News and opinion about wildland fire
This is one of the craziest things I have ever seen. To celebrate Easter, two churches in Vrontados, Chios, Greece, shoot thousands of home made rockets at each other. This 1 min. 23 sec. video from Easter 2007 is worth viewing, if you’ve never seen a friendly rocket war involving 50,000 rockets made in people’s basements.
(Link to similar video updated August 25, 2019)
An email message from Tina Hunt, Ellreese’s attorney dated today, April 28:
Hi All,
As some of you know, I believe we have finally reached a compromise with the government in this case. In exchange for dismissing all 11 felony counts, the government will agree to offer a plea to 2 misdemeanor counts of making a false statement in an official writing. I will be recommending to the court that Ellreese should receive no time, the government may recommend a sentence of jail time. I strongly feel that this is a case that does not merit a jail sentence, so I am comfortable with the plea to the misdemeanors.
As you all know, this is a case which I have felt very passionately about. I am more convinced than ever of Ellreese’s innocence on ALL of the counts, however, there remains a risk that if we proceed to trial, he could be found guilty of at least one felony. There comes a time and place to put some closure on this matter, and Ellreese is comfortable with this resolution. I hope that the witnesses and families may also find some peace now.
I anticipate that we will still have a contested sentencing hearing in late summer.
We currently have a tentative change of plea set for tomorrow (April 29) at 11:00 a.m. in Spokane before Judge Van Sickle. The address of the courthouse is: 920 W. Riverside Avenue, Spokane, WA. It is open to the public, and I’m sure that if you can be present, Ellreese and I would appreciate it greatly.
Tina
We covered this earlier, here.
The media usually has a tough time reporting on wildland fires. Unlike a structure fire confined to a relatively small geographic area, a vegetation fire can be spread out over many square miles. It can be difficult for even the Incident Commander to maintain situational awareness.
Pity the poor, inexperienced cub reporter who arrives at a rapidly expanding urban interface fire and is expected to size up the whole incident within minutes, usually from standing in one spot at a distance from the fire.
It can take years for a professional firefighter to learn the jargon. We still have reporters calling air tankers “Borate bombers”. Borate has not been used in air tankers since it was briefly tested on fires in southern California in 1956 and found to be a soil sterilant.
Today I was amused at two examples of how the media covers wildland firefighting.
1. A news anchor on CNN was talking live via satellite with a reporter at the Santa Anita fire in southern California. In asking her a question about the 490-acre urban interface fire, the anchor said:
“…. I know these things have a tendency to spread….. “
Well thanks, CNN, for the fire behavior lesson. Glaciers have a “tendency to spread”.
2. In today’s edition of the Rapid City Journal the newspaper had a front page story about volunteer fire departments. The story included three pictures on the front page of volunteers engaged in wildland fire training. (It must have been a slow news day in the Black Hills.) The captions of two of the pictures had these phrases:
“Crews practiced digging and clearing forest ground cover to create breaks where hoses can be run.”
and,
“…a volunteer firefighter in Johnson Siding works with a ground crew practicing clearing forest ground cover to make a path for hoses.”
Well…..rarely do firefighters have to cut a path in order to put in a hose lay. I have only had to do it a few times in extremely dense chaparral. If you can crawl through the vegetation, you can put in a hose lay. Often a hose lay or a “wet line” is put in instead of constructing or digging a hand line.
In the grand scheme of things, these little errors in the newspaper don’t make a lot of difference to the average reader, but to the knowledgeable, it would make you wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the article.
In some areas of the country wildland fire agencies put on a 1-day training class for reporters who cover fire. It covers topics like, safety for reporters, jargon, where a reporter can go and where they can’t go, a little about fire behavior, descriptions of firefighting resources, fire organization, and sometimes even how to use a fire shelter.
If your agency puts on training like this for reporters, leave a comment with a few details.
The news is full of coverage of the 490-acre fire in southern California near the city of Sierra Madre. About half of the acres are in the city, and the other half are in the Angeles National Forest. Approximately 1,000 people have been evacuated from Sierra Madre residences.
The fire made a run in the early morning hours, crossing some fire lines, coming within a few yards of houses, and sending an ember shower onto the roofs of some homes. This reduced the containment from 30% to 23% as of 9 AM local time today.
HERE is a link to a live web camera on Mount Wilson above the fire.
Photo courtesy of CNN; map produced by the incident, 4/27/2008 @ 2000.
Here is a video of some excellent single engine air tanker work in Chile. The pilots appear to be very skilled, making very accurate drops. Almost all of the video was taken from the air. The sound track, all music, is very loud.
I used Babel Fish to translate the description… it’s pretty rough:
“Forest fire video in Chile this I complete veranno of the 2008, from its base in aerodromo of Litral in Quillon these airships salian day to day to fight fires next to the terrestrial brigades and firemen with the support of conaf.”
Here is a 46-second video of an engine company arriving at the scene of a vegetation fire. Observe the use of the hard hat.
