Better video of the Australian fire tornado

Loyal readers of Wildfire Today will remember back to September 18 when we posted a video of a fire tornado shot by Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television while he was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station in Australia. Mr. Tangey contacted us to let us know that the Channel 7 video was removed from YouTube due to copyright issues, but a better version of the video, provided by Mr. Tangey, is now available at Vimeo.

We are embedding it below. If you want the very impressive video to fill your screen, hover your mouse pointer over the video then click on the arrows at the bottom-right between “HD” and “vimeo”.

Outback fire tornadoes-Australia from chris tangey on Vimeo.

Below is a description of the video:

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“THERE’S something mean and magical about Australia’s Outback. An Alice Springs filmmaker captured both when a whirlwind of fire erupted before his eyes.

Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station, about 80km from Ularu, last week when confronted by a fiery phenomenon. He had just finished his tour of the station when workers encountered difficulties with a grader. So he went to help them.

A small fire was burning in nearby bushland, so Mr Tangey decided to start filming. He caught the sight of his life. A twister touched down on the spot fire, fanning it into a furious tower of flame.

“It sounded like a jet fighter going by, yet there wasn’t a breath of wind where we were,” he told the Northern Territory News.

“You would have paid $1000 a head if you knew it was about to happen.”

The column of fire danced about the landscape for about 40 minutes, he said, as he and the station workers stood transfixed. There was talk of making a quick getaway, Mr Tangey said. But everyone was too hypnotised to feel scared – and he continued furiously filming.

“The bizarre thing was that it rarely moved,” he said.

“These things just stood there because there was no wind to move them … but it was flickering incredibly fast.”

Darwin weather forecaster David Matthews said small twisters were common in isolated areas. But the fiery vortex was highly unusual.

“The flames would have assisted by trying to suck in air and that could have helped generate those circular winds,” Mr Matthews said.”

Fighting a brush fire with flappers and a helicopter

The video below shows something that I didn’t think was possible — fighting a brush fire with flappers. I have used them on grass and leaf litter fires, but never imagined that they could be an effective tool on a brush fire. However in this video which shows firefighters in Spain, they have the assistance of water drops from a helicopter.

It is an interesting video that features a helicopter-based wildland firefighting crew. Here is the description that is on YouTube, translated from Spanish by Google Translate:

Diary of a firefighter

A brief tour of the work of the fire fighters of BRIF (reinforcement Brigades forest fire) from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment.

MAGRAMA currently has ten BRIF service during summer campaigns, distributed all over the country, and five smaller BRIF during the winter-spring season, in the north and west of the peninsula during the winter also BRIF perform preventive tasks ranging from cleaning up tracks controlled burning. Their bases are located in areas of high fire risk or high forest wealth that must be protected. At the same time, seeking to achieve strategic locations by helicopter anywhere in the State within a reasonable time.

The video also has some footage of a fire whirl or fire tornado, however it is much smaller than some of the others we have reported on. But still, I would not want to be standing next to it.

 

Thanks go out to Juan

Video of fire tornado in Australia

Outback fire tornadoes-Australia from chris tangey on Vimeo.

Check out the strong indrafts going toward the fire vortices in this video. Very impressive.

We have written quite a few articles about fire tornadoes, sometimes called fire whirls. The more scientific name for them is fire vortices. Our posts about them can be found under the tag “fire tornado“.

Here is the description of the above video on YouTube:

==============================================================

THERE’S something mean and magical about Australia’s Outback. An Alice Springs filmmaker captured both when a whirlwind of fire erupted before his eyes.

Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station, about 80km from Ularu, last week when confronted by a fiery phenomenon.

He had just finished his tour of the station when workers encountered difficulties with a grader. So he went to help them.

A small fire was burning in nearby bushland, so Mr Tangey decided to start filming.

He caught the sight of his life.

A twister touched down on the spot fire, fanning it into a furious tower of flame.

“It sounded like a jet fighter going by, yet there wasn’t a breath of wind where we were,” he told the Northern Territory News.

“You would have paid $1000 a head if you knew it was about to happen.”

The column of fire danced about the landscape for about 40 minutes, he said, as he and the station workers stood transfixed.

There was talk of making a quick getaway, Mr Tangey said. But everyone was too hypnotised to feel scared – and he continued furiously filming.

“The bizarre thing was that it rarely moved,” he said.

“These things just stood there because there was no wind to move them … but it was flickering incredibly fast.”

Darwin weather forecaster David Matthews said small twisters were common in isolated areas. But the fiery vortex was highly unusual.

“The flames would have assisted by trying to suck in air and that could have helped generate those circular winds,” Mr Matthews said.

