Illinois Archives - Wildfire Today

Burners light up Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois

Kelly AnderssonNovember 15, 2023November 16, 2023Prescribed FireIllinois, Nachusa, Nature Conservancy, rxfire, TNC2 Comments

A Nachusa fire crew hit a 24-acre project area of the grassland Tuesday, November 14, for a prescribed burn on the prairie habitat. Fire has historically been an important and natural part of the prairie; clearing the ground cover stimulates new growth, and many native plants rely on wildland fire to open seed pods and regenerate. Sauk Valley Media sent their ace photographer to track the 10-person crew at Nachusa Grasslands as they worked to put in firebreaks, put down a water line, and ignite the grasses so the fire will burn in their planned direction.

Nachusa Grasslands RxFire — Conditions were just right for a prescribed fire on November 14 at Nachusa Grasslands in northern Illinois. Fire managers hope to do another burn at the end of the week. Photo courtesy Alex T. Paschal.

The 4,100-acre Nachusa Grasslands preserve consists of large remnant prairie, woodlands, and wetlands reconnected through habitat restoration to create one of the largest and most biologically diverse grasslands in Illinois. Including 4,000 acres of restored and remnant prairie, Nachusa Grasslands is home to 180 species of birds, more than 700 native plant species, and a herd of bison.

The Nature Conservancy purchased the core of the preserve in 1986, recognizing that Nachusa offered a terrific opportunity to restore a diverse native grassland.

Working hand-in-hand with Nature Conservancy staff, volunteer stewards collect and plant seeds, manage invasive species, repair wetlands, and conduct prescribed burns to preserve this ecosystem.

RxFire Nachusa — Prescribed burning: A volunteer fire crew sets a prescribed burn at Nachusa Grasslands preserve in Illinois. ©Andrew Simpson / The Nature Conservancy

The Friends of Nachusa Grasslands has a calendar online for its volunteer workdays; hunting season is scheduled in early December and the spring RxFire season will start up in March 2024. If you’re interested in volunteer opportunities, most workdays are scheduled on Thursday and Saturdays.

The Nachusa Grasslands and its visitor center are south of Rockford, Illinois and about a 2-hour drive west of Chicago.

The Friends organization is established to fund endowments for long-term protection of the Grasslands, conducting and encouraging stewardship, supporting science and education, and protecting the land here. Nachusa Grasslands is open from dawn to dusk, and visitors are welcome to hike in the non-fenced areas. Wildlife inhabitants include a herd of bison, which range across 1,500 acres and are often not visible from the Visitor Center or the roadsides. Almost 10 years ago, 30 bison were introduced to Nachusa Grasslands from three preserves owned by The Nature Conservancy in South Dakota, Iowa, and the Dunn Ranch in Missouri. Wind Cave National Park bison and elk, photo ©2013 Bill Gabbert

Originally part of the herd from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, these bison have been tested and show no traces of cattle genes. No hiking is permitted inside the fenced North or South Bison Units.

The bison and the grassland vegetation species all benefit from prescribed fire and the Nature Conservancy’s fire research, and this fire — like others at the Grasslands — was timed for weather and fuels conditions that would be conducive to a controllable prescription burn.

“Wind and dry air is what determines whether we can have a burn,” Nachusa Director Bill Kleiman on Tuesday told photographer Alex Paschal.

A light south wind pushed the flames and smoke north, so crews planned for locations of the firebreaks and road warnings for motorists traveling the area. The burn was roughly an “L” shape on Carthage Road, and two separate crew units started the process on either side — so the fire could burn together in the middle.

“If the side upwind doesn’t have enough of a firebreak,” Kleiman said, “it can jump it and burn the other side.”

Alex Paschal has a photo gallery from the burn [HERE].

Vegetation fire spreads into Chicago paper recycling plant

Bill GabbertApril 1, 2021WildfireChicago, Illinois

Shuts down train tracks near Midway Airport

Fire on the southwest side of Chicago, March 30, 2021. Screenshot from Chicago Fox32 video

A grass fire that started Tuesday afternoon near the Chicago Transit Authority train tracks northeast of Midway Airport spread into a paper recycling plant on the southwest side of Chicago.

Pushed by strong winds, it spread into piles of pallets and paper, coming very close to propane tanks and vats of acid.

The fire started around 4 p.m. near Waste Management of Illinois, Inc.’s recycling facility near 48th Place and Christiana Avenue. As a precaution, the CTA shut down power to the Kedzie station nearby for over three hours Tuesday evening, suspending Orange Line service entirely between the Midway Airport and Western stops.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Bob.

USFS-NPS joint wildfire training in Indiana

Bill GabbertApril 5, 2013April 5, 2013UncategorizedIllinois, Indiana

Indiana Dunes and Midewin Hotshots — Midewin Interagency Hotshot Crew and Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Fire Management Staff

National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service fire crews recently got together in Indiana for annual wildfire refresher training. The following information is provided by Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore:

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Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Fire Management and Midewin Interagency Hotshot Crew recently conducted several joint training exercises in preparation for the 2013 Fire Season.

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, the home unit for Midewin IHC, and Indiana Dunes have a shared fire history going back over ten years. Being only about an hour’s drive apart has been a big benefit to both programs.

Both units have shared resources for prescribed fires in the spring and fall. The engines from Indiana Dunes often travel to Midewin for fire support and the IHC overhead have traveled to Indiana to fill key overhead positions on prescribed fires.

Since 2010, the two fire programs have been conducting joint Annual Fire Refreshers for their full-time fire staffs. Having firefighters from two agencies and two different resource types (hand crews and engine modules) has provided for good sharing of information, skills and experiences. These joint refreshers then provide an additional source of information as the two crews then provide annual refreshers to the rest of their home unit’s staff and at other outlying units.

