In November, 2012 we wrote about some of the research that was conducted to study and document what can only be described as a fire tornado in Australia, a tornado-like event that can be generated by a wildfire. In recent years a new term has been coined — firenado — which seems appropriate.
It occurred near Chapman in the Australian Capitol Territories during the McIntyres Hut Fire January 18, 2003. After studying the event, Rick McRae of the ACT and others discovered that it traveled across 25 kilometers at 30 kph (19 mph), had horizontal winds of 250 kph (149 mph), and vertical winds of 150 kph (93 mph). Damage that occurred to trees and structures is much like what you would see after a tornado in Oklahoma.
Australia’s ABC TV produced an excellent video that goes surprisingly deeply into some of the scientific principles of this phenomenon, including fire behavior when a strong wind pushes a fire up a slope. This can result in spot fires at the bottom of the slope on the other side, the lee slope, which can be pushed rapidly up the lee slope by a wind eddy in the opposite direction of the prevailing wind (see the screen grab above from the video). They also documented how a fire at the top of the ridge can travel across the ridge at 90 degrees to the direction of the prevailing wind.
Knowledge about this kind of fire behavior is something that wildland firefighters should retain in their “slide file”, in the unfortunate event that they find themselves in danger of being entrapped and are considering using the lee side of a ridge as an escape route or a sheltering location.
Check out our November, 2012 article for more information about this 2003 event. The video below illustrates some of the findings developed by the fire researchers.
The information in the video can be even more interesting when considered along with the winds at the site of the Yarnell Hill Fire entrapment, as modeled by WindWizard. The image below is from page 79 of the Yarnell Hill Fire SAIT report. Click the image to see a slightly larger version.
Police investigating 14 suspicious fires in Victoria
Police and fire investigators in Victoria, Australia are looking carefully at 14 fires that occurred over the last week for which arson is suspected. In over 400 fires since Thursday of last week, homes, animals, and crops have been destroyed or killed. A radio and print ad campaign will urge residents to report any suspicious activity to Crime Stoppers.
Wild meteorology terms go mainstream
Melissa Mahony has written an op-ed for livescience.com in which she examines some interesting and sometimes complex scientific weather terms that have crept into the mainstream over the last year or so. Ms. Mahony goes into a little detail about each one, but here is the list… how many are you familiar with?
Doc Hastings, of “Cantwell-Hastings Bill”, to retire
One of the two federal legislators who deserve most of the blame for passing the infamous Cantwell-Hastings Bill, which did irreparable harm to the process of learning lessons after wildfire accidents, is retiring.
The bill was sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell and U.S. Representative Doc Hastings, and became Public Law 107-203 in 2002. It includes this passage:
In the case of each fatality of an officer or employee of the Forest Service that occurs due to wildfire entrapment or burnover, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture shall conduct an investigation of the fatality. The investigation shall not rely on, and shall be completely independent of, any investigation of the fatality that is conducted by the Forest Service.
The Cantwell-Hastings bill, signed into law in 2002, was a knee-jerk reaction to the fatalities on the Thirtymile fire the previous year. The Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General’s office had no experience or training in the suppression or investigation of wildland fires. They are much more likely to be investigating violations at a chicken ranch than evaluating fire behavior and tactical decisions at a wildfire. The goal of the Inspector General investigation would be to determine if any crimes were committed, so that a firefighter could be charged and possibly sent to prison.
After the bill was passed, a firefighter on the Thirtymile Fire was charged with 11 felonies, including four counts of manslaughter. Now firefighters have to lawyer-up after an accident and they sometimes do everything they can to avoid talking to investigators. After the 19 fatalities on the Yarnell Hill fire, the U.S. Forest Service prohibited their employees from providing information to one of the investigation teams, a decision that may have been a result of the environment created by Cantwell-Hastings. Lessons are now much more difficult to learn.
There are many bushfires burning in Victoria and New South Wales. I am currently rebuilding my computer after wiping it and re-installing everything, so in the interests of time, below are some images sent by some folks down under recently. You should be able to get a sense of what some of the fires are like.
