Three firefighters with the Superior, Nebraska fire department were injured while they were responding to a wildfire on Sunday. Two were treated and released, while another is in the hospital awaiting surgery scheduled for Tuesday.
Photo: Superior Express
The Superior Express described the accident on their Facebook page:
Appears a fire truck with four firemen on board collided with a cedar tree where a county road suddenly goes from good to poor and makes a slight jog just over the crest of a hill.
The Superior Express has been posting updates on the condition of the firefighters.
The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their National Wildland Significant Fire Potential Outlook for October, 2011 through January, 2012. According to their prediction, most of the United States is in for a quiet autumn and early winter with the exception of the southeast.
According to NIFC, the primary factors influencing these outlooks are:
La Niña: La Niña conditions have redeveloped, as evidenced by a marked cooling of the equatorial Pacific. It is not unusual to have a second La Niña after one of such magnitude as the 2010-11 event. However, the impacts may be greater given the degree of drought across much of the south central and southeastern U.S.
Drought: Extreme to exceptional drought will persist across Texas, eastern and southern New Mexico, Oklahoma, southern Kansas, western Louisiana, Georgia and western South Carolina.
Fuel Dryness: A significant change in fuel conditions occurred across much of the west in the latter part of September. Cooler temperatures and increasing humidity coupled with shorter days and burning periods caused indices and fuel moistures to dip to normal or below normal. Even with short warming and drying periods much of the West will not return to any significant conditions or level of concern this season. The exception may be Southern California where near normal conditions currently exist and offshore wind events remain possible through the fall. Drought conditions persist across a portion of the Great Lakes region, however with recent moisture and decreasing temperatures, fuels will not likely recover to the point of causing above normal significant fire potential after the early portion of October. Drought will persist and worsen across much of the southern U.S. from Texas through North Carolina. With leaf fall already underway and significantly below normal precipitation likely, fuel conditions will continue to be critical. The lee side of the Hawaiian Islands will also remain in a drought and fuels conditions will continue to be dry.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the used wildfire equipment that is returned to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise? They have a special warehouse just for that dirty, smelly stuff.
Dale Longanecker retired last week after making 896 jumps out of perfectly good airplanes. Longanecker made his last jump out of the North Cascades Smokejumper Base when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 57. Here is an excerpt from an article in the New York Times:
WINTHROP, Wash. — Kristy Longanecker smiled while her husband fell from the clear blue sky.
Dale Longanecker, 57, is retiring after 38 years as a smoke jumper with the United States Forest Service.
“He got to live his dream,” said Ms. Longanecker, barely bothering to watch. “I’m envious of that sometimes. How many people get to live their dream?”
Thump.
So ended jump No. 896 — one final shock to the skeleton, one final perfect parachute roll, a practice run with no more reason to practice. Last month, Dale Longanecker turned 57, the mandatory retirement age for firefighters employed by the United States Forest Service. Friday was his last day on the job, and his was not just another retirement.
Mr. Longanecker has spent 38 years as one of the most elite of his kind, a smoke jumper. He has parachuted out of airplanes into some of the most remote wildfires in the West carrying little more than a shovel, a gallon of water and a bottle of ibuprofen. He was 19 when he made his first jump, and the Forest Service says his 896 jumps — 362 of which were into fires — are a record that may never be broken.
As cooler, wetter weather takes hold across Oregon, relieved foresters say the state once again sidestepped a catastrophic fire in what’s called the “red zone” – a 300,000-acre section of the Fremont-Winema National Forest in Klamath and Lake counties.
A pine bark beetle infestation has decimated vast stands of lodgepole pine there, providing plenty of explosive fuel. Foresters and firefighters held their breath when lightning storms swept through in August, sparking numerous fires but sparing the Fremont-Winema.
Although a decade or more in the making, the beetle infestation and resulting damage is getting a fresh look. The Oregon Board of Forestry toured the red zone Sept. 8, and industry groups have asked the board and Gov. John Kitzhaber to intervene with federal agencies. Private timber owners have twin worries: The beetle outbreak has damaged their trees, and they believe a monstrous fire in the federal forest will consume their land as well.
