Tag: Photo by Bill G

In an article we quoted earlier, a reporter wrote that forest fires burn at 4,000°F. We didn’t want you to be left with that impression, so here is more accurate information provided by Natural Resources Canada:

The flash point, or the temperature at which wood will burst into flame, is 572°F, according to HowStuffWorks.

And if you want to talk about high temperatures, the surface of the sun is 6,000°C (11,000°F). The cooler dark-colored sunspots are only 4,000°C (7,000°F). The core of the sun is a little warmer: 15,000,000°C (27,000,000°F).

It was 35 years ago today that a wildfire in southern California burned from Camp Pendleton into the city of San Clemente, burning 2,400 acres, destroying 16 homes and damaging 144 others. Ron Coleman, who began his fire career with the U. S. Forest Service, was the San Clemente Fire Chief at the time and later became California’s State Fire Marshall, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and well-known author and consultant. Soon after the fire, San Clemente passed the nation’s first ordinance requiring fire sprinklers in all new homes.

The Orange County Register has an interview with Chief Coleman on the anniversary of the January 21, 1976  fire. Here is an excerpt.

===========================

We asked Coleman to look back 35 years:

Q. Did the 1976 fire help change the fire service?

A. It helped to change the fire service throughout California. The day the fire occurred in San Clemente, we had a large number of wildfires burning throughout the state. The mobilization efforts were huge. As a result of fires in the ’70s, FIRESCOPE (Firefighting Resources of California Organized for Potential Emergencies) was created. FIRESCOPE has been directing policy and procedure on mutual aid ever since.

Q. Did code changes result?

A. There were no direct code changes as a result of that specific fire. However, beginning in 1973, up until the time I left San Clemente in ’84, there was a continued emphasis on fire-code development to build a safer community. San Clemente was on the leading edge of many fire-code developments that are now in international codes.

Q. What is San Clemente’s distinction in the fire service?

A. We created the first residential sprinkler ordinance. That concept has been embraced by the International Code Council and has resulted in a new paradigm for fire protection.

Q. Have others picked up on what San Clemente did?

A. At one point when I was state fire marshal, we identified in excess of 700 ordinances nationwide before the concept was introduced into the International Code Council. The Orange County Fire Authority is a leading contributor to that concept.

Q. If the fire happened today, what might be different?

A. The very area where we staged our initial lines of defense is covered with homes today, and the ridgeline where we had our backs to the wall is now in the middle of all that development. The outer fringes of San Clemente still face a threat. But more modern building and fire codes have altered the nature of that exposure. Another fire could occur. … Having said that, we have stronger codes and a highly developed mutual-aid system. The next fire is likely to have a different outcome.

Q. What did you do before you arrived in San Clemente?

A. I had served as the operations chief in the Costa Mesa Fire Department. Prior to that, I had been a wildland firefighter in the U.S. Forest Service. My introduction to California was San Clemente. I graduated from 2nd ITR at Camp Pendleton in October 1957. I took a bus into San Clemente and walked all the way down to the pier. From the end of the pier, I looked back into San Clemente and all I could see were palm trees, white houses and red roofs. I made a decision right then that I was never going back to Oklahoma.

Wind Cave National Park is conducting a 3,400-acre prescribed fire today and tomorrow. The name of it is “American Elk” and the project is east of Hwy. 385 and south of Hwy. 87, north of Hot Springs, South Dakota. There are approximately 130 firefighters assigned from Wind Cave, other National Park service units, the Black Hills National Forest, the State of South Dakota, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A press release about the prescribed fire can be found HERE (it is a large 616k file).

Here are some photos that I shot today. More photos are on our Facebook Page.

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Fire contractor volunteers to “detain troublemakers” on election day

 

Here is an excerpt from an article on Wired.com:

CIA-linked private military contractor Evergreen Defense & Security Services offered to post sentries at Oregon election offices on Tuesday, “detaining troublemakers” and making sure voters “do not get out of control.”

In an e-mail to local election supervisors, obtained by the McMinnville, Oregon News Register, Evergreen president Tom Wiggins said he “recognized the potential conflict” that could occur on November 4th. “Never has there been a more heated battle in the race for president.”

The company, he said, ‘proposes to post sentries at each voting center on November 4th to assure that disputes amongst citizens do not get out of control. All guards will be unarmed, but capable of stopping any violence that may occur and detaining troublemakers until law enforcement arrives.’

In an update to the article, the author says that this proposal seems odd, since the state of Oregon conducts their voting by mail.

Evergreen owns and leases a fleet of 54 light, medium, and heavy helicopters, 30 of which can be used to fight fires. They are also seeking a firefighting contract with CalFire for their 747 “Supertanker”, which can carry over 20,000 gallons of fire retardant.

