The Northwest Territorial government has ordered $26 million worth of single engine air tankers, an acquisition that will add new eight Air Tractor 802 Firebosses to their fleet.
Below is an excerpt from an article at CBC News:
…This is the first time the territorial government has bought new water bombers, which are used to fight fires. It inherited the current fleet of Canadair C-215s, which were introduced in 1969, from the federal government for $1.
The minister of environment and natural resources, Wally Schumann, says it makes more sense to buy the new Air Tractor 802 Fireboss aircraft than to upgrade the old fleet.
“I think the cost of doing that, from everything I’ve seen, would have been four times or five times the cost of purchasing these new Firebosses,” he said.
The government plans to issue a request for proposals this spring for the operation and maintenance of the fleet.
It could have asked contractors to provide a fleet of aircraft as well as operate and maintain them, but Schumann says many northern companies would not have been able to bid on it.
“The biggest benefit of us, the GNWT, owning a fleet of aircraft is the larger chance of Northern aviation companies to participate in the operation of the tanker based fleet,” Schumann said…
The range of Western Larch, Larix occidentalis, sometimes called Western tamarack. From Natural Resources Canada.
Warming caused by climate change is moving the suitable habitat for some plant species farther north in the northern hemisphere. A plant that was once comfortable in one location may be finding it is becoming too warm for it to thrive.
British Columbia, unlike the other Canadian provinces, has changed their rules about replanting forests, hoping to ensure that adapted tree varieties can keep up with the moving habitats. Critics say assisted migration, as it is called, has sometimes produced disastrous results in the past when species were placed in new environments.
Western Larch, a deciduous conifer. Photo from Montana Outdoors.
Vice’s Motherboard web site has a fascinating article by Stephen Buranyi on the subject. Here is an excerpt:
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“The Western Larch can live for hundreds of years and grow to over 200 feet, but the oldest Larch trees in northern British Columbia’s Bulkley Valley are only about four feet tall. In fact, the nearest full grown Western Larch is nearly 900 kilometers south by the US border, which has been the Larch’s natural range for thousands of years. These are the first trees of their kind to be planted so far north.
If the disastrous history of invasive species has taught us anything, it’s that it’s often difficult to predict the consequences of such a change. Ecologists and conservationists generally caution against moving a species outside of the areas they naturally live—a process known as assisted migration—and governments generally agree with this take. Across North America there are strict prohibitions against the large scale movement of living populations.
But for the past seven years the province of BC has allowed millions of trees to be planted toward the northernmost reaches of their natural range and beyond. The government is working with scientists who predict that our climate is changing so quickly that, 50 years from now, when the trees are fully grown, the conditions in the trees’ new homes will actually be more like their old ones.
“It restores the tree to the environment for which they are best suited,” said Greg O’Neill, an adaptation and climate change scientist with the BC government, who helped design and implement the province’s assisted migration program. But while BC scientists think that they’ve acted just in time to prepare their forests for the future, no other province appears ready to adopt assisted migration as a strategy anytime soon.
Many trees are what ecologists call foundational species—organisms whose removal would cause enormous disruption in the ecosystem. Trees are a sort of infrastructure for forests; they bind the soil, retain water, and provide food and shelter. Just like the infrastructure unpinning cities, it takes years to establish a tree population, and they are virtually impossible to move.
And yet, because BC’s northern regions are warming at nearly twice the average rate, much of the province’s 55 million hectares of forest may find that their homes have moved north without them. A 2006 paper from the University of British Columbia applied a climate based model to forest ecosystems and showed that some species ranges could shift by up to 100 kilometers each decade.
Rules in BC require that, as trees are cut down, planters use seeds from the same area to re-plant, preserving the genetic character of the forest. O’Neill and his colleagues produced a forestry report in 2008 that drew on the projected range expansions due to climate change, and their own extensive experiments testing various tree species in different climates. They suggested that the province instead expand the distance seeds could be moved uphill, to track with global warming. Later that year the Chief Forester’s Standards for Seed Use were changed for the majority of BC’s commercial tree species to reflect the suggestions in the report.