Environmental groups and some forestry professionals view the beetle damage, while severe, as a natural, cyclical occurrence. Forests across the West are struggling with the beetle plague.
“Bugs in lodgepole, that’s kind of what they do,” said Sean Stevens, spokesman for Oregon Wild. “The public looks at it and gasps, but in 50 years there will be a new lodgepole forest growing up in its place.”
The U.S. Forest Service is clearing “safety corridors” along roads and has long-range plans to strategically reduce the fuel load of dead trees in the Fremont-Winema, Deputy Forest Supervisor Rick Newton said.
“Certainly we’re very concerned,” he said. “It’s hard to watch a beetle epidemic such as this one move across an area.”
South Dakota
Pine beetle impacts, 3.8 miles west of Hill City, SD in the Black Hills National Forest
Some areas in the Black Hills have been heavily visited by the bark beetles. Frank Carroll, the Planning and Public Affairs Staff of the Black Hills National Forest, recently told us about what to us is a new and user friendly method for visualizing the impacts geographically. If you download and open this 2 MB Google Earth file it will display icons superimposed on satellite imagery at the locations aerial photos were taken of bark beetle impacts. When you click on the icons you will see images like the one above. If you don’t have Google Earth yet (why don’t you have it?), you can download the program here.
This technology could be very useful for displaying photos taken of a large wildfire.
Wallow fire 6-5-2011. Photo: Jayson Coil/US Forest Service
Climate change and wildfires
The New York Times has a very interesting article about the real effects of climate change, bringing the issue into the practical realm. Wildfires are playing and will continue to play an integral part. Here is an excerpt:
“The amount of area burning now in Siberia is just startling — individual years with 30 million acres burned,” Dr. Swetnam said, describing an area the size of Pennsylvania. “The big fires that are occurring in the American Southwest are extraordinary in terms of their severity, on time scales of thousands of years. If we were to continue at this rate through the century, you’re looking at the loss of at least half the forest landscape of the Southwest.”
Seasonal wildland firefighters arrested for drinking in front of fire station
Two wildland firefighters working for the Santa Fe Fire Department in New Mexico were arrested and fired for drinking beer in front of a fire station and on city property. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Albuquerque Journal:
Two seasonal employees for the Santa Fe Fire Department were arrested Wednesday night after police caught one of them, who is 19, drinking beer on city property. And he may have been noticed because that station is in the same area as the Santa Fe Police Department’s Professional Standards division.
“There’s police driving down the street all the time,” said Santa Fe police Capt. Aric Wheeler. “You’re rolling the dice thinking you’re not gonna be seen by somebody.”
An officer spotted Genaro Romero drinking a beer in front of the fire station at 2501 Camino Entrado just after 11 p.m. Wednesday. When the officer asked why he was drinking beer on city property, Romero said he was a firefighter. The officer then checked Romero’s identification and saw he was 19. Under questioning, Romero said he got the beer from Rene Arellano, 24, who was inside the building and admitted providing the booze, according to Wheeler.
Romero and Arellano were temporary firefighters for the city’s Wildland Fire Team. The two had been working as forestry technicians during the area’s wildfire season and their last day was scheduled for today, according to Santa Fe Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Eric Litzenberg.
Until they were arrested Wednesday.
“They’re no longer employed by us,” said Litzenberg, who would not elaborate when asked if they were terminated.
Romero was arrested on a charge of minor in possession of alcohol, while Arellano was charged with providing alcohol to a minor, which is a felony, according to Wheeler.
Report: SEI to buy Premo
There is a report that SEI Industries is buying Premo. SEI makes Bambi Buckets and a line of aerial and ground-based ignition devices, Plastic Sphere Dispensers (PSD), and ignition spheres. SEI is is fairly new to the aerial ignition market. Premo has been making aerial ignition devices and ignition spheres used from helicopters for a long time. If the deal goes through, SEI will support and service the Premo PSD machines as well as supplying 1.25-inch spheres.
