Another engine rollover injures three firefighters

Coweta County wrecked fire Truck
Photo: cbsatlanta.com

We are distressed to have to report still another rollover of an engine responding to a vegetation fire, injuring firefighters. This time it is in Coweta County, Georgia.

From AJC.com:

Three firefighters were injured in a wreck on the way to a brush fire in Coweta County on Sunday.

Engine No. 16 rolled over at Ga. 34 and Dixon Road just before noon, county spokeswoman Patricia Palmer said.

Two of the firefighters were taken to Piedmont Newnan Hospital, and the third was transported by helicopter to Atlanta Medical Center, Palmer said.

The injuries do not appear to be life-threatening, she said.

Remember the statistic that Dick Mangan reported:

Vehicle accidents were the 2nd leading cause of death for wildland firefighters between 1990 and 2009.

Here are the search results for “rollover” on Wildfire Today. Distressing.

Firegeezer reported today that an aerial platform with a 300-foot reach rolled over in Germany on Saturday. It’s obviously not a wildland fire rig, but spectacular in it’s capabilities…which, by the way, are nil when it’s laying on it’s side.

New requirements could be expensive for operators of firefighting helicopters

Helicopter Dippin
A Type 3 helicopter dipping from a portable tank on the Fossil 2 fire, South Dakota, August 11, 2009. Photo by Bill Gabbert

Some new requirements for Call When Needed (CWN) helicopters that are hired for temporary firefighting duty may be expensive for some contractors. In order to qualify for a U. S. Forest Service CWN contract, the new specifications require each Type 3 CWN helicopter, such as a Bell 206, to have wire-cutting kits (designed to help protect the aircraft if it runs into power lines), strobe lights, a heated defroster unit, and a specific type of cargo hook. The changes are supposed to enhance safety and promote standardization. According to contractors quoted in an article in the Washington Examiner, it could cost from $10,000 to $50,000 for each helicopter.

This could be a tough decision for a CWN operator to make. If they spend the money, they may or may not get called to perform any work for the USFS, since CWN resources are only used if the existing full time exclusive use aircraft are not sufficient to handle the work load.

 

DHS balks at paying CalFire firefighters for sleeping

A new audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General that examined payments made by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the state of California for helping to suppress wildfires in southern California in 2007, questions some of the charges. It concluded that of the $122 million total that was paid to the state, “the Department did not properly request additional funding for a cost overrun exceeding $80 million”. A portion of the overruns, $6.6 million, was in “ineligible labor costs”. The audit said that FEMA agreed with “parts” of the OIG’s findings regarding the labor charges, but did not say specifically which parts they agreed or disagreed with.

While CalFire pays their firefighters portal-to-portal 24 hours a day while they are on fire assignments, the FEMA policy stipulates that after the first 48 hours they will only reimburse for 16 hours a day “even when the applicant is contractually obligated to pay for 24 hour shifts”.

The audit recommends that $12.6 million of the charges be disallowed, and to “require the Department to review its costs incurred and submit a revised claim based on supporting documentation and applicable federal criteria”.

Some federal wildland firefighters are trying to get legislation passed to enable portal-to-portal fire pay for the federal land management agencies. If they are successful, that would put FEMA in an awkward position.

Note, March 20, 2011: we modified this article to clarify that the audit was conducted by the DHS’s Office of Inspector General. FEMA is an agency within the DHS. The audit report can be found here.


Six firefighters die in helicopter crash in Spain

Numerous media outlets are reporting that six firefighters died in a helicopter crash as they were responding to a wildfire.

BNO News:

Six firefighters died on Saturday when their helicopter crashed in eastern Spain as they were traveling to extinguish a wildfire, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.

The regional government said one person survived the crash and was taken to the hospital after suffering a head injury and broken limbs. The extent of the injuries is still to be determined by doctors.

According to informed sources in the regional government, the accident occurred around 13.30 hours in an area difficult to access near the city of Teruel in the Aragon region. They said that at the moment is unclear what caused the crash.

The Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero expressed his condolences to the families and friends of the firefighters during a press conference in Paris after participating in an international summit on Libya.

