News and opinion about wildland fire
On August 8, 1959 the El Cariso Hot Shots experienced the first of two fire tragedies the crew would be involved in. The fire was the Decker Fire located in the foothills above Lake Elsinore, California. Seven people were overrun by fire and six lost their lives. Three were members of the El Cariso Hotshot Crew.
In 1966 12 members of the crew were killed when they were entrapped on the Loop Fire.
For more info:
http://www.wildfirelessons.net/documents/Decker_Fire_1959.pdf
On Saturday the U.S. Forest Service finally certified the 7,200-gallon Martin Mars air tanker to work on fires for the agency. After a seven-hour flight from Canada on July 12, it flew several check rides on Friday and Saturday. It will be based at Lake Elsinore in southern California.
Here is an excerpt from an article at Fire Department Network News:
A Canadian-registered Martin Mars water bomber and its sophisticated spotter helicopter were officially certified Saturday as “Mission Ready” by the U.S. Forest Service for battling potential wildland fires in the Angeles, Cleveland and San Bernardino National Forests.
Owner Wayne Coulson, of Coulson Flying Tankers, told FDNNTV his crew flew several “check rides,” or test missions, late Friday and then again Saturday morning with USFS observers on board.
The vintage aircraft made practice, thirty-second long, water scoops on nearby Diamond Valley Lake then, as Coulson described the maneuvers, “roared around” a mountainous section of the San Bernardino National Forest for monitored 7,200 gallon target drops.
At the same time Coulson’s new Sikorsky S-76 electronics-filled chopper successfully demonstrated its ability to lead the Martin Mars into fire zone target areas while video taping and relaying aerial observations of water drops back to Forest Service incident commanders on the ground.
Coulson said, “It was a 100-percent successful familiarity performance for Forest Service personnel who now know how best to deploy the two aerial firefighting aircraft when needed.”
This discussion will begin right here at 10 pm ET, and 7 pm PT.
We will have the honor of chatting with Joe Valencia, a former firefighter and the author of Beyond Tranquillon Ridge and the recently released Area Ignition. Mr. Valencia was a firefighter working on the Honda Canyon fire which is the subject of Beyond Tranquillon Ridge.
You can replay the discussion by clicking HERE.
Investigators have released a report that points to a catalytic converter as the cause of the Freeway fire that burned 203 houses and 30,305 acres on November 15 in southern California. Honeycomb-shaped pieces from the interior of a catalytic converter were found, but investigators said they probably will never know exactly from which vehicle they came.
The fire forced the evacuation of 40,000 residents in the counties of Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino.
The air tanker base that the U.S. Forest Service recently downgraded to a part-time “call when needed” base set a new national record last Friday for the most fire retardant pumped in a single day–158,000 gallons, according to an article in the Santa Barbara Independent by Nick Welsh.
Wildfire Today covered the issues surrounding the downgrading of the base in an article on May 12, one on May 2, and another one April 10.
Except for reloading three air tankers, the base at Santa Maria, California was not used on the first day of the Jesusita fire after it was discovered that the U.S. Forest Service had not renewed the contract with the supplier of retardant. Since they could not use the closest base, Santa Maria, every time the tankers needed to reload they had to fly an additional 120 miles round trip to Porterville. This also required that they be refueled more frequently, lengthening their turn-around time.
The USFS usually has a contract in effect at the base from May 15 through November 15 and when the Jesusita fire started on May 6 they hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But even if the standard contract had been in place, it would not have been in effect the day the fire started. By the second day of the fire a new contract had been negotiated, effective on May 7, leading to the record-setting use of retardant.
Here is a brief excerpt from Mr. Welsh’s article.
Could the Little Baby Jesus Fire have been bottled up the first day with more drops? Who knows.
In hindsight, Santa Maria would have allowed more and quicker drops, and that undeniably helps. But those in the biz also insist that air tankers don’t put out fires. Instead, air tankers give fire crews the cover they need to put them out. Given the steepness and inaccessibility of the terrain where the fire started — and the conspicuous lack of escape routes — no commanders in their right mind would have allowed firefighters on the ground that first day. Besides, they note, Jesusita spread fewer than 100 acres in that time.
Regardless, the Forest Service contract department needs to figure out that fire season is a 365-day-a-year reality out here, and renew its contracts accordingly.
Amy Asman of the San Luis Obispo, CA NewTime has also written an article about the issue. Here is an excerpt:
…However, Andrew Madsen, public communications specialist for Los Padres National Forest, said [not using Santa Maria on the first day of the fire] didn’t impede the Forest Service’s ability to fight the fire.
“To link the burning fire with the base is Santa Maria is wrong,” Madsen said. “It’s completely inaccurate, and it’s incendiary to people who were victims of the fire.”
