Wildfire Today

Fake contractors using wildfires to take advantage of devastated people

Hunter BasslerSeptember 30, 2023Wildfirecontractors, post-fire work, scam

Picking up the pieces is often the main focus of those whose homes or businesses have been destroyed by wildfires. In that singular focus, it’s understandable why someone who claims they can help pick those pieces up for cents on the dollar would be welcomed with open arms by those who have lost it all.

But that kindness, according to multiple state agencies, is sometimes too good to be true.

The Gray Fire in Washington killed one person and destroyed 185 structures. Victims in the devastated community of Medical Lake are falling prey to an ongoing scam, according to the state’s Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). The scam involves “contractors” showing up uninvited and offering to help people rebuild. The fake contractors offer to do work and ask for a deposit, only to disappear and raise their prices once the funds are handed over.

The scam has recently happened frequently enough in the Washington community of Medical Lake that L&I issued a warning telling residents affected by wildfires not to accept these solicited offers.

“Disasters like our state’s recent wildfires often bring out scam artists itching to make a buck from homeowners desperate to quickly rebuild or repair their homes,” the warning read. “That’s why [L&I] is urging people recovering from the devastating fires to be sure to hire contractors registered with the department.”

The department outlined numerous ways people looking to rebuild can avoid becoming victims of the scammers. The department recommended obtaining a written contract, getting three written bids, and never paying in full before a job is completed. L&I also said it has an entire database where interested people can look up and verify a contractor’s registration status.

“L&I requires construction contractors to be registered and have liability insurance, a business license, and a bond to provide some financial protection if something goes wrong with the project,” the department said. “It’s easy to verify contractor registration at ProtectMyHome.net or by calling L&I at (80)647-0982 and choosing 2.”

A similar warning was shared by California’s Insurance Commissioner in 2018, warning wildfire victims to not fall for schemes involving price gouging, debris removal, or fraudulent charitable solicitations.

“Because property loss from a disaster can be so traumatic, victims of disaster can become easy targets for fraud,” the commissioner’s website said. “It is important to keep a sharp lookout for people who try to play on the emotions of those stricken by disaster.”

Disaster assistance: Resources are also available through the Spokane County Disaster Assistance Center at the Spokane Falls Community College, Building 9, 3305 W. Whistalks Way, Spokane, WA 99224 – (509)998-2750. Additional resources for property clean-up can be found at Spokane Regional Health and Spokane Air: bit.ly/44o05BX.

Cal Fire ready for its highest-risk time of the year

Hunter BasslerSeptember 28, 2023September 28, 2023Wildfireautumn, CAL FIRE, Diablo winds, October fires, Santa Anas6 Comments

As many fire crews across North America are ending their official wildfire seasons, Cal Fire is now gearing up for its most at-risk time of the year.

Seven of California’s top 20 most destructive wildfires (“most destructive” meaning fires that resulted in the most structures destroyed or lives lost), over the years have occurred in the month of October. The top three on the list after the November 2018 Camp Fire, all burned in October, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire, the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm (with the Tunnel Fire), and the 2003 Cedar Fire.

Plus of course the October 2006 Esperanza Fire.

On the morning of October 20, 1991, towering clouds of black smoke blocked out the sun as “diablo winds” whipped flames hot enough to melt gold throughout the hills above Oakland and Berkeley. — On the morning of October 20, 1991, fearsome Diablo winds whipped flames hot enough to melt gold across the hills above Oakland and Berkeley.

Cooling temperatures and incoming moisture often provide relief to much of the country during early autumn, but conditions in especially dry parts of California can blow up wildfire risk in the state thanks to a combination of summer’s dry vegetation and fall’s fierce winds.

“It is a common misconception that the most dangerous time for fires in California is during July and August,” according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association website. “While there may be fewer fires in September and October, the fires that do occur are far more destructive and burn through many more acres.”

October 2006, en route to the Esperanza, photo by Laguna IHC. — October 2006, en route to the Esperanza Fire, photo by Laguna IHC.

This explosive wildfire situation is caused mainly by a combination of dry vegetation from hot summer weather and the intense dry winds that blow over California fires in the fall.

Known as the Santa Ana winds in southern California and the Diablo winds in northern California, they’re characterized by downslope gusts blowing from the mountains toward the coast. Despite their different names, the winds are caused by similar autumn weather patterns, differing mostly by their locations — the Santa Anas in the south blow down from the Santa Ana Mountains, while the Diablos in northern California blow from the Diablo Range.

Oakland Hills 1991 — 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm. View of the fires above the Claremont Hotel on October 20, 1991. Oakland local wiki pages.

And while these autumn winds now build in the state, some areas are still benefiting from the record-breaking wet winter across the Southwest at the beginning of 2023. Crews in the Santa Cruz area reportedly had to start their season late since the ground was too wet to conduct planned prescribed burns.

“Because it was so moist, my burn crews were not available until early July,” Sarah Collamer, forester and Cal Fire burn boss, told KSBW. “We usually burn in June, but it was too wet.”

