Prescribed fire of house with explosives

On December 1 Wildfire Today told you about the house near Escondido, California that contained 9 to 12 pounds of unstable high explosives, including HTMD, PETN, and ETN, which is the largest cache of its type ever found in the United States. Local authorities determined that the safest method of dealing with the explosives was to conduct a prescribed fire of the house.

Firefighters applied foam or gel to a newly constructed barrier wall (16′ high and 75′ long on a neighbor’s property), cut holes in the roof, and opened the windows of the house. Ignition was delayed due to the weather. An inversion caused the mixing height to be inadequate earlier, and they wanted the smoke to disperse into the higher atmosphere, rather than impact the millions of residents in San Diego County.

Bomb house in Escondido
The house shortly before the fire.

Shortly after the burn started:

Bomb house burning
12:01, December 9

More photos are below

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Summary of the investigation into the Iron Complex fire, 9-fatality helicopter crash

Carson helicopters

Yesterday we provided live coverage of the National Transportation Safety Board’s all-day meeting about the 2008 crash of the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter on the Iron Complex fire near Weaverville, California in which nine firefighters died. The pilot-in-command, a U.S. Forest Service check pilot, and seven firefighters were fatally injured; the copilot and three firefighters were seriously injured. The helicopter was operated by Carson Helicopters, Inc. of Grants Pass, Oregon.

According to the NTSB, there was “intentional wrong-doing” by Carson Helicopters that under-stated the weight of the helicopter and over-stated the performance of the helicopter in the documents they provided to the USFS when bidding on their firefighting contract. The NTSB estimated that the actual empty weight of the helicopter was 13,845 pounds, while Carson Helicopters stated in their contract proposal that the weight was 12,013 pounds. For the purpose of load calculations on the day of the crash, the pilot assumed the weight to be 12,408 pounds, which was 1,437 pounds less than the actual weight estimated by the NTSB. According to the NTSB, for the mission of flying the firefighters off the helispot, the helicopter was already over the allowable weight even without the firefighters on board.

In addition, here is an excerpt from the NTSB report:

The altered takeoff (5-minute) power available chart that was provided by Carson Helicopters eliminated a safety margin of 1,200 pounds of emergency reserve power that had been provided for in the load calculations.

The pilot-in-command followed a Carson Helicopters procedure, which was not approved by the helicopter’s manufacturer or the U.S. Forest Service, and used above-minimum specification torque in the load calculations, which exacerbated the error already introduced by the incorrect empty weight and the altered takeoff power available chart, resulting in a further reduction of 800 pounds to the safety margin intended to be included in the load calculations.

The incorrect information—the empty weight and the power available chart—provided by Carson Helicopters and the company procedure of using above-minimum specification torque misled the pilots to believe that the helicopter had the performance capability to hover out of ground effect with the manifested payload when, in fact, it did not.

The NTSB has notified the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General that Carson’s actions may merit a criminal investigation.

The NTSB and the FAA seem to have a rocky relationship. Some of the recommendations that the NTSB makes to the FAA following accident investigations are ignored, which frustrates the NTSB. This was evident a couple of times in the meeting yesterday. The AP reports on an example of this tension that affected the NTSB’s ability to investigate the Iron 44 fire fatal accident:

Two months after the accident, the FAA office in charge of overseeing Carson received letters from two pilots with knowledge of Carson’s operations who expressed concern that the company was miscalculating helicopter weights, investigators said.

Investigators said that if FAA had provided NTSB with that information at the time, it would have helped them figure out sooner that the weight calculations were faulty. FAA was a party to the accident investigation and its inspectors were aware of the investigation, they said.

However, FAA dismissed the allegations and didn’t provide the letters to NTSB until about a year later after the investigators made a general request for documents related to the agency’s oversight of Carson after the crash, investigators said.

Carson surrenders FAA certificate, but may still be operating in Afghanistan

It was reported by the FAA after the NTSB meeting on Tuesday that Carson Helicopters has surrendered their FAA Certificate, which is equivalent to an operating license. However, they may still be flying for the military as a subcontractor. The Mail Tribune in Medford, Oregon reported in January, 2009 that Carson Helicopters signed a contract with a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide (which recently changed their name to “Xe”) to use seven of their Sikorsky S-61 helicopters in Afghanistan. The contract, worth $605 million through 2013, is for the helicopters to transport supplies; they will not be involved in combat.

