Wildfire Today

Body of missing Oregon firefighter found

An excerpt from an article in the Register-Guard:

Lane County and U.S. Forest Service search crews have located and retrieved the body of Steven Dickerson, a 32-year-old Forest Service wildland firefighter, northeast of Oakridge in the Willamette National Forest.

There appears to be no indication of foul play in Dickerson’s death, officials said. Dickerson, of Oakridge, had left behind a note indicating that he was despondent, officials have said.

Dickerson was declared missing after failing to report to an out-of-state firefighting deployment on June 29. His body was found Sunday afternoon northeast of Grasshopper Mountain, officials said. Law enforcement personnel from four agencies, K9 tracking dogs and a helicopter participated in the search.

His body was found in a remote forest area with no trail access and very rough terrain. About 35 Lane County and Forest Service employees spent most of Monday recovering the body, which was taken about 3 p.m. for an autopsy at Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.

Our sincere condolences to Mr. Dickerson’s family and co-workers.

Army program works to make soldiers fit in body and mind

The U.S. Army program described in the excerpt below from the Washington Post may find applicability among wildland firefighters, some of whom are deployed on fire assignments for extended periods of time with short breaks between fires. Interagency Hot Shot crews and Wildland Fire Modules may spend three to five months every year fighting fires, coming home briefly to wash clothes and pay bills.

…The program, called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, is designed to make soldiers more psychologically “resilient” amid the pressures of combat, repeated deployments, and family and financial crises.

The effort runs counter to many military traditions.

“It’s a big culture change,” said Col. Jeffery Short, a physician and the program’s medical director.

“For decades,” he said, the Army attitude was “everybody’s just going to be tough. . . . You’re going to sweat this out, and when you come out the other end, you’re going to be better for it.

“Now, to concentrate on how people are thinking, and how they’re feeling . . . that is an Army culture change,” he said.

Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, who oversees the program, said: “The Army recognized that its historical way of dealing with psychological fitness was to wait until somebody showed evidence of not having psychological fitness and then trying to fix it.”

This is an effort to help soldiers before that happens.

Thanks Dick and Kelly

A family of alligators survived a wildfire in Alabama’s Gulf State Park by sheltering in place, in their mud hole. Some people worry and wring their hands about the fate of animals during a wildfire, but most of them have adapted to fire over hundreds of thousands of years and know what to do.

In this case an eight and a half foot long mother alligator and nine babies rode out a fire while they sheltered in a mud hole in a large marshy area of the park.

Conservation Officer Roger Reetz, who found the gators, said:

The gators rode out the forest fire in this mud hole. Everything around them is burned. Nothing is left. They rode out this fire storm in this mud hole here and now we are trying to do our part to help them out and get them some water so they can ride it out a little longer until the rains come.

The fire is contained, but the Orange Beach Fire Department is going to fill the area with water to make it easier for the family to survive while the area recovers from the fire.