As we head into October, we’ll see who wins in the perennial battle between seasonal dry winds and the unseasonal wet ground.

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS: 7th Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference

Kelly AnderssonSeptember 27, 2023October 5, 2023Fire behaviorfire behavior, fire conference, fuels, IAWF

The 7th Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference is scheduled for April 15–19, 2024 and will be held simultaneously in Boise, Canberra, and Tralee, Ireland. Conference organizers are now calling for presentations, and each location is inviting presentation proposals.

The IAWF Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference provides a forum at which fire management experience and lessons learned are documented, and current work is showcased. Emerging research, innovation, and management techniques are shared, to develop integrated solutions to wildfire challenges.

IAWF

This conference on three continents will showcase several countries’ development and integration of fire management policies and frameworks at national, regional, and local levels to address fire risks and build resilience. The conference brings together policy makers, scientists, fire managers, and indigenous land stewards for a shared purpose and a different future living with fire.

The International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) professional association committed to a non-partisan approach for uniting the global wildland fire community. We were formed in 1990 as a global professional membership association. For 30 years IAWF has grown from a fledgling organization to the foremost global wildfire-focused association spanning 26+ countries. The IAWF was built on the belief that an understanding of this dynamic natural force is vital for natural resource management, for protecting the health, safety, and welfare of firefighters and the public, and for harmonious interactions between people and their environment. IAWF is dedicated to communicating with the entire wildland fire community and providing a global link for people with shared interest in wildland fire and associated topics of this multifaceted community. To accomplish these goals, we create networks across sectors, fields, and disciplines to connect the wildfire community through multiple platforms including conferences, our website, the International Journal of Wildland Fire, Wildfire Magazine, and social media outlets.

Poor Timing for Government Shutdown and Federal Firefighters

Kelly AnderssonSeptember 26, 2023Opinionfirefighter pay, government shutdown3 Comments

Guest Post
By Billy Durst

Another government shutdown looms. No one knows whether it will happen, or how long it might last if it does happen. Based on the current conflicts in Congress, particularly between House Republicans and their speaker Kevin McCarthy, many people’s gut instinct tells them that it will. The last government shutdown, in 2019, was 35 days (the longest in U.S. history), and if that is any indication of how long this might last, government employees could be facing another record-breaking furlough.

The timing couldn’t be worse for one particular group of federal employees — federal wildland firefighters, who are anxiously hoping that Congress will pass legislation that would permanently raise firefighter pay. The proposed legislation is not all that they’d hoped for, and not all that they need to make their pay commensurate with their work, but it is clear that it is all they are going to get — if they get it.

A potential worst-case scenario exists for two reasons. Reason one: temporary cash bonus payments put in place by the Biden administration, amounting to a 50 percent raise, have been in place for over a year. These temporary “retention allowances” targeting the federal wildland workforce’s retention issues, amid historically devastating fire years, are set to expire in October.

Numbers Fire Nevada wildfire Carson City Minden — Numbers Fire, July 6, 2020. Photo by Tallac Hotshots.

Reason two: if the government shutdown occurs as the existing government funding regime expires, also come October, federal wildland firefighters will be forced to continue working throughout the furlough, knowing that when the shutdown itself eventually expires, they will be returning to a 50 percent pay cut.

The best-case scenario is that the government does not shut down, that Congress passes and Biden signs the legislation in a timely manner, and that federal wildland firefighters receive the 30 percent permanent pay increase proposed by the pending legislation. No matter what happens come October, these federal firefighters will receive at least a 20 percent reduction in pay. This inevitable pay reduction of 20-50 percent will occur despite the fact that firefighters’ work is more necessary than ever before, while it is common knowledge among firefighters that the majority of, for example, California federal firefighters could earn higher hourly wages working as fast-food employees.

Redding Hotshots Trail Mountain Fire — The Redding Hotshots conduct a safety briefing before beginning their assignment on the Trail Mountain Fire. U.S. Forest Service photo.

Morale among the workforce is low. Cynicism abounds regarding the intentions of agency leaders to be sensitive to our needs, of their competency to advocate on our behalf, and of Congress to perform their responsibilities required not only to keep the government functioning, but also to pass the legislation needed to partially counteract the federal firefighter retention crisis. These federal employees feel righteous indignation in the face of attacks on the value of their labor, and the words-not-action stance of their leaders.

To make a distressing situation darkly comedic, a recent “system error” saw federal firefighters across the country receive notices through their government personnel system that they were to receive pay raises of nearly 100 percent. Had the agencies somehow decided to work around Congress and come through with the necessary pay increases just in the nick of time, before the temporary bonuses ran out? An agency email a few days later clarified that they had not, and a bureaucratic apology followed the inexplicable “system error.” The ironic timing of this mistake was not lost on federal firefighters.

Whether or not these public servants will endure another record-breaking furlough in the face of record-breaking wildfires, or whether their permanent pay increase will be lost within the machinations of a Congressional “system error,” remains to be seen.