According to O’Neill, “these were the first policy changes that addressed climate change in forestry.”
Then, in 2010 the standards were changed again, to allow Western Larch to be planted hundreds of kilometres away from its current range. “That had been a long-standing paradigm that no-one dared transgress,” said O’Neill. One ecologist had even called BC’s migration plans “a little scary.”
It’s difficult to overstate how deeply rooted the aversion to moving nature is for many biologists. In 2009 assisted migration was called “planned invasion” in a report that listed our really awful, truly just stupendously bad track record with species that unexpectedly turn invasive…”
Alberta air tanker 202. Photo by Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.
Bombardier has shut down their plant in North Bay, Ontario where they have been finishing the work of building CL-415 air tankers after the aircraft have been assembled in Montreal. The CL-415 and its predecessor, the CL-215, are among the very few purpose-built air tankers, designed from the wheels up to very specifically drop water on fires. Most air tankers used today have been converted after being discarded by the military and passenger airlines.
Below is an excerpt from an article in the Bay Today:
…Isabelle Gauthier, the Director of Communications for Bombardier Commercial Aircraft confirmed to BayToday that, “We will not be renewing our lease going forward” at North Bay’s Jack Garland Airport.
The lease ends in April 2016, but Bombardier was required to give at least 90 days notice Gauthier said.
“There are currently no aircraft in production,” explained Gauthier,”It didn’t make any business sense to continue.”
North Bay’s facility was for finishing the aircraft after assembly in Montreal, and three had been completed this year but no more were on the horizon.
“We need sales,” said Gauthier. “We need commitment to continue production.”
She said if sales are made, they may attempt to reopen the North Bay facility but “it’s not like turning on a light switch”.
“Activities are continuing for more sales”, she said, and Bombardier is “keeping the door open” to further involvement in North Bay if there are significant sales of the aircraft in future.
The video below was shot at Santa Fe Dam in January, 2014 where two CL-415s under contract with Los Angeles County were scooping water while working the Colby Fire at Glendora, California, east of Los Angeles.
Premier Christy Clark said Tuesday that 60-year-old John Phare exemplifies the purpose of the new medal, which recognizes commendable contributions to community life.
The contract tree faller died last July while fighting the Old Sechelt Mine blaze.
Clark said Phare was one of thousands of firefighters who displayed courage and sacrifice during this year’s extensive and sometimes life-threatening forest fire season.
Phare’s fiancee, Kimi Hawkes, accepted the medal at a ceremony at the B.C. legislature.
The Canadian firefighters gather around a firefighter memorial at the USFS Aerial Fire Depot and Smokejumper Center at Missoula International Airport. In the background is the smokejumper’s DC-3. Photo courtesy Alberta Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
This article was written by Rae Brooks while she was working as a Public Information Officer on the Motorway Complex of fires in north-central Idaho.
KOOSKIA, Idaho — We call it extended attack. They call it “sustained action.” We build fire line. They build “fire guard.” Our fires are finished when they’re controlled. They don’t stop until they’re at “extinguishment.”
The Canadian firefighters who spent two weeks filling leadership positions on the Motorway Complex of fires in north-central Idaho might talk about fire a little differently — and even fight it differently — but they found they share the same goals as American firefighters.
“Swinging a Pulaski is the same from High Level to Florida,” said Canadian firefighter Wade Klein, who served as a task force leader on the Slide Fire. “When it comes down to it,” added colleague Gregory Williams-Freeman, a task-force leader on the Woodrat Fire, “fire is fire, and we all know that business.”
High Level, by the way, is a town in northern Alberta. Although the common incident command system used by both countries minimized differences, a few other translations were needed to integrate the Canadians into the U.S. firefighting operation.
The fire behavior analyst, for example, started adding metric conversions for chains and rates of spread at the morning briefing. The word hectares came up occasionally in lieu of acres. And the Canadians, all from the western province of Alberta, had to get used to talking about percentage of containment, instead of their usual categories for fires: Out of Control, Being Held, Under Control and Extinguishment.
