Wednesday, October 5th, saw yet another report of an entrapment on a prairie fire in the State of South Dakota. This is the third burn over/entrapment incident to be reported for that date. This incident occurred in Hutchinson County, about 1 mile South and 1 ¼ miles west of Tripp, SD. Jim Burk called the fire department today and gathered some more facts on the situation.
The fire was burning in CRP (Fuel Model 3) and had jumped the county road. The Tripp VFD engine was driving through the smoke, become disorientated, and drove down the steep embankment on the south road ditch. The engine did not roll, but as the firefighters exited the vehicle, one firefighter twisted his ankle trying to get up the steep embankment, and the other firefighter tried to crawl up the ditch, but could not, so exited the ditch running towards the west. That firefighter sustained 2nd degree burns to the face and arms. He will require skin grafts on the upper arms and is in the hospital at Sioux Falls. No damage to air ways. The firefighter was wearing his structure turn out bunker pants.
The weather from the nearest RAWS (Lake Andes) showed 95 degrees, 19 RH and winds SE at 25.
I have filed the ‘Wildland Fire Fatality and Entrapment Initial Report” through GPC and RMCC to NICC.
The SD Fire Marshal’s Office is checking into this report as well. This report is initial, and all information is preliminary and subject to change.
JIM STRAIN
Asst. Chief — Operations, South Dakota Dept of Agriculture – Division of Wildland Fire Suppression
On a day when a reporter said the winds were so strong that he had trouble standing, there were many large fires in central and eastern South Dakota. Twice on October 5, engines were burned over, causing, thankfully, what sound like non-serious burns for the firefighters, but the total loss of the two engines.
“On Wednesday, October 5th, I was working on a 17,500 acre prairie fire in south central South Dakota when I received a report of an engine burn over involving a rural VFD engine and crew on another wildfire 30 miles north of my location. That VFD engine and crew were assisting the BIA on a 5000 acre wildfire. Reports are that a firefighter was trying to restart the pump on the back of the apparatus when the fire started to entrap him. He ran from the engine and suffered burns on the face , scalp and hands. He was later hospitalized that evening and released the next morning. The engine was a total loss.
The second burn over occurred that same afternoon on an 11,000 acre wildfire in eastern South Dakota just south of the North Dakota and South Dakota state line. The Type 6 engine crew on a rural VFD engine was attempting to cut a barbed-wire fence to gain access to a fire area, when the fire circled back and entrapped them, causing them to run to their safety zone. The two firefighters suffered minor burns to their necks and faces, but the engine was a total loss. The engine boss on this engine has over 30 years of experience suppressing wildfires.
We are still trying to gather facts on both situations, but it seems rather apparent that the abundant spring and summer rainfall throughout Eastern Montana and the Dakotas has contributed to above average grass fuel loadings in the area. Coupling that with the normal seasonal fall dryness and warm, windy conditions, create a situation where above normal radiant heat transfer and extreme rates of spread are seen in these grass fuels models. What is deceiving is that in all of our fires this week, fire spread will slow in the green draw bottoms ( or coulees for those of you that speak Eastern Montanan ) and move quickly upslope in the dryer cured fuel beds on the ridge tops. None of this comes as a surprise, but it can happen so fast that firefighters think they are safe one moment and trapped the next. As we move into October, we can expect more of the same on days where the fire danger is high, very high or extreme in our grass fuel models.
We are very grateful that just minor injuries occurred to the firefighters, but it could have been worse. But this serves a reminder to maintain that situational awareness on any grass fire, especially under the conditions that we seeing this fall fire season.”
The same person that designed a new way to move water, in fire hose lined with high-voltage electrical wires, has designed a fire shelter with double walls which can be filled with water from a fire hose. His thinking is that since there is water in the lining of the tent walls, that the tent would survive being burned over, along with the terrified firefighters inside.
At the web site for this idea, the photo is described thusly:
The image above is a proposed water filled protective tent. Assuming that a firefighter is near a water filled hose in a hose relay, the tent can be filled with water from the hose. The water should provide good insulation from the heat of a fire in a burnover situation.
Off the top of my head, some of the issues include:
Weight and size of the contraption. How would it be transported?
Is this a single victim person shelter, or can it hold many people? If multiple firefighters have to inflate their shelters at the same time, I suppose they will simply wait in line for their turn to use the fire hose while the 200-foot wall of flames approaches. I guess we’ll throw out the requirement to deploy and enter your fire shelter within 20 seconds.
What are the chances of it being at the location where it might be needed?
What happens if a hot ember lands on it while it is sitting on the ground uninflated?
You could not really stage these ahead of firefighters on uncontained portions of fireline. If burnovers are possible, the fire is probably moving rapidly. Where would you put it? And carrying them with you while laying hose may not be practical.
If you have a functional hose lay, the chances of needing any kind of fire shelter are reduced. Not completely, but to a degree.
How long would it take to inflate the contraption with water? In that amount of time, firefighters might be able to use their escape route to get the hell out of the area.
How stable would it be in the kind of wind that frequently precipitates rapid fire growth and burnovers?
And, if a hot ember lands on it while it is inflated with water, will it really not be damaged? And what about direct flame impingement with temperatures of 1,472 to 2,192 degrees F?
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center recently posted three reports: 1) An After Action Review, 2) A Facilitated Learning Analysis, and 3) a 72-Hour Report.
1) Painter Piles escaped pile burning project, After Action Review; Black Hills National Forest near Custer, South Dakota, March 12, 2010. While the title of the report is “Painter Piles After Action Review”, the terms “Painter prescribed fire” and “Windsong prescribed fire” are both used in the report. Here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary:
On March 12, 2010, a U.S. Forest Service prescribed fire near the town of Custer, South Dakota, spread onto Forest and Private Lands. The slopover was contained within the first burning period and was not declared a wildfire. The pile had been ignited on March 10, 2010, and was one of the thousands in the Painter project. The Windsong Incident involved one land owner.
Some of the private land that burned. USFS photo
The Windsong Prescribed Fire was immediately adjacent to the Forest boundary and was managed by the Hell Canyon Ranger District (RD) of the Black Hills National Forest, in the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service. Prescribed fire was planned to treat up to 3200 acres of hazardous fuels (piled slash) on National Forest land. The Windsong Incident consisted of 8.1 acres outside the intended treatment area, including 0.5 acres of private land. The fire traveled down slope and directly threatened one single family dwelling, and two out buildings. Damage to private property was minimal including one scorched pine, one small cedar tree, and scorched fence post.
2) Cooter’s Bog escaped prescribed fire, Facilitative Learning analysis, Kisatchie National Forest, in Louisiana, April 26, 2010. Here is the text from the Introduction:
On Tuesday, April 26, 2010 on the Calcasieu Ranger District of the Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana, the 709 acre Cooter’s Bog Prescribed Burn (Compartment 132) was implemented. After completion of the firing phase of prescribed burn operations, a pine snag caught fire and threw embers outside of control lines, causing a spot fire in a pine plantation on adjacent private lands. The fire intensity and size of the escape grew rapidly and exceeded the capabilities of onsite resources for that burn unit. The FMO declared the escape a wildfire at 1445, per direction in the prescribed burn plan. The wildfire eventually burned 132 acres of pine plantation before being brought under control by on-site and contingency resources.
3) Smoky Hill Wind Farm Engine Burnover, 72-Hour Report, Lincoln County, Kansas, January 29, 2011. This incident is very similar to another engine burnover that occurred in Stafford County Kansas on November 3, 2010, except in that case the firefighters escaped unharmed. Here is the “sequence of events” from the report about the January 29 incident:
The initial responding engine entered the pasture involved, and went up to the top of a hill in an attempt to find access to attack from the black, in order to be able to work from within a safety zone. They were unable to find immediate access to the burned area, and for reasons as-yet unknown, their engine stalled. They got out, and were almost immediately overrun by the head fire. They ran laterally out of the head fire, back towards where they had come from, which placed them in unburned fuel on one flank of the fire. At that point, a wind shift converted that flank to the new head, and threatened to overrun them again, as the rate of spread was too fast to outrun. The initial attack IC was nearby in a pickup, and was able to drive over and remove them before the new head fire again overran them. He estimates the time frame for this sequence of events was under one minute from onset until he had them in his vehicle and was driving away.
The first firefighter, who was going to be doing the direct attack, was wearing full structural bunker gear (not wildland PPE), consisting of boots, pants, coat, gloves, and helmet, except for his Nomex hood. He did have a “grass mask” on. He sustained 2nd and 3rd degree burns in the areas between his helmet, mask, and coat. He was treated initially at a local hospital, and is receiving outpatient treatment from the burn unit, but the area burned is small enough it did not require inpatient treatment. The other firefighter was the driver of the engine, and as such was only wearing bunker pants and boots over street clothes. He sustained burns on his face, neck, hands, and arms. Burns were initially identified as 2nd degree and have now been determined to involving some 3rd degree burns as well. He remains an inpatient in the burn unit in Wichita at this time.
The engine involved experienced significant body damage, but after the fire had moved past, it was discovered with its pump still running, and the interior was intact. It was started and driven back to the fire station after the fire.
Below is the preliminary, or 24-hour report, on a burnover/entrapment that occurred in Washington state when firefighters were overtaken by a fast-moving grass fire on August 15. Three firefighters were treated and released from a hospital, and three fire vehicles were damaged. Daven Place Burnover, 24-hr report
Yes, we must really be in full-blown fire season, because in addition to the report about the dozer/plow burnover in Florida, we have received three other reports of a burnover and injuries.
In South Dakota on July 28, a Type 1 structural engine caught fire while working a fire in 6-inch wheat stubble. Click HERE to download the Word 2007 file. The correct lat/long on the report should be 44 53 08 x -98 08 21 in d/m/s.
In California during a fire on the Fort Hunter Liggett Army base, ten firefighters, including the incident commander, left the fireline complaining of nausea, vomiting, headache and extreme fatigue. A Mass Casualty Incident was declared and the victims were all transported to a hospital. They were all were treated and released, and the likely culprit was an expended canister of CS gas where they had been working. Click HERE to download the Word file, a facilitated learning analysis.
Again in California, in the BLM Inyo Kern district, a first-year firefighter suffered burns to his feet through his boots while standing in hot ash bucking a log with a chain saw. Thinking it was blisters, he continued working, and at the end of the shift walked 2 1/2 to 3 miles back to their vehicles. Later that night he told his supervisor about the pain in his feet and a few people on the crew, including some EMTs, diagnosed it as blisters. He was sent home the next day since he was no longer fit to work. That second day a medical facility determined that he had suffered burns on his feet and he was sent to a burn center. Click HERE to download the very large, 5.4 mb Word 2007 file.