No excuse for neglecting firefighter pay

Kelly AnderssonSeptember 26, 2023Wildfirefirefighter pay, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters1 Comment

This week Grassroots President Luke Mayfield sent a letter to USDA leadership and key Congressional members concerning the lack of movement on the Wildland Firefighter Pay Protection Act — here’s an excerpt from the letter.

“The debate over the remaining funds from the Bipartisan lnfrastructure Law is a distraction to conjure false narratives; one is administrative mismanagement and the other that the federal wildland workforce is not facing a fiscal cliff. Rather than action to address the crisis at hand, these arguments try to avoid accountability for the lack of leadership, which could bring thousands of wildland firefighters to the brink of a pay cliff.”

The federal wildland firefighter workforce can no longer be sacrificed without long-term and catastrophic consequences. Workforce and systemic reforms must become congressional and administrative priorities.

The purpose of the letter is to clearly outline and document our intent for agency leadership and Congressional decision-makers.

To read the entire letter for perspective on what’s going on in the Capitol, click [HERE]. Our organization wants to make sure stakeholders are not misguided by rumors or false narratives from named or unnamed sources.

Thank you,
Grassroots Wildland Firefighters
PO BOX 51253
Sparks, Nevada 89435

FSI: When a fire scene becomes a crime scene

Hunter BasslerSeptember 25, 2023Arsonarson, Louisiana, reward3 Comments

A $15,000 reward is being offered for any information on whoever started numerous wildfires still burning around Louisiana. Officials hope the reward, offered by the Louisiana Forestry Association, will help bring those who started the Hwy 113 Fire, the Lions Camp Road Fire, and the state’s largest wildfire on record, the Tiger Island Fire, to justice.

But how do officials even determine whether wildfires were intentionally or accidentally started? It’s not what TV would have you believe.

The biggest offender of incorrect investigation portrayals, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (and its numerous offshoots), has long frustrated detectives, forensic scientists, and other law enforcement personnel, but the frustration doesn’t stop at police shows. CAL FIRE, the agency portrayed on the popular show Fire Country, voiced its frustrations with the show’s inaccuracies from the moment the trailer dropped.

Fire Country largely skirts the actual evidence that helps investigators determine the cause of fires. Because of that, fire investigators are often reduced to an antagonizer role in the show. The reality of fire investigation is much more important and in-depth than Fire Country makes it out to be, especially at a time when arsonists are setting some of the world’s most devastating wildland fires.

Tiger Island Fire 8-27-23

Tiger Island Fire on Saturday, Aug 27th. Extreme fire behavior was present over the weekend as the Southern Area Red Team took command of the incident. — Tiger Island Fire 08-27-2023 — Extreme fire behavior persisted over the weekend as the Southern Area Red Team took command of the incident. Inciweb photo.

Greece’s Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias announced that there have been 79 arrests of “arsonist scum” in connection to the hundreds of wildfires burning around the nation. A man in Canada is facing charges in connection to numerous forest fires that forced evacuations. Albania officials arrested two men caught on camera starting the area’s worst wildfire of the season. And the arsonist who lit the fatal Esperanza Fire in southern California in 2006 was sent to Death Row at San Quentin after a jury in 2009 found him guilty on 42 of 45 counts including 5 counts of first-degree murder, 20 counts of arson and 17 counts of using an incendiary device to start fires.

But how does a fire scene turn into a crime scene? It all rests on investigators to determine the origin and the cause of the fire, according to an NWCG handbook.

“Accurate wildland fire origin and cause determination is an essential first step in a successful fire investigation,” the handbook reads. “Proper investigative procedures that occur during initial attack can more accurately pinpoint fire causes and preserve valuable evidence that might be destroyed by suppression activities. If a fire is human-caused, the protective measures described in the guide can preserve evidence that may lead to effective and fair administrative, civil, or criminal actions.”

Separating some of the wildland fire arson myths perpetuated in media like Fire Country is also a focus of the handbook. While fictional arsonists are depicted as highly sophisticated and using elaborate electronic devices to set numerous large fires in rapid succession, real-life arsonists are usually unskilled offenders who use matches or other simple devices to set small fires that may escalate in frequency and severity.

(Two classic wildfire arsonist stories — and investigations — are detailed in books by John Maclean: The Esperanza Fire and River of Fire.)

Patterns often accompany arson fires, usually involving multiple fires geographically near to each other within a close timeframe. Most wildland arson fires are set at a location that can be accessed by motor vehicle and are not in rugged terrain. Arson can also be indicated by a lack of evidence, like when numerous fires with undetermined causes exceed normal fire history.

Despite the in-depth guide provided by NWCG, humans often can’t determine the cause of a fire on their own. Fortunately, arson dogs can often pick up where humans are lacking; State Farm actually has had an arson dog training program for about 30 years, and many states keep a trained accelerant-detection arson dog on staff.

Investigators of the Tiger Island Fire used one of the state’s five arson dogs to help determine the wildfire’s cause. The dogs are trained to detect 15 different types of ignitable liquids and identify whether they were used at the origin of fires.

You can learn more about arson dogs, specifically Pablo from the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, [HERE].