Wildfire Today

News and opinion about wildland fire

Wildfire Today

Tag: pandemic

Many National Parks remain open during COVID-19 pandemic

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 2 Comments on Many National Parks remain open during COVID-19 pandemic

One NPS employee resigned when it became clear his park would not close

Grand Canyon Lodge North Rim
Guests at the Grand Canyon Lodge North Rim, May 16, 2017. Photo by Bill Gabbert

Decisions about which National Park Service sites close during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic are made on a case-by-case basis by officials in Washington.

The National Park Service is not maintaining a public list of which of the 419 sites, monuments, and parks are open or closed, but the non-profit website National Parks Traveler is attempting to keep track. As of March 26 the site had identified about three dozen that were closed or were about to close, including Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Pearl Harbor, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, and Yosemite. That list may only include about a third of those that are closed.

Most of the NPS visitor centers are closed, but parks that are still open while entrance fees are suspended can still attract visitors to trails and viewpoints. Unless a park is physically closed by gates, park law enforcement officers still have to patrol in order to avoid the mayhem that occurred when employees were prevented from working during the government shutdown last year.

The Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park sent a request up the chain of command that the park be closed. It was approved in the Regional Office, but so far not at the Washington office.

The Washington Post has an article by Darryl Fears about the issue. He tells the story of an employee who resigned when it became clear his park would not close. Here is an excerpt:

“Two days before he cursed a supervisor and quit the National Park Service job he loved, Dustin Stone arrived to work in a foul mood. A decision by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to keep national park sites open despite the coronavirus outbreak left him angry and in disbelief.

“The virus hasn’t reached Skagway, a tiny town on the Alaskan panhandle where Stone lives and worked at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park [map]. But if it does, he said, it could be a disaster. “I’ve lived here year-round through eight flu seasons, and I’ve seen how quickly an infection can spread,” he said. “When one of us gets sick, most of us get sick.” There’s no full-time doctor and no hospital in Skagway. A single community health clinic has a registered nurse and assistants.

“When it became clear that Klondike Gold Rush would not be among the few sites allowed to close, and would continue hiring seasonal workers from the Lower 48 to come to Skagway for the spring and summer rush of visitors, Stone snapped. He barked a few choice words and stormed out.

“As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepared to issue new guidance Thursday about how visitors should behave at more than 300 park sites that remain open, park employees expressed anger and fears about the spread of infection.”

Zion Visitors coronavirus park

Appropriations in coronavirus bill would affect firefighters

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , ,

The U.S. Forest Service will receive $70.8 million

U.S. Capitol building
The U.S. Capitol building. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

The coronavirus legislation, which passed late Wednesday night in the Senate 96 to zero, would send checks to more than 100 million Americans, establish loan programs for businesses, supplement unemployment insurance programs, and boost spending for hospitals. The House is expected to pass it either Friday or Saturday.

Of the $2.2 trillion allocated in the legislation, $70.8 in the four bullet points below is set aside for the U.S. Forest Service. The bill specifies that the funds shall be allocated at the discretion of the Chief of the Forest Service. The page numbers refer to a copy of the legislation at Politico.com that passed the Senate.

  • P. 715: $3.0 M, to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, including for the reestablishment of abandoned or failed experiments associated with employee restrictions due to the coronavirus outbreak.
  • P. 716: $34.0 M, for the U.S. Forest Service to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, including for cleaning and disinfecting of public recreation amenities and for personal protective equipment and baseline health testing for first responders.
  • P. 717: $26.8 M, for ‘‘Capital Improvement and Maintenance’’, to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, including for janitorial services.
  • P. 717: $7.0 M, for ‘‘Wildland Fire Management’’, to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, including for personal protective equipment and baseline health testing for first responders.

The four items above are very similar to the language in the version of the bill that failed to pass the Senate on Sunday and Monday.

There is no specific allocation of funds for wildland fire programs in the Department of the Interior, where four of the nine major agencies are land management agencies with fire programs. However, on page 711 you will see that $158.4 million is appropriated department-wide and the Secretary of the Interior is granted authority to use the funds anywhere in the Department to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally.

FEMA will receive $100 M (page 703) for Assistance to Firefighter Grants for the purchase of personal protective equipment and related supplies, including reimbursements.

Forest Service says none of their firefighters have confirmed cases of COVID-19

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 2 Comments on Forest Service says none of their firefighters have confirmed cases of COVID-19
Happy Camp Complex
A briefing at the Happy Camp Complex in northern California, August 24, 2014. USFS photo by Kari Greer.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service said the agency is not aware of any of their firefighters that have confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Kaari  Carpenter, a Lead Public Affairs Specialist, said crews are still responding to wildfires “within appropriate risk management strategies, current guidance of the Centers for Disease Control, and local health and safety guidelines.”

She said none of their fire crews have been quarantined due to the pandemic.

It remains to be seen how wildland fire management will modify their procedures on small and large fires, including operational period briefings for large numbers of firefighters — as seen in the photo above.

Federal agencies waive some training and testing requirements in response to COVID-19 pandemic

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 2 Comments on Federal agencies waive some training and testing requirements in response to COVID-19 pandemic

In some cases returning employees will not have to take the Work Capacity Test this year

pack test Arizona
Members of the Tribal Nations Response Team take the Work Capacity pack test in Sacaton, AZ January 22, 2016. Photo by Tom Story.

The Fire Management Board has provided guidance on how federal agencies with wildland fire responsibilities will make adjustments to annual wildland fire training and physical testing activities this year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Work Capacity Tests, including Pack Tests, are suspended in 2020 for some returning employees.

The annual refresher training, RT-130, is also not required this year. Instead, employees are encouraged to complete a self-study refresher utilizing the WFSTAR videos and support materials. The Board recommends that the study include topics that focus on entrapment avoidance, related case studies, current issues, and other hazards and safety issues.

To compensate for hands-on fire shelter training, employees should watch the “New Generation Fire Shelter” video, according to the new temporary guidelines.

These temporary procedures apply to all previously qualified Administratively Determined (AD) employees as well as applicable hand crews, engine crews, water tenders, equipment contracts, and agreements.

Different rules and procedures apply for new employees. Here is a link to more details and the official memo from the Fire Management Board.

NWCG issues guidance for infectious diseases on wildfire incidents

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

It primarily addresses how to handle an outbreak that occurs at an ongoing incident.

burning out Legion Lake Fire
Firefighters burning out from Highway 87 on the Legion Lake Fire in the Black Hills, December 12, 2017. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group has updated their guidance on infectious diseases that may occur on a wildland fire incident. The lengthy document, “Infectious Disease Guidance for Wildland Fire Incidents“, primarily covers the actions that should be taken after someone presents with symptoms at an ongoing incident. It does not address how to generally manage a workforce of firefighters during a pandemic before they are dispatched to a wildfire, such as requiring testing or addressing the issue of personnel working in groups. Nor does it suggest, other than hygiene, any different strategies to implement while suppressing a wildfire during a pandemic.

NWCGHowever it does recommend that all personnel get a seasonal influenza vaccine every year, and to keep other vaccinations up to date including whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria. We are unlikely to have a vaccine for COVID-19 until well into 2021.

The last time the NWCG addressed this topic in a substantial way was the document, “Infectious Diseases Guidelines For Wildland Fire Incident Management Teams“, last revised 11 years ago.

The new guidance goes into quite a bit of detail on how to manage an infectious disease outbreak at an incident.

