Wildfire Today

News and opinion about wildland fire

Wildfire Today

U. S. military sends two air tankers to fight fires in Mexico

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 20 Comments on U. S. military sends two air tankers to fight fires in Mexico

Saturday morning two C-130 aircraft with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) left Peterson Air Force base in Colorado Springs, Colorado for Mexico to assist with two large fires that are burning about 60 miles south of the Texas border. They arrived later in the day at Laughlin Air Force Base, which they will use as a reload base, and are already dropping water mixed with foam concentrate on the fires. That’s right, not long-term fire retardant, but foam.

The MAFFS units, which hold about 3,000 gallons, are owned by the U.S. Forest Service and slip into the C-130’s cargo bay fairly quickly to convert the transport planes into air tankers. Normally they drop retardant but apparently they were not able to work out the logistics of acquiring it for this mission.

The MAFFS aircraft have been authorized to drop four loads per day per aircraft, for up to seven days.

Evergreen’s 747 Supertanker has been working on the fires in Mexico since April 12. Steven Daniels, of Evergreen Aviation, told Wildfire Today that the massive air tanker has dropped 12 loads of retardant, 20,000 gallons each, for a total of 240,000 gallons.

Supertanker1 - 30 June 2010
File photo of the 747 Supertanker dropping on June 30, 2010

The Bomberos, or Mexican firefighters, are not totally familiar with the use of retardant and wonder why the 747 is not dropping directly on the fire or flames, but instead is dropping just ahead of the fire. They are learning that dropping ahead of the fire is the best way to slow it down, and that an air tanker can’t put out a fire completely, it takes support from ground personnel to follow-up after the drop.

Two Air-Cranes operated by Helicopter Transport Services have also been working on the fires in Mexico.

Firefighter killed in Texas

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 2 Comments on Firefighter killed in Texas

From KTXS:

EASTLAND, Texas — A 21-year veteran volunteer firefighter gave his life Friday trying to halt flames that were racing toward the community of Gorman.

Greg Simmons
Greg Simmons

Gregory M. Simmons, 51, was a volunteer with the Eastland Fire Department for the past 11 years after serving for 10 years in the Sachse Fire Department before moving to Eastland. He and his wife, Carrie, managed an Eastland business and have two daughters, Kateland and Karley.

“To say we are shocked and saddened by this tragedy is a huge understatement,” said Eastland Mayor Mark Pipkin. “This loss makes us even more appreciative of the dedication of our many firemen and other emergency personnel. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Carrie and the rest of Greg’s family.”

Simmons gave his life battling one of five fires that flared in Eastland County on Friday. The fire he fought started shortly before noon near the small community of Kokomo. The fire grew rapidly and was pushed southeast by strong northwest winds toward the city of Gorman.

Gorman was ordered evacuated at 1 p.m., and by 5:30 p.m., the order was rescinded when it was clear the town was saved.

Simmons was pronounced dead at 2:30 p.m. by Justice of the Peace James King.

Eastland Fire Chief Phillip Arther said, “Greg was a seasoned veteran and invaluable member of the department and community, and we are all at a loss for words at this time.”

Firefighterclosecalls.com is reporting that as many as eight firefighters were trapped on the incident that resulted in the death of Mr. Simmons, but we have not seen any other similar reports of a multiple firefighter entrapment.

Our thoughts are with Mr. Simmons’ family and co-workers.

UPDATE at 2:00 p.m. MT, April 16, 2010

MyFOXDFW reported Friday night:

Eastland Fire spokesman Ron Holiday confirmed one volunteer firefighter, 51-year-old Greg Simmons, was killed while fighting a fire in the south part of Eastland County. Five other volunteer firefighters were hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries.

TFS spokeswoman Holly Huffman said (another) state forest service firefighter suffered minor injuries while battling a blaze (in Stephens County). He was trying to clear away dried vegetation with a bulldozer when he clipped a gas line. He suffered light burns and bruising as he jumped from the exploding bulldozer.

