Virtually the entire 274-acre project area burned
Continue readingLive reporting from a prescribed fire
Periscope and a few other apps have been doing this for a year or more, but Facebook having this ability to send live video to hundreds of millions of users is a game-changer. I expect we will see more live reports from wildfires and prescribed fires around the world this summer.
Prescribed fire cancelled in Indiana due to wildfires
The staff at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in northwest Indiana had to cancel their plans on March 22 to conduct a prescribed fire. Instead, they spent their time suppressing two wildfires.
Photos are from the National Park Service.
Indiana Dunes ignites prescribed fires at West Beach
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore applied prescribed fire to about half a dozen units yesterday live-streaming from the scene two or three times on Facebook. The recordings are preserved and we posted a couple of them here.
The units the park worked on were in the West Beach area, a portion of the 600 acres they expect to burn this spring. The park is on the south shore of Lake Michigan in northwest Indiana.
Photos and videos by Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Fire engine burns in Indiana wildfire
From Pal-Item:
A brush rig belonging to the Liberty Volunteer Fire Department in central Indiana burnd while fighting a vegetation fire near Indiana 101 South.
Firefighter Matt Reuss, who was driving the small truck said firefighters already had applied two tanks of water to the fire and were on their way for a third load when the wind shifted.
“The truck died in the bottom of the field,” Reuss said. “I got it started and was driving uphill when (farmer) Kevin Pinkerton yelled, ‘Your truck is on fire.’”
Firefighter Jeff Moles, who was a passenger in the truck, said fire and smoke quickly surrounded the truck.
“I couldn’t even see Matt,” Moles said.
Moles and Reuss escaped the vehicle without injury, but the truck is a total loss, Chief Jim Barnhizer said.
“It’s about as totaled as it can get,” Reuss said.
The fire likely was sucked into the engine compartment through the engine’s air breather, Barnhizer said
Federal government files suit against railroad for starting fire in Indiana
For decades the railroads in northwest Indiana south of Lake Michigan have been starting fires on private and public land, including Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Caused mostly by poor maintenance of their spark arrestors, the railroad companies were rarely if ever held accountable for the damage they caused.
In one case that may be changing. According to the Chicago Tribune, the federal government has filed suit against the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad which goes through Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The railroad allegedly started what became a 391-acre fire on March 10, 2012 that spread seven miles across the park, forcing residents of the community of Ogden Dunes to evacuate.
Below is an excerpt from the article in the Chicago Tribune:
…The fire burned through 391 acres of the national lakeshore, including the lakeshore’s Karner blue butterfly habitat, where the park had been trying to reintroduce the endangered species and to study the best landscape variations to do so.
The fire destroyed the data from the research, according to the lawsuit, along with other park property.
The government says that evidence, including a video, shows that hot cinders from a passing Indiana Harbor train were ejected from the train, which the lawsuit claims started the brush fire.
It adds that two of the train’s spark arrestor carbon traps were plugged and that front exhaust stack opening showed moderate to heavy carbon accumulation.
The government is asking that Indiana Harbor pay for all the damages and forfeit two of its locomotives toward that cost.
The video below shows a portion of the fire that day in 2012.
We wrote about the 2012 fire HERE and HERE.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Joe.
Prescribed fire photos
Semi truck goes airborne before crash
There are a couple of four-letter words in the audio of this video. The driver of the airborne semi truck in this video (which was captured by the driver in the other truck, from whose perspective you’re watching the video) told police he swerved to avoid another vehicle that had drifted into his lane. His truck then left the interstate, went up an embankment at an overpass, then struck the guardrail on the cross street, ripping off the saddle fuel tanks, spilling fuel that caught fire. The driver suffered some minor facial and head injuries and his seven-year-old son, a passenger in his semi, suffered only a few scratches.
The accident occurred in Indiana near Interstate 74 and U.S. 421.
Red Flag Warnings, April 6, 2013
Red Flag Warnings for enhanced wildfire danger have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas in New Mexico, Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
The NWS predicts there will be a Critical Risk for wildfire danger in New Mexico and western Texas for the next few days.
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The Red Flag Warning map above was current as of 9 a.m. MT on Saturday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts. For the most current data, visit this NWS site.
USFS-NPS joint wildfire training in Indiana
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.
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