The Albertans came to Idaho through a joint agreement between the United States and Canada that allows each country to call in firefighting resources from the other in times of need. Under the same agreement, American firefighters flew to Canada to help out in July at the height of an intense fire season in western Canada.
Last month, after a lightning burst sparked dozens of fires across Idaho and the Pacific Northwest, it was the Americans’ turn to call for international assistance. Besides Alberta, Canada also sent firefighters from Ontario and the Yukon. Australia and New Zealand also aided the effort.
Three Canadians confer during division breakout on the Woodrat Fire after morning briefing at the Motorway Complex. Left to right: Division supervisor Mark Handel, task-force leaders Jason, Cottingham, and Alan Gammon. Photo by Rae Brooks.
The 23 Alberta firefighters working under Mark Ruggiero’s Southwest Area Type 1 Incident Management Team at the Motorway Complex included six division supervisors, 10 task force leaders, four heavy equipment bosses, a helibase manager and two helicopter crew members. Kris Heemeryck accompanied the group as a representative of the Alberta Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
It was the Albertans’ first exposure to a U.S. Type 1 team in action. They praised the chow-line food, the clean showers and the well-stocked medics. They also appreciated being able to eat outside under open-sided tents. At Alberta fire camps, mosquitoes and black flies force firefighters to dine inside in oil-field trailers.
Phil Bruner was serving as groomsman at a crew member’s wedding in Edmonton when he got the word about the Idaho assignment. He stepped out of the church after the ceremony and turned his cell phone on to find his supervisor had called to see if he wanted to go fight fire in the United States.
Bruner deliberated for half an hour. He had tickets to a music festival he had looked forward to attending for months, which he would miss if he took the assignment. But Canadian firefighters almost always fight fires only in their own provinces. Interprovincial requests come infrequently. International requests are even rarer.
Finally he phoned a friend for advice. “He didn’t even ask why I didn’t want to go,” said Bruner. “He just said, “Don’t be dumb. Go.”
Fire shelter training. Photo by Kris Hemmeryck.
A total of 42 Alberta firefighters flew to Missoula, Montana, on Aug. 24 on a jet contracted by the National Interagency Fire Center for two days of briefings, including an introduction to fire shelters. Canadian firefighters don’t normally carry them.
About half the group was assigned to other fires in Idaho and Montana. Some of the group of 24 that ended up at the Motorway Complex started out at another complex to the north. The differences between Canadian and U.S. firefighting techniques quickly became apparent.
Because of the vast distances involved, the lack of roads and the need for a speedy response, almost all initial attack in Alberta is done by helicopter. The Albertans generally fight fire with water, because they have it, rarely building hand line, especially in the flat, swampy northern part of the province where the duff may be six-feet deep.
Instead of building line, they rely on hose lays or dozers to encircle fires. When an area is dry enough, dozers work in groups of three, with the lead dozer knocking timber down, the second pushing it away from the fire, and the third clearing a line down to mineral soil.
In Idaho, the Canadians found U.S. hot shot crews performing the same task, but in a manner more suited to the terrain and vegetation: constructing hand line, then burning off those lines. The Albertans do very little hand ignition, relying more on helitorching.
Alberta firefighters generally are transported to and from the fire line by helicopter. They immediately start laying hose, while helicopters do bucket drops, with added support from air tankers. With a raging crown fire, they don’t stop to deploy hose, instead relying on an aggressive air attack. When extinguishing hotspots, Alberta firefighters sometimes have to use chain saws to cut several layers of duff blocks to ensure the spot is properly cooled.
In Idaho, the Albertans also ran into wildland-urban interface issues they don’t normally face, working close to — and even in — the communities of Syringa and Lowell. In contrast, Alberta’s forests, especially in the north, are largely empty. Alberta is about the same size as California and Nevada combined, but has just a tenth of the population.
