Wildfire Today

Estimated cost for prescribed fire at Mount Rushmore fireworks site was $30,000

Bill GabbertMay 6, 2020Prescribed Firefireworks, Mount Rushmore, South Dakota12 Comments

The President said he would attend the event July 3 event

Prescribed fire at Mount Rushmore National Memorial — Visitors can almost see the sculpture at Mount Rushmore during the prescribed fire April 29, 2020. Photo by Paul Horsted.

President Trump said in an interview Friday that he intends to travel to South Dakota to see the fireworks as they explode over the Mount Rushmore sculpture July 3.

The 260-acre prescribed fire completed at the Memorial April 29 was planned at least in part to reduce the chances of fireworks igniting what would be the 21^st wildfire started by the devices during Independence Day ceremonies over an 11-year span.

Below is an excerpt from an article at the New York Post:

Trump confirmed the visit during a radio interview Friday with conservative pundit and news aggregator Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent.

“I got fireworks. For 20 years or something it hasn’t been allowed for environmental reasons, you believe that one? It’s all stone,” Trump said. “I got it approved, so I’m going to go there on July 3 and they’re gonna have the big fireworks.”

On at least two occasions, May 7, 2019 and December 18, 2019, President Trump said fireworks were going to be shot over Mount Rushmore long before the Environmental Assessment process was finished.

The exact price tag for last week’s prescribed fire has not been tabulated, but Maureen McGee-Ballinger, the Memorial’s Chief of Interpretation and Education, told us the estimated expenditure was $30,000. It was conducted by a total of 54 personnel, including 24 firefighters from the National Park Service, 8 from the State of South Dakota, 6 from the State of North Dakota, 8 from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, 4 from the Department of Defense and 2 local volunteer fire department engines.

This was the first broadcast burn ever conducted at the Memorial. One of the objectives in the Incident Action Plan for the project was to “reduce the likelihood of unwanted ignitions in this area.”

Mount Rushmore prescribed fire April 30 2020 — Mount Rushmore prescribed fire April 29, 2020. Photo by Matt Danilchick.

Robert Ziel receives Paul Gleason Lead by Example award

Bill GabbertMay 6, 2020Uncategorizedaward, Lead by Example Award, Paul Gleason4 Comments

Robert (Zeke) Ziel, the fire analyst for the International Arctic Research Center’s Alaska Fire Science Consortium, was recently named one of the three recipients from across the wildland fire services for the 2019 Paul Gleason Lead by Example award. The award was created by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Leadership Subcommittee to remember Paul Gleason’s contributions to the wildland fire service. More information about the award, including past recipients, is available on the NWCG website. A group of managers from Alaska and the lower 48, representing the Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and National Park Service, nominated Zeke for the award. The following information is modified from their submitted nomination.

Zeke has been instrumental in the evolution of the interagency fire management and science enterprise in Alaska on many levels. His work is driven by the thought of how Alaska’s interagency management community might do better in the realm of modeling and analysis, and he has reinvented how fire analysis is performed in Alaska. His curiosity and drive are evident in the tools that are available to fire managers in Alaska today. For example, his work with Predictive Services to build and maintain the Alaska Fire and Fuels website, an innovative web platform for displaying the fire, fuels and weather environment, as well as engagement with the GIS specialists and web designers to incorporate modeling outputs, have provided managers and decision makers with ‘one-stop shopping’ information.

Through classroom and web-based instruction, development of user guides, analyses relating fire behavior to fuels and weather inputs, and mentoring budding fire analysts, Zeke has enabled practitioners from different backgrounds within the fire community to more fully understand and successfully implement the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS) in Alaska. He is a key figure in not only fire behavior, analysis, and decision support, but also the cross-boundary engagement of scientist and practitioners in the lower 48 and across Canada. The fostering of relationships across the continuum of science and practice is clearly Zeke’s passion. He finds opportunities to bring people together who may not otherwise interact. In doing so, there is a momentum that he starts, participates in, and feeds continually to address new ideas, challenges, and initiatives.

