Cascade Type 2 IA crew on Cub Creek 2 Fire in Northern Washington, July 25, 2021. InciWeb.
A team of scientists from British Columbia, the United States, and Spain say Western Canada must address the threats posed by highly destructive wildfires or face deadly consequences.
The scientists, including Mathieu Bourbonnais, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, predict devastating wildfires such as those currently burning in B.C. and elsewhere in the country will be commonplace by 2050.
The group has released a paper predicting billions of dollars in suppression and indirect fire costs as well as hundreds or thousands of premature deaths due to exposure to wildfire smoke if climate change and fire causes are not resolved.
The warning comes as statistics from the B.C. government show 1,251 wildfires have charred more than 4,500 square kilometres of bush since the start of the fire season on April 1.
Three dozen of those blazes are considered extremely threatening or highly visible and include the 395 square kilometre fire southwest of 100 Mile House that remains out of control and prompted an evacuation alert for another 161 properties on Wednesday.
Environment Canada has issued heat warnings or special weather statements for inland sections of the north and central coasts and much of southern B.C., as the BC Wildfire Service warns the combination of high temperatures and low relative humidity will make wildfires even more intense.
Bourbonnais, who spent years working as a wildland firefighter, says in a statement that a new long-term plan is needed because it’s simplistic and insufficient to blame the wildfire crisis on the forest sector or wildland fire management agencies.
“Wildfires affect so many facets of our society and environment including health, the economy, biodiversity, ecosystem function and more,” he says in the release.
“Wildland fire management must engage additional proponents, including Indigenous Peoples, industry and communities, to help people learn to live with the realities of landscapes and ecological systems that include wildfires but, over time, work to reduce their more catastrophic effects.”
The economic and social costs of wildfire response are unsustainable, the scientists argue.
More than 21,000 personnel are battling 66 large wildfires in the early portion of an extremely busy fire season and the US Forest Service (FS) has activated all of the privately owned large air tankers (LATs) that they possibly can. There are no more available in the country.
The FS is the federal agency responsible for contracting for the large fire-slowing aircraft that can carry 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of retardant, or in the case of the DC-10’s, up to 9,400. The FS does not operate any government-owned air tankers; they are all privately owned, working under contracts administered by the FS.
As this is written on July 28, there are 18 LATs active on Exclusive Use (EU) contracts and 5 on Call When Needed (CWN) contracts, for a total of 23. In addition, the FS has borrowed the only LAT that Australia has, a 737, which flew across the Pacific a few days ago.
Five military C-130 Modular Airborne FireFighting Systems (MAFFS) have been called into action that can carry up to 3,000 gallons of fire retardant. Theoretically there should be eight available at all times during the fire season, but we were unable to find out from the FS if it would be possible to activate the additional three.
Some of us who follow the industry and aerial firefighting may or may not be surprised that the FS could only muster 23 LATs on EU or CWN contracts, because for years the agency has told the public and Congressional Committees that they have “up to 35 (or 34)” air tankers.
On May 17, 2021 Fire Aviation was told by a spokesperson for the FS that this year they would have 34 LATs if needed — 18 on Exclusive Use Contracts guaranteed to work, 8 “surge” LATs guaranteed to work for a shorter period of time, and another 8 on Call When Needed (CWN) contracts. Of those 16 surge and CWN aircraft, only 5 could be produced.
In a Senate Committee hearing on June 9, 2020 John Phipps, US Forest Service Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry said, “We have up to 35 large air tankers (LATs)… and we are well under way for our planning and preparedness for the upcoming western fire season.”
On December 5, 2019 the FS said they had signed Call When Needed (CWN) agreements for air tanker services with six companies for a total of 35 aircraft. The number “35” was misleading because most if not all of the 13 large air tankers on exclusive use (EU) contracts at the time also had CWN contracts; some were being double-counted. That brought the CWN number down to around 22.
It turns out that leaning on that “up to” 34 or 35 number year after year has been a very weak crutch. “Up to 35” can mean any number between zero and 35. It should not be that difficult to count these huge aircraft, especially considering how much they cost to operate.
