Businessman gives $1,000 to each student at Paradise High School
Camp Fire, Paradise area. Butte County photo.
After reaching a high of more than 1,300 people, the number that are unaccounted for in the Camp Fire near Paradise, California has shrunk to just 11. Below are the last names, first names, age and location if known:
Baker, Harriett, Oroville
Banks, Darla
Casilla, John, 50-60, Paradise
Cody, Florence, Paradise
Demianew, John, 54, Paradise
Fabila-Martinez, Sara, 50, Paradise
Krug, Wendy, 46, Paradise
Ruel, Devon, Chico
Saubaysa (Sabalsa), Noe (Alejandro), 23
Sparks, Johnm, Paradise
Tafoya, Noelle
The Sheriff’s Office asks those who are listed and are safe to call the missing persons call center at 530-538-6570, 530-538-7544 or 530-538-7671.
The number of fatalities has been reduced to 85 after, according to the sheriff’s office,“remains originally thought to be separate cases have since been proved by DNA to be the same case.”
To see all of the articles on Wildfire Today about the Camp Fire, including the most recent, click HERE.
Of the 85 dead, three remain unidentified. Of those identified, 43 have been “positively identified,” with the rest still tentative, sometimes based on circumstantial evidence.
A San Diego businessman has given $1,000 checks to students and staff at Paradise High School.
Robert S. Wilson
From NPR:
“A San Diego businessman wanted to do something to help young people affected by the Camp Fire, which decimated the city of Paradise, Calif., earlier this month.
“So Bob Wilson came with two suitcases full of $1,000 checks – enough for each of Paradise High School’s 980 students and 105 staff members, including teachers, janitors and bus drivers.
“On a rainy Tuesday night, the students and staff from a town now dispersed showed up at nearby Chico High School, where Wilson handed out the checks — $1.1 million in all, according to The Associated Press.
“Wilson, 90, made his money in commercial real estate and shopping centers, and he’s also a partner in operating six Fish Market restaurants in California.”
On December 1 the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for December through March. The data represents the cumulative forecasts of the ten Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.
If their analysis is correct, the only area with above normal wildfire activity during the period will be Hawaii. Southern California has dropped out of the very active prediction category.
Below:
An excerpt from the NIFC narrative report for the next several months;
More of NIFC’s monthly graphical outlooks;
NOAA’s three-month temperature and precipitation forecasts; and,
Drought Monitor.
“Much Climatologically speaking, fire activity during the winter months, December through February, is at a minimum. Areas most susceptible to activity are generally restricted to the southeastern states where periodic increases in fire activity are possible during dry periods until spring greenup begins. However, current data and expected trends in precipitation suggest that large fire potential will be Below Normal in this region. The abundance of moisture should keep fuels in most areas from becoming critically dry. Drought forecasts project that the region should remain mostly free of drought. In March, short duration wind events can trigger grassfire activity across the southern Great Plains while the fuels are receptive prior to greenup. This is considered normal and some activity is expected entering spring.
“The ongoing weak El Niño event will lead to an overall below average snowpack west of the Continental Divide this winter except possibly across the southern Rockies where above average precipitation is expected. Snowpack deficits along the Divide will likely be buffered by northeasterly flow events as fronts drop south into the country from central and northern Canada.
“Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) surrounding the Hawaiian Islands range from half a degree to 2 degrees Celsius above average. Average temperatures throughout the region are expected to continue to be slightly above average through March. Rainfall was above normal in October but dropped off sharply in November. The official outlook for Hawai’i follows historic correlations, calling for below average rainfall from December through the spring months. Fuel loading has been above average since last spring, and fire activity was above average during the drier portions of the summer. Therefore, as dry weather continues Significant Fire Potential will increase to Above Normal in December and remain there through March and likely beyond.”
The National Park Service announced today that John Buehler will be the new branch chief for the agency’s Aviation Program, succeeding Margaret “Meg” Gallagher, who is retiring in January 2019 after spending about nine months in the position.
Mr. Buehler has served in a variety of jobs in his professional career:
U.S. Army (beginning in 1994), tank platoon leader, headquarters company executive officer, a graduate of the Aviation Officer Advanced Course
General Electric, Six Sigma program
General Accountability Office, auditor
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, special agent
Bureau of Land Management, internal affairs special agent (his present job).