“Where we work is so remote, there’s only a cabin or two,” said Dave Leegstra, task-force leader on the Woodrat Fire. “Here it was houses, and lots of them.” Added Bruner, a task-force leader on Slide: “Our wildland-urban interface is flying into lookouts and trappers’ cabins and putting up sprinkler systems.”
Williams-Freeman, another task-force leader, worked closely with the Lolo Hotshots and was so impressed by them that he hopes to join them for a season. As a member of the Blackfeet Nation, Williams-Freeman is entitled to dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship, so is able to work in the United States. He picked the Hotshots’ brains and carefully studied their set-up to get ideas for his own unit crew, the more plainly titled Alberta hotshot equivalent.
Unit crews were created in Alberta just four years ago. Unlike U.S. hotshot crews, nothing separates them visually from other crews. They wear the same garb as other Alberta firefighters and their 20-person crews drive around in five pickup trucks, not the distinctive buggies of U.S. hotshots.
Last week, on the last day of their assignment, the dawn morning briefing at the incident command post where most of the Albertans were billeted included a presentation of a personalized thank-you certificate and a Southwest Area challenge coin to each Canadian firefighter. Inscribed at the certificate’s bottom: “Geography made us neighbors; working together made us friends.”
The tough crowd of division supervisors, task-force leaders, crew bosses, engine bosses and other fire leaders saluted the Albertans by singing the first few bars of Canada’s national anthem to their new fire friends.
Tom Goldstraw made this video about the 2015 fire season of a helitac crew, HAC 3, in Edson, Alberta. The song is written and performed by crew leader Jordie Baird.
On August 16 firefighting aircraft were forced to halt air operations on the Testalinden Creek and Wilson’s Mountain Road wildfires in British Columbia due to an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (or drone) flying over the fire.
Eight helicopters and five fixed-wing aircraft that were supporting firefighters were grounded, significantly impacting fire suppression operations.
The Oliver RCMP is currently working with the BC Wildfire Service in relation to this incident.
Two CV-580s borrowed from Saskatchewan. USFS photo.
As a result of intense thunderstorm activity last week with little or no rain, wildfire activity has developed significantly recently in Montana and northern Idaho, part of the Northern Rockies Geographic Area.
Resources in the area are stretched thin. All of their Type 1 and Type 2 Incident Management Teams are committed to fires. Multiple fires are being combined into “complexes” run by one IMT.
To help mitigate the situaion, the following Canadian assets have been assigned to the Northern Rockies Geographic Area: five 20-person Type 1 crews; one Fire Behavior Analyst; 20 smokejumpers; and three CV580 air tankers.
Below are excerpts from a report issued by the Northern Rockies Coordinating Group:
“…The Northern Rockies Coordination Center is reporting 30 large fires, many of which are multi-fire complexes, with incident management teams managing multiple fires. This number does not include many smaller fires managed locally. The largest single fire, the Thompson Fire in Glacier National Park, is 13,680 acres. The largest complex of fires is the Clearwater Complex at more than 43,000 acres in Idaho. Not included in the overall tally are smaller fires that are being staffed with local responders and an immense workload related to initial attack for new fire starts. Combine that with the demands for resources around the nation and it’s a challenging proposition for fire managers.
The challenge will be to allocate resources – aircraft, crews, engines and heavy equipment with proper supervision – to the existing fires, and still maintain capacity to quickly respond to new fires. Additionally, the Northern Rockies Coordinating Group will have the task of prioritizing the needs for all incidents and allocating a limited number of resources – requests for which exceed what’s currently available.
If there’s good news amidst the flurry of fire activity, it’s that additional help from the Montana Air National Guard as well as from Canada have arrived and are available for assignment. The Guard became available after Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s Emergency Declaration over the weekend. Similar declarations have been made for several counties in Idaho. The Canadian resources are available through an agreement between the USDA Forest Service, Montana, Idaho and several western states and Canadian provinces.
Firefighters will also catch a break with a favorable weather forecast for most of the week, though there will be an increase in westerly winds on Friday. Fortunately, this will be followed by cooler temperatures and higher humidities in the weekend.”
