The first-ever conference for the military crews that operate C-130 aircraft to assist civilians during natural disasters is occurring now at Peterson Air Force Base at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Peterson is one of the four bases that host C-130’s equipped with Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) which convert the aircraft into air tankers capable of dropping 3,000 gallons of fire retardant on fires. In addition to the MAFFS crews, military personnel that operate C-130’s that fly into hurricanes or spray chemicals on oil spills are also attending the conference. Here is link to a video from the NewsFirst5 web site which has more information.
Vote on the most significant wildland fire stories of 2010
As we documented earlier this month, the 2010 wildland fire season, when measured by the acres burned in the 49 states outside Alaska, was the slowest since 2004. But in spite of that, there has been significant news about wildland fire. In fact, we posted over 670 articles this year.
Continuing that tradition, below we have listed the top stories of 2010. The line of duty fatalities are not listed unless there was an unusual spin-off story associated with the fatality. Below the list, there is a poll where YOU can let us know which stories you feel are the most significant of 2010.
Top wildfire stories of 2010
Jan. 8: The National Park Service released the report on the August, 2009 Big Meadow escaped prescribed fire in Yosemite National Park. The fire blackened 7,425 acres before being controlled by 1,300 firefighters at a cost over $15 million. It became the eighth largest fire in California in 2009.
Jan. 21:Federal wildland firefighter bill introduced in Congress. The “National Infrastructure Improvement and Cost Containment Act” would affect the pay, retirement age, and fireline liability of federal wildland firefighters.
Apr. 30: The International Association of Fire Chiefs, an organization that concentrates on structural fire, received at least $13.2 million from the U.S. Forest Service and DHS-FEMA over a seven-year period, reportedly for wildfire-related purposes. The IAFC became furious at Wildfire Today for exposing the information.
Aug. 2: Hundreds of wildfires in Russia claimed more than 50 lives, left more than 3,500 people homeless, and caused massive air quality issues in Moscow and other areas.
Aug. 2: A BAe-146 jet airliner was converted to an air tanker and was tested in Missoula. The Interagency Air Tanker Board failed to certify it due to inadequate ground coverage of retardant.
Aug. 26: In spite of weather forecasts that would have alarmed most fire managers, the Helena National Forest in Montana ignited the Davis prescribed fire during a near record heat wave. The fire escaped and burned 2,800 acres. The report was released in November. The Forest Supervisor said the report did not point out “something clearly that we did wrong, done incorrectly or that we’re going to make big changes on”.
Sep. 6: The Fourmile Canyon fire burned 6,200 acres and 169 homes a few miles west of Boulder, Colorado. The fire was devastating to local fire districts within the burned perimeter in several ways, including the facts that a firefighter’s burn pile escaped and started the fire, the homes of 12 firefighters burned, and one fire station and an engine inside it burned.
Sep. 21: The Commander of the Utah Army National Guard assumed responsibility and apologized for the Machine Gun fire that burned 4,346 acres and three homes near Herriman, Utah. The fire started during target practice with a machine gun at a National Guard base.
Sep. 24: The Australian state of Victoria tested the U.S.-built DC-10 very large air tanker and concluded that it did not perform adequately and would not be suitable for use in their wildland-urban interface areas.
Oct. 13: The US Forest Service’s response to the 2009 Station fire is criticized, and Congress holds hearing in Pasadena, CA about the management of the fire, which burned 160,000 acres near Los Angeles.
Dec. 7: NTSB holds a meeting about the helicopter crash on the Iron Complex fire in northern California in which nine firefighters and crew members died. Much of the blame was attributed to falsified helicopter performance documents supplied by Carson Helicopters when they applied for a contract with the U.S. Forest Service. Carson and the surviving co-pilot dispute that conclusion.
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Honorable mention stories (not exactly top stories, but interesting; they are not part of the poll).
May 11:NWCG outlaws the use of some terms, including “appropriate management response” and “wildland fire use”.
Jun. 20: It was not a wildland fire, but every firefighter can relate to some of the problems encountered when a kinked fire hose and improper procedures delayed the rescue of IndyCar driver Simona de Silvestro from her burning race car which crashed at Texas Motor Speedway.
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POLL
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Feel free to leave a comment (or “response”) explaining your choices, or to discuss other news items that did not make the list.