Fire tornado in North Dakota

Sometimes large fire whirls over wildfires, spinning columns of air, debris, and sometimes flames, are called “fire tornadoes”. If they are on or close to the ground the more accurate term is most likely “fire whirl”. We have reported on them before, including one in Hawaii. We even posted a picture of the tracks of dust devils, spinning air not associated with a fire, on Mars. Yes, Mars.

Fire tornado, North DakotaWhen Kelly Schwartz was driving home after getting gasoline in his vehicle on October 24, 2011, near Langdon, North Dakota he spotted a smoke column over a vegetation fire. Being a photographer, he pulled out his camera and started taking some pictures. The smoke, back-lit by the afternoon sun, made for some good photos. But then he saw something unusual in the smoke.

Fire tornado, North DakotaThe photos are published here with Kelly’s permission.

He said on his blog:

…I start to notice this tornado looking thing in the smoke. I found an approach and snapped some more pictures. 10 minutes later I arrived at fire, but it had died down quiet a bit and wasn’t producing as much smoke and the tornado looking thing was gone.

Kelly sent the photos to the National Weather Service to get their opinion on what he had seen. Here is an excerpt from their analysis, written by Gregory Gust, NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist:

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“…Why did this “Fire Tornado” occur?

A Fire Whirl generally forms when superheated air near the surface of a large fire zone rises rapidly in an airmass where sufficient horizontal or vertical vorticity is also present. Much like a dust devil or whirlwind, the rapidly rising air above a wildfire can accelerate and turn the local vorticity into a tight vertical vortex, now composed of fire instead of dust. Whereas the dust devil will often mix out its local temperature discontinuity and the vortex dissipate rather quickly, over a few minutes or less, the wildfire zone can help maintain a fairly long-lived fire whirl lasting for several minutes or more.

A Fire Tornado would be a much more extreme example, and involve a Fire Whirl that had stretched vertically from the ground up to the base of developing cumuliform clouds. In our case, the vortex extended nearly 3900 feet high.

What’s the Meteorology behind all of this?

A below listed article by Mike Umscheid, with the NWS office in Dodge City KS, has a great meteorological explanation and example of how this process initiates.

Our detailed analysis of the Langdon event will take some time to complete, but preliminary information suggests that similar ingredients are present as follows: 1. the fire zone heating produced the rapidly rising air, 2. the lower level winds had enough environmental shear to induce a vertical vorticity near the surface and get the fire whirl going, and then sustain it.

In addition, we suspect that at least two additional factors were in play, as follows: 3. low level moisture was sufficient to rise, cool, condense and form the pyro-cumulus cloud deck, and 4. the lifted condensation level (LCL) was close enough to the level of free convection (LFC) so that the developing pyro-cumulus quickly became a towering cumulus… which may have increased the overall up draft speed and vertical vorticity to such an extent that the near surface Fire Whirl stretched into a Fire Tornado.

The 2:55 p.m. CDT report from the Langdon Airport listed winds at 3 mph from the east, with visibilities reduced to 1.25 miles in haze, and lowest cloud heights of 3700 to 3900 feet AGL. The next published observation, at 3:15 p.m. CDT, listed winds as calm, visibilities as unrestricted (10 miles or greater), and skies as overcast at 3900 feet AGL.

According to local observers, the pyro-cumulus cloud developed quite quickly above the fire zone as the ascending smoke plume then took on its whirl.”

Wildfire news, March 10, 2011

UPS driver makes initial attack on wildfire

Point Washington subdivision wildfire
Photo: Kathy Harrison

A UPS driver in South Walton, Florida, discovered a wildfire threatening some structures and took time away from his busy schedule to grab a garden hose. According to Bill Shultz who lived across the street, the driver, identified as Arthur Huels, called 911 and took action that kept the fire from destroying any houses. Here is an excerpt from the Walton Sun:

On the afternoon of Friday, March 4, Bill Shultz went to take his daughter’s dogs on a walk like he does everyday.

He saw a UPS truck parked outside the neighbor’s house, but that was “ordinary enough.” However, when the truck was still sitting there 20 minutes later, he knew something wasn’t right.

“Normally they are in and out in a hurry,” Shultz said. “Then I saw all the smoke coming out from behind the house.”

Shultz put the dogs in his car and quickly headed off across the street to see the cause of the smoke.

“The fire was right up very close to the house,” he told The Sun. “And there was the UPS driver battling down the flames with a garden hose.”

At approximately 2:20 p.m., firefighters from South Walton received a call about a fire in the Point Washington area according to Mike Morrison, public information officer for the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.

The UPS driver, later identified as Arthur Huels, called emergency responders when he came across the wildfire while on his daily delivery route.

Shultz and the UPS driver fought back the large brush fire with garden hoses until firefighters responded.

