El Capitan Fire, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, NPS photo by Christie La Paz
A 30-person hand crew of Mexican nationals assisted with the suppression of a wildfire in Guadalupe Mountains National Park in western Texas on the New Mexico border (map). The fire started from lightning on May 26 and burned 171 acres before it was contained. Here is an excerpt from an update from New Mexico Fire Information (are you totally confused by all the geographical references so far?):
The Pecos Zone Type III Incident Management Team will transfer management of the El Capitan Fire back to Guadalupe Mountains National Park at Noon today (LaPaz IC). The Pecos Zone Type III Incident Management Team (Northcott IC) took over management of the El Capitan Fire as of 6:00 AM on 5/28/2012.
Summary: The Park remains under Red Flag conditions, with hot, dry weather and high winds. Los Diablos Type 2 Initial Attack Crew, the Truman Engine (Mescalero, NM) and Chihuahua Engine (Ruidoso, NM) will remain at the park, along with the fire crews from Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and will continue to monitor the fire for any hot spots and will also be available for initial attack should there be any new fires. They will also continue trimming and removing vegetation to create defensible space around structures to help protect them from any future fires. The fire burned in steep rugged, terrain and crews hiked to the fire. The fire was on the west side of El Capitan Peak, approximately 1 mile east of historic Williams Ranch. The fire is 100% contained with only a few hot spots remaining.
Los Diablos is a crew of more than 30 Mexican national firefighters, from Boquillas and other villages across the Rio Grande from Big Bend National Park, along with National Park Service firefighting personnel. A cooperative effort between the National Park Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol and Mexico, Los Diablos has provide emergency fire services at Big Bend National Park and throughout the United States since 1990. Their name, Los Diablos, which is Spanish for “the Devils,” comes from their promise to work like devils when they are called upon.
The above photo of the El Capitan fire reminded me of some photos I took at the Scotts Spring prescribed fire in 2002 in Scotts Bluff National Monument.
Scotts Spring prescribed fire at Scotts Bluff National Monument, April, 2002. NPS photo by Bill GabbertScotts Spring prescribed fire. NPS photo by Bill Gabbert
On August 21, 1937 in Wyoming, a cold front caused a 90-degree wind shift that changed the direction of spread of the Blackwater fire, which surprised and trapped a large number of firefighters, killing 15 of them.
USFS map
The Billings Gazette has an interesting article about the fire, featuring an interview with Dave Sisk, a former smokejumper and incident commander of one of the Rocky Mountain Region’s Type 2 Incident Management Teams. Dave elaborates on some of the issues faced by the firefighters in 1937, contrasting them with the capabilities of today’s firefighters. For example, communication on the fire consisted of handwritten notes carried by runners. In the article, Dave is quoted as saying:
These guys in 1937 knew how to fight fire. What they didn’t know was that a cold front was off to the west heading in this direction.
There is a memorial honoring the firefighters along Highway 14/16/20 east of Yellowstone National Park. The photo below was taken during the ceremony dedicating the new memorial.
Blackwater Fire memorial ceremony. USFS photo
In July of 2005 I stopped at the memorial and there happened to be a small fire burning nearby at the time.
Blackwater Fire Memorial. July 25, 2005. Photo by Bill Gabbert
Example of a Satellite Emergency Notification Device. Photo by Bill Gabbert
The U.S. Forest Service has issued a solicitation indicating that they intend to purchase thousands of Satellite Emergency Notification Devices (SEND). The specifications listed by the USFS require that the device be able to:
Determine location using GPS.
Send via satellite an emergency message containing the device’s location after pressing an “SOS” button. A monitoring facility would then notify a nearby emergency services agency.
Track location by sending the device’s location via satellite every 10 minutes, minimum, if activated by pressing the TRACK button.
Display the tracked locations on a map on the internet.
Send a pre-programmed HELP message including the device’s location.
Send a “check-in” message, including the location, after pressing a “check-in” button.
I have used one of these for years. In fact, the photo is my “SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger“, which is a second generation SPOT device. I always carry mine when I am on an extended motorcycle trip, or sometimes on a 4-wheeled vehicle trip. The two features that I like best about it are the SOS which works via satellite even when there is no cell phone service, and the tracking feature so that my family or friends can know where I am. If I’m running late, they can check the map on the web site and know that I’m still on the road and moving… or not.
On the solicitation the USFS says they want the devices because:
Forest Service employees routinely work in the wilderness. Their main mