A DC-10 working the Canyon Creek Fire in Oregon drops in Pine Creek Drainage, August 26, 2015. Photo by Tracy Weaver, NPS.
The fire insurance policy that the state of Oregon purchased from Lloyd’s of London did not kick in this year since the net expenses of suppressing state-responsibility wildfires did not exceed the $50 million policy deductible. If it had, their additional costs could have been covered up to $25 million. Premiums for this coverage were split between state and private timberland owners, who agreed to pay $3.75 million into the policy.
Below is an excerpt from an article in the La Grande Observer:
…As of Oct. 19, the ODF had recorded 1,001 fires, 73 more than their 10-year average, according to a letter from [Oregon Department of Forestry State Forester Doug] Decker sent to the co-chairs of the Oregon Joint Committee on Ways and Means last month. Those fires burned 91,487 acres of ODF-protected land, 63,948 acres more than the 10-year average.
The Forestry Department estimates that its large-fire costs for this season sit at $76.7 million, compared to the 10-year average of $22.3 million, Decker wrote in the letter.
Decker said about $19.5 million will be reimbursed by FEMA’s grant program. Another $25.5 million is expected to be recovered from other partners. Still, the ODF is requesting more than $19.5 million of general fund dollars to cover the state’s portion of large-fire costs, according to the letter.
A fire in the Bald Butte area started near Springfield, Oregon October 10 when a burning car ignited vegetation above Forest Service Road 23. Dry fuels and gusty winds left 24 acres of burnt timber and brush on national forest lands. Oregon Department of Forestry photo by Greg Wagenblast.
The Oregon Department of Forestry has declared the 2015 wildfire season to be over. Rain and the arrival of cool, moist weather patterns prompted the declaration as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Oregon experienced a third consecutive difficult wildfire season this year. As of Sept. 11, total wildfire costs totaled more than $211 million in Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. (That figure may include costs incurred by all agencies in the state, including federal, not just the ODF.)
The Oregon state government has an insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London which provides up to $25 million of state government fire suppression costs that exceed $50 million. The $3.5 million cost of the policy is split between the state and private timberland owners.
Board approves design for Yarnell Hill Fire memorial
The Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board has approved a conceptual design for a memorial to commemorate the site where 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were entrapped by fire and killed June 30, 2013. According to the Daily Courier, the design by architect Bill Gauslow “consists of 19 white marble crosses, each placed where a man fell, surrounded by 19 low walls, spaced a short distance apart, and built of rip-rap rock.” The memorial would be placed at the fatality site which will be purchased by the Arizona State Parks department. Interpretive signs, one for each of the 19 firefighters, would also be placed every 1/10 mile along the 1.9 mile trail from the parking lot to the memorial site.
Researchers think fires were more common 300 million years ago
Scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London together with colleagues from the USA, Russia and China, have discovered that forest fires across the globe were more common between 300 and 250 million years ago than they are today. This is thought to be due to a higher level of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time.
Beneath the surface of a St. Louis-area landfill lurk two things that should never meet: a slow-burning fire and a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste, separated by no more than 1,200 feet.
Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially “catastrophic event” that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city’s main airport.
Although the fire at Bridgeton Landfill has been burning since at least 2010, the plan for a worst-case scenario was developed only a year ago and never publicized until this week, when St. Louis radio station KMOX first obtained a copy…
This video, an introduction to the Logistics Section on the Canyon Creek Fire, was uploaded to YouTube by Karen Roganov September 5, 2015. This complex of fires burned over 110,000 acres in eastern Oregon this summer.
In this video Thomas Martin, a reporter from VICE, gets a close-up look at what it’s like to thin trees and construct fireline as he embeds with a crew from Grayback Forestry for a day, and gets outfitted with gear and swings a Pulaski for a few minutes.
At then end he sums up his impression of the work wildland firefighters do. And keep in mind during his time with the crew, it appears they were nowhere near a fire.
Firefighters around the world are universally acclaimed, and considered heroes. Forest firefighters, though, are in a league to themselves. They basically go into one of the deadliest situations in nature, something that we have all been instinctively hard wired to avoid on site or smell, no matter what. And get right up against the flames, and then do one of the hardest jobs imaginable, which is digging a ditch. It’s some of the hardest work I think that exists.
Observed precipitation last 7 days. September 5, 2015. NOAA.
The above map shows precipitation during the seven days preceding September 5, 2015. Some areas in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon received over an inch.
The map below is the observed precipitation today, September 5, 2015. This rainfall over the last week, and in some cases snow, probably will not put out the large fires, but will certainly slow them down.
Observed precipitation on September 5, 2015. NOAA.
Crescent Fire, Aug 13. Photo by Lucinda Nolan, PIO.
Firefighters have closed the north entrance road to Crater Lake National Park in southwest Oregon due to activity on the Crescent Fire. The blaze is part of the National Creek Complex that also includes the National Fire on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
Both fires started during a series of lightning strikes on August 1, 2015. They are being managed under a full suppression strategy although the tactics may differ between the Park and Forest.
The red dots represent heat detected on the Crescent Fire at 1:10 p.m. PT, August 24, 2015. The yellow dots are from the previous six days. We are looking south. Crater Lake can be seen beyond the fire. (click to enlarge)