“And then he jumped back in his truck and finished his route,” Shultz said. “If that guy hadn’t stopped and done what he did, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Two arrested for stealing from wildfire victim’s home

From KFDA in Amarillo, Texas:

Two suspected thieves are behind bars following an alleged aggravated assault against a victim of the recent wildfires.

According to the sheriff, 48-year-old Martin Rodriguez- Flores and his son, a minor, attempted to run over a victim with their vehicle. Investigators say it happened after the victim approached them while they were attempting to haul off some of his burned property on Sanford Street. Authorities report finding a stolen ATV and lawn mower in the two suspects’ possession.

Rodriguez is in the Potter County jail. His son, is in the Youth Center of the High Plains. The two suspects face aggravated assault charges.

Potter county Sheriff Brian Thomas tells NewsChannel 10, he is infuriated people would attempt steal from victims of the recent wildfires.

This video has more information:

Dust devil causes prescribed fire on private land in Texas to escape, over 8,000 acres burn

From the Alpine Avalanche:

It took 70 to 80 local, state, national and international firefighters, tanker trucks, massive helicopters, two SEATs (small engine attack tanker airplanes) and lots of bravery and hard work for four days – but they defeated the Brewster County fire that consumed 8,225 acres of ranchland last week.

And although a few dozen homes, barns and outbuildings at times were threatened by flames, not one was reported burned down nor were any lives lost, Brewster County Emergency Management Coordinator Tom Santry said Tuesday.

Santry said the fire boss and crew had cleared fire breaks (a gap in vegetation designed to slow a fire’s progress) and were burning some of the brush, keeping an eye on the flames and the wind.

But a dust devil popped up behind the fire crew, hit the burning brush pile and carried embers to nearby grass and brush, all of it brittle-dry.

“You can’t predict that,” Santry said of the dust devil. “They’ll pop up out of nowhere.”

He said heat from blazes can also create what’s called a fire devil or fire tornado, a kind of whirlwind of flames.

In this case, although the ranch’s fire crew had taken all precautions to conduct a prescribed burn, Santry said they couldn’t control the freak dust devil. When the flames started eating more dried-out vegetation, the fire boss immediately called the Alpine Volunteer Fire Department.

 

Fire tornado in Hawaii

We have seen recent videos of fire whirls, such as the one HERE, but a video that recently surfaced of wind rotation over a fire near the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island of Hawaii is very impressive. There is no way I would want to be anywhere near a potentially lethal situation like the one in the video below. It was shot on Sunday by the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

When you watch it, click on full screen (the little symbol next to the speaker icon), and also listen to the audio.

(The video is no longer available)



Did you notice that the firefighters in the white fire truck got out of there as soon as they saw what was going on? And eventually the photographer did too. Smart move.

Tracking dust devils

Mars_dust_devil_tracksDust devils can be the bane of the wildland firefighter, sometimes throwing burning embers across the fireline or even turning into a little fire tornado if it involves flames from burning vegetation.

But as far as I know, the dust devils on Mars don’t cause any problems for firefighters.

NASA describes the photo above this way:

Who’s been marking up Mars? This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light colored terrain on the martian surface. Newly formed trails like these had presented researchers with a tantalizing martian mystery but are now known to be the work of miniature wind vortices known to occur on the red planet – martian dust devils. Such spinning columns of rising air heated by the warm surface are also common in dry and desert areas onplanet Earth. Typically lasting only a few minutes, dust devils becoming visible as they pick up loose red-colored dust leaving the darker and heavier sand beneath intact. On Mars, dust devilscan be up to 8 kilometers high. Dust devils have been credited with unexpected cleanings of mars rover solar panels.

Why Athens burned-again

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial about the recent fires near Athens, Greece, written by Costas Synolakis. Here is an excerpt.

ATHENS—The catastrophic fires that raged in Greece for several days and threatened Athens have scorched several of the capital’s hillside suburbs. The images are remarkably similar to those of two years ago, almost to the date. Then, the fires threatened ancient Olympia and torched Mt. Parnes, a once picturesque national park where Athenians took refuge from the summer heat and enjoyed the winter snow. The current fires have burned hundreds of homes and the forested hills that used to filter Athen’s polluted air are no more. In total, 10 major fires have burned Athenian suburbs since 1981.

There are, however, stark differences from the 2007 fires. This time, Greece immediately mobilized the European Union’s Monitoring and Information Center and 10 fire-fighting aircraft from France, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Turkey joined the battle as quickly as typically slow intra-European logistics allowed. Despite the complexity of the disaster—with heavy winds creating fire tornadoes and hilly terrain dotted with thousands of power lines and buildings—the fires were put out relatively quickly—but at a huge cost.

