could provide assistance.

The wildland firefighting agencies still need to adopt hardware and communications systems that can track every piece of apparatus, crew, and any resource operating alone on the fireline. That information could then be accessed on a display that could be monitored, at a minimum, by a Safety Officer, and others as needed; eventually by fire supervisors with hand held devices.

Some of the air attack aircraft under federal contract either have or will have video capabilities similar to that on Colorado’s MMAs, but a system needs to be utilized by the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies that can make it usable to firefighters on the ground. Colorado has provided a template proving it can be done.

The CO-WIMS being used now by Colorado to provide real time intelligence is a huge step forward. While the state is far from developing a comprehensive organization for responding to and managing wildland fires, they deserve kudos for what they have already implemented with the MMAs and CO-WIMS.

It’s kind of like a homeless person being given a pair of $500 shoes. It’s a nice addition to their wardrobe, but there is still more that needs to be done.

More information: A .pdf version of a DCFPC presentation about the MMA and CO-WIMS at the October 21-23, 2015 Colorado State Fire Chiefs Fire Leadership Conference.

The following videos demonstrate some of the intelligence gathering capabilities of the MMA:

Continue reading “Colorado’s Multi Mission aircraft enhance firefighter safety”

Smokey Bear Jack O’Lantern

Bill GabbertOctober 23, 2015September 6, 2018UncategorizedJack O'Lantern, Smokey Bear

Smokey Jack O'Lantern — Smokey Jack O’Lantern by Crystal Fajt, October, 2014.

Would you like to have Smokey Bear looking at your trick or treaters from a Halloween Jack O’Lantern? Here’s how, thanks to the Virginia Department of Forestry:
Print this stencil, which looks like this, below:

Then:

Option #1

Cut out the “black pieces” from the stencil sheet, using an x-acto knife or similar tool.
Tape stencil sheet onto pumpkin.
Use a fine-line marker and draw the image ‘through the holes” onto the pumpkin.
Cut these pieces away from the pumpkin.

Or, Option #2

Tape the stencil onto the pumpkin.
Using a pin or other sharp tipped tool “pin-prick” the edge of all the black portions of the stencil.
Remove the stencil, and connect the dots/pin-pricks with a marker.
Cut these pieces away from the pumpkin.

And,
5. Send us a photo of your result. (We will post some of them.)

LA Times article about climate change and wildfires draws criticism

Bill GabbertOctober 22, 2015October 24, 2015Uncategorizedclimate change2 Comments

An article in the Los Angeles Times about climate change and wildfires that we first wrote about on October 20 is drawing criticism. Reporter Paige St. John cherry-picked quotes from several fire or climate experts that were misleading in order to advance the notion that climate change is not affecting fires, nor will it affect them in the near future in a significant way. We pointed out that Ms. St. John’s article would have been more appropriate on the Times’ Opinion page rather than the News section.

Mother Jones took issue with some of the misleading statements in the Times article:

…The Times piece is very strange. It starts by quoting Roger Pielke, the go-to guy for any reporter who wants a skeptical take on climate change. But even Pielke doesn’t actually say climate is unrelated to increased wildfire activity. Next up is a quote from a guy concerned with fire risk who naturally thinks we should focus on making homes safer, but doesn’t comment on climate science one way or the other. Next comes a scientist who has “concluded that global warming has indeed shown itself in California.” Then a Forest Service ecologist who says “California has had an average of 18 additional days per year that are conducive to fire.”

Next comes a UCI team who reported that climate change will increase fires in Southern California by 64 percent over the next few decades. But instead of simply reporting that, the piece acknowledges only that fires will “increase,” and then casts doubt on the result by noting that the UCI model has error bars which indicate that the increase could be between 12 percent and 140 percent. Then a prediction from a “UC Merced expert” who speculated about “a possible decrease of such fires as dry conditions slow vegetation growth.” Finally a National Park Service climate change scientist is quoted as saying “We are living right now with a legacy of unnatural fire suppression of approximately a century.” That’s true enough. Elsewhere, however, that same scientist has also said, “climate has dominated all factors in controlling the extent of wildfire in Western U.S. forests in the 20th century.”

In other words, virtually everyone quoted in this article either (a) says nothing about climate change or (b) says climate change is an important factor in the rise of wildfires in California and the West. And yet, somehow all of this is written in a way that makes it sound as if climate change has nothing to do with wildfires, and it’s topped by a headline that says in no uncertain terms, “Gov. Brown’s link between climate change and wildfires is unsupported, fire experts say.”