At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Zeke has been involved in several research efforts, including as a member of the Boreal Fires team under the current Alaska EPSCoR Fire and Ice project, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Examples of Zeke’s work:

CFFDRS Online Training Modules (initial framework, development, and implementation)
Fire Behavior Field Reference Guide (continued development and updates)
Why Alaska Fire Potential Assessments Are Different (2018 publication)
Fire Environment Poster (Developed 2019)
Fuel Moisture, Seasonal Severity, and Fire Growth Analysis in the US Fire Behavior Analysis Tools (2017 publication)
CFFDRS FBP Field Guide (2015 Publication)
CFFDRS FWI Field Guide (2015 Publication)
Modeling Fire Growth Potential in Alaska (2015 Publication)

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Geographic Areas release Wildland Fire Response Plans for COVID-19 Pandemic

Bill GabbertMay 5, 2020January 27, 2021Uncategorizedcoronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic15 Comments

Guidance for maintaining continuity of wildland fire response

The Geographic Areas have started to release their Wildland Fire Response Plans for the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC) assigned three Area Command Teams to work with partners at all levels in the fire community to develop protocols for wildfire response during the pandemic. All of the teams worked directly with each Geographic Area’s Coordinating Group Chair, dispatch/coordination centers, and local units. They also worked under the direction and supervision of NMAC through a Team Coordinator (Joe Reinarz) and maintained frequent contact and communication through multiple daily briefings to the NMAC.

The Eastern Area released their plan in mid-April.

As this was updated at 1:36 p.m. MDT May 7, all of the plans are now available at the links below. NIFC had some problems with FireNET causing some of the links to not work over the last two days, but we were able to obtain from them direct links to the documents. Each one is about 80 to 110 pages.

Alaska

California (Northern and Southern)

Eastern Area

Great Basin

Northern Rockies

Northwest

Rocky Mountain

Southern Area

Southwest

Let us know in a comment what you found most interesting in the plans.

BLM issues preemptive Moses letter to all employees

Bill GabbertMay 5, 2020May 6, 2020UncategorizedBLM, Moses letter4 Comments

A message sent yesterday to all Bureau of Land Management employees is a version of what has been affectionally known over the years as a “Moses Letter”.

During the heat of an exceptionally busy wildfire season the top leadership of federal land management agencies sometimes send a message to all employees beseeching them to make as many people available as possible to help with the firefighting effort.

“Let My People Go!” is a line from the spiritual “Go Down Moses.” The phrase originates in the Book of Exodus 5:1:

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

Yesterday’s message was sent by William Perry Pendley (who adds “Esq.” after his name in his signature). Mr. Pendley is the Deputy Director for Policy and Programs in the BLM, but is serving as the effective head of the agency — the administration has left the position of BLM director empty for President Trump’s entire presidency.

Messages like this are not usually seen until mid- to late summer when thousands of firefighters are battling wildfires and resources are scarce. Anticipating resource shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the letter was sent preemptively, months earlier than has been typical.

Here is an excerpt from Mr. Pendley’s Moses Letter:

“During these challenging times, our firefighters need our help. That is why we are working to provide opportunities to permit each one of us, safely and effectively, to support wildland firefighting in some capacity. BLM employees can help in many areas other than operational firefighting, for example, finance, logistics, planning, and public information. Incident Management Teams need members with these skills to support firefighters and communities. Local area support is also needed in dispatch centers and fire supply caches.

“The need is real. The National Interagency Fire Center’s Predictive Services group, which closely analyzes weather and vegetation to create the most accurate wildland fire outlook possible, foresees above-normal wildland fire activity this year. Following a dry fall and winter, drought is emerging and expanding across California, Oregon, and Nevada, that is, much of the Great Basin near our headquarters in Grand Junction. Additionally, we see increased use of our public lands during the pandemic, which could increase human-caused fires.

“For all these reasons, I’m asking managers to support employee participation in wildland fire support functions. Fire managers have the responsibility to share training schedules and educate non-fire personnel on the opportunities available, and to provide safe wildland fire suppression operations during the pandemic.

“Support for emergencies such as wildland fire management may take precedence over non-emergency activities. Workforce contingency plans set priorities and shift local capabilities in order to continue critical work when incident response is necessary. Employees not qualified or otherwise unavailable to directly assist with wildland fires can indirectly support the effort by filling in behind their peers to ensure that the BLM’s important daily work continues uninterrupted.”

