A Bolivian pilot and a Chilean mechanic died when their helicopter crashed while firefighting in the commune of Galvarino, in the region of La Araucanía, 700 kilometers south of Santiago, Chile.
In statements reported on February 4 in MercoPress, Mauricio Tapiaby, deputy director of the Chiliean National Service for Disaster Prevention and Response noted that the pilot had “many years of experience in aeronautics and firefighting” and that 11 others, including a firefighter, had died on February 3 in a “swarm” of at least 50 uncontrolled fires. Tapia reported that 22 had suffered burns and 95 houses destroyed.
A Constitutional State of Emergency has been declared for the central-south regions of Biobío and Ñuble.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric activated Armed Forces and Carabineros for prevention patrols. “It is much easier to prevent a fire than to fight it,” he said, while adding that fire control activities were progressing with an estimated 75 aircraft and 2300 firefighters.
Temperatures of 40 degrees C (100 F) are being recorded, with moderating temperatures by next week but gusty afternoon winds continuing, and the recent Fire Weather Index in the 75th percentile.
Resource Watch: Large Fires and Fire Weather Index for central-south Chile, 2023-01-28 through 02-03.
The case against a couple accused of starting the 2020 El Dorado Fire with a gender-reveal device will move forward after one of four felony counts was dropped by a Superior Court judge in San Bernardino, California.
El Dorado Fire, photo by Jeff Zimmerman Sept. 5, 2020.
Attorneys for the Jimenezes argued that the fire was accidentally ignited by the smoky gender-reveal device and sought dismissal of the manslaughter charge. Rokos reported that the deputy county attorney argued that “the Jimenezes should have known better than to set off the smoky device on a 103-degree day with low humidity in a park containing extremely dry brush.”
If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, the Jimenezes could be sentenced to four years in prison. They are currently on leave from their jobs as California correctional officers.
Prior coverage in Wildfire Today of the “Narrative” and related reports on the fatality of a squad leader on the Big Bear Interagency Hotshot Crew highlighted the increasing risks and complicated processes in a comprehensive analyses. Charles ‘Charlie’ Morton died as he was scouting the fire alone on September 17, 2020 when it overran his location.
Excerpts from the reports included:
“In his September 24, 2020 testimony before Congress, John Phipps, the Forest Service’s Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry, stated “the system is not designed for this,” to illustrate the misalignment between the design of the wildland fire system and the reality that wildland fire responders routinely experience.”
“We continue to ask our wildland fire responders to save communities that are becoming increasingly unsavable. At what point do we declare communities without any semblance of defensible space not worth the risk of trying to save under extreme fire behavior conditions?”
As Bill Gabbert wrote about the reports on their release, they were notable for their in-depth compilation of lessons as well as the suggestion “that perhaps firefighters (or forestry technicians) should be called ‘fire responders’ so they don’t ‘view fire as an enemy.’ Other than that many of their conclusions are very reasonable, even though most of them have been previously identified in various forms. But having so many of them listed in one fatality report is unique, and could be useful. Unless it just disappears into files like so many others.”
One lesson is being applied – to streamline Type 1 and Type 2 team classifications. Other lessons – such as identifying the risk of scouting and implementing tracking devices and drones – are not moving ahead as quickly.
The above-normal winter precipitation in California and over parts of the American West has already raised the question — even before the floodwaters have receded — of how this winter precip might either dampen the fuel beds or spawn a monster crop of fine fuels come spring and summer of 2023.
There’s a lot of winter and spring to come, and the first-of-the-month fire outlooks are 10 days out, but many are sensing that fire season in wetter locales will begin later. This delay is more likely in California, which is coping with a walloping by deep and repeated atmospheric rivers, resulting in near-record snowpack and flooding that may be familiar historically but not during the most recent drought decades.
Consider the California snowpack as of Jan. 20, 2023. Whether by graph or map, the message is clear: the snowpack is significant and snowmelt periods will likely be extended. Statewide the snowpack is at 126% of the April 1 normal, but 240% for the current water year-to-date.
With a focus on California’s rapid switch from drought to flood, it’s clearly a banner water year to analyze — which is too painfully clear to the many who are working through a long recovery from flood damages estimated to exceed $1 billion. As CNN reported, at one point an estimated 90% of California’s population was under some form of flood watch, which equates to 10% of the US population.
Per California Water Watch, the state is at 167% of average precipitation for this date, but storms aren’t a universal event. While the map for accumulated water year precipitation beginning Oct. 1 shows higher departure from average over most of the state, the most-intense “purple” is being collected in the higher elevations in the central and northern mountains, and sopping the lower coastal regions that were hit full-force by the atmospheric rivers.