Some of the Western states have either realized that they can’t count on the federal government to supply them with air tankers when the need arises, or they have recently adopted a more aggressive approach to attacking new fires. Three states this year have leased a total of five LATs that are inspected and carded by the FS, capable of working on EU or CWN contracts for the FS if they had been offered the opportunity. California has augmented their fleet of 23 S-2T’s with two BAe-146’s and one MD-87, Colorado has hired one BAe-146, and Oregon is leasing an MD-87. In addition, the state of Washington has picked up on contract one LAT that had been working on an Alaska contract, a Q-400 operated by Conair. As far as I know the Canadian-converted Q-400 has not been blessed by the Interagency Air Tanker Board in the US, but the state organizations are not bound by that organization. There are also a handful of 1,600-gallon scoopers (CL-415 type) working for states, and too many 700-gallon single engine air tankers to count.
“Three [aircraft that have Forest Service CWN contracts] are operating in Canada,” said Stanton Florea, a Fire Communications Specialist for the FS. “Seven are not operational. They were either not built as airtankers, the companies cannot staff them, or the companies are not making them available to be on contract.”
There is a possibility, Mr. Florea said, that Canada could loan the US some air tankers or scoopers if they were available, through an agreement between the US National Interagency Fire Center and the Canadian Forest Fire Centre. However, the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario have their hands full with their own fires — they are flying in firefighters from Australia to provide assistance.
CWN aircraft may or may not be immediately available during the fire season, with mechanics and crew members available to suddenly drop what they were doing and start flying fires. In 2017 the average daily rate for large federal CWN air tankers was 54 percent higher than aircraft on exclusive use contracts. But CWN costs are charged to the virtually unlimited fire suppression accounts, so the Forest Service does not care about using taxpayer’s dollars in that manner. And they are not held accountable.
While these numbers may have changed since 2018, it is unlikely that the differential between EU and CWN has changed much.
Over the last 10 years the average number of LATs on EU Forest Service contracts was 14.0 for the United States. The average number on EU contracts from 2000 through 2009 was 28.3. This year there are 18, which is 5 more than last year.
The FS goes as far as they can with the limited, insufficient funds appropriated by Congress and approved by the President. If the planes don’t exist when needed, new and emerging wildfires can more easily escape initial attack and grow into huge blazes, or megafires that can consume more than a million dollars of taxpayer funds each day. In the 14 days the Dixie Fire has been burning homes and hundreds of thousands of acres in Northern California, it has also been eating an average of $4.5 million in suppression funds every day. If some of that was instead spent on prescribed burning and additional EU air tankers, it might save money in the long run.
One of the lessons learned this year and others like it, is, Congress must appropriate adequate funds for the five land management agencies to pay firefighters a living wage, conduct more prescribed fires, and have at least 40 large air tankers and 50 large Type 1 helicopters on exclusive use 10-year contracts instead of 1-year contracts.
The peak of the Western US wildfire season is usually in August, but in 2020 the day with the highest number of fire personnel mobilized was September 19 when the record was set with 32,727 assigned to wildfires.
The outlook for August, September, and October predicts weather that will be hotter and drier than average for the Western US, which, if accurate, will lead to an above average fire season in the Western US. The live fuel moistures and Energy Release Components in many areas are already near or above the all time extremes.
Three-month outlook for August, September, and October, 2021.
The person was found and arrested after an hours-long search
Joshua James Chimarusti. Photo by Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.
On Thursday morning, July 22, 2021, Joshua Chimarusti was arrested after he fired several rounds from a handgun at a Ventura County Firehawk helicopter in Southern California.
On July 21, 2021 at approximately 9:15 PM, the crew of Ventura County Firehawk Copter 4 was conducting nighttime training operations in Lake Casitas when they became aware of gunfire directed at them. The pilot of Copter 4 took evasive action and identified a suspect vehicle leaving the area at a high rate of speed. Copter 4 followed the suspect vehicle into Oak View where it came to a stop in the 200 block of Olive Street. The suspect, who was later identified as Joshua Chimarusti, exited the vehicle, and fired additional shots from a handgun at Copter 4. Mr. Chimarusti ran away to avoid being arrested.
