The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has published the video below featuring Gerald Smith, a survivor of the 1966 Loop Fire on the Angeles National Forest in southern California visiting the site of the tragedy. The video is very powerful. Mr. Smith reads a letter from one of the other victims that was written while he was in the hospital shortly before he passed away. Mr. Smith also talks about his 20-year struggle after the burnover, dealing with the lingering effects and the eventual positive outcome.
On November 1, 1966, the El Cariso Hotshots were trapped by flames as they worked on a steep hillside in Pacoima Canyon on the Angeles National Forest.
Ten members of the crew perished on the Loop Fire that day. Another two members succumbed from burn injuries in the following days. Most of the nineteen members who survived were critically burned and remained hospitalized for some time.
Lessons learned from the Loop Fire resulted in the checklist for downhill line construction, improved firefighting equipment, better fire behavior training, and the implementation of new firefighter safety protocols.
The El Cariso Hot Shots experienced another tragedy in 1959 when three members of the crew were entrapped and killed on the Decker Fire near Elsinore, California.
A decade or two ago the unwritten rules about what could or could not be on the cover of an *Incident Action Plan (IAP) were somewhat more loose than they are today. Here is an example of a hand-drawn, customized cover for the IAP for the Gateway Fire, July 20, 1989.
In case you’re having a hard time reading the text, click on the image to see a larger version, but here is what it says:
Smokey: “It’s worth it, though…We’ve been promised a week of R&R in GATEWAY!
From the “OPS” helicopter: “Sorry, no drops … Got’a have a meeting! OPS OUT!”
Caption at lower-right: “KIDS … Smokey & Woodsy are trained professional fire fighters — do not attempt this manuver [sic] at home!”
I’m thinking the Gateway Fire may have been near the very small town of Gateway, Colorado (map).
Sometimes on a large multi-day or multi-week fire a firefighter with some drawing skills and a little time on their hands would deliver to the Planning Section, unexpectedly, a very nice candidate for an IAP cover. At times they lampooned or parodied the characteristics of that particular fire. But a good Planning Section Chief or Incident Commander would draw a line at submissions that were in poor taste or that were too unprofessional.
*Incident Action Plan, definition from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s glossary: “Contains objectives reflecting the overall incident strategy and specific tactical actions and supporting information for the next operational period. The plan may be oral or written. When written, the plan may have a number of attachments, including: incident objectives, organization assignment list, division assignment, incident radio communication plan, medical plan, traffic plan, safety plan, and incident map. Formerly called shift plan.”
The video features Thomas Swetnam, a tree ring expert, and fire historian Stephen Pyne talking about the history of fire in the Southwest, and how fire suppression has changed the forests.
A day to remember for firefighters across the country.
August 5, 2008 – Buckhorn Fire (Iron 44)
Today marks 4 years since one of the worst wildland firefighting tragedies in northern California — the “Iron 44” helicopter crash on the Buckhorn Fire. The crash on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest claimed the lives of 9 firefighters: Grayback crewmembers Shawn Blazer, Scott Charleson, Matthew Hammer, Edrik Gomez, Bryan Rich, Stephen Renno, and David Steele, along with pilot Roark Schwanenberg and USFS pilot inspector Jim Ramage. For more information, check out wlfalwaysremember.org
August 5, 1949 – Mann Gulch Fire
It was 63 years ago today that a wildfire in Mann Gulch on the Helena National Forest killed 12 Missoula smokejumpers and a Fire Guard. The tragedy led to the study of fire behavior and the creation of wildland fire research centers in Montana and California. For more information, check out wlfalwaysremember.org
The April 9 fires on New York’s Long Island were described by Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County executive, as being “The most serious fire incident we’ve had since the 1995 wildfire”. The fire weather station near Brookhaven on Long Island, New York is setting records for extreme fire danger. As you can see in the graph above, the Energy Release Component is running extremely high this Spring, even higher than in 1995. The ERC describes how hot a fire will burn, and is related to the available energy (BTU) per unit area (square foot) within the flaming front at the head of a fire. Daily variations in ERC are due to changes in moisture content of the fuels (vegetation) present, both live and dead. More graphs showing additional fire danger indices for Long Island can be found on the Eastern Area Coordination Center’s web site.
All of this data helps to explain the nearly unprecedented fire behavior being seen on fires in the area. When we posted the video interview with the local firefighter who became entrapped on April 9 and was seriously burned, Tom Plymale commented about the recent incident:
I was on the 1995 Sunrise fire and personally saw 5 of these burned up “stumpjumpers”. What I learned from talking to locals is they got quite a few wildland fires in the Pine Barrens but they are typically small and easily handled. The lack of fire behavior training and experience during extreme burning conditions is what they lacked. After 1995, there was a group put together to try and help these folks get better training but its been 17 years and they could have a whole new generation of people there. Just my opinion.
The 1995 fire and the “CNN Drop”
The Sunrise fire in late August of 1995 burned about 7,000 acres on Long Island, exhibiting fire behavior most firefighters had never seen in that area. The fire is infamous among wildland firefighters for the battle between a U.S. Senator from New York, Alfonse M. D’Amato, and the Type 1 Incident Management Team running the fire. D’Amato called President Bill Clinton, who was vacationing in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, and told him that he wanted military C-130 Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) air tankers to help put out the fire. (As a side note, that First Family vacation was in itself an Incident for the local parks and national forests, and the impacts of it were managed by a National Park Service Incident Management Team, with this author as Planning Section Chief).
After talking to the president, D’Amato held a news conference, telling reporters that the C-130s were on the way. But the IMTeam had not ordered any large air tankers, and the fires were nearing containment using only some smaller air tankers and 12 helicopters. D’Amato went to Long Island, and wearing a Fire Chief’s turnout coat, met with several high-ranking FEMA officials, Department of Agriculture executives, and the IMTeam. He was told the C-130s were not needed on the fire. The Senator vehemently insisted, and ultimately a request was placed for two C-130 air tankers from an Air National Guard base in North Carolina, along with a third plane carrying support personnel. When the aircraft arrived, the fire was contained, but an area was found that had a little grass still burning near a highway, with plenty of room for TV trucks. A C-130 was directed to drop there, but before it could release its load a warning light came on in the cockpit and it had to return to the airport. The second C-130 was ordered to make the drop on the still-smoldering grass, and it did, to the delight of the media and Senator D’Amato.
This incident may be one of the first times the term “CNN Drop” was used to describe an air tanker drop whose primary objective was to placate local residents, politicians, and the media.
This year, 2010, is shaping up to be the the quietest wildfire season in the United States since 1998, when measured by acres burned. If you separate Alaska from the rest of the country, through November 4, 2010 the lower 49 states have burned the fewest acres since 2004. Alaska can routinely have mega-fires, or a very quiet fire season, so adding their numbers in with the rest of the country can really skew the trend. For example, in 2004, four times as many acres were blackened in Alaska than in the other 49 states combined.
The following numbers were obtained from the http://www.nifc.gov/ site, which has had problems recently and is not always available. The 2010 stats here go through November 4, 2010.
(note: the number of acres burned in Alaska in 2008 was 32,648)
The stats for the number of acres burned in all 50 states from 1960 through 2010 are below.
