News and opinion about wildland fire
The National Weather Service has issued Red Flag Warnings for areas in Montana and Idaho.
The map was current as of 9 a.m. MDT on Thursday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized25 Comments on Detwiler Fire advances 4 miles to the north (Originally published at 7:30 a.m. PDT July 20, 2017)
(Updated at 7 p.m. PDT July 20, 2017)
CAL FIRE reported Thursday that the Detwiler Fire has destroyed 50 single family residences.
In the photo below Air Tanker 912, a DC-10, makes a retardant drop on the Detwiler Fire.
Fire crews continue to battle the #DetwilerFire near the town of Coulterville, Calif., on Thursday, July 20, 2017. pic.twitter.com/HOOI19hIXu
— Andrew Kuhn (@ARKuhn) July 21, 2017
(Updated at 5:02 p.m. PDT July 20, 2017)
Above: A 3-D map of the Detwiler Fire looking south from Coulterville, CA. The red shaded area was the perimeter at 1 a.m. July 20.
The Detwiler Fire was very active again Wednesday for the fourth day since it started and moved to within 2 miles of Coulterville, California. It grew by 4 miles on the north side, 3 miles on the south side, and 2 miles on the east. There was much less movement on the west side.
At 1 p.m. on Thursday the fire had spread north beyond the fire perimeter that was mapped at 1 a.m. and was less than 2 miles from Coulterville. It had crossed Crown Lead Road, which is south of Coulterville. The incident management team has a great many firefighting resources making preparations south of the town, including helicopters, hand crews, fire engines, and dozers. Firelines are being built and it is likely that when they are complete air tankers will reinforce those lines. The fire was also active at 1 p.m. Thursday on the northeast side as well as southeast of Catheys Valley on the south side.
Southeast of Coulterville the fire is less than a mile from the boundary of the Stanislaus National Forest. A CAL FIRE incident management team has been running the fire but an Interagency Type 1 Incident Management Team has been ordered to report to the fairgrounds at Sonora 22 air miles north of the fire. The assumption probably is that the fire will be in the National Forest in a day or two.
By Thursday morning at 1 a.m. the fire had burned 73,096 acres, an increase of 27,372 acres since the previous mapping flight at 10 p.m. on July 18. (There is some confusion about the acres burned, with some sources reporting the total is 70,096.)
CAL FIRE reports that 45 structures have been destroyed. It is not clear if that number includes outbuildings.
The map of the Detwiler Fire was current at 1 a.m. PDT July 20, 2017
Highways 49 and 140 are both closed in the fire area. CAL FIRE and the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office have more information about evacuations, although CAL FIRE’s information site about this rapidly spreading fire is updated infrequently.
The USFS Blue Sky Modeling Framework projects where smoke is expected from the #DetwilerFire , impacting the Sierra & foothills. #cawx pic.twitter.com/sZjwTFDF4Y
— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) July 20, 2017
(All articles on Wildfire Today about the Detwiler Fire are tagged “Detwiler Fire” and can be found here, with the most recent at the top.)
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Prevention of heat related injuries among wildland firefighters When we were writing the July 13 article about Frank Anaya, the latest California inmate firefighter that died on a fire, we discovered details about a previous inmate fatality that were shocking. It involved the death of Jimmy Randolph in August of 2012 whose passing was associated with heat stroke. The shocking part was that Mr. Randolph was found unresponsive one morning in the sleeping area on a fire and died in a hospital seven hours later. He had complained of a headache the previous evening and was checked out by the medical unit, but apparently no one was aware of the seriousness of his condition.
Here is an excerpt from a summary of the fatality from wlfalswaysremember.org:
Firefighter Jimmy Randolph was assigned to the Buck Fire as a part of a strike team. At approximately 1800 hours on August 18, 2012, Firefighter Randolph advised a correctional officer that he had a headache. He was escorted to a medical team, evaluated, and given a three-day no-work note. At approximately 0530 hours the next morning, Fire fighter Randolph could not be awakened. He was treated and transported to the Desert Regional Hospital in Palm Springs. With his family by his side., he was pronounced dead at 1230 hours on August 19, 2012. The cause of death was listed as anoxic encephalopathy combined with complications of heat stroke.
Anoxic encephalopathy is a condition where brain tissue is deprived of oxygen and there is global loss of brain function. The longer brain cells lack oxygen, the more damage occurs.
