News and opinion about wildland fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Wildfire3 Comments on Three large fires are very active in Mexico The fires are south and southeast of San Diego, California
One of the fires is west of Tijuana, another is northwest of Ensenada, and the third is south of Tecate.
Smoke from the Tick Fire at Santa Clarita is expected to affect Oxnard and western Los Angeles.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on California sends firefighters into Mexico to battle wildfire near border 
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) has mobilized a strike team of fire engines to cross the international border in order to help firefighters in Mexico. They will be assisting in the suppression of the Border 8 Fire that has burned 1,500 acres very close to the border just west of Tecate, Mexico 23 miles southeast of San Diego.
The fire is a threat to cross the border in an area of the United States with steep topography and limited access. Keeping it from crossing the border would be the preferred option, rather than having to suppress a much larger fire in difficult terrain on the U.S. side.
The fire has been spreading to the east, generally toward the city of Tecate which has a population of 102,000 in its metropolitan area.
Air tankers have been dropping retardant in a few selected locations north of the border off and on since the fire started August 14, including S2T and C-130 aircraft from bases at Ramona and Hemet, California.
CAL FIRE may decide to activate the unstaffed air tanker base at Brown Field Municipal Airport which is 1.6 miles north of the border and about 16 miles west of this fire. It is 31 miles south of the Ramona air tanker base and has a 7,972-foot runway which according to information from the USFS “provides ample length to meet safe takeoff requirements for the size and weight of a Next Generation Air Tanker with a full payload”. The runway at Ramona is too short to handle many of the large air tankers. The tanker base at Hemet, which also has a relatively short runway, is 80 miles north of the fire.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Firefighter from Mexico trains with hotshot crew 
This video features a firefighter with the National Forestry Commission of Mexico (CONAFOR), Fernando Navarro Jiménez, who for several months joined the U.S. Forest Service’s Fulton Hotshots on the Sequoia National Forest in California. It shows the impact of the experience on him and CONAFOR as well as the cooperation between the U.S. Agency for International Development, the USFS, and Mexico.
A fire that straddles the Mexican border in the boot heel of New Mexico has burned thousands of acres. During a satellite overflight at 2:23 a.m. MDT Friday most of the fire was in Mexico but it was well established in the United States.
Our very unofficial estimate based on satellite data put it at approximately 5,000 acres early Friday morning. It was still very active at 2:23 a.m. local time.
The San Luis Fire is 41 miles south of Animas, NM and about 2 miles south of the OK Bar Fire that burned a couple of weeks ago. It is possible that this new fire could burn into the southern edge of the OK Bar Fire.
There is a Red Flag Warning in effect east of the fire.
You can’t make this stuff up.
While performing a stunt on top of a ladder truck during a parade in Tijuana, Mexico, 19 firefighters fell and were injured November 20.
The truck was moving very slowly while firefighters were doing handstands on top of other firefighters. When the truck suddenly stopped, they all fell, with most of them going all the way to the ground. There is one report that first, a firefighter lost his balance at the front of the truck, and the driver hit the brakes so as not to run him over. But very rough Google automatic translations leave some of the details in question.
Below is an excerpt from LaJornada, translated by Google:
Tijuana, 20 November.- The Sunday morning accident was recorded during the parade on November 20 in Tijuana, in which 19 members of the Fire Department were injured.
Firefighters were performing stunts aboard one of its units-above boulevard Paseo de los Heroes, at the height of the Glorieta Independence- when the truck stopped making them off balance.
According to the office manager of the Ministry of Public Security official Jose Luis Lopez, the injured are being treated, none seriously injured, however, two of them have possible fractures collarbone and leg, while others already they were discharged.
When I worked for the U.S. Forest Service, forms that had to be completed after every accident had one section that asked: “How could this accident have been prevented?” Well, I have some ideas about this one.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Mexican citizens fighting America’s fires Above: a screen grab from The Atlantic’s documentary about a fire crew from Mexico that assists a U.S. National Park.
The Atlantic produced this seven-minute documentary about Mexican citizens, Los Diablos, that help Big Bend National Park in southern Texas conduct prescribed fires and suppress wildfires. The crew assisted with the Powerline Fire that burned about 1,800 acres in Big Bend in February.
Here is how The Atlantic describes the video:
In Texas, Mexican firefighters are saving the Rio Grande. Known as Los Diablos, or “the devils,” the elite firefighting crew is hired by the National Park Service to fight wildfires and conduct controlled burns along the border. The river provides water to more than 5 million people in the U.S. and Mexico, and sustaining its flow is vital. The water in the Rio Grande is already 150% over-allocated. In this short documentary, The Atlantic follows the group’s conservation efforts to rid the river of giant cane, an invasive plant that narrows the river and threatens native plants and fish.
Below are more screen grabs from the video.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Bill.