747 Supertanker dropping retardant in Ein Hod in the Carmel Forest on the outskirts of Haifa, Israel, on Dec. 5. Photo: Jack Guez
The word “control” is being used in Israel in describing the state of the fires that have killed over 40 people and blackened at least 9,000 acres. Fire official Boaz Rakia told reporters Sunday evening: “The fire department has declared that the fire is under control.” He added that the small fires are still burning in some places. Earlier on Sunday the Police announced that all of the major fires in the northern part of Israel were contained at 4:30 p.m., 77 hours after the largest fire started on Thursday.
Police also said there have been 20 attempts at wildfire arson over the previous 48 hours and four people have been arrested.
The United States’ National Interagency Fire Center has three Type 1 crews and some overhead sitting in Boise. They were going to depart on a military aircraft Sunday at noon but are being held “pending reassessment of situation on Monday”, according to a Tweet from @BLMNIFC at 9:03 a.m. Sunday. Other fire resources that were being mobilized out of the Northwest and Northern regions were canceled Saturday night and Sunday morning. Custer’s National Incident Management Team is already in Israel and should be operational on Sunday.
The 30+ firefighting aircraft that have swarmed into Israel to help suppress the fires will be held until Monday. Six U.S. Air National Guard MAFFS air tankers were scheduled to depart, I believe, Sunday morning for Israel, but it appears from the reports coming out of that country that they will not be needed.
The 747 Supertanker drops on the fire in Israel on December 5, 2010. Photo: Jerusalem Post
Tanker 979 at San Bernardino Air Tanker Base, July 30, 2010
Ben Johnston from Evergreen International Airlines told Wildfire Today this afternoon that their 747 Supertanker, Air Tanker 979, is being deployed to help fight the wildfires in Israel. He said they are scrambling to get to Tel Aviv with an expected arrival at midnight Saturday after which they will go into crew rest. They expect to be ready to operate in the country on Sunday.
Earlier today Wildfire Today covered the international response to the fires in Israel which includes approximately 24 firefighting aircraft from 11 countries. But make that 25 aircraft from 12 countries now that the 747 is involved.
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UPDATE @ 10:29 p.m. MT, December 3, 2010
The 747 departed KMZJ (Pinal Airpark) at 10:09 PM MST enroute to KJFK (John F Kennedy Intl) for an estimated arrival at 02:01 a.m. MST. They are cruising at 626 mph! Where’s the fire? Oh, right.
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UPDATE @ 10:00 a.m. MT, December 4, 2010
The 747 Supertanker departed JFK today at 5:57 a.m. MT. Their ETA at Ben Gurion International (LLBG/TLV) in Israel is 4:11 p.m. MT. As this is written,they are cruising at 503 to 575 mph and are halfway across the Atlantic Ocean.
We have an updated article on the fires in Israel, including information about the U.S. National Guard’s C-130 MAFFS air tankers being deployed to Israel.
A helicopter works on a fire in Australia. Photo: Queensland Fire and Rescue Service
As a result of recent accidents involving aircraft working on wildfires, authorities in Australia are developing standardized procedures across the country in order to reduce the chances of additional mid-air collisions and other accidents involving firefighting aircraft.
Here is an excerpt from an article at Flightglobal:
Australia’s fire authorities are reviewing a draft firefighting operations manual designed to standardise aerial firefighting procedures across the country.
The development of the manual follows a firefighting review conducted in 2009 by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority after a number of accidents involving firefighting aircraft in the 2009 fire season.
The issue of a lack of standardised procedures was highlighted in the investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau of a midair collision between a Eurocopter AS350B and a Eurocopter/Kawasaki BK117 performing aerial firebombing operations 20km (11nm) south-east of Orange aerodrome, New South Wales in December 2009.
The final report into the accident was released in late November. During one of the water drop sequences, while in the vicinity of the drop point, the BK117’s main rotor blade tip contacted the trailing edge of the AS350B’s vertical fin above the tail rotor arc, resulting in slight damage to the latter.
Although there were no injuries, “the outcome could have been more serious”, the ATSB points out. One of the accidents involving firefighting aircraft in New South Wales during the 2009 fire season resulted in the loss of a life.
In its investigation of the BK117 and AS350B collision, the ATSB found that there were no published procedures for pilots to follow to ensure separation from other aircraft when there was no air attack supervisor present.
