Shawna Lynn Jones suffered major head injuries after being struck by a rolling boulder.
The inmate firefighter was airlifted after being injured near Malibu on Feb. 25, 2016. (Credit: KTLA)The California inmate firefighter that was injured February 25 on the Mulholland Fire near Malibu has died, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Friday.
In the early hours of Thursday morning while fighting a wildfire as part of a hand crew, Shawna Lynn Jones, 22, was struck by a boulder that rolled down a hill. She was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center where she was treated for major head injuries. Ms. Jones was removed from life support after her organs were donated, in keeping with her family’s wishes.
Ms. Jones was a Los Angeles County jail inmate who had joined CDCR’s firefighting program in August 2015 and was assigned to the Malibu Camp, which is operated jointly with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Malibu is one of three camps that house a total of 195 female firefighters.
According to the CDCR Ms. Jones is the third inmate firefighter to die on a wildfire since the camp program began in 1943. Female inmates were incorporated into the firefighting program in 1983.
The Mulholland Fire burned about 10 acres and was contained Thursday night.
Our sincere condolences go out to the friends and family of Ms. Jones.
Burning hand-piled slash on the Modoc National Forest north of Alturas near Swanson Canyon. USFS photo.
Advanced leadership course examines the 2003 Cedar Fire
This week the IAFC put on a version of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s L-580 Strategic Leader Program, which is the highest level leader development course in the NWCG “L” series curriculum. It was titled San Diego County Megafires: An All-Hazards Interactive Case Study.
On Tuesday the class, which was limited to 32 participants, visited the site of the largest fire in the recorded history of California, the 2003 Cedar Fire that killed 15 people and burned 273,246 acres and 2,820 structures.
CW6 in San Diego has a video report on the training, but the article below the video has at least a couple of errors, including the year of the fire and the number of acres burned.
Dispute about USFS claims that 2015 was a record year for acres burned
An article in the Washington Post claims there is a dispute about the claims of the U.S. Forest Service that more acres burned in the United States in 2015 than any previous year.
Some environmental groups say that in the early part of the 20th century more acres burned than the USFS has recorded since more accurate records began being kept 55 years ago. Earlier statistics may have included massive numbers of prescribed fires conducted in the southern states.
One fact that most arguments about this issue miss is that in the contiguous 48 states plus Hawaii, fewer total acres burned than in an average year. Of the 10,125,149 acres blackened in 2015 in the United States, more than half of those acres were in one state, Alaska, with 5.1 million acres, which was more than quadruple their average of 1.2 million and the most acres burned since 2004 (6.6 million). Fire management in Alaska is very different from the rest of the country. Most of the huge state is very sparsely populated, making it possible for land managers to allow some large fires to burn virtually unchecked except where they might impact a structure or village. In those areas “point protection” is the key — establishing firelines, sprinkler systems, or burnout operations for relatively small areas, leaving the rest of the fire untouched.
In the other 49 states (we like to call them the “lower 49 states”) 5.0 million acres burned in 2015, about 700,000 less than the average of 5.7 million acres.
Above: screen capture from the Fire Chasers video.
Jeff Frost has shot some amazing video and photographs of wildfires in California, much of it from the 2015 Rocky Fire near Clear Lake that burned 43 homes and 69,600 acres. His plans are to develop a feature documentary, an art film, and a book from the images.
The two-minute video below is a preview for the forthcoming projects.
The inmate’s condition was upgraded from critical to serious.
A female inmate was seriously injured Thursday morning while fighting a wildfire near Malibu in southern California. Reportedly she was struck by a rolling rock and was hoisted into a helicopter and transported to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where her condition was later upgraded from critical to serious.
An inmate firefighter was airlifted after being injured in Malibu on Feb. 25, 2016. (Credit: KTLA)
The 22-year-old inmate was a member of Fire Camp 13, an all-female facility.
The fire was reported around 3 a.m. in steep terrain about two miles north of the Pacific Coast Highway.
A total of 63 inmates divided into five work crews were battling the fire, according to Bill Sessa, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
From the LA Times:
Of the roughly 4,000 inmates housed in 44 conservation camps across the state, only a couple hundred are women.