8 of the 19 heavy air tankers grounded

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 6 Comments on 8 of the 19 heavy air tankers grounded

Eight of the nineteen heavy air tankers in the United States have been grounded indefinitely from the national fleet. A memo sent by the Southwest Coordination Center on April 14 stated that all P-3 Orions are grounded due to “issues found during aircraft inspection on one of the P-3s last week”.

This leaves 11 heavy air tankers, nine P2Vs operated by Neptune Aviation out of Missoula, MT and two P2Vs operated by Minden Air, Inc. out of Minden, NV.

One might assume, then, that the MAFFS and the very large air tankers, the 2 DC-10s and the 747, might see more use this year, if we have at least an average fire season.

We expect to have more on this story as the details emerge.

 

Thanks Ken

 

UPDATE 11:00 p.m. PT, April 15, 2011

A story in the Lubbock Avalance-Journal says all of the P-3s belonged to Aero Union who voluntarily grounded the planes due to a disagreement or misunderstanding between their company and the U. S. Forest Service and the FAA over inspections of the aircraft. The article said the company hopes to resolve the issue at a meeting on Tuesday of next week.

UPDATE at 3:32 p.m., April 21, 2011:

The disagreement about the P-3 air tankers has been resolved.

Fires in Mexico burn 245,000 acres

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

 

Large Fires in Northern Mexico, visible light photo by NASA, April 9, 2011
Large Fires in northern Mexico, visible light satellite photo by NASA, April 9, 2011
Large Fires in Northern Mexico IR
Large Fires in northern Mexico, infrared and visible light satellite photo by NASA, April 9, 2011

Two large fires in northern Mexico’s state of  Coahuila, 60 miles south of the Texas border, have burned 245,000 acres since lighting started the fires on March 16. Mexico has asked the United States and Canada for air tankers to assist in suppressing the fires. Wildfire Today has learned that the U.S. is considering dispatching a National Incident Management Organization team (NIMO) to help manage the fires, but no decisions have yet been made.

As we reported on Tuesday, the Comisión Nacional Forestal (CONAFOR, Mexico’s National Forest Service) has contracted with Evergreen for their Boeing 747 Supertanker. It will be based and reloaded at Lackland Air Force base near San Antonio, Texas, from which Evergreen expects one hour turnarounds to the fires. The 747 arrived at Lackland Tuesday afternoon. The Supertanker can carry up to 21,000 gallons of retardant, seven times the capacity of conventional “large” air tankers. Three other air tankers will also be working on the fires.

Winter weather summary for the Northern Rockies

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized

NOAA has produced a summary of the winter weather in the Northern Rockies. Here are some excerpts:

=======================================

Northern Rockies Winter Review – 2010-2011

The winter of 2010-2011 was a wet one, a winter typical of the La Nina pattern we were under. The past winter weather patterns were driven largely by La Nina. La Nina is a phenomenon where the waters of the equatorial pacific cool to below normal. This past winter the water temperature departures were exceptionally large, nearly 2 degrees Celsius below normal. Strong La Nina’s which 2010-11 was occurring infrequently. The last time a La Nina of this magnitude was experienced was in the winters of 1988-89, 1973-74 and 1955-56.

The majority of the Western Montana and North Central Idaho experienced above normal precipitation and well above normal snowfall. Mountain Snowpack’s across the Western Montana and North Central Idaho were and continue to be very high. The one exception to the wet winter was southwest Montana where below normal precipitation and snowfall occurred.

A couple of notable precipitation amounts were in Missoula and Polson. Missoula received 64 inches of snow from Oct 1- March 31st. This is the 8th snowiest winter since 1893 and the 3 rd snowiest winter in 40 years. The first was 1996-97 and second 1971-72. The 1996-97 winters was by far the snowiest and wettest winter in the northern Rockies on record and will be hard to surpass.

Polson received 2-3 feet of snow in one storm in late December. Their snowfall totals for the season was 74.5 inches, the third snowiest on record (back to 1912). The top 2 snowiest winters were 1996-97 and 1971-72.

Snowfall percent of normal

Precipitation percent of normal

 

 

Thanks Dick