This year that joint refresher training extended to the Hotshot crew’s required 2 week annual training. On March 15, the entire Midewin IHC traveled to Indiana Dunes for a day of training facilitated by the fire staff of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

The day started with a physical training session in the dunes along Lake Michigan. After PT, the IHC had a question and answer session with Indiana Dunes AFMO MaryEllen Whitenack. This classroom talk gave the newer IHC firefighters a different point of view on fire management, leadership and how to succeed in their career. The Hotshot crew tries to have someone in a leadership or program management role at each unit they go to speak to their crew as part of a season long professional development program.

After their talk on leadership, the Hotshots reviewed a Facilitated Learning Analysis of a tree falling incident that had recently occurred at Indiana Dunes. The crew was able to visit the area where a tree had fallen on a member of the Indiana Dunes fire staff while working on a resource management project in February. The Cowles Bog Tree Accident provided the Hotshots with a chance to introduce crewmembers from the west to the dangers of falling operations in the east. An open discussion about cutting and falling safety and emergency plans for fires and project work followed.

In the afternoon the IHC broke down into Squads to conduct break-out sessions with the Indiana Dunes staff. Sessions included a team-building exercise based around a mock airplane crash on a desert island and how to survive with limited items and a skill session on backboarding and carrying out an injured firefighter from the woods.

A third break-out station consisted of a crewmember using a handheld radio to communicate with other crew members on a UTV. The UTV driver and passenger were blindfolded and had to be guided thru a series of traffic cones over the radio.

Blindfolded ATV operator — A blindfolded ATV operator! What could possibly go wrong? (kidding)

The training day concluded with a session on Type 6 and Type 3 engine operations. Hotshots were introduced to the tools, techniques and procedures unique to engine operations in an urban national park.

This year’s pre-season training for the two unique yet distinctly mid-western fire crews has set the stage for many years of continued co-operation on the fireline and in the training room.

(end of news release)

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DunelandCommunity.com has an article and photos about a recent prescribed fire conducted in the National Lakeshore.

Thanks go out to Dan and Micah

Wildfire briefing, December 3, 2012

Bill GabbertDecember 3, 2012August 25, 2019UncategorizedCanada, fatality, Illinois, lodd, Tidwell, Virginia

Firefighter killed in Clinton County, Illinois

A firefighter was killed Sunday at the scene of a wildfire that spread to a structure. Here is an excerpt from an article at KSDK:

A 45-year-old fireman with the Santa Fe Fire Protection District in Clinton County, Illinois, has been killed at the scene of a fire.

Timothy P. Jansen died of injuries sustained when he was struck by a fire truck in the 9700 block of River Road in Bartelso. The accident happened about 7:45 p.m. Sunday.

Jansen was among the first firefighters to arrive at the scene, which began as a grass fire and spread to a building.

Santa Fe Fire Chief Adam Maue said Jansen was standing on the back of a truck, pulling hoses, when he slipped off. The driver of the truck told the chief he did not know Jansen fell, so he backed up, striking Jansen.

Jansen was married and had two daughters. He’d been with the fire district for 15 years and owned a restaurant directly across the street from the firehouse.

Fire engine overturns en route to wildfire, injuring 4

A fire engine that was participating in a Christmas parade in Bedford, Virginia was dispatched to a wildland fire duirng the parade but didn’t make it to the fire. It overturned while rounding a curve, landing in Phyllis Carimi’s front yard.

Here is an excerpt from The News & Advance:

Lt. Todd Foreman, of the Bedford City Police, said he believed there were only four men inside the truck, all of whom were hospitalized.

Foreman said two were airlifted from the wreck — one to Lynchburg General Hospital, the other to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. The other two were taken by ambulance to Lynchburg and Bedford hospitals.

Their conditions and identities have not yet been provided.

Chief of the Forest Service expects 12 million to 15 million acres to burn annually due to higher temperatures

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a group in Boise Friday that in the future even more acres are going to burn and the cost of fighting fires will continue to rise. One of his answers to the problem, of course, is to increase timber sales by 20 percent.

As we pointed out November 23, so far this year the number of acres burned, 9,093,431, was the third highest total since national wildfire statistics have been kept beginning in 1960. Remaining at the number one and two spots are 2006 with 9.9 million, and 2007 with 9.3 million.

Rocky Barker wrote in the Idaho Statesman on Saturday:

Tidwell told the City Club of Boise that as many as 12 million to 15 million acres will burn annually now because of warming temperatures and drier years.

[…]

More than 30,000 homes have burned in the past decade, Tidwell said, including 3,000 just this year — homes in a Pocatello subdivision among them. Experts expect fires to keep claiming houses, but fuel-reduction steps can make communities safer and easier to protect, Tidwell said.

Federal budget cuts will make money more scarce, but communities are increasingly taking responsibility, he said. Flagstaff, Ariz., passed a $10 million bond to do forest restoration on private and federal land there.

The comments people have left at the bottom of the Idaho Statesman article are interesting.

Canadian Commission rejects changes to codes to protect communities

From the Edmonton Journal:

EDMONTON – A federal commission has rejected proposals to change Canada’s national construction codes to better protect communities from destructive wildfires.

The changes would have required builders in areas prone to forest fires to use less flammable building materials, to space buildings farther apart and to keep them clear of trees and vegetation.

[…]

The proposal for changes came from the National Fire Protection Association and an Alberta-based non-profit group called Partners in Protection.

The proposals were submitted to the commission before wildfires in May 2011 destroyed hundreds of homes in Slave Lake, Alta., and forced thousands of people to flee. The disaster cost more than $1 billion in damage, firefighting and relief costs.

Air tankers still on active duty

Two large air tankers are still on active duty, long past their normal mandatory availability periods. More information at FireAviation.com

Thanks go out to Dick