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Report released on burnover of two fire engines

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , ,

The incident occurred on the North Eden Fire which burned in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. No firefighters were injured.

engines burned North Eden Fire
Two engines burned on the North Eden Fire, August 16, 2018. Photo Credit: Brandon Everett, August 17, 2018.

A report has been released for an incident that occurred August 16, 2018 on the North Eden Fire. Two fire engines were burned over and destroyed but thankfully no one was injured. The fire eventually burned more than 13,000 acres in three states, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.

While a 5-ton 6X6 former military cargo truck converted for use as a fire engine was making a mobile attack on the fire, the driver, the only person in the vehicle, was operating a nozzle out of his window. The truck was in the green unburned area suppressing the active fire edge when the Low Air Warning System activated and it suddenly came to a stop. The driver was not able to move the vehicle. He got out, looked at the fire, then went back to retrieve his fire shelter. The truck would still pump water and he used a nozzle to wet the area around the immobile vehicle. Another engine, with the Fire Warden and a Fire Chief, came over to help and also sprayed water, but the fire closed in quickly

From the report:

…The Fire Warden used Heavy Brush 13 as a shield and sprayed down the 20-foot flames as the Fire Chief and Engine Operator ran to the black. The Fire Chief looked back and saw the Fire Warden “on his knees spraying into a wall of fire.”

Instincts and training kicked in. The Fire Warden recalls “I pulled them to the front of my truck, dropped the nozzle and told them to get into the black.” The Fire Warden then dropped the hose and also retreated into the black. He went approximately 15 feet where he joined the Fire Chief and Engine Operator. Flames were shooting out of the window of both trucks.

Within seconds, the tires of the trucks began exploding. From the time the Heavy Brush 13 was first reported down until the two trucks were engulfed in fire was a total of approximately three minutes.

There were no injuries.

North Eden Fire engine burnover
One hour after burn over at 2:51 p.m.. This photo from the report shows the fuels and topography. Photo Credit: David Stacey, Woodruff Fire Department.

The report does not conclude exactly what caused the engine to become immobile, but pointed out that the 5-ton M928A2 has an air compressor that feeds three separate air tanks and components for the 6-wheel drive, as well as the parking and braking systems. Air brake systems require compressed air to work. If a loss of air occurs, the brakes will engage and the truck cannot be moved.

When received from the military the M928A2 has poly air lines which can be vulnerable to getting snagged and broken by brush, or melted by extreme heat from a nearby fire. Owners and operators using these on wildfires are advised to shield the lines with heat-resistant materials, relocate the lines, or replace them with more durable braided lines.

Our initial report on the incident.

Wildfires have memories

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 3 Comments on Wildfires have memories
wildfire spread mosaic behavior
Photo from the research described below.

Researchers studying how wildfires have burned at a particular location found that subsequent fires have a “memory” that helped to self-regulate fire sizes and fire severity. When historical fires burned unabated, landscape patterns of surface and canopy fuels developed that provided barriers to future fire spread. Those same barriers can continue to influence the spread of additional fires.

Susan Prichard and Paul Hessburg were the principal investigators on the “Reburn Project” for the Joint Fire Science Program. They developed a paper, “Evaluating the influence of prior burn mosaics on subsequent wildfire behavior, severity, and fire management options”.

Here are some additional highlights from their findings:

The Reburn Project was motivated by a need to better understand wildfires as fuel reduction treatments and to assess the impacts of decades of wildland fire suppression activities on forested landscapes. The study examined three areas, located in the inland Pacific Northwest, central Idaho and interior British Columbia. Each area had experienced a recent large wildfire event in montane forests.

Reburn  Highlights

  • Past wildfires generally mitigate burn severity for a time, even under extreme fire weather conditions that are associated with large fires.
  • Since around 1900-1934, fire suppression and not wildfire has been a primary influence on forest and fuel succession. Quantifying the effects of fire suppression on particular landscapes is difficult given the long history and its prevalence across the region. Results from simulation modeling have the potential to illustrate in compelling ways the combined effects of removing fires from landscapes that experienced variable fire severity and spatial extent.
  • The researchers developed a state-transition model that allowed them to simulate the growth and potential severity 20th century ignitions that were suppressed. Fire growth simulations were modeled using the daily meteorology available at the time of the ignitions and the FSPro model. The researchers found that the simulated landscapes were reburn landscapes; i.e., the complexity of forest seral stage conditions and fuelbeds was an emergent property of successive reburning over the centuries, and fuel succession explained most of the severity patterns  observed.
  • Modern-day fire suppression scenarios led to “boom and bust” landscapes, where continuous mature forests developed, that were capable of supporting large fire spread, and were eventually burned with mostly high severity. However, using a variety of historical landscape conditions as an initial basis, in scenarios where most or all fires were allowed to burn, fine- to meso-grained patchworks resulted, and they provided a highly diverse range of habitats and values over time, and landscapes were much less susceptible to large, high severity events. Instead, more typical fire size distributions and more characteristic variation in fire severity were restored.

