Tag: Idaho

Firefighter on Idaho fire survives pneumonia and septic shock

Having medical personnel on a fire with the ability to administer IVs may have prevented a death on the Halstead Fire near Stanley, Idaho in September.

The firefighters at the incident base were sleeping in cold, damp, conditions. At times the temperature was as low as 12 degrees at night and inversions caused the area to be smoked in.

The firefighter was diagnosed with septic shock which has a death rate of over 60 percent. The initial treatment by a medic may have saved his life. Congratulations to the medic for the treatment provided, and to the Incident Management Team for having a Medical Unit on scene with the ability to administer IVs.

Here are some excerpts from the Facilitated Learning Analysis:

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On September 13, 2012, “Jim”, a firefighter from the Halstead fire, near Stanley, Idaho, was transported via ambulance to a hospital in Ketchum, Idaho. The next morning he was transported by life flight to Twin Falls, Idaho. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and sepsis [blood poisoning], and was suffering from septic shock. He stayed in the ICU for two days and remained in the hospital for three additional days.

[…]

In the days leading up to the incident, the Medical Unit on the fire reported having 30 to 40 cough and cold symptom related cases a day; roughly 10 to 15 percent of the people in camp.

[…after being treated at the fire and while being transported to the hospital…]

The next morning the attending physician elected to transport Jim via life flight to a larger medical facility in Twin Falls. Jim had been diagnosed with pneumonia and sepsis, and was suffering from septic shock. In layman’s terms that means he had fluid in his lungs and was suffering from blood poisoning, and the blood poisoning sent his body into shock. The doctor’s assessment was that the blood poisoning was caused by the pneumonia.

The next morning CRWB(t) saw Jim just after he had a “central line” put in his neck. A centralline is used to administer medication or fluids, obtain blood tests (specifically the “mixed venous oxygen saturation”), and directly obtain cardiovascular measurements such as the central venous pressure. CRWB(t) saw quite a bit of blood on Jim and saw his demeanor and became very concerned. He asked one of the hospital staff how Jim was doing and the person replied by asking CRWB(t) how old he was. CRWB(t) said “27” and the person said, “If this had happened to you, you would be dead right now.” CRWB(t) did not leave Jim’s side from that moment until Jim’s mom came to look after him.

According to WebMD (www.webmd.com), permanent organ damage can occur in people who survive sepsis, the death rate for sepsis is 20%, and the death rate from septic shock is over 60%.

Idaho safety

Fire allegedly set by firefighter burns 430 acres in Idaho

The Karney fire that according to Boise County Sheriffs office officials was allegedly set by an 18-year old volunteer firefighter, has burned 430 acres 6 miles northeast of Boise, Idaho. The fire is about a mile west of the community of Robie Creek and is being managed by a Type 2 incident management team led by Incident Commander Mike Wilde.

More information about the Karney Fire.

Idaho

Strong winds hit Mustang Fire in Idaho

Mustang Fire, Old Alta Ranger Station. Photo by J. Hibbard/USFS — On the Mustang Fire, the old Alta Ranger Station is covered in fire shelter wrap. Photo by J. Hibbard/USFS

Red Flag warnings brought stronger winds and low humidities to one of the megafires in Idaho, but as of 4 p.m. on Monday, the winds have not been quite as powerful as predicted in the Red Flag Warning that covered Sunday and Monday.

Mustang Complex

On the Mustang Complex the winds did not hit until 6 p.m. on Sunday. At the Squaw Creek weather station on the east side of the fire they averaged 10 to 13 mph with gusts of 18 to 27 for about six hours, then slowed until they increased at 2 p.m. on Monday, blowing at 11 mph with gusts to 21 along with a RH of 13%. But at the Pinyon Peak weather station farther west the winds have been consistently strong, averaging around 20 mph with gusts in the 30s and 40s.