My State is on fire. 🙁 Over 70 fires burning. My thoughts go out to all affected and on the frontline #Victoria pic.twitter.com/iq2toHe1Wa
One resident dead and 49 homes destroyed in Australian bushfire
One person collapsed and died on the roof of his house while spraying water to defend his home from a fire in the Perth hills of Western Australia on Sunday. The 62-year old man’s house was not damaged while the 650-hectare (1,606 acres) fire burned 49 others in the Shire of Mundaring. One resident tried to get back to their house on Monday afternoon and suffered burns to the hands and feet.
More information.
Three homes burn in Kansas wildfire
At least three homes burned Sunday in a large grass fire near the Kansas-Missouri border. The 600-acre fire was pushed by very strong winds which caused problems for the firefighters that responded from both Kansas and Missouri. Cherokee County officials said the fire may have been caused by a power line that failed due to the wind.
Red Flag Warnings, January 13
Areas in southern California, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas are under Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings today.
UPDATE at 6:25 p.m. PST, January 13, 2014. The Red Flag Warning areas in California have grown:
More information.
2014 MAFFS Commander named
North Carolina resident Col. Charles D. Davis III will command the national military mission charged with combating wildland fires using C-130 aircraft outfitted with the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System.
“MAFFS is a team effort,” said Davis, who also commands the Operations Group at the North Carolina Air National Guard’s 145th Airlift Wing based at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, N.C. “We protect lives and property from forest fires, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
As commander of the Air Expeditionary Group Wildland Fire Fighting, Davis will lead three Air National Guard and one U.S. Air Force Reserve Command units that fly military C-130 aircraft and use them as aerial tankers. Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, the Group controls MAFFS operations nationwide at the direction of the U.S. Forest Service.
A U.S. Air Force master navigator with more than 5,300 hours of military flying time, Davis, of Weddington, N.C., has more than 1,000 hours of combat time earned supporting Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In civilian life, he is an Airbus A330 Flight Crew Training Instructor at U.S. Airways.
Arizona legislators consider bills related to hotshots’ deaths
State legislators in Arizona are considering bills that are related to wildfire management and the deaths of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. The firefighters were entrapped and killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire near Yarnell, Arizona on June 30, 2013.
A bill is being considered that would allow local governments to ban the sale of certain fireworks.
Another bill seeks to clarify what autopsy documents and photos are available to the public. County authorities refused to release autopsy reports for the Yarnell Hill firefighters.
Some legislators want the state to buy the state trust land where the hotshots died so it can be preserved as a memorial.
Legislators are considering helping the city of Prescott with its costs related to the hotshots’ deaths, but they may wait until the 100+ claims and/or lawsuits are settled before proposing anything specific.
They may propose legislation that would at least provide life insurance for public safety workers.
The legislation that enabled the transfer of seven C-130H aircraft from the Coast Guard to the U.S. Forest Service to serve as air tankers required that the wing boxes be replaced and other maintenance be performed.
Fire Aviation has more information about the replacement of the wing boxes and other steps that must be taken to convert the C-130Hs into air tankers.
A report issued by Australia’s privately funded Climate Council has concluded that the number of professionals needed to fight bushfires in Australia will double by 2030. This major shift will be required by changes attributed to climate change. The 63-page report, titled Be Prepared: The Changing Climate and Australia’s Bushfire Threat, is entirely devoted to how climate change is already affecting wildland fires and how the rate of change is expected to increase over the next decades.
According to the report the most direct link between bushfires and climate change comes from the long-term trend towards a hotter climate. The change is increasing the frequency and severity of very hot days and driving up the likelihood of very high fire danger caused by weather. Changes in temperature and rainfall may also affect the amount and condition of fuel and the probability of lightning strikes.
The report lays out the current and predicted situation extremely well through the text and illuminating graphics. Click on the images here from the report to see larger versions.
I especially like the graphic above, which illustrates how four factors that affect wildland fire are being influenced by climate change
Ignitions: more lightning leads to more fires;
Fuel load will increase due to higher carbon dioxide levels, higher temperatures, and more rainfall. It could also decrease in some areas and vegetation types as a result of higher temperatures and less rain.
Fuel condition: higher temperatures and decreasing rainfall will increase fire activity while more rain in some areas will decrease fire activity.
Weather: higher temperatures will greatly increase fire activity.
