Flight simulator at the NSW RFS Training Academy. NSW RFS image.
In 2019 our Australian friends in the New South Wales Rural Fire Service built a Training Academy in Dubbo for improving the skills of fire personnel when responding to emergencies across the state. They soon will be adding an Aviation Centre of Excellence which will have four flight simulators.
Flight simulator at the NSW RFS Training Academy. NSW RFS image.
One of those simulators is being used now in the Academy, and is based on a helicopter cockpit for trainees wearing virtual reality helmets. The immediate plans are for air attack supervisor roles and later for other airborne positions.
Flight simulator at the NSW RFS Training Academy. NSW RFS image.
The system will be for maintaining currency, and to give trainees new to aerial firefighting the chance to find out if the role is for them.
NSW RFS Training Academy. NSW RFS image.
The simulator was delivered in December and the staff has been building training scenarios, with some based on actual fire situations.
Located at the Dubbo City Regional Airport, the Academy includes classroom and practical training with a large auditorium, lecture theater, indoor and outdoor training areas, gym, and catering services with a commercial kitchen. The academy will ultimately have 97 bedroom accommodations for trainees.
“I think it’s really important that apart from the fact that we are launching the simulator here, it becomes another building to support our academy,” said Commissioner of the NSW RFS Rob Rogers. “This is the first of four simulators that we will have in that building. Having the ability to train our own people and use simulator systems like this to be able to upskill people in a non-hazardous environment and obviously then complement that with actual flying will help our people become better trained and have access to better technology.”
The video below is an introduction to the flight simulator.
The next video is about the Training Academy.
The planned Aviation Centre of Excellence. NSW RFS image.
Two fire personnel were hospitalized and 273 had to be quarantined while the fire was being suppressed
Temperature check station for firefighters on the Cameron Peak Fire, InciWeb, posted Sept. 27, 2020.
The largest wildfire in the recorded history of Colorado, the Cameron Peak Fire, will be remembered for the 209,913 acres that burned, but also for how COVID-19 affected the personnel and the suppression of the fire.
A Facilitated Learning Analysis conducted by a team of seven people found that in the months after the fire started on August 13, 2020 west of Fort Collins, 76 workers at the fire tested positive for the virus and a total of 273 had to be quarantined at various times over the course of the fire. Two were hospitalized.
Cameron Peak Fire smoke plume at Boyd Lake, InciWeb, Oct. 14, 2020.
The Analysis is lengthy, full of facts about how the outbreak affected the personnel and the management of the fire. The document has 250 Lessons Learned which are broken down into 14 types of resources (e.g. Finance Unit, Contractors) and 7 categories (e.g. COVID mitigations and testing/contact tracing).
It’s a lot to digest, but it’s best to start with the eight-minute video.
The report was written relatively early in the incident when only 21 had tested positive and 214 had been quarantined.
Of the two individuals that had to be hospitalized, one, called “Rico” in the report, was thought to be so close to death that tentative plans were being made about steps that would have to be taken after his demise, complicated by the fact that he was not a federal or state employee, but worked on an engine for an out of state contractor.
“Being a contract employee, could travel for his family be paid for? What about an Honor Guard or giving them a flag?” the report said. “There was confusion within the local unit, the fire management teams, and the RO about what could legally be done for different classifications of employees (federal, AD, contract, etc.) and this created a lot of tension. Everyone wanted to honor the intention set by the Chief to take care of people. However, the boundaries posed by the contract, policy, and federal purchasing law were limiting everyone to act on their desire to help.”
Rico was admitted to the hospital on August 24 and by the 31st was placed on a ventilator. The machine breathed for him while in a medically induced coma until he was weaned off on October 7. In December he was released to a rehab center.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t Rico’s first time dealing with COVID-19. According to the report he had been hospitalized back in the spring with complications from COVID-19.
Map of Cameron Peak Fire, December 1, 2020. NIFC.
This was the first time in the United States that a person on a large wildfire had to be admitted to a hospital due to the pandemic. There were dozens of unanticipated issues that developed as 273 tested positive. It created issues that none of the personnel on the nine incident management teams that rotated through the incident had ever dealt with.
In reading the report and learning about one unique problem after another, it seemed like everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong in dealing with the multiple COVID-19 breakouts on the fire. The term that kept popping into my mind was, sh**show.
For example, a firefighter on an AD crew from another region who had COVID-19 symptoms was dropped off at the hospital for testing. Called “Brett” in the report, he tested positive, but was not admitted and was released at 5:30 a.m. There was no one keeping track of him, no liaison, and he waited outside the hospital for 14 hours until he was transported to a hotel for quarantine. He had nothing. All of his gear was at the fire. Obviously he needed a few necessities to exist on his own for what could be two weeks. Transporting Brett’s gear bag to the hotel proved to be challenging, since it was suspected of being compromised by the virus. The Incident Management Team WANTED to help, but they were hamstrung by policies that would not allow Forest Service funds to be used to buy this kid a change of underwear or shaving equipment.
Advertises jobs as “firefighter”, which is not accurate
3:30 p.m. MDT April 7, 2021
The Bureau of Land Management released yesterday a two-minute video that supposedly answers questions, including, “Should I apply to be a wildland firefighter with the BLM?” This is at best, misleading, since most if not all of their employees that do fight fire work under job titles of “Forestry Technician” or “Range Technician”.
Besides the “Should I apply” question, the video addresses others, such as:
“I don’t know, it seems kind of boring. And not fun at all.
— Bureau of Land Management Fire (@BLMFire) April 6, 2021
Our take
The federal land management agencies that hire employees with a primary function of fighting fire put most of them in positions with job titles of Forestry Technician or Range Technician. It is deceptive advertising to publish documents or videos stating that you can be a “firefighter” with their agency.
The Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits advertising that is likely to mislead consumers and affect consumers’ behavior or decisions about the product or service.
If an advertiser under the Federal Trade Commission’s jurisdiction is advertising a product that does not comply with the law, violators could face enforcement actions or civil lawsuits with fines up to $43,792 per violation, or civil penalties up to $40,654 per violation.
In the case of the BLM encouraging the public to apply for firefighting jobs, the solution is to do the morally and ethically right thing — accurately describe the positions these employees would be working under. In the longer term, change their job descriptions from Range or Forestry Technicians, to Firefighter.
And, let them earn a living wage that is commensurate with the work they do, and is competitive in the firefighting community.
We have reached out to the BLM about this issue. If we hear back, we will update this article.
Charges were recently filed against the company for their role in starting the Kincade Fire in Northern California
Zogg Fire, Sept. 27, 2020. CAL FIRE photo.
In light of the charges recently filed against Pacific Gas and Electric for the role their equipment played in starting the 2019 Kincade Fire in Northern California, we dug through some records showing the significant part the company has played in starting numerous wildfires over the last decade.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription) reported that investigators attributed more than 1,500 fires to PG&E power lines and hardware between June 2014 and December 2017.
CAL FIRE attributed 12 fires that started in Northern California on October 8 and 9, 2017 to PG&E power equipment.
Below are some of the fires attributed to PG&E between 1999 and 2020. It is not a complete or comprehensive list.
Zogg Fire, September, 2020, 56,338 acres, destroyed 204 structures, and caused the deaths of four people.
Kincade Fire, October, 2019, 77,000 acres, and destroyed 374 structures.
Camp Fire, November , 2018, 154,000 acres, destroyed 18,000 structures, and caused the deaths of 84 people. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Cascade Fire, October 2017, 9,989 acres, destroyed 250 structures, and caused the deaths of five people, including one firefighter.
Redwood Valley Fire, October, 2017, 36,523 acres, destroyed 543 structures, and caused the deaths of 9 people.
Atlas Fire, October, 2017, 51,624 acres, destroyed 783 structures, and caused the deaths of 6 people.
Butte Fire, September 2015, 70,868 acres, destroyed a total of 921 structures, including 549 homes, 368 outbuildings, and 4 commercial properties, and caused the deaths of two people.
The fire started October 23, 2019 northeast of Geyserville, burned more than 77,000 acres, and destroyed 374 structures
Map showing in red the perimeter of the Kincade Fire at 12:49 a.m. PDT October 29, 2019. The white line was the approximate perimeter about 24 hours before.
The District Attorney of Sonoma County has filed criminal charges against Pacific Gas and Electric for the role their equipment played in starting the 2019 Kincade Fire, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle. The company was charged with five felonies and 28 misdemeanors, including “unlawfully causing a fire that resulted in great bodily injury, unlawfully causing a fire that resulted in the burning of inhabited structures, and unlawfully causing a fire that resulted in the burning of forest land, as well as various air pollution crimes,” according to the District Attorney’s office.
The fire started October 23, 2019 northeast of Geyserville, California, burned more than 77,000 acres, and destroyed 374 structures.
Investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection sent a report to the District Attorney’s office in July of 2020 which concluded PG&E’s equipment was at fault.
On October 24, 2019 PG&E filed a required preliminary report with the California Public Utilities Commission that stated “at approximately (9:20 p.m.) on Oct. 23, PG&E became aware of a Transmission level outage on the Geysers No. 9 Lakeville 230kV line when the line relayed and did not reclose. At approximately (7:30 a.m.) on Oct. 24, a responding PG&E Troubleman patrolling the Geysers No. 9 Lakeville 230 kV line observed that CalFire had taped off the area around the base of transmission tower 001/006. On site CalFire personnel brought to the Troubleman’s attention what appeared to be a broken jumper on the same tower.”
File photo of a jumper cable on a high voltage electrical transmission tower.
PG&E told a judge on November 29, 2019 that it was investigating whether there was a systemic problem with a piece of hardware on their high voltage electrical transmission towers that can start wildfires, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Investigators with PG&E and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection were looking at the possible failure of jumper cables on towers near the points of origin of two huge recent fires, the 2017 Camp Fire at Paradise, California and the Kincade Fire.
The video below shows the ignition of the Kincade Fire on October 23 as seen in near infrared from a camera at Barham near Geyserville, California. Keep your eye on the bright light on the horizon left of center. It disappears at about 21:19:55 and 15 seconds later the fire can be seen growing rapidly.
Investigators also determined that PG&E equipment started other fires in recent years. The Wall Street Journal (subscription) reported that investigators attributed more than 1,500 fires to PG&E power lines and hardware between June 2014 and December 2017. CAL FIRE attributed 12 large fires that started on October 8 and 9, 2017 to PG&E power equipment.
Red Flag Warnings have been issued for areas of the Great Plains on April 2, including sections of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Very low relative humidity and strong winds are predicted. Most of the warnings expire Friday evening.
The Hot, Dry, Windy Index for April 2 shows elevated wildfire danger for many areas in the western U.S. This is a fairly new tool for fire managers, described as being very simple and only considers the atmospheric factors of heat, moisture, and wind. To be more precise, it is a multiplication of the maximum wind speed and maximum vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in the lowest 50 or so millibars in the atmosphere. It does not consider fuel moisture.
Hot, Dry, Windy Index for April 2, 2021
(Red Flag Warnings can be modified throughout the day as NWS offices around the country update and revise their weather forecasts.)