See California WaterWatch for regular updates: https://cww.water.ca.gov
As damaging as the storms have been for so many communities, much of the West continues to feel the effects of long-term drought. A broader west-wide map of precipitation of the past three months shows the patchiness of these bomb cyclones.
Precipitation for the past 3 months.
Looking ahead, a range of analysis tools foretell the potential of a warm summer and the likely impacts of long-term drought returning. The five-month lead for June-July-August (JJA), from the North American Multi-Modal Ensemble (or NMME), paints a warm picture for North America, with most of the U.S. West at 70% or higher likelihood for warmer than normal temps. Which will in turn elevate the evaporation potential during growing (and curing) season.
The same JJA outlook indicates a potential for most of North America to receive normal summer precip (though normal is often quite dry for much of the Western regions), with wetter likelihood for Alaska and drier than normal for western and northern Canada, the Pacific Northwest, the lower Mississippi Valley into Texas and south to Mexico and Central America.
How these ensemble outlooks play out will depend in part on a projected switch from La Niña to neutral or potentially El Niño conditions. And the impact of the winter’s snowpack will depend on how early and warm the spring temperatures rise. More on that potential when we look at the February outlooks.
Thanks to the Analysts … Many of these resources are digested from the outlooks and links prepared and shared by National and Geographic Area analysts. So a thanks for the work these folks do, season in and season out. This update owes much to the analysts who produced the January outlooks for Northern California and Southern California.
A lawsuit was filed January 18 against Pacific Gas & Electric Co. by El Dorado County and Placer County seeking damages related to the 2022 Mosquito Fire, which burned almost 77,000 acres over 50 days in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The two counties, along with the El Dorado Water Agency, Georgetown Divide Public Utilities District, and Georgetown Divide Fire Protection District, filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court. The fire burned mostly on the Tahoe and El Dorado National Forests and caused evacuations of more than 11,000 people.
An airtanker makes a retardant run over the Mosquito Fire after it jumped the American River and headed north toward Foresthill, California. 09-13-22 Inciweb photo.
The suit alleges that PG&E’s equipment caused the fire, which started on September 6 near the community of Foresthill, according to a report by CBS News.
“The lawsuit seeks to hold PG&E accountable and to help our community rebuild after this devastating fire,” said El Dorado County counsel David Livingston. The Mosquito Fire started near the Oxbow Reservoir at the Middle Fork American River, according to the Sacramento Bee, and it destroyed 78 structures, including dozens of homes in the Placer County community of Michigan Bluff and the El Dorado County town of Volcanoville. It was not contained till October 27.
Extreme fire behavior on the second day produces a large column of smoke visible from Foresthill, California. 09-08-22 Inciweb photo
The county filed the lawsuit one day before PG&E officials were scheduled to appear in Shasta County Superior Court for a criminal case related to the 2020 Zogg Fire, which killed four people and which Cal Fire investigators have blamed on PG&E equipment. Shasta County prosecutors charged PG&E with four counts of involuntary manslaughter; the utility company in June pleaded not guilty.
The Mosquito Fire lawsuit follows a legal settlement earlier this week in which 10 public entities agreed to $24 million from PG&E for damages caused by the 2021 Dixie Fire, which started July 13 and burned over 963,300 acres across Plumas, Lassen, Butte, Shasta, and Tehama counties. Plaintiffs include the five counties, along with the City of Susanville, Plumas District Hospital, Chester Public Utility District, Honey Lake Valley Recreation Authority, and Herlong Public Utility District.
“Local government across the five affected counties came together to recover these significant funds to reimburse public and natural resources lost in the fire,” Gretchen Stuhr with Plumas County told The Plumas News. “The allocated portion of the settlement proceeds will in no way make the entities whole following the devastation caused by the Dixie and Fly Fires but will assist the County in its recovery.”
Garfield County in west-central Colorado signed off this week on the new multi-agency Roaring Fork Wildfire Collaborative, but not without a little creative editing. The Post Independent reported that county commissioners signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) joining 17 other local governments, fire districts, and state and federal agencies in the formation of the wildfire collaborative.
“The Roaring Fork Valley presents especially complex boundaries with the sheer number of agencies involved,” said Larry Sandoval with the BLM’s Colorado River Valley Field Office. He said the completion of this MOU is a major step toward effective collaboration in fire prevention and management.