Mr. Buehler is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, with a degree in civil engineering, math, and law. He received a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management where he completed a dual concentration in finance and operations.
Mr. Buehler is a private pilot and continues to serve in the Army Reserves. He was activated as the Department of Defense Liaison to the National Interagency Fire Center in 2014, 2015, and 2017.
Photo taken on the Camp Fire by a drone in Magalia, California near Indian Drive.
With tens of thousands of homes being destroyed in the last year in California wildfires it should be a very high priority for home builders and local governments to swiftly adopt the practices that can greatly reduce the vulnerability of structures. It is not a given that if a large rapidly-spreading wildfire approaches a house it will ignite and burn to the ground.
Media reports sometimes marvel at how an occasional structure will be spared, and may describe it as miraculous or random. Instead, it is based on science. Some structures are designed, built, and maintained to be less vulnerable than others. The other half of the equation is what is within the home ignition zone — what will become fuel within 100 feet. If there is continuous vegetation or other flammable material in that zone that can carry the fire, especially close to the structure, it stands less chance of survival.
But for now let’s think about the structure itself. There are several useful reference guides for architects, home builders, and zoning boards containing information that can lead to designs and building codes that can help keep a fire from turning into a disaster.
• International Code Council’s International Wildland Urban Interface Code (IWUIC),
• National Fire Protection Association’s Standard for Reducing Structure Ignition Hazards from Wildland Fire (Standard 1144), and
• California Building Code Chapter 7A—Materials and Construction Methods for Exterior Wildfire Exposure.
Headwaters Economics compared the costs of new construction of a typical home vs. one with wildfire resistant standards for a three-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot, single-story, single-family home representative of wildland-urban interface building styles in southwest Montana. Below are excerpts from the article:
We examined costs in four vulnerable components of the home: the roof (including gutters, vents, and eaves), exterior walls (including windows and doors), decks, and near-home landscaping. Overall, the wildfire-resistant construction cost 2% less than the typical construction, with the greatest cost savings resulting from using wildfire-resistant fiber cement siding on exterior walls, in lieu of typical cedar plank siding. While cedar plank siding is typical in the wildland-urban interface of western Montana, fiber cement siding is already a common choice in many regions because of its relative affordability, durability and low maintenance needs. Wildfire-resistant changes to the roof resulted in the largest cost increase, with a 27% increase in gutters, vents, and soffits. The following sections describe the wildfire-resistant mitigations for each component.
Screenshot from video by Tarrawingee Rural Fire Brigade.
Quick work by firefighters in Victoria, Australia drew praise from the daughter of a landowner whose property was burning near Tarrawingee northeast of Melbourne.
The Country Fire Authority reported that firefighters from Eldorado, Everton, Springhurst, Tarrawingee, Wangaratta, and Wangaratt North responded to the fire on the Tarrawingee-Eldorado Road at around midday on Saturday December 1. The fire was brought under control by 12:25 P.M.
Posting on Facebook, Brooke Sheppard Ross said: “For one hour these selfless people assisted by DSE and Forestry members battled the dry grass and intermittent wind that fanned the flames into our bush land paddocks.”
From The Guardian on November 28:
While parts of the drought-stricken eastern [Australian] states have enjoyed some recent rain and there have been huge downpours along the NSW coast during this week’s storms, experts are warning it won’t be long before the hot summer temperatures dry out ground vegetation.
“Above-normal fire potential remains across large parts of southern Australia,” the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre said in its seasonal bushfire outlook, also released on Thursday.
As part of its summer outlook, the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a drier-than-average summer for large parts of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
“Having said that, locally heavy rainfall events similar to what we have seen in NSW in the last two days are always a possibility during summer, no matter what the outlook is showing,” Watkins said.
NSW has recorded its eighth driest and fourth hottest April-November on record, with Queensland and Victoria having experienced similar conditions.
Aerial view of the Pentagon Building located in Washington, District of Columbia (DC), showing crews responding to the destruction caused when a highjacked commercial jetliner crashed into the southwest corner of the building during the 9/11 terrorists attacks. Photo September 14, 2001 by TSGT Cedric H. Rudisill, USAF.