Obviously it is a complex scenario with the factors having varying effects around the world where climate change affects local areas differently and vegetation types have specific responses to changes in weather.
The report concentrates on the effects in Australia, but also covers changes observed world-wide. As we have pointed out, in the United States there was an abrupt transition of fire activity in the mid-1980s with higher fire frequency, longer fire durations, and longer fire seasons. Fire frequency from 1987 to 2003 was nearly four times the average for 1970 through 1986. The area burned from 1987 to 2003 was more than six times that from 1970 to 1986, and the length of the fire season increased by about 2 months (Westerling et al., 2006).
The report discussed how fires affect carbon in the atmosphere:
Bushfires generate many feedbacks to the climate system, some of which can increase warming, while others decrease it. Emission of CO2 from bushfires generally represents a redistribution of existing carbon in the active carbon cycle from vegetation to the atmosphere.
As long as the vegetation is allowed to recover after a fire, it can reabsorb a very large fraction of the carbon released. By contrast, the burning of fossil fuels represents additional carbon inserted into the active land-atmosphere-ocean carbon cycle.
Increasing fire danger will make it more difficult to find times when planned prescribed fires are within the established prescriptions, which could result in fewer acres treated and higher fuel loads near wildland urban interfaces.
After the Rim Fire, water now worries land managers
The 257,000-acre Rim Fire is now 100 percent contained, at a cost of $127 million, but the effects of rain on barren slopes is the newest worry for land mangers. Over 90 percent of the fire burned in the Tuolumne River watershed in and near Yosemite National Park in California. The loss of vegetation and exposure of the soil could lead to erosion and increased water runoff that may lead to flooding, increased sediment, and debris flows.
The Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team has been working in the Rim Fire area for weeks and continues to assess the needs and implement emergency stabilization measures. Projects the team is working on include:
Improving road drainage and storm-proofing roads at risk of failure from increased flooding.
Stabilizing and repairing trails.
Monitoring for and treating invasive weeds.
Mulching and chipping to protect fragile soils.
Two dry years in a row have worried land managers but now the thought of a heavy rain has them concerned.
Acid frogs are not greatly affected by fires
Often we hear of people who suffer mental anguish over the plight of animals being affected by wildfire — they assume that Bambi and others die by the thousands. But most creatures have adapted to fire over tens of thousands of years.
Recent research in Australia concluded that acid frog “populations did not suffer adversely from moderate intensity fires as suitable refuges, including standing water, were available. All species were present shortly after fire with subsequent successful reproduction occurring once wetlands were sufficiently inundated.”
You can obtain a copy of the taxpayer-funded research by paying the International Journal of Wildland Fire, published by CSIRO, $25. The researchers work for Griffith University, which apparently does not believe in the concept of Open Access to taxpayer-funded research.
New Hampshire may ban fire balloons
New Hampshire may become the 26th state to ban fire balloons, which are sometimes called sky lanterns or Chinese lanterns.
These incendiary devices use burning material such as rubbing alcohol or a candle to heat the air in a bag made of tissue paper or very thin plastic. The heat makes the device lighter than air causing it to rise into the sky, staying aloft for 10 minutes to 2 hours. They can be very pretty to watch especially when they are released dozens or hundreds at a time such as at a wedding or some other celebration. The problem is they are uncontrollable and sometimes start wildfires or structure fires.
The National Association of State Fire Marshals adopted a resolution this year urging states to ban the sale and use of the devices. Below is an excerpt from their position on the issue:
…Therefore, be it resolved that the National Association of State Fire Marshals strongly encourages states to ban the sale and use of sky lanterns through whichever means is most expedient for them. Banning the use of sky lanterns is important to help control homemade devices as well as those purchased from various sources.
New Hampshire state Senator Nancy Stiles has introduced a bill to prohibit them in her state. Below is an excerpt from USA Today:
Stiles, a Republican, filed her bill at the request of Rye Fire Chief Skip Sullivan. Sullivan said people have lit the lanterns at the beach thinking they would float out to sea only to have them blow inland. One landed in a selectman’s yard but burned out and did no damage, he said.
Sullivan said fire officials want a law “primarily for the fact that when you light these and send them off, it is an open fire you’re sending off.”
He added, “When these things come down, are these people going to clean up the mess they leave behind?”