An extensive search of the area was conducted by by patrol Deputies, various investigative units, K9, UAV, a small SWAT contingent, and Ventura County Copter 3. Mr. Chimarusti was ultimately located and taken into custody in the early morning hours of July 22, 2021. The handgun he used during both shootings was also located and seized as evidence. Ventura County Copter 4 did not sustain any damage from the incident.
Mr. Chimarusti was arrested and booked for attempted murder, assault with a firearm upon a peace officer or fire fighter, shooting at an occupied aircraft, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, prohibited person in possession of a firearm, and carrying a loaded unregistered firearm. He had a court appearance scheduled for arraignment in Ventura County Superior Court on July 26.
File photo of Ventura County FireHawk Copter 4 testing new tanks at 69Bravo, June 9, 2021 near Topanga, California . Photo from 69Bravo cameras.
Ventura County purchased three military HH-60L Blackhawk helicopters and is converting them into FIREHAWKS that will be used for fighting wildland fires, personnel transport, search and rescue, law enforcement, and medical evacuation.
The County has a joint Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department Aviation Unit. In addition to the FIREHAWKS, they have one Bell 206 Jet Ranger, one Bell 212 HP, one Bell 205B, and two UH-1A Hueys.
A video on the topic has received nearly 130,000 views
Smokejumper landing near the Burro Fire in Colorado on the San Juan National Forest.
A United States Congressman calling wildland firefighters “unskilled labor” is something that many of us current and former firefighters will remember for a long time.
The comment appeared July 2 in an article in the Union Democrat that included an interview with U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, whose Congressional District Four includes the Mother Lode area of California and all of the Stanislaus National Forest. As an example of how the U.S. Forest Service is having difficulty in hiring and retaining wildland firefighters, the article quoted Traci Allen, the acting public affairs officer for the Stanislaus National Forest, as saying their fire staffing was 25% short at that time.
When asked about the issue, Rep. McClintock said, “enhanced unemployment benefits are causing a severe labor shortage in entry-level positions.”
He went on to say,“Wildfire firefighting is hot, miserable work, but it is not skilled labor.”
Even the basic newly hired wildland firefighter immediately receives 40 to 80 hours of training. If they continue beyond the first year, the formal and on the job training they receive over the rest of their career builds up. To work in any of the dozens of positions on fires recognized by the Incident Command System above the level of Type 2 Firefighter requires additional structured courses and proving your skills which are documented in writing in Task Books at every step. It can take 10 to 20 years to acquire the skills, knowledge, and abilities to serve in the higher level jobs on complex incidents.
An “unskilled laborer” attempting to serve as Division Supervisor or Operations Section Chief, for example, would most certainly get scores of their subordinates killed.
An Illinois-based YouTube vlogger who posts videos on his “Fire Department Chronicles” channel weighed in with strong opinions on the issue in a video that has received nearly 130,000 views.
The AlertWildfire camera on Indian Ridge photographed the Fly Fire Saturday afternoon as it spread vigorously toward its location. The camera is north of the community of Keddie and northwest of Mt. Hough and Crystal Lake.
These first four pictures were shot during a five-minute period, 2:22 p.m. to 2:26 p.m. on July 24, 2021.
Judging from the photo below taken from the same camera almost two hours later at 4:10 p.m., the camera survived but the lens needs a little cleaning.
Fly Fire as seen from Indian Ridge at 4:10 p.m. PDT July 24, 2021. AlertWildfire.
The Fly Fire was reported Thursday, July 22 near Keddie in Butterfly Valley about four miles north of Quincy. At first there was a question whether it was a spot fire from the Dixie Fire several miles away, or if it was unrelated. A fire behavior analysis determined the spot fire option was unlikely, but at times this year the behaviors of wildfires are off the charts. Regardless, the cause is being investigated and it is being suppressed by the Dixie Fire Incident Management Team. As of early Saturday morning it had burned more than 4,000 acres.
To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Dixie Fire, including the most recent, click HERE.
The Fly Fire is in the lower-right section of the map below.
Map of the Dixie Fire. The white line was the perimeter at 2:30 a.m. PDT July 24, 2021. The green line was the perimeter about 24 hours before. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 4:00 a.m. PDT July 24, 2021.