The song below is also known as “Let my people go.”

Forest Service reverses course on prescribed fires

Bill GabbertMay 4, 2020May 4, 2020Prescribed Firecoronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic, prescribed fire

Postponed on all forests in March, then allowed Region by Region in April

risk of prescribed fire during COVID-19 pandemic — The assessed risk of conducting prescribed fires based on COVID-19 pandemic conditions in mid-March, 2020. By the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service.

In mid-March the U.S. Forest Service cancelled or postponed all ignitions of prescribed fires in their Rocky Mountain Region (comprised of five states), the 13 states in the Southern Region, and California. Back then we reached out to the Forest Service’s Washington Office to ask, “Nationwide, have all prescribed fires been cancelled or postponed because of COVID-19?” On March 23 the Lead Public Affairs Specialist for the FS in Washington, Kaari Carpenter, confirmed that they were:

Our mission-critical work, such as suppressing wildfires, and other public service responsibilities, will continue within appropriate risk management strategies, current guidance of the Centers for Disease Control, and local health and safety guidelines. All new ignitions for prescribed fire have been postponed until further notice.

After hearing that prescribed fires on Forest Service lands might be allowed again, we checked with Stanton Florea, who recently transferred from a public information position in the California regional office to a similar position for the Forest Service at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise that had been vacant. After a week, on April 30 we received what was described as “our response to your question”, which presumably came from or was approved by a government office in Washington.

The USDA Forest Service has not issued agency-wide direction to pause prescribed burning activities. Each region has been making their own decisions in terms of conducting prescribed burning activities.

Last week the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region (California) included this announcement in a newsletter:

Forest Service prescribed fire announcement — USFS

In March, the Rocky Mountain Region compiled a thoughtful analysis of the risk of conducting prescribed fires, taking many factors into consideration. The chart at the top of the page was the risk at the time that led to the decision to postpone the projects in the region. Below is the assessment of the conditions they established that would be necessary to allow prescribed fires to be restored after the COVID-19 pandemic has improved.

If the Forest Service is going to use the above analysis to justify reinstating prescribed fire ignitions, then they will have decided that:

The ability to mitigate the risk changed from Moderate to Easy;
Risk to the public changed from High/Moderate to Moderate;
Social/Political moved from High to Moderate, and
Risk to employees changed from High/Moderate to Moderate.

The experience of suppressing a small to moderate-sized wildfire in Arizona on April 17 proved that managing the fire, which included the extraction of a firefighter with a broken ankle, proved to be much more complex than before the COVID-19 pandemic. If the fire had been large and the injury life-threatening, the difficulties would have been even more problematic.

The Bureau of Land Management has been conducting prescribed fires for weeks at least, and on April 29 the National Park Service initiated the first ever broadcast prescribed fire in Mount Rushmore National Memorial in preparation for Donald Trump’s fireworks show on July 3.

The New York Times reports that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection plans to burn roughly 3,200 acres over the next two months.

Below is an excerpt from their article, which addresses the effects of prescribed fire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Officials at CAL FIRE said they were taking steps to limit the health effects from their controlled burns, such as analyzing wind conditions to make sure smoke will not blow toward hospitals. Each burn, which can range in size from a few acres to several hundred, also requires advance approval from local air quality management boards, which in turn typically consult with local public health agencies.

Officials from several air quality boards and public health agencies downplayed the harm that controlled burns could inflict on those infected with Covid-19. “If they’re fighting for every breath, they’re in the hospital and not exposed to the smoky air,” said Lisa Almaguer, a spokeswoman for the Butte County public health department. “If they have moderate to severe symptoms then they’re home and in bed.”

Increasing fire weather severity expected to bring extreme conditions to areas of Canada’s western provinces

Bill GabbertMay 4, 2020UncategorizedAlberta, British Columbia, Canada, Northwest Territories, potential, Saskatchewan, weather

Conditions in June and July are expected to be well above average.

Forecasts are showing that fire weather severity in the western provinces of Canada will be increasing in May, and by June will be in the Extreme category in large areas of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Northwest Territories.

Conditions in June and July are expected to be well above average, according to data from the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System provided by the Canadian Meteorological Centre, a branch of Environment Canada.

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