Fuel Control Unit missing

Conspiracy theory enthusiasts will enjoy speculating about the fuel control unit that went missing after it was gathered as evidence. The NTSB says the part played no role in the accident and that both engines were operating at full power during the accident. However, Carson is saying the crash was caused when one engine experienced a loss of power caused by the part that later disappeared. If Carson can successfully deflect blame to the company that manufactured the part, or at least establish some doubt about the accident’s cause, it may reduce their financial liability.

Who regulates wildfire aviation?

The answer is: nobody. The FAA claims they have no authority to regulate the aviation activities of other federal agencies or state and local governments. This authority has to be granted by Congress, which has shown no interest in becoming involved in the aviation safety of firefighters. And the federal agencies, or at least the U.S. Forest Service as proven in this accident, generally do not have the aviation expertise to inspect and regulate their own agency-owned or contracted aircraft. Good luck in trying to not think about this the next time you’re climbing into a helicopter at a fire. (Let’s see – got hard hat, gloves, line gear, tool, life insurance.)

NTSB report

We have a copy of the NTSB’s Conclusions, Probable Causes, and Recommendations, released yesterday, on our Documents page. Some of the highlights are below.

Continue reading “Summary of the investigation into the Iron Complex fire, 9-fatality helicopter crash”

Version 5.0.3 of BEHAVE

If you use the BEHAVE fire behavior prediction and fuel modeling system for wildland fire, you should download and install the latest version, 5.0.3 for Windows. It was released on November 22, 2010 and includes several bug fixes, as well as these changes from V. 4.0.

  • Additional models have been added to the CROWN module.  The previous values are on the ‘Spread Outputs’ tab.  The new output variables are on the ‘Intensity Outputs’ tab.  A new flow diagram is in the help window.  New variables include crown fireline intensity and flame length, power of the fire and of the wind, and wind-driven or plume-dominated fire.
  • The tree mortality models have been updated in the MORTALITY module to match those in FOFEM. Ten new mortality equations are available. In some cases the results are very different from the old equations. The help system gives the equations and a table of the inputs used for each. The option of directly entering bark thickness was removed because the new equations don’t use that variable. The ‘Mortality equation’ variable added in version 4 was removed. The flow diagram was removed from the help system because it is not applicable to the new equations.December 6, 2010
  • Changes were made to several overstory variables.  This fixes a fatal crash situation in version 4.0.  The change resolves potential inconsistencies in the relationship among ‘Canopy Height’, ‘Canopy Base Height’, and ‘Crown Ratio’.  The variable ‘Tree Height’ was changed to ‘Torching Tree Height’ and is used only in SPOT to calculate spotting distance from torching trees.  ‘Canopy Height’ is now used as input to MORTALITY rather than ‘Tree Height’.
  • A new variable, ‘Downwind Canopy Height’, was added to the SPOT module and is used in the calculation of spotting distance.  This value can different from ‘Canopy Height’ at the site of the fire.
  • A new variable, ‘Live fuel load portion’, was added to the SURFACE Fuels Outputs tab.

Many other changes can be found in the Change Log. The BEHAVE program can be download HERE.

Important Installation Instructions:

If you have already installed a previous version of BehavePlus 5.0 on your computer, uninstall it before installing the latest version on your computer. BehavePlus 5.0 automatically installs in a different directory than versions 4, 3, 2 or 1; it is not necessary to uninstall earlier versions before installing Version 5.

Tanker 44 back in the air

We have a report that Tanker 44, the air tanker that ran off the end of the runway at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (JeffCo) in Colorado on July 26, 2010, is back in the air. Apparently repairs were made and Neptune Aviation has been conducting flight tests yesterday and today in Colorado.

P2 crash in Colorado
Tanker 44 off the runway, July 6, 2010. Photo: Cliff Grassmick

The P2V-5 Neptune operated by Neptune Aviation out of Missoula, MT, experienced a hydraulic failure upon landing, had no brakes, and went off the end of the runway (map). Both pilots self-evacuated and were walking around when fire apparatus arrived to put out a fire in one of the engines.

The air tanker had been supporting the Cow Creek fire in Rocky Mountain National Park when the accident occurred.

Our original coverage of the accident.

The aircraft was moved on July 27.

The NTSB’s preliminary report.

NTSB Board Meeting about 9-fatality helicopter crash on 2008 Iron Complex fire

Today, December 7, 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board conducted a Board Meeting about the August 5, 2008 crash of the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter on the Iron Complex fire near Weaverville in northern California that killed nine firefighters. The meeting was broadcast on a live webcast which we watched. The notes below were taken in real time during the webcast. It was not possible to pause or “rewind”, so there are probably errors and omissions, for which we apologize in advance. But we did the best we could, with limited multi-tasking and typing skills.