The female inmate who was injured Thursday had come from the LA County jail system, and had been with the Malibu conservation camp since August, Sessa said.
The CDCR likes to say that only non-violent prisoners are allowed to work on inmate fire crews, but as was discovered last year, the agency’s definition of “violent” is different from the public’s perception.
UPDATE: *Brush Fire* #Malibu is at 10 acres with 75% containment.
— LACounty Fire PIO (@LACoFDPIO) February 25, 2016
Benjamin Cunha had worked for CAL FIRE and volunteered for other fire departments.
On Tuesday a former firefighter for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Diamond Springs Fire Protection District was sentenced for wildland fire arson a second time, this time for five years. Benjamin Cunha, 33, of Placerville, California had previously admitted starting at least 30 fires from August 2005 through September 2007 in the El Dorado/Amador area.
Benjamin Cunha, after his arrest in 2007.
Two of those fires, the Mine and Palmer Fires, burned onto federal land. Mr. Cunha confessed he used a distinctive time-delay incendiary device, which he had also used to start many of his other fires.
Mr. Cunha, who came from a family of firefighters, was a seasonal firefighter for CAL FIRE from 2001 to 2003. According to the agency when the 2005-2007 fires were set he was a volunteer for the Diamond Springs Fire Protection District in El Dorado County.
He indicated that his motivation for setting the fires was to overcome boredom, to earn overtime pay for fighting the fires, and to impress his peers. Even though he was a volunteer, he could have been eligible for payment during busy periods, said Robert Combs, chief of the Diamond Springs district.
In 2008 he was sentenced to 365 days in jail, which he was allowed to serve in a program that allowed him to leave the jail each day for work and return for sleep. Mr. Cunha was also sentenced to 72 months of probation. The terms of probation included GPS monitoring during the fire season. He completed his term of probation in the summer of 2012.
The next summer, July and August of 2013, authorities investigated two new suspected arson fires in the El Dorado/Amador area. Law enforcement determined that at least one of the fires was started using a time-delay incendiary device similar to the devices Mr. Cunha had admitted to using in the 2007-2008 series of El Dorado/Amador county fires and he emerged as a primary suspect in the 2013 fires. Rather than continue the investigation of the 2013 fires, and to curb the risk of any additional fires in the meantime, he was charged for the 2007 Mine Fire that the government alleged burned onto federal land in El Dorado County. Cunha had admitted to setting the fire in a 2008 videotaped interview with local law enforcement. As part of the bargain struck in the written plea agreement in this latest case, the U.S. Attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute the two 2013 fires.
“Benjamin Cunha set over 30 fires in El Dorado and Amador Counties. ATF worked with our local partners and utilized several resources to perfect an investigation for federal prosecution,” said Special Agent in Charge Jill A. Snyder.
In addition to the five year prison sentence, on Tuesday U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez also ordered Mr. Cunha to pay $246,862 in restitution to CAL FIRE for the cost of fighting the 2007 Mine Fire. Prosecutors had requested the judge sentence him to 7.5 years behind bars because he acknowledged that he is a serial arsonist and “there is a high need to protect the community from Cunha.”
This case was the product of an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with assistance from CAL FIRE.
Above: the status of the large reservoirs in California as of February 16, 2016, showing the current water levels and the historic average for the date. California Department of Water Resources.
In spite of significant rain over parts of California over the last six months all but one of 12 large reservoirs in the state are still storing water at levels below the historic average for the date. Folsom Lake has 117 percent of average while the other 11 have from 30 to 80 percent.
Precipitation predicted for Thursday in the Sierra Nevada Mountains should help a little, with some areas above 7,000 feet receiving a foot or more of snow.
Snow prediction Sierra Nevada Mountains, 0400 Feb. 17 through 1600 Feb. 18.
The photo below shows the extreme northern end of Trinity Lake on August 9, 2014 when it held about 40 percent of average. On February 16 of this year it was at 43 percent.
North end of Trinity Lake in northern California, August 9, 2014. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
It remains to be seen how the winter weather will affect the 2016 wildfire season. It is a factor of course, but more significant is the weather DURING the fire season. If it is hot, dry, and windy, there will be major fires.