Compare this with the Italian response during the L’Aquilla earthquake last spring when dozens of people might had been saved if emergency crews from neighboring countries had been allowed to help. In 2007, over 50 people died in the Greek fires, whereas no lives have so far been lost this summer. Partly this is because officials have learned their lessons. The decision to evacuate threatened areas no longer rests with the central government in Athens. Instead, local mayors—who generally followed the advice of firefighters on the ground—have been given the authority to order these emergency measures, and they successfully directed thousands to flee and escape the fires. Patients from a children’s hospital in an at-risk area were transferred well ahead of the advancing flames. For once, disaster plans were implemented as drawn.

And yet there are also stark similarities to the incompetence and mismanagement on display two years ago. There were still few or no forest roads to allow rapid access to burning mountain tops, thus necessitating aerial water drops, which are less precise and more expensive. There are still few or no hydrants in urban forests (and no trained volunteers to use them) and virtually no constant-pressure reservoirs to store water for emergency use.

Dry brush and pine needles had not been cleaned in years, while undeveloped land next to luxury homes contained enough combustible material to power entire village power plants for days. Amateurs were everywhere trying to put out fires, succeeding only in spreading them. Houses now dot high-risk land that burned just a decade ago. Urban planning and zoning is nonexistent for most of the country. Fire crews and reporters alike had trouble locating on maps the obscure names of unincorporated areas developed without permits just a few kilometers from the Acropolis.

Mr. Synolakis is a professor of natural hazards at the Technical University of Crete and director of the Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California.

 

Firefighter refresher, 2009

I just finished the 2009 version of the “Fireline Safety Refresher Training”.  I thought it was pretty good, but leave a comment if you have taken it and have an opinion.  Here are some of my thoughts:

  • I think it’s great that the National Wildfire Coordinating Group “coordinates” this annual nationwide refresher by preparing a DVD, instructor materials, and a student workbook.  It’s a good way to be sure we get consistent, quality information out there.  Before they did this, some organizations, if they did any annual refresher at all, would just put on “Standards for Survival” or some other canned, repetitive program every year.
  • The DVD included a talk by Jennifer A. Ziegler, PhD., Department of Communication, Valparaiso University. She is well-known in the wildland fire community for her work on the human factors of fighting fire and has spoken at many wildfire conferences.  In fact Wildfire Today quoted her on February 26 when we introduced our series of articles about the 13 Watch Out Situations.  On the refresher DVD, Ms. Ziegler gives some excellent information about the genealogy of the 10 Fire Orders.
  • There was an entire unit devoted to “Fire Operations Doctrine”.  Doctrine was developed by the U.S. Forest Service and was unveiled at their Pulaski Conference a few years ago.  The video in the refresher training talked about it, but never did define it.  The Department of Interior firefighters I was training with were left scratching their heads trying to figure out what it was. But the student workbook did give some basic information about Doctrine.  Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know, the Department of Interior Agencies have not adopted Doctrine.  I have some calls in to try to confirm this.
  • Here is a passage from the student workbook about Doctrine:  “In order to generate effective decision making in fire operations and to cope with the unpredictable nature of fire, commanders’ intent must be lucid and unambiguous, and lines of authority must be clearly articulated and understood.  Subordinate commanders must make decisions on their own initiative based on their understanding of their commanders’ intent.”
  • The DVD had a lengthy video about the Idaho City Hot Shots.  It had some great footage of fire, tree felling, and action shots, but other than being entertaining it added little to the training.
  • A lot of time was spent on weather.  I have seen many presentations in fire classes by meteorologists who got far too technical, showing, for example, charts that were undecipherable by firefighters.  But in the DVD a TV weatherman (from I believe Channel 6 somewhere) provided great information about “sky watching” and interpreting clouds.  He showed some time lapse films that were very interesting.  This was a good example of a speaker analyzing his audience and presenting technical information in a manner that could be easily understood…..a quality of a good TV weatherman.  Fire instructors should take note.  Later in the unit other time lapse films taken in Australia were less useful.  We were asked to predict the weather based on the films, which was asking a little too much of the average firefighter.
  • A section on communicating with aircraft was succinct and very worthwhile.
  • A case study of a situation on the Indians fire on the Los Padres National Forest in California last year was very thought provoking.  On that fire, which burned for many weeks, an engine crew and some members of a hot shot crew that were conducting a burn out were in a sort of burn-over when a massive fire whirl, or fire tornado as I would call it, caused the fire to change direction. One firefighter estimated they were exposed to 80 mph winds blowing burning embers and large tree limbs around. Several firefighters received some serious burns.
  • We were told that the maximum time allowed for getting into a fire shelter has been reduced to 20 seconds.  And I have to admit I did not make it on the first try, missing it by 2 seconds.

I want to thank the fire staff at Wind Cave National Park for putting on a great class today.

So, what were your impressions of the 2009 firefighter refresher?