 

Changes at DHS after the election?

Will either candidate for President make significant changes, including response to wildfires, at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after they are elected? Domestic homeland security, other than protection from terrorist attacks and perhaps hurricanes, has not been a major topic of discussion during the campaign. The candidates have little time left after extensively covering plumbers and arguing about whose (tax cut) is larger.

However, in the DHS, the transition to a new administration has been receiving a lot of attention. Rear Admiral John Acton of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve is leading the DHS transition team in the develpment of a massive briefing book as well as training exercises for the incoming administration.

Jacob Goodwin at the Daily Beast covered the proceedings at a roundtable discussion in Washington, DC on October 15 where the transition was the primary topic. Here is an excerpt from his report.

C. Stewart Verdery, Jr., who was an assistant secretary of DHS for policy and planning from 2003 to 2005 and is now a lobbyist, noted that he was not “formally” representing the McCain campaign at the roundtable discussion. But he went on to say, “I don’t expect you’d see wholesale changes to the DHS apparatus,” in a McCain administration.

On the campaign trail, McCain sometimes notes with pride that the U.S. has remained free from attack since 9/11, although in recent weeks issues of homeland security have largely been shouldered aside by more pressing economic concerns.

Verdery predicted that McCain would implement some measures, such as the Real ID drivers’ licenses—which have been resisted by local authorities because they were mandated without the funds to pay for them—and add an “exit” capability to the existing “entry” capability of the US-VISIT program at U.S. borders.

Verdery also implied that Joe Lieberman might be named the head of DHS in a McCain administration. The independent Senator from Connecticut, who currently chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, will “probably not be the most welcome guy” in the Democratic Party after this election, he said.

Senator Barack Obama also sits on that homeland security committee, and his legislative aide for DHS issues, Rachana “Ruchi” Bhowmik, presented his views at the Aspen event. She would not identify any individuals who might be appointed Secretary of DHS in an Obama administration, but she took her own swipe at the Republicans by saying that Obama “appreciates the need to restore professionalism and the need for management skills.”

Bhowmik agreed with Verdery that, given the huge financial problems confronting the U.S., neither candidate is likely to mount a wholesale reorganization of the five-year-old DHS.

Still, she said, Obama has some fundamental differences with the Bush adminstration about both the mission and the performance at DHS. Obama, she explained, favors an “all-hazards” approach that goes beyond counterterrorism to emphasize preparedness for natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes and wildfire. That stems, in part, from the fact that Obama’s home state of Illinois, has been hit with “everything but locusts this year,” she said.

In the past, Obama has floated the idea of moving FEMA out of DHS. But push-back from various quarters on Capitol Hill—including from Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee—makes it unlikely that Obama would propose anything like that in the first 100 days.

Nevertheless, Obama takes issue with the idea that state and local governments should respond to local disasters entirely on their own and turn to the federal government only as a last resort. On the contrary, Obama believes it is the proper role of the federal government to come into a dire situation, such as Hurricane Katrina, she explained.

But in the view of the Obama camp, the Bush administration politicized DHS and dictated homeland security policy unwisely to the state and local governments. “Unless we pull ideology out of the driver’s seat,” she said, “we’ll see first responders getting told what to do by the feds.”

But homeland security “has not been a very hot topic” on the campaign trail, Bhowmick admitted. “The American people have other things they’re thinking about.”

Until something terrible and unforeseen happens.

California: less prescribed burning?

According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune where a CalFire Chief, Thom Porter, was interviewed:

Porter, the CalFire chief, said the fire breaks and big backcountry burns went away when budget cuts coincided with environmental regulations protecting endangered species and limiting air pollution.

Burns to eliminate dry brush and other fuel for big fires are still done, but only after the effects on the environment are aired.

The article goes on to say:

Now, the kind of b
rush clearing that used to
be done by flame is mostly accomplished by hand and machine and is targeted, almost surgically, to protect individual homes and sites such as radio towers.

It’s more expensive, and fire officials say there isn’t enough money to deal with the huge expanses of tinder-dry backcountry.

“With the current resources we have, we will not ever catch up,” said Thom Porter, a Cal Fire staff chief who heads the Forest Area Safety Task Force in San Diego.

Porter said prescribed burns are still used but not very widely.

He estimates agencies in the county would have to clear about 27,000 acres every year simply to eliminate brush that hasn’t burned in more than 50 years.

“Our current capacity is about 7,000 acres,” Porter said.

Louisiana: smoke causes vehicle accidents

Firegeezer has a story about how smoke from a vegetation fire in a marsh degraded visibility on a Louisiana highway and caused at least a dozen wrecks.

This reminds me of the January 8 incident in Florida where smoke from an escaped prescribed fire smoked out a highway, causing over 70 accidents and 5 fatalities.