The request for edits to the MOU originated with Garfield County Commissioner Tom Jankovsky. “A lot of the emphasis is coming from Pitkin and Eagle counties and the Forest Service to do more forest management,” he said, “which from my perspective is more than just prescribed burns.” Jankovsky wanted the MOU to include equal mention of logging, thinning, and other “more aggressive” forest management methods. “I find it ironic that this group talks about climate change, yet they look at forest management as burning the forest, which has the same effect as if we have a forest fire, just to a much smaller degree,” Jankovsky explained.
A third-generation native Coloradan, Jankovsky is serving his third term as Garfield County Commissioner. He is the public lands planning lead for the Board of County Commissioners and the former general manager of Sunlight Mountain Resort in Glenwood Springs. He asked that the word “climate” be removed from one sentence in the MOU where it stated that active management “… includes the use of the best available climate science that will help stakeholders understand how a changing climate will impact our landscapes and ecosystems, while also looking for opportunities to improve understanding through local research.” Jankovsky wanted the line to read “best available science” and not “best available climate science.”
Fire photo by Colorado State Forest Service
Because fires have no boundaries and don’t recognize jurisdiction lines, the valley-wide collaborative is meant to have everyone on the same page. The 18 local, county, state, and federal agencies involved in wildfire management formalized their working relationship through the Roaring Fork Valley Wildfire Collaborative; the Gunnison Times reported that talk of the collaborative started early 2022, when residents in the Roaring Fork River drainage discussed their interest in better fuels treatment. With several big fires in recent memory — the 2018 Lake Christine Fire, the 2020 Grizzly Creek Fire, and the 2021 Sylvan Lake Fire — valley stakeholders began discussing solutions. The collaborative’s goals include improving communication and identifying critical areas of fuels reduction and vegetation treatment.
Signatories to the MOU are Aspen, Snowmass Village, Basalt, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, and Marble. County signatories are Pitkin, Eagle, Garfield, and Gunnison counties. Additional collaborators include Aspen Fire, Roaring Fork Fire and Rescue, Carbondale Fire, Glenwood Springs Fire, the U.S. Forest Service, and the BLM.
The 2002 Hayman Fire was the largest wildfire in Colorado state history for nearly 20 years, until the Pine Gulch Fire surpassed it in August 2020. The Cameron Peak Fire became the largest wildfire in Colorado history seven weeks later at 206,667 acres. With multiple record-breaking fires, the 2020 Colorado wildfire season became the largest in state history after burning 665,454 acres.
Large-scale wildfires are becoming increasingly common in the U.S. as climate change accelerates; since 2000 an annual average of 70,072 wildfires have burned an annual average of 7 million acres across the country. According to research by the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University, that’s more than double the annual average of 3.3 million acres burned in the 1990s, when a greater number of fires occurred annually. A 2016 study found that climate change had doubled the number of large fires between 1984 and 2015 in the western U.S., and a 2021 study supported by NOAA concluded that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in fire weather each season.
December 2022 in Chile was marked by record hot temperatures, with wildfires burning around the capital city of Santiago and producing persistent smoke and public health impacts. On December 22, a fire in a forested canyon of Tranque Sur burned into the coastal resort city of Viña Del Mar (north of Valparaiso), resulting in one death, many injured, and more than 100 homes destroyed. Chile’s president declared a state of emergency and catastrophe. A week later and 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Viña Del Mar, firefighters responded to a fire in the Galvarino commune where a single-engine air tanker crashed on December 31, killing the pilot, Luis Sevillano Moreno, a Spanish national.
For the early months of 2023, the forecast for Chile continues for hot, dry conditions.
Here is what he witnessed in 2022 in Viña Del Mar, with captions drawn from his notes.
Viña del Mar – Alto Forestry Sector. The remaining fires are being controlled on Day 2 (December 23, 2022). Displaced residents look on from the burned Tranque Sur urban sector of “autoconstrucción viviendas” — homes that were self-constructed, built by the residents and community members, sometimes referred to as “mutual aid” — more at https://infoinvi.uchilefau.cl/glosario/autoconstruccion/. The burned houses bordered along real estate and resort complexes. Photo: Carlos Vera Mancilla.Authorities and local citizens work in solidarity as they remove debris from burned buildings and provide humanitarian assistance. Photo: Carlos Vera Mancilla.Because of negative situations that occurred recently with the national press, I did not dare to consult his name — his sorrow collapsing with the Tranque Sur’s destructive fire. Photo: Carlos Vera Mancilla.A forest and urban fire. With the desolation of nature and the inhabiting community, there is no convincing explanation for the community of what happened, nor resignation to the disaster as recovery begins. Photo: Carlos Vera Mancilla.
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Photos of fire damages from January 2017 in Valparaiso, Chile, by Carlos Vera Mancilla, from the January-February 2017 issue of Wildfire Magazine.