Rather, the system relied on the airmanship and experience of pilots to mutually arrange separation. The ATSB determined that neither pilot in that incident was aware of the position of the other helicopter as they approached the drop point.
James Douglas uses an ignition device on an ATV during a prescribed fire. Photo: R. Darren Price / The Item
TheItem.com has an article about prescribed fire in the state forests of South Carolina. Here is an excerpt:
…Right now, [Forest director Harvey] Belser said the foresters are in the process of burning grasslands to plant longleaf pine, a tree native to the Carolinas, to replace slash pine, a Gulf Coast species susceptible to disease, wind and ice breakage. And, according to state Department of Natural Resources, longleaf pine thrives in a fresh-burned forest floor.
The trees planted will one day be chopped down and sold – but Belser said it was an important step nonetheless. “It’s critical these plants are planted to the correct depth,” Belser said.
So, [Charlie] Scruggs and the other firefighters got to work getting things ready.
Controlled burns are more science than pyrotechnics, said [James] Douglas. After spraying an area with herbicide six weeks before the burn, the forest has to get a fire permit and wait for a day when the wind and humidity are not too high. Then the group figures out what type of fire they plan to light based on the plants and brush in a burn area, which they call “fuel.” For a grassland like the one burned Nov. 19, they light a fire at one end of the tract and let a light breeze blow the fire to the other end. For that kind of burn, Douglas said the entire area will be completely burned after just a few hours, and they can start planting as soon as the ground cools off.
“We’ll probably plant this field in the next couple of weeks,” he said of the singed grassland.
Volunteer firefighters
CBS News “Sunday Morning” had a very good segment about volunteer firefighters. The video is below, and here is a transcript. It’s worth viewing and reading.
WUI meeting in Washington, DC
The West Yellowstone News has an article about the National Wildland/Urban Interface Council’s fall meeting in DC. They interviewed Hebgen Basin Fire District Chief Scott Walron about the meeting and how their fire district west of Yellowstone National Park is dealing with the WUI.
More details about the fatal crash of the firefighters’ crew carrier
Corinna Craddock has a well-written article about the crash of the inmate crew carrier in which one firefighter, Julio Sanchez, and the driver of a second vehicle were killed. Here is an excerpt:
…The fact that [Julio] Sanchez and the rest of his crew were serving a court-ordered sentence at the time Sanchez was killed is a fact with little relevance. The reality is that when men go to camp where they are trained to fight wildfires, this is what they become. Sanchez was a firefighter.
Men who sleep on the side of a mountain in order to continue battling the blaze of a wildfire when they awake once again are men who know that there is no such thing as being an “almost firefighter” any more than it is possible for a woman to be “almost pregnant.” It is just one of the all-or-nothing things in life. This is why inmates who are trained to fight fires must undergo the same feats of endurance, strength, and perseverance that every American firefighter is trained for.
Firefighting is not for weak Americans. There is the kind of stress on a firefighter’s heart that is something akin to being in combat when a team of firefighters tackle such a threat to life. What some of these men will take away once the fire dies is the image of wild rabbits running ablaze. This is the sight that broke my own father’s heart more than once as he explained to me how he had no other choice but to hit an animal with his shovel hard enough to put it out of its misery rather than watch it suffer as it died. Anyone who knows a cat-lover, such as my dad was, might be able to imagine how a six-foot-four man could be hurt watching a tiny creature suffer.
Thank you to all our family and friends who send their love, thoughts, and prayers in our most recent loss. Fernando Julio Sanchez, youngest child of Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez, lost his life on 11-23-10 in a Tragic car accident while serving as a Firefighter for Cal Fire.
Services will be held on Wednesday (12/1) at 2200 Highland Ave in National City at California Cremation and Burial between 3pm-9pm.
Funeral will begin at 11:00 am on Thursday (12/2) at California Cremation and Burial. funeral will take place at Holy Cross Cemetary followed with a Celebration of Life at the Centro Cultural de la Raza, 2004 Park Blvd.
Donations can be mailed to: Ramon Sanchez 6367 Radio Dr, San Diego, Ca 92114.
Book about the Fourmile fire will help rebuild fire station
The proceeds from a new book about the Fourmile fire, which was near Boulder, Colorado last September, will go toward rebuilding a fire station that burned during the fire.
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