According to EFE, this is the biggest accident of this kind in the past 20 years, bringing to 17 the total number of victims in two decades.

Our sincere condolences to their families and co-workers.

The Winnipeg Free Press also covered the story.

Colorado did not apply for FEMA financial assistance for the Fourmile fire

Fourmile fire air tanker
Air tanker making a drop on the Fourmile fire, Sept. 6, 2010. Photo: InciWeb

The Fourmile fire, which burned 169 homes and 6,200 acres west of Boulder, Colorado, in September, 2010, was ranked as the 4th most significant wildland fire story of 2010 in a poll on Wildfire Today. In spite of the devastation, the state of Colorado did not apply for disaster assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide help for the property owners that were affected by the fire. If a disaster declaration had been approved by the President, assistance for individuals from FEMA may have included: temporary housing, disaster losses not covered by insurance, related medical costs, replacement of vehicles and clothing, moving costs, and disaster unemployment insurance.

Here is an excerpt from an article in New West:

The Fourmile Fire was Colorado’s largest wildfire disaster in history. But in terms of becoming a declared federal disaster with assistance for individual homeowners who lost their property –- 169 homes lost to the tune of an estimated $214 million in insured loss -– last September’s fire never made it past the starting blocks.

County officials are still shaking their heads at the fact the state of Colorado never even submitted the fire to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for consideration. As reports of underinsured homeowners have surfaced, local authorities now nervously wait to see how many homeowners can afford to rebuild, all while watching for potentially disastrous spring flooding in the foothills west of Boulder.

“Whatever the rules are, I think they should be applied evenly across the country,” Boulder County Commissioner Ben Pearlman said. “My goal was just to be treated like any other community across the country … and we saw that other fires in other locations across the country may have gotten different treatment.”

At a glance, that would appear to be true. Many smaller and similarly sized disasters—measured by the only yardstick available, estimated insured homeowner loss—have received FEMA emergency grants for individuals. According to FEMA records, that includes the 2008 Windsor, Colorado, tornado ($193.5 million); the 2002 Colorado fire season as a whole ($82 million, adjusted for inflation); and the 2009 Oklahoma wildfires ($30 million).

Ultimately, Colorado Division of Emergency Management Director Hans Kallam said he made the decision not to recommend that then-Gov. Bill Ritter request a disaster declaration from President Barack Obama. Kallam said he did so on the advice from FEMA Region VIII officials that the high percentage of insured homes in the 7,000-acre fire area, together with the emergency resources already in place, made such a declaration unnecessary, perhaps illegitimate.

Thanks Dick

Effects of airborne burning embers to be tested on structures

 

IBHS
IBHS facility in Chester County, SC. Photo courtesy of Duke Energy

You may have heard about the huge wind tunnel testing facility operated by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) in Chester County, South Carolina that opened last October. Using 150 105 huge fans, it is capable of generating wind equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane. A lot of wind tunnels can do that, but what makes this one different is that the interior test bed is large enough for nine two-story structures. It’s primary purpose is to test construction methods and materials in order to design structures that are more resistant to natural disasters. It can simulate wind, rain, and fire.

Now there are plans to use it to learn more about the effects of wind-blown burning embers on structures. Here is an excerpt from an IBHS press release:

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), the U.S. Department of Energy’sSavannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate will hold a demonstration of the wildfire research being conducted at the IBHS Research Center in Chester County, S.C. on Thursday, March 24.

[…]

Equipment capable of injecting burning embers into the wind stream in the IBHS Research Center’s large testing chamber has been developed. Ductwork will allow burning embers to be injected into the wind stream throughout the 65-foot wide by 30-foot tall wind field created by the 15 groups of vane-axial fans. This system will enable the researcher to reproduce ember storms typical of wildfire events, replicating the along-wind and across-wind turbulence characteristics of natural winds occurring in wildfire conditions as well as the embers carried in those winds. These factors will allow IBHS researchers to produce much more accurate simulations of ember attacks on building components, including attic vents and complex roof shapes, and the gusty nature of the wind environment associated with an ember attack during a wind-driven wildfire event.

Here is a video that shows two homes being tested in the facility. One has conventional construction, and the other is “fortified”.

Thanks Dick