The Special Considerations section is interesting:

“Planning a medical incident within an incident (IWI) may be challenging for the IMT. Additional planning and assistance from local resources and public health agencies may be needed to overcome some of the challenges listed below:

  • “The local health system may not be able to handle the influx of symptomatic fire personnel from the incident,
  • Transporting symptomatic fire personnel back to their home or other off-site facilities may be restricted due to isolation or quarantine recommendations,
  • Symptomatic fire personnel may not be allowed to use public transportation and may not be well enough to drive long distances until they recover, and
  • Other factors may complicate the situation including:
    • EMTs, paramedics, and other Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel charged with the support of the fire personnel may be exposed,
    • Incident facilities may be quarantined and/or require special disinfection,
    • The incident continues to require staffing, or
    • The event may require creating other clean facilities with non-affected staff personnel.”

Congress considers additional Forest Service funding for COVID-19 pandemic

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , ,

Funds are likely to be eventually appropriated to help at least one firefighting agency address some of the issues created by the virus

Smokejumpers attack wildfire
Smokejumpers prepare to attack a wildfire. NIFC.

A bill introduced in the Senate to help Americans and businesses deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic contained language to beef up the budget of the U.S. Forest Service (FS), but it failed to pass Sunday [UPDATE: and during a second attempt on Monday]. The $1.8 trillion bill included $71 million, or 0.004 percent of the total, for the FS to address the crisis. The funds were intended for personal protective equipment, health testing for first responders, cleaning, maintenance, and disinfecting but were to be “allocated at the discretion of the Chief of the Forest Service”, to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”

The legislation appears to have been hurriedly drafted, probably within the last few days. I was not able to find any specific funding in the bill for the four agencies in the Department of the Interior that have wildfire responsibilities. If it had been written in January, a month after the outbreak began, there would have been more time to put together a comprehensive budget for all five firefighting agencies that would appropriate a substantial amount for directly increasing the ability to fight fires.

It is likely that the number of firefighters available to respond to wildfires through next year will be decreased as 20-person crews or 5-person engines have to be quarantined when one crew member tests positive for the virus or if they are exposed while fighting a fire.

Under these conditions, it will be difficult to use 100 percent of the usual capacity of the firefighting agencies. If more firefighters were hired it could make it possible to have healthy forces in reserve. It could also enhance the ability to attack new fires with overwhelming force.

Since firefighters assembling in groups to suppress a fire can put them at risk of spreading COVID-19, we need to rethink our tactics. This could include making far greater use of aerial firefighting. It should become standard operating procedure to have multiple large air tankers and helicopters safely and quickly attacking a new fire from the air, far from anyone on the ground infected with the virus.

The fewer large fires we have that require hundreds or thousands of firefighters to work together, the safer firefighters will be from additional virus exposure. Attacking new fires with overwhelming force would also reduce evacuations that can result in refugees assembling in large numbers. An infected person forced to leave their self-quarantine to fend around for housing during an emergency is a danger to society.

In order to better protect our homeland from wildfires during the pandemic the amount of additional funds appropriated for the five firefighting agencies in this bill needs to be increased by a factor of 10 or 20. Instead of 13 or 18 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts there should be 40, and the Type 1 helicopter numbers should increase from 28 to 50. The fleets of smaller air tankers and helicopters also need to be beefed up.

Having said that, air tankers don’t put out fires, but under ideal conditions they can slow the spread which allows firefighters on the ground the opportunity to move in and suppress the fire in that area.

If we expect to maintain the ability to fight wildfires, every firefighter must be tested on a regular basis. This can greatly reduce the risk when they gather in large numbers to suppress a fire.

Other key members of the wildland firefighting community must also be tested in order to maintain the viability of the system. This would include pilots, aircraft mechanics, air tanker base crews, helitack crews, dispatchers, members of Incident Management Teams, and contractors that supply firefighting equipment and services, especially caterers.

Safely fighting a wildfire during a pandemic this year and possibly next, is going to incredibly difficult. I am not sure if it can be done safely even if everyone involved has been tested for the virus and squadrons of air tankers and helicopters are used to the max in numbers not previously seen.