The Santa Maria firebase, he said, was “up and running” within the required amount of time, that is, the first 24 hours of the fire. Before that time period ended, the planes carrying fire retardant couldn’t have been used anyway, he explained, because the 100-acre fire was burning in a location inaccessible to on-ground firefighting forces.
“Air support must be used in conjunction with firefighting from the ground,” Madsen said. “Fire retardant drops must be followed immediately by fire fighting from the ground or else they’re moot.”
And after the first 24 hours, Madsen added, the planes still couldn’t be used because of high-speed winds.
“Thirty- to 40 mph winds will ground aircraft every single time,” he said. “Without the winds, that fire wouldn’t have done anything.”
When asked why the Forest Service didn’t have its contract finalized sooner, Madsen said: “Even if we did, it would have been set for [fire season] May 15 to Nov. 15, so we would have had to set up an emergency contract anyway.”
Still, some community members are using the glitch as an example of why the Santa Maria firebase should be restored to full-time status.
“It’s unfortunate what happened, but it validates the need and the ability of the Santa Maria firebase to support an initial fire attack,” Central Coast Jet Center’s Kunkle said.
It is time for the U.S. Forest Service to admit they made mistakes by downgrading the base and by not having the retardant contract in effect before May 15–then they can move on. Until they do, this debate will fester and they will continue to look like fools, having to constantly defend an undefendable position.
On May 2 Wildfire Today covered the downgrading of the Santa Maria, California air tanker base from a full service base to a “call when needed” base. When the Jesusita fire burned into Santa Barbara 4 days later ultimately destroying 78 homes and burning 8,700 acres, using the Santa Maria base instead of Porterville could have saved 120 miles round trip each time the air tankers reloaded.
Emergency medical personnel refer to the “Golden Hour”, during which it is crucial that seriously injured victims receive a very high level of patient care. It is also crucial that overwhelming force be used during the first four hours, the Golden Four Hours, of the initial attack stage of a wildland fire. Quick, efficient suppression during the Golden Four Hours can save many acres, many dollars, and in some cases private property, homes, or even lives.
Closing or downgrading air tanker bases, closing fire stations, or laying off firefighters may cost a lot more in the long run, than the short term dollars that may be saved by short-sighted bureaucrats–some of whom have absolutely no personal knowledge or experience in fire suppression. Fire suppression decisions should be made by firefighters.
Southern California has evolved into having a year-round fire season. With the urban interface they have, their resources and tools need to be geared up all year to contain fires by 10 a.m. the next day. It was a good idea in 1910, and it still is today.
The AP has picked up on the story, and has quotes from Gail Kimbell, the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service:
The head of the U.S. Forest Service said she is reluctant to overturn a policy that caused tanker planes to fly extra distances while fighting a California wildfire because the agency did not yet have a contract in place to use a nearby airport.
The tankers had to fly an additional 120 miles round trip to obtain supplies — delaying response to the fire, which burned 100 homes in Santa Barbara, forced more than 30,000 people to evacuate and torched more than 13 square miles.
Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell said the agency will review the specifics of the Santa Barbara blaze, but added that she would not want the agency to have year-round contracts with private companies to help fight wildfires.
“A permanent fire season? I hope we never get to that,” she told The Associated Press.
Setting up agreements to provide retardant and other supplies “is an expense of public money. We want to be mindful before we commit to anything,” Kimbell said.
At the same time, she acknowledged that global warming and other factors have led to longer fire seasons that now stretch well beyond mid-May to November.
“Fire season keeps expanding on both ends,” Kimbell said, adding that the length of the fire season is a key factor as officials set up contracts with private companies and airports to assist the government in what has become a billion-dollar-a-year battle against wildfires.
“We try to be prepared … should events occur, and we use the best data we have, but you’ll never have all the answers,” particularly when most contracts are signed a year in advance, Kimbell said.
Three aircraft were able to resupply once at an airfield in Santa Maria, Calif., 60 miles north of the blaze, but they were later diverted to another airport about 120 miles away after officials realized a supply contract wasn’t in place at the Santa Maria airport. State and federal officials say it’s impossible to know what effect the airport confusion had on efforts to stamp out the Santa Barbara blaze, but said that being able to land at Santa Maria would have saved time.
Planes made multiple trips to Porterville, Calif., last week before the Santa Maria airfield was opened to the aircraft on May 6, cutting the length of resupply missions in half. The Forest Service had not completed a contract, which usually runs from May 15 to Nov. 15, with two service providers at the airport, said spokesman Jason Kirchner.
The 8,700-acre Santa Barbara fire destroyed 78 homes and damaged 22 others, fire officials said. The week-old blaze was 80 percent contained as of Tuesday, with costs totaling more than $12.2 million.