 

Cost of 18 wildfires in Colorado this year reported to be about $130 million

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

Above: Spring Creek Fire southwest of Pueblo, Colorado. Photo uploaded to InciWeb June 29, 2018.

Reporters at a recently created newspaper in Colorado dug up a great deal of information about the cost of the large wildfires that occurred in Colorado this year. Jennifer Brown and Jason Blevins authored an article in The Colorado Sun that broke down many different categories of costs, from portable toilets to firefighting aircraft.

The data they collected came from the Colorado Division of Fire Protection and Control. A federal agency has not responded to a records request the newspaper filed months ago.

The article concentrates on two of the largest fires in Colorado this year — Spring Creek  51 miles southwest of Pueblo, and Silver Creek near Kremmling.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

The drought-ravaged summer of 2018 was an expensive one for firefighting, with costs reaching an estimated $130 million for 18 fires, according to documents received by The Colorado Sun through a public records request to the state Division of Fire Protection and Control. Of that, the state’s share is more than $40 million.

That’s six times more than Colorado spent on fighting wildfires in 2017 and two and a half times what it spent in 2016. Ten fires last year cost just more than $10 million combined.

It is a very interesting well researched article –worth your time.

The Colorado Sun published their first edition on September 10. Many of the reporters came from the Denver Post and other newspapers that have had massive staff reductions in recent years. The Post, created in 1892, was purchased in 2010 by hedge fund Alden Global Capital, run by Heath Freeman under their Digital First Media umbrella. The organization has purchased 97 newspapers.

Below is an excerpt from an article published in Bloomberg March 26:

…But what sets Freeman apart is that he seems to have a rather unique view of a newspaper’s purpose. In this view, his papers are intended not so much to inform the public or hold officialdom to account, but to supply cash for Freeman to use elsewhere. His layoffs aren’t just painful. They are savage.

For instance, according to figures compiled by the NewsGuild, the union that represents workers at Digital First Media properties, the staff of the Denver Post has fallen from 184 journalists to 99 between 2012 and 2017.  The Pottstown Mercury in Pennsylvania went from 73 journalists in 2012 to 19 in 2017. That’s right: 19. The Norristown Times-Herald, also in Pennsylvania, shrank from 45 journalists to 12. The San Jose Mercury News and the Orange County Register, both of which had been dominant papers in their regions before Alden Global bought them, have also been decimated by layoffs.

[…]

But the pattern continues. Last week, no sooner had Digital First Media closed on its purchase of the Boston Herald than it announced that it would cut the staff from 240 employees to 175.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom.
Typos or errors, report them HERE.

Wildfire potential, November through February

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 1 Comment on Wildfire potential, November through February

November wildfire outlook weather

On November 1 the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for November through February. 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 areas with above normal wildfire activity during the period will be Southern California in November and December, and Hawaii December through February.

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 of the West exited fire season by early October as the frequency of wet systems moving across the country increased. Cooler temperatures brought higher humidity levels and good overnight recoveries which also reduced large fire potential. As anticipated, the frequency of Santa Ana and North Wind events across California was lower than average, so critical fire weather periods were infrequent and of short duration. Nevertheless, fire activity was observed in isolated locations across the region in the remaining pockets where fuels remained critically dry. The Klondike fire made large runs mid-month. In the East, fire activity was also less active than average. This was due to the onset of a weak El Niño which promoted wetter than average conditions. The primary draw on resources was in response to Hurricane Michael which made landfall at Mexico Beach, Florida, with 155 mph winds.

“While most regions of the country are out of fire season during November, varying levels of activity are observed across California and the Southeast. The onset of El Niño should allow for a continuance of wetter than average conditions across the Southeast which should limit fire activity. However, pockets of critically dry fuels will persist across California, especially along coastal areas and along the front of the Southern Sierra. These areas will remain susceptible during wind events.

“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.

“Across the West, overall warmer and drier than average conditions are expected. This should lead to below average snowpack in most mountain locations across the northern tier of the country. Snowpack should trend toward average levels moving south along the Continental Divide as the impacts of the El Niño begin to produce a positive effect on precipitation amounts received.”

December wildfire outlook weather
Continue reading “Wildfire potential, November through February”