When a hijacked 757 airliner crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001 shortly after two others were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, no one knew what would happen next. The National Park Service has many parks, facilities and employees in the Washington D.C. area. The agency is responsible for managing and protecting those areas as well as others across the country, such as the Statue of Liberty, St. Louis Gateway Arch, Liberty Bell, Washington Monument, and the other 385 units (at the time) within the NPS system.
In an effort to document the events of 9/11, determine how the National Park Service responded that day and the months that followed, and learn lessons, agency historians and ethnographers conducted more than a hundred oral history interviews with Service employees in parks, regional offices, and the Washington headquarters. Janet McDonnell, a Historian for the NPS, started with those interviews and wrote the 132-page report, “The National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks.” It is very well written and comprehensive, broken down by geographic area, Washington and New York City. It also covers the use of multiple incident management teams that helped to mitigate the wide-ranging effects across the country.
One of the sections concentrates on the role of the Park Police Aviation Unit, which is a division of the NPS. Fire Aviation has a story about how their personnel and two helicopters assisted in the D.C. area after the attack.
Another section describes how the other NPS employees in Washington responded to the events. That is below, but first a few details that will add some background.
The document refers often to Rick Gale — on 15 different pages, according to the index. Before 9/11 Mr. Gale had been the Chief Ranger of the NPS, based in Washington and responsible for law enforcement within the agency. After that and at the time of the attack he was the Director of Fire and Aviation working out of Boise. He had been a Type 1 Incident Commander, an Area Commander, and the Incident Commander of the NPS Type 1 All Risk Incident Management Team. He was very well known and respected in the wildland fire and incident management community. When I was the Planning Section Chief on his All Risk Team we were activated and detailed to Washington to develop Continuity of Operations (COO) Plans for the NPS facilities at the Main Department of the Interior building and three other Park Service facilities in and near Washington. The plans that we completed in March of 1998 are referenced many times in the report.
The purpose of the COO Plans, as we wrote then, were to establish procedures “to ensure that essential functions and activities of (___the facility___) are able to continue or be reactivated as quickly as possible during the full range of human-caused, natural, technological, or national security emergencies that have some reasonable likelihood of occurring at this facility.”
On 9/11 Mr. Gale happened to be temporally in the city at the Main Interior building in Associate Director Dick Ring’s third floor office when they learned about the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. Mr. Gale and Mr. Ring knew each other well, and had spent weeks working together in hurricane-ravaged Everglades National Park in 1992 when our Incident Management Team was assisting with response and recovery from Hurricane Andrew. At that time Mr. Ring was the Superintendent at Everglades.
The report points out that after the attacks Mr. Ring convinced Director of the Park Service Fran Mainella that it was in her best interests to keep Mr. Gale within shouting distance at all times so she could take advantage of his wisdom and experience in emergency incident management.
Below is the section of the report that describes the initial response by the NPS in Washington, mostly centered around the Main Interior building.
Introduction
At 8:45 a.m. (EST) American Airlines Flight 11 carrying ninety-two people from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Twenty minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 with sixty-five passengers and crew also heading toward California ripped through the South Tower. At 9:40 a.m. (EST) American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 commercial airliner carrying sixty-four people and 30,000 pounds of fuel for its long flight from Dulles to Los Angeles, smashed into the west façade of the Pentagon with such force that it penetrated four of the building’s five interior rings. The Federal Aviation Administration promptly banned takeoffs nationwide and ordered all flights that were in the air to land at the nearest airport. Then came the alarming news that United Airlines Flight 93 with forty passengers and crew en route to San Francisco had crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Not long after, reports circulated that this plane had been headed toward Washington, D.C., and heroic passengers had intervened to thwart this plan.
[…]
Main Interior Building, Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Rick Gale, chief of the National Park Service’s fire aviation emergency response and head of its incident management program, was sitting in Associate Director Richard (Dick) Ring’s third floor office in the Department of the Interior’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, when a call came in advising Ring to turn on the television. It would prove fortuitous that Gale who normally worked at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, happened to be in Washington that day. Ring turned on the television just in time to see the second plane strike the World Trade Center in New York City. Gale headed back to his temporary office in the ranger activities division. Not long after, Ring received word that the Pentagon had been struck. He stepped outside onto his small balcony and glancing south saw an ominous cloud of smoke rising in the distance. Continue reading “How the National Park Service responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks”
