News and opinion about wildland fire
An Angelina County volunteer firefighter in Texas was killed Sunday when he was responding to the Ebenezer Complex of fires. Tony Quinten Meyers, 38, died when his ATV collided with a truck driven by a Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden.
According to the DPS accident report, Mr. Meyers was driving an ATV and disregarded a stop sign. He struck a Ford F150 truck driven by the Game Warden.
Our sincere condolences go out to the family and coworkers of Mr. Meyers.
The Havre Daily News is reporting that a woman died Thursday, August 25 from burns that she suffered on a grass fire August 22 in northern Montana between Gildford and Kremlin.
A Hi-Line native injured in a fire south of Gildford Monday died Thursday morning at a hospital in Salt Lake City.
A spokeswoman for the University of Utah Medical Center told the Havre Daily News Thursday afternoon that NellieKim Sorenson died about 11 a. m. as a result of the burns she sustained in the fire.
A representative of the Kremlin fire department, one of several volunteer fire departments that responded, said Tuesday that Monday’s fire, south of U. S. Highway 2 between Gildford and Kremlin, burned more than 100 acres starting about 5 p. m. before it was extinguished about 7 p. m.
Additional details about the cause of the fire or how Sorenson was injured have not been available to the Havre Daily News so far.
The Great Falls Tribune reported that the victim “was identified as one of those who went to help firefighters.”
Our sincere condolences to the family of Ms. Sorenson.
It was just two days ago that we wrote an article about air tankers, covering CAL FIRE’s new policy of restricting the use of their S-2s on federal fires and the deteriorated state of the federal air tanker fleet. But yesterday, August 27, there were two significant developments related to air tankers.
CL-215s at San Bernardino
On August 26 late in the afternoon three CL-215s showed up at the San Bernardino airport. They are operated by Aero-Flite, Inc. out of Kingman, Arizona and are working on a federal contract. The company owns operates five CL-215s that have been used in Alaska, Minnesota, and by the Bureau of Land Management. They have already been used on two fires on the San Bernardino National Forest, the Mile and Oasis Fires, refilling at Big Bear Lake.
These CL-215s can scoop up to 1,400 gallons of water from from approved lakes and have the capability of mixing foam concentrate with the water while in flight, making it possible to drop Class A foam on the fire. The aircraft can also be filled with water while parked at an airport.
The primary differences between a CL-215 and CL-415 is that the latter has turbine engines, can hold about 200 more gallons, and has aerodynamic additions to the wings and empennage, or tail assembly.
DC-10 activated by the U. S. Forest Service
Almost two months after awarding a Call When Needed contract to 10 Tanker Air Carrier for their DC-10 air tankers, the USFS activated one of the Very Large Air Tankers yesterday. Tanker 910 arrived at McClellan Airport near Sacramento, California at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday and was dispatched to a fire near the Utah/Arizona border at 10:30 am. It made two trips and nine drops. Today it is being used on the Motor fire just outside the El Portal entrance to Yosemite National Park.
Television show about CL-215s
Has anyone else seen the show on the National Geographic Channel called Ice Pilots? It is a reality show about a company in northwest Canada that operates mostly vintage aircraft, including two CL-215s, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, a DC-3, a C-46, and a DC-4. There was a series of shows in which the company had sold the two CL-215s to the Turkish government and were attempting to deliver them to the buyer, flying them across Canada, the north Atlantic, and Europe.
One complicating factor was the lack of any deicing equipment on the air tankers, something they don’t usually need while working on wildfires. Another was having enough fuel to make it across the Atlantic, so the company was carrying flexible fuel bladders inside the aircraft to increase their range.
During the last episode I saw a few months ago the two CL-215s had made it to the east coast of Canada and were waiting for warm weather over the north Atlantic to begin the ocean crossing.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on How Americans use social media during emergencies 
This is an interesting graphic prepared by the American Red Cross that apparently contains the results of a survey. It is surprising that so many expect that social media is a method for communicating with emergency service agencies. What are the implications of this? Should the public be educated that Facebook and Twitter are not the best ways for contacting emergency services? Or, has that ship sailed already and there is no turning back? Should the emergency service agencies establish more of a presence on social media?
Firefighters are not hired based on their writing skills, or at least it’s not the number one consideration. And we appreciate all fire updates and status reports, knowing that the people composing them are pressed for time and don’t have the luxury of being wordsmiths. But I enjoyed reading an update posted on InciWeb this morning about a high-profile fire in California. Here are two excerpts:
Type one hand crews continue to play a significant roll in steep terrain line construction.
I have rolled down more than one piece of steep terrain while constructing line.
And…
Local Law enforcement recommend procationary measures.
They get points on the second one for completely making up a word. Any suggestions on what the definition of “procationary” should be? How about this: Proactively taking a vacation thinking that evacuations may be ordered later.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized8 Comments on Incident Management Teams activated for hurricane Irene (Updated) UPDATE at 9:06 a.m., August 28, 2011:
In case you are interested in how FEMA is reacting operationally to the response and recovery from Hurricane Irene, here is an excerpt from the FEMA Blog, written this morning:
What We Are Doing
Our immediate focus and priority, as we move from into the response and initial recovery phase, is to do everything we can to support first responders and emergency managers at the frontlines with efforts to keep residents and communities safe. Here’s a brief update on what we’re doing:
- We’ve proactively positioned a total of 18 Incident Management Assistance Teams along the coast to coordinate with state, tribal and local officials to identify needs and shortfalls affecting potential disaster response and recovery.
- Six national urban search and rescue teams, comprised of more than 500 personnel, are activated and ready to deploy if needed.
- Community relations teams are being staged to support states along the East Coast. These teams, if needed, help inform disaster survivors about available services and resources.
- Mobile Emergency Response System assets have been strategically located along the entire east coast to support emergency response communications needs.
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August 27, 2011:
At least two Incident Management Teams have been activated in response to hurricane Irene. Jim Giachino’s Type 1 team from California will establish and manage a mobilization center at East Farmingdale, New York. Mr. Giachino is affiliated with the Chester Fire Protection District in California and is formerly the Forest Supervisor of the Mendocino National Forest.
A type 3 team will be assigned in the Boston area along with four saw crews. A type 2 crew will be assigned in the New York region.
The National Park Service pre-positioned three of their five all-hazard IMTeams. The Coast Guard staged six of their Disaster Assistance Response Teams, river-rescue units equipped with shallow-draft, flat-bottomed boats, in areas that were expected to be hit by flood waters.
FEMA has activated their Regional Response Coordination Centers in Boston (Region 1), Philadelphia (Region 3), and New York (Region 2) and pre-positioned 18 of their Incident Management Assistance Teams along the east coast. Six national urban search and rescue teams have been placed on alert in the event that search and rescue support is needed.
