Firefighters are making progress on the 100,000-acre Swan Lake Fire 50 air miles south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula.
One of their key objectives is now complete — to cut off the southwest side from the Sterling Highway to the muskeg wetland areas on the south and west side of the fire. This is significant because it should keep the fire from moving further west toward Sterling.
Snow Creek Wildland Fire Module from, Bend, OR is assigned on the Swan Lake Fire in Alaska. Click to enlarge. InciWeb photo.
Ahead of the fire, firefighters continue to thin brush and understory vegetation along the Skyline Trail and Fuller Lakes Trail on the east side of the fire perimeter near Cooper Landing. The purpose of this effort is to reduce the chance of the fire spreading east along the highway corridor.
BOZEMAN — Ray Rasker, who has researched wildfire for more than a decade as the executive director of Bozeman-based nonprofit Headwaters Economics, makes a bold claim about wildfire and its human impacts.
“We don’t have a forest fire problem, we have a home ignition problem,” he said. “As soon as you come to that realization, it changes your view on wildfire.”
(UPDATE: Ray Rasker contacted us in a comment, below, to say, “The top quote [above] was something I mentioned to the reporter as something that was said by Dr. Jack Cohen, a long-time Fire Science Researcher with the U.S. Forest Service. It’s not my quote and I’m not trying to take credit for Jack’s insightful comment.”)
Often we hear about the costs of suppressing wildfires, but the cost of fire trucks, firefighters, dozers, and aircraft are only part of that cost.
Another excerpt:
Some of a community’s willingness to change growth policies, subdivision regulations, building codes, and the like can be attributed to economics. Although significant, the money spent putting out a wildfire is minor — about 9 percent — relative to fire’s total financial impact, Rasker said. “Fifty percent of the cost is borne by the community. That’s businesses that close, that’s the loss of tax revenue during the fire, that’s the cost of reconstruction — restoring your wetland, for example. Your tax base goes up in flames.”
When economic losses become severe enough, elected officials find the political cover they need to push for additional regulation. Rasker said he’s seen the dynamic at work in several communities CPAW has worked with, including Flagstaff, Arizona; Boulder, Colorado; and San Diego, California. “Now it’s not planning as a liberal agenda; now it suddenly becomes something that’s fiscally responsible.”
Such regulations can include mandating better egress roads to make subdivision evacuations safer, requiring new buildings to be constructed with fire-resistant material, and developing landscaping guidelines for homeowners. There was a time, Rasker said, when municipal fire codes mandating safety measures like sprinkler systems and marked fire exits were all but nonexistent, resulting in casualties. “In an urban environment, we’ve fixed this problem,” he said. “But when the houses are surrounded by trees on the outside of town, suddenly none of those rules apply,” Rasker said, referencing a lack of regulations and enforcement in many rural areas.
Red Flag Warnings are in effect for elevated wildfire danger in areas of Utah, Arizona, and Alaska. As you can see on the map they expire at various times between Thursday night and Saturday morning.
Red Flag Warnings issued July 11, 2019
(Red Flag Warnings can be modified throughout the day as NWS offices around the country update and revise their weather forecasts.)
In a 56-minute speech about the environment he spent two minutes on forest fires
Woodbury Fire in the Tonto National Forest’s Superstition Wilderness east of Phoenix, Arizona June 22, 2019. Inciweb photo.
Yesterday President Trump gave a planned speech from the White House about the environment. In the two minutes he spent talking about forest fires most of it appeared to be without the teleprompter, off script.
As he as done before, he talked about forest management, cleaning the forest, and forest floors. Here are three excerpts:
“You can’t have dirty floors. You can’t have 20 years of leaves and fallen trees.”
“And you don’t have to have any forest fires.”
“I spoke to certain countries, and they said, “Sir, we’re a forest nation.” I never thought of a country — well-known countries: “We’re a forest nation.” I never heard of the term “forest nation.” They live in forests and they don’t have problems. One was telling me that his trees are much more susceptible to fire than what they have in California, but they don’t have fires because they manage, they clean, they do what you have to do. There’s not so much to burn. And we’re going to start doing that. And it’s called, remember, “management.” It’s called “forest management.” So it’s a very important term.”
In the video of the speech, the part about fires begins at 24:00.
…In December, I signed a historic executive order promoting much more active forest management to prevent catastrophic wildfires like those that recently devastated California and Oregon. (Applause.)
I went to the fires in California and I said, “It’s also management.” It’s a lot of things happening, but it’s management. You can’t have dirty floors. You can’t have 20 years of leaves and fallen trees. After the first 17 months, they say the tree is like a piece of tinder. You have to be very careful. So you can’t have that. That’s why you have so many fires.