Very peculiar.

And from MediaMatters.org:

The Los Angeles Times reported that “scientists who study climate change and fire behavior” dispute California Gov. Jerry Brown’s comments describing a link between the state’s recent wildfires and climate change. However, numerous scientists and major scientific reports have detailed the connection that global warming has to both recent and future wildfires in the Southwest, including the 2014 National Climate Assessment, which stated that climate change has already “increased wildfires” in the Southwest region and could lead to “up to 74% more fires in California.” Moreover, the experts cited by the Times do not contradict Brown’s statements, and the only one who directly criticized Brown was Roger Pielke; it is unclear from the article whether it quoted Roger Pielke Sr. or Roger Pielke Jr., but both father and son have made dubious climate-related claims in the past that were debunked by climate scientists…

(UPDATE October 24, 2015)

Today the LA Times published an article titled, Readers React: Don’t dismiss the link between wildfires and climate change, scientists say, which includes portions of three letters from experts that disagree with the implied premise in the original article.

Comparing how the federal government and Montana pay for wildfires

Bill GabbertOctober 20, 2015January 21, 2016UncategorizedMontana

The state of Montana and the federal government could not be more different in the way they pay for wildfires.

Montana sets the funds aside in advance while the federal government robs Peter to pay Paul most years, sacrificing fuel management programs to pay for the fires that get bigger in part because those programs were gutted.

Below is an excerpt from an October 19 article in the Billings Gazette about Montana’s program.

After decades of seeing the state pay its firefighting bills after the smoke cleared, state Sen. Pat Connell, a Republican from Hamilton, is pretty happy.

In the 2015 fire season, the state spent $10.5 million. But the Legislature’s fiscal division reported this week that the state’s wildfire suppression fund is at $86.5 million, with just a few bills left to pay.

This year’s balance started at $38.7 million, rolled over from last year, but was boosted by the $13.4 million left over in the governor’s emergency fund. Plus, $21.5 million of leftover appropriations and a one-time infusion of $15 million of excess corporate license taxes.

Connell, who struggled to get those funds together, is happy because there’s no need for a supplemental appropriation in 2017, or a special legislative session, nor did the Department of Natural Resources, which handles state firefighting on 5.2 million acres, have to shut down the water division to pay for firefighting…

On October 18 the Los Angeles Times expounded on the chaos within the federal government about funding wildfires:

When it comes to wildfires, some federal officials are tired of playing catch-up and leaving private property at heightened risk of a blaze.

“We’re really in a negative spiral right now,” Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said before she boarded a helicopter last week to tour of parts of San Diego County burned by the massive Cedar fire in 2003.

The problem isn’t the result of equipment, training or firefighting strategies, Jewell said. Instead, the problem is rooted in how the government pays to both prevent and fight wildfires, she said.

Jewell said that a change to the complex federal budget could cut the risk of homes going up in flames when a backcountry fire spreads.

When there are major wildfires, the department has to shift some of the money it planned to spend building firebreaks, teaching homeowners how to safeguard their property and other preventive measures to fighting fires.

This accounting maneuver helps the feds and their local partners in emergency situations. But it saps the prevention and rehabilitation budget to prepare for the next big wildfire, she said, adding there’s a greater risk of more and bigger blazes in the future.

“We do not have the capacity in the federal budget to treat those as the emergencies that they really are, as the disasters they really are,” she said as the region heads into the height of the wildfire season.

“When you have a tornado, and you have a flood, and you have a hurricane, or an earthquake, those are natural disasters, and we go to the disaster fund to take care of that so year in year out, landscapes can be protected from those events. We do not have that capacity with fire. It means we are not doing the work to reduce the risk of fighting fires long term…”

Rep. Scott Peters (San Diego), who joined Jewell on the tour, is trying to change the way fires are funded. He and others hope to get legislation passed that would set aside funds in advance based on the 10-year average spent on fire suppression. He expects that it would receive bipartisan support from about 300 members.

However, at the rate the size and costs of fires are increasing, the 10-year average could be an obsolete metric.

Similar legislation has been talked about in Washington for years but Congress has not been motivated to address the issue.

Maybe they should get some advice from Montana.

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