There were some areas of growth in the northwest corner of the fire in a wilderness area.Additional activity was near the Gattin Ranch, but with support from helicopter water drops firefighters were able to defend the community. The anticipated fire growth along the Highway 93 corridor only occurred in the southeastern corner of the fire near North Fork, where the fire progressed down Donnelly Gulch towards the Salmon River.

Firefighters on the fire are not using any air tankers, but say the helicopters are sufficient for thier needs. They recorded 38 hours of time on the ships Sunday.

Evacuation orders are still in effect for the Highway 93 corridor.

Trinity Ridge

Strong winds have not occurred on this fire. Over the last 24 hours they have been averaging from 1 to 5 mph with some gusts at 12 to 20. But the RH Monday afternoon has been in the single digits at a nearby weather station.

The fire is showing very little heat detected by satellites, however there are two areas on the east side with heat near the perimeter that could be problematic.

Halstead Fire

This fire has also been spared from the strong winds mentioned in the Red Flag Warning for Sunday and Monday. Fire managers were thinking that if the fire made it through the Red Flag Warning with no significant growth then it would be pretty much over. However on Sunday there was additional growth on the north side amounting to over 600 acres. The fire did not use any helicopter time on Sunday, in fact they loaned two Type 1 helicopters to other fires, the Mustang Complex and a new fire near Boise.

Idaho Mustang Fire

Kari Greer photos from the Trinity Ridge Fire

Trinity Ridge fire, cabin, August 24, 2012, photo by Kari Greer for USFS — Trinity Ridge fire, August 24, 2012, photo by Kari Greer for USFS

Kari Greer is at it again… taking great photos for the U.S. Forest Service at a wildfire. These were all shot in mid to late August at the Trinity Ridge Fire in Idaho. You can see the another 600 or so HERE. Excellent job, Kari. And again we congratulate the USFS for their wisdom to arrange to have a great photographer document some of the major fires we are experiencing.

Trinity Ridge fire, August 17, 2012, photo by Kari Greer for USFS

Trinity Ridge fire, August 18, 2012, photo by Kari Greer for USFS

Idaho Kari Greer

Idaho’s three megafires

There are currently three uncontained wildfires that are larger than 100,000 acres. For purposes of this discussion, we will call 100,000 the minimum size for a megafire.

All three of these fires are in Idaho, and two are on the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Those two are the Mustang Complex and the Halstead Fire and are under the direction of Jim Loach’s Area Command Team. The third fire is the Trinity Ridge Fire on the Boise National Forest.

map of Mustang, Halstead, Trinity fires — Map showing the location of the Halstead, Mustang, and Trinity fires, September 5, 2012. (click to enlarge)

Here are some stats we compiled from InciWeb and the National Situation Report about these three megafires:

The cost to date for these three fires totals over $73,000,000. They are tieing up 2,653 firefighting personnel. We don’t know what the weather and fuel conditions were when the fires were first reported, or what the commitment was to an aggressive initial attack strategy. Maybe there was no chance in hell of catching them early. But if initial attack had been successful on these three fires, over $71,000,000 could have been saved and 2,653 firefighting personnel could be doing something else. In some cases a significant investment in initial attack resources, both ground and air, can save large sums of taxpayer dollars later.

It is not likely that any of these fires are going to be contained or controlled anytime soon. Now that we are into the month of September, I imagine the Incident Management Teams are looking carefully at the fire and weather history of the area, hoping to have a weather related fire season ending event in the near future.

Predicted containment dates on large fires, especially megafires, are frequently picked out of the air (or some other more intimate location) and are relatively meaningless if they are farther out than a few days. In this case, the predicted containment dates for the three fires range from September 30 to October 16. In case you’re wondering which year, they all selected 2012. Whew!

The IMTeam on the Mustang Complex dashed hopes for a quick containment with this statement on their InciWeb page:

Containment [of 16%] will not change in the near term future due to current point protection strategies.