And I will say this: Spoke with the Governor of California, spoke with many people, and the process of cleaning is now really taking precedent. It — a lot of people are looking at forest management. It’s a word that people didn’t understand last year. Now they’re getting it. And you don’t have to have any forest fires. It’s interesting.
I spoke to certain countries, and they said, “Sir, we’re a forest nation.” I never thought of a country — well-known countries: “We’re a forest nation.” I never heard of the term “forest nation.” They live in forests and they don’t have problems.
One was telling me that his trees are much more susceptible to fire than what they have in California, but they don’t have fires because they manage, they clean, they do what you have to do. There’s not so much to burn. And we’re going to start doing that. And it’s called, remember, “management.” It’s called “forest management.” So it’s a very important term.
When I went to California, they sort of scoffed at me for the first two weeks and maybe three weeks, and not so much — four weeks. (Laughter.) And after about five weeks they said, “You know, he’s right. He’s right.”
So I think you’re going to see a lot of good things. It’s a lot of area. It’s a lot of land. But a lot of tremendous things are happening…
The map shows the extent of smoke at 6:48 a.m. MDT July 9.
Wildfires in Alaska and Ontario are creating large quantities of smoke that is affecting not only those areas but Yukon, British Columbia, Quebec, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and the Midwestern states. Tuesday morning the smoke is unusually noticeable in Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto.
The NOAA map above shows the extent of smoke at 6:48 a.m. MDT July 9. The one below produced by the Canadian government is the forecast for 6 p.m. MDT July 10 but only covers the area within the black border.
The map produced by the Canadian government is the forecast the extent of wildfire smoke at 6 p.m. MDT July 10 but only covers the area within the black border.
A firestorm of a different sort erupted over the weekend when the Canadians asked for help from US Forest Service Hotshot crews. Of course, the Canadians are our 51st state for all intents and purposes and so we will help them any way we can. It’s kind of like Israel; they call and we go and vice versa.
In this case, there is a problem. It turns out the Canadians have rules about who can enter their country and among those who can’t are anyone with a previous Driving While Intoxicated conviction. That’s a problem for most Hotshot crews.
Just like the Marine Corps, our firefighters are rough and tough, no shrinking violets. They are adventurous souls and not afraid of challenges. They learn the hard way and the lessons stick. Many fire crews have more than one crew member with a DWI conviction in the dim past. Canada has made it known that those crew members are not welcome.
Well, that’s a big problem for our organized crews. Unlike individual firefighters with no loyalty to a cohesive group of people who train, eat, sleep, and work together, Hotshots build and maintain crew cohesion and crew integrity by being a team with a capital “T.” Nobody messes with crew cohesion and no crew leader would allow that to happen. The good of the whole crew comes before the good of any single crew member.
Unless we’re taking about an assignment to Canada. It’s something that happens once in a lifetime, if at all, and it’s a big deal. Many Americans never get to travel outside the country. Fewer still get a chance to go somewhere as professionals and practice their trade with their counterparts. So, it’s exciting to go to Canada to fight fire. It’s rewarding, personally and professionally, and there’s money in it for our people and savings for the firefighting budget. Canada pays our regular wages and overtime and so on, and our local units don’t have to pay a dime: It’s a win-win.
One large contingent of Hotshot crews in the West has pushed back on the Administratively Determined (AD) Operations Officer at Boise, home of the National Interagency Fire Center and the person who decides who goes. “Our crews didn’t go (two years ago) if they couldn’t take the whole crew, especially if they had leadership that couldn’t go. I think it’s dumb, they either want our help or they don’t,” said one senior official.
Sure, we can find some fill-ins to bring the crew up to strength, but we can’t find anyone to replace the crew cohesion, crew integrity, and crew leadership that will be missing if that crew accepts the assignment without some of their best people. And we can’t repair the damage to crew morale.
One crew has simply decided not to accept Canadian assignments. It’s either all of them or none of them. For the Wyoming Hotshots, crew cohesion and the morale of every member is critically important to crew function. Other crews are sending pieces of their crews, leaving good people behind and filling in with people with untested qualifications, and who are unknown to the rest of the crew.
The Canadians have a process to waive the rule and allow our people to come as the integrated professionals they are. Forest Service leadership should sit down with the Canadians and require them to waive the DWI rule for Hotshot crews. Let’s get that fixed so we help with all hands.
During Frank Carrol’s 31-year career with the U.S. Forest Service, he served as a hotshot squad boss, assistant fire management officer, strategic planner, public affairs officer, and command staff officer on national fire teams. Currently he is a Managing Partner at Professional Forest Management, LLC.