I checked the weather for August 18, 2012 for San Jacinto, California which is in the general vicinity of the Buck Fire, and the high temperature that day was 92 degrees — a temperature commonly found on a large wildfire in the summer.
Today the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group: issued a memo titled, “Wildland Firefighter Heat Related Injury Prevention, Awareness, and Rhabdomyolysis”.
Here’s how it begins:
The wildland firefighter community has experienced an alarming increase in heat related and other physiological injuries in the last few days. Heat related injuries and Rhabdomyolysis are not the same, but can occur at the same time. Extreme weather conditions are predicted to continue across western states for the next week. The National Weather Service is issuing Heat Warnings for the SWCC, GBCC, RMCC, OSCC, and ONCC.
It is a very well-written document about how to prevent, mitigate, and recognize heat related injuries.
Read it, dammit.
You don’t want to wake up dead.
Full Stop.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized11 Comments on Updated map of Detwiler Fire near Mariposa, CA — Wednesday afternoon Above: Map of the Detwiler Fire. The blue line was the perimeter at 10 p.m. PDT July 18. The dots represent heat detected by a satellite, with the red ones being the most recent, from 1:30 p.m. PDT July 19, 2017.
(Originally published at 4:32 p.m. PDT July 19, 2017)
A satellite that overflew the Detwiler Fire at 1:30 p.m. PDT on Wednesday detected heat sources that, if accurate, indicate that in the previous 15 hours since the last fixed wing aircraft mapping flight, the fire spread significantly to the north toward Coulterville and to the south east of Catheys Valley. There was also expansion on the east side, but very little on the west.
The data from this satellite hundreds of miles overhead is not nearly as sensitive and accurate as a dedicated fixed wing mapping aircraft, so this information should be considered tentative until the next conventional mapping flight which will probably occur Wednesday night. The sensors only pick up large heat sources. If it does turn out to be accurate, we’re looking at more than 60,000 acres.
The growth toward the north is consistent with the satellite photograph taken Wednesday afternoon, which shows dense smoke being pushed north.
(All articles on Wildfire Today about the Detwiler Fire are tagged “Detwiler Fire” and can be found here, with the most recent at the top.)
Rod Dines of the Payette National Forest took these photos from an aircraft while flying over a wildfire near Winnemucca, Nevada.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized12 Comments on Trailer released for the movie about the Granite Mountain Hotshots The film is due to open October 20.
The Director of the film about the Granite Mountain Hotshots just recently completed the final edits and has released the official trailer (above).
Supposedly it tells the story of the 19 firefighters that were entrapped and killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona June 30, 2013. One crewmember who was not with the others at the time of the burnover and survived, Brendan McDonough, is listed in the credits as a Creative Consultant.
The images shown here are from the website and the trailer.
The name of the film has changed, from No Exit, to Granite Mountain, and finally to Only The Brave: Based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. The release date has been pushed from September to October 20.
A number of books and articles have been written about the tragedy, but the producers say the film is based on an article published in GQ Magazine titled No Exit, by Sean Flynn.
GQ published an article today featuring an interview with the Director, Joseph Kosinski. Here’s an excerpt in which he talks about casting:
..The two roles I cast first were Eric Marsh and Brendan McDonough. Josh Brolin was always at the top of my list. I flew out to Asheville, North Carolina, where he was filming another movie, and sat down with him on a Saturday afternoon. I talked him through the vision I had for this film, and the importance of this story, and he got it instantly. He had actually worked as a volunteer firefighter at one point in his life, and he had lived in Prescott, Arizona, at one point. He felt an instant connection to the material and the story; that got him interested.
Before production began, the director hired two former members of Granite Mountain who put the 20 actors playing the parts of firefighters through a two-week “Hotshot camp”.
Here’s another excerpt from the GQ article about the reaction to the film from the Granite Mountain family members.
I just finished the film two weeks ago, so we’re just starting to show it to the family members now. The reaction so far has been everything I would have hoped and more—which, to me, is almost the most important thing. I believe so wholeheartedly in [the Granite Mountain Hotshots’] story being a heroic one, and one that needs to be told. Of all the opinions on a film, [the family members’ reaction] is one that truly matters to me on the deepest level. And so far, every reaction I’ve gotten from the family members is that we did our job.