Abandoning containment for point protection may or may not be temporary, and is usually due to extreme weather and/or fire behavior, extreme topography, a shortage of firefighting resources, management direction to be less aggressive in suppressing the spread of the fire, or a combination of some of these.

area command Halstead Fire Idaho Mustang Fire Trinity Fire

Idaho fire invades western Montana

Fire managers have set up a new camp in the West Fork of the Bitterroot to engage the Montana portion of the enormous Mustang Fire that started in Idaho and burned across the state line.

A roll-over vehicle accident occurred in the Sage Creek area this afternoon; one person was transported and admitted to a local hospital.

The complex is just 16 percent contained tonight at well over 205,000 acres [map]. A couple hundred firefighters will be assigned to the new fire camp.

Mustang Fire along the Salmon River – USFS photo

Brian Harris, a fire information officer on the Mustang Complex, said the fire’s burned to within a couple of miles of the Hughes Creek area of the West Fork of the Bitterroot.

“This fire is so large and so massive and the weather has been so uncooperative that firefighters have only been able to put speed bumps in front of the fire in an attempt to slow it down,” Harris said.

He said crews are installing sprinklers and removing fuels in some areas. USFS Darby District Ranger Chuck Oliver said there’s some concern about the proximity of the fire to the Lost Trail Ski Area – not far from a contentious area of late with locals because of the ski cabin built and run by locals who have recently been unjustly stiffed by the USFS.

Late Thursday afternoon, the fire was about 12 air miles away from the ski area.

“We don’t want to give people any indication that the fire is imminent,” Oliver said. “We are just beginning to talk about the what-ifs so we can start preparing contingency plans should the fire move this way.”

The fire took off and made a 30,000-acre run on Tuesday. Air quality conditions in the Missoula and Bitterroot valleys had deteriorated by Thursday afternoon, according to the Billings Gazette, from smoke pouring in from Idaho.

Idaho Montana Mustang Fire

Idaho fire in bug-killed timber burns 7,200 acres in an afternoon

Road closures are still in effect for the Halstead Fire in Idaho. The fire started on July 27 about 3 miles north of Stanley, and is burning in a rugged area of the Salmon-Challis National Forest.

The fire was active yesterday, gaining more than 7,200 acres in the afternoon. Smoke columns were visible from Challis as the fire rapidly burned through bug-killed trees in Pinyon Creek and Bernard Creek on the north part of the fire.

A small spot fire discovered Monday night, according to Bob Houseman’s IMT, made a 2,000-acre run and went from a low surface-burning fire to an extreme canopy fire that raced across the treetops as wind and topography aligned in the bug-killed timber. The IMT has noted extreme growth potential on this fire.

Fire crews and managers have been warned about the dangers of bug-killed timber stands moving quickly to crown fire behavior in the Northern Rockies.

Heads-up out there, eh?

beetles Idaho

Idaho Governor changes his tune about wildland firefighters

Mustang Complex on the Challis NF in Idaho

In 2007 Idaho Governor Butch Otter blasted wildland firefighters for basically following safety procedures too closely, which he and Senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo said was the reason the 652,000-acre Murphy Complex fire was not suppressed sooner. Now according to an article in the Idaho Statesman, the Governor supports the current efforts of firefighters after he toured by helicopter some of the fires burning in his state. It is a very interesting article — here is an excerpt:

… [In 2007] Otter had been told by ranchers in the area that the [Murphy Compex] fire, which grew to 652,000 acres before it died out, could have been stopped. Ranchers had lost hundreds of cattle and access to grazing and they were convinced that had they been allowed to use their own bulldozers to cut line in the initial hours of the fire they could have stopped it.

Otter called the rules regulating firefighting “the don’t book,” during the press conference. He said relaxed rules could have allowed crews to stop the fire.

“I think we need to have more flexibility,” he said.

His and Craig’s remarks alienated the firefighting community who were facing fire behavior, they said, like they had never seen before. Conditions went beyond their ability to monitor and was dangerous.

Some recalled when a Salmon area rancher was burned over on his bulldozer when he tried cut a fire line in 2000.

Otter was expressing more than his opinion that day. He was influenced by a set of values that placed putting out fires as author Stephen Pyne described as “the moral equivalent of war.”

[…]

But some still cling to those beliefs as demonstrated in the safety report filed by a Montana Hotshot crew leader the day before Veseth died. He and his team saw numerous snags rolling down the steep hills and injuring inmate firefighters. People were fighting the fire without fireproof clothing just like the rancher bulldozer operator in 2000, desparately trying to put out the fire before it got out of control.

“We told him we had a list of safety concerns and mitigations if he would like to hear them,” the Hotshot wrote. “We read him our list and he said they have a different set of values and do things differently.”

Thanks go out to Dick

Idaho

Featherville waits on a fire

It’s a waiting game in Featherville. Residents of the rural Idaho town east of Boise were told a week ago that the Trinity Ridge Fire would burn into town; the fire’s just 5 percent contained at 95,000 acres, most residents have left, and firefighters are ready.

Crews began burning out around the edge of town last night. “Instead of waiting for the fire to come to them, we are going to attack it and get it out of the way,” firefighter Alan Roberts told the Northwest Cable News. Crews were burning fuels along the northwest ridge and to the west of town, according to the Idaho Statesman, with helicopter operations on the ridge above town and hand crews burning along the western perimeter of Featherville. Crews are in the Featherville/Pine corridor 24 hours a day, working on structure protection and managing the burnout operation.

Installing a PSD Machine (ping pong ball dropper) in a Helicopter Express Bell 407 — Installing a PSD machine (ping pong ball dropper) in a Helicopter Express Bell 407. Kari Greer photo.

The Mountain Home News reported that structure protection prep is complete, with over 9 miles of hose and more than 40 pumps in place. Crews have set up water holding tanks throughout the area.

The Trinity Ridge Fire has burned 105,210 acres since it was started on August 3 by a utility vehicle. It has burned four Forest Service cabins and four outbuildings, and suppression costs are now at $15.6 million.

Because of the size and complexity of the fire, a second Type 1 team has been added; Quisenberry’s Southern Area team has taken over the northern part of the fire. The southern portion of the fire that’s approaching Featherville will transition from Rich Harvey’s Type 1 team to Beth Lund’s Type 1 team on Saturday.

Idaho Kari Greer

Safety issues noted one day before Steep Corner Fire fatality

Anne Veseth, a 20-year-old firefighter from Moscow, Idaho, was killed August 12 while working on the Steep Corner Fire near Orofino, Idaho. The U.S. Forest Service firefighter was struck when one tree fell and crashed into another tree, causing it to fall in a domino effect.

On August 11, the day before Veseth was killed, the Flathead Hotshots arrived at the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protection Association (CPTPA) station to work on the Steep Corner Fire. They were briefed, received a radio clone, and showed up at the fire about 2 p.m., where they located the CPTPA incident commander. He briefed them on tactical duties, according to the SAFENET report filed three days later, but “had to be prompted for specifics on everything else.” The hotshot report said there was no direct link to Grangeville dispatch, no information on EMS or weather, and no medical plan besides “call the county.”

The report listed a slew of other heads-up flags on the incident, including no mention of hazards and no direction other than “jump in the middle and work south.” The IC was wearing jeans, and the hotshots immediately noticed several other CPTPA personnel without PPE or shelters.

The Flathead superintendent told the IC that they’d go scout the fire before committing the crew, and the IC told him to head down the burned line through the middle of the fire. The hotshot foreman then briefed the crew, and they established their own LCES and posted the first lookout of the day on the fire. The scouting superintendent radioed back that no one should be sent down the burned line — which was still hot — through the middle of the fire because of snag hazards and previously cut log decks.
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Anne Veseth fatality Flathead Hotshots hazardous tree Idaho lodd safety Steep Corner