We originally covered some of the details of the NTSB’s Factual Report on the crash HERE. As we said then, one of the most startling facts the NTSB discovered is this:

The NTSB estimated that the actual empty weight of the helicopter was 13,845 pounds, while Carson Helicopters stated in their contract proposal that the weight was 12,013 pounds. For the purpose of load calculations on the day of the crash, the pilot assumed the weight to be 12,408 pounds, which was 1,437 pounds less than the actual weight estimated by the NTSB.

More information:

  • The presentations made during the meeting can be found on the NTSB web site HERE. They may only be available for three months.
  • The Accident Docket, a list of NTSB documents related to the accident, can be found HERE.
  • A recorded version of the webcast is now available HERE on the NTSB site.  It may only be available there for three months.
  • The Conclusions, Probable Causes, and Recommendations. (This link takes you to a copy of the document that we placed on Wildfire Today’s Documents page.)

After the meeting the NTSB issued a press release. We included it at the bottom of this article.

The meeting was held in Washington, DC, and the times shown below are Eastern Time. Below, the most recent updates are at the top.

NTSB Board

4:23 – After a closing summary statement by Chairman Hersman, the board adjourned.

4:15 – Robert Sumwalt proposed, and the Board voted enthusiastically to approve, that the report be amended to include “Carson Helicopter, Inc.” in the title. During the meeting today, there was severe criticism of Carson, especially for their “intentional wrong-doing”.  Some family members of the crash victims in the audience (which was never shown on camera) applauded the work of the investigative staff. Zoë (Zoëy) Keliher received special recognition for the investigative work that she performed. Other investigators, when they uncovered a surprising or extremely important fact, were said to have had a “Zoëy Moment”.

4:09 – Chairman Hersman said the Public Use area of aircraft operations, under which fire aviation falls, is an “orphan” in the regulatory system. She said the FAA needs to recognize and correct this. “We don’t want to investigate any more crashes like this”, she said.

3:58 – While they are reading the list, HERE is a link to a page that lists, and has photos of, the five members of the NTSB. Robert Sumwalt spoke more, and asked more questions, than the other four members. But they all were very professional, knowledgeable, brought up good points, and asked excellent questions of the investigators and witnesses.

3:53 – They just finished reading a list of probable causes, and now are reading 20+ recommendations. I can’t type that fast, but we’ll attempt to get a written copy.

3:48 – Robert Sumtwalt faulted the USFS for their lack of oversight before the accident, but praised them for the actions they took afterwards.

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Rest in peace Len Dems

Len DemsWe were saddened to learn today that Len Dems passed away last night, December 5. Len had been the Regional Fire Management Officer for the National Park Service’s Intermountain Region since February of 2005. He had been battling cancer since last summer when he was diagnosed with a rare form of sarcoma of the spleen.

I have known Len for about 20 years and worked with him occasionally on fires, all-risk incidents, and various projects. He was very well-respected in the wildfire community for his leadership, intelligence, and good nature. Len could very easily break into a smile at the least provocation.

The National Park Service has a page devoted to his professional life. Here is an excerpt about his recent years:

…Len was promoted to the GS-14 Regional Fire Management Officer position in February 2005. He has held that job until retirement. He is a respected leader in Fire and Aviation Management by his organization, state cooperators, and the interagency Federal fire agencies.

His ‘Red-Card’ reads: Incident Commander T-2, Plans Chief T-2 and Prescribed Burn Boss Type 1, along with several other qualifications.

He served on interagency fire overhead teams throughout his career as well as NPS All-Risk overhead teams, notably during the Yosemite Flood of 1997. He was instrumental in development of and participation with the original Interagency Wildland Fire Use Teams. He has developed the configurations of the Fire Use Modules and the Alpine Hot Shots, based nearby in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Other notable accomplishments include his participation on the original cadre for the first national Prescribed Burn Boss course RX-90, NPS representative and cadre member for Advanced Wildland Fire Applications S-580, cadre on the course development for the Fire Program Management Course and the Region 2 regional lead for its field presentation, author of the original NPS Business Rules for the FIREPRO budget, active member of the FIREPRO steering committee. In addition, he was engaged with numerous task groups and subcommittees, serving as chairperson and ongoing NPS representative to the Region 1 coordinating group.

Len participated in numerous incident reviews most notably the Cerro Grande Fire Board of Inquiry and Dutch Creek Board of Review and many others in the western States.

A CaringBridge web site had been providing his friends with updates on his condition.

From the NPS Morning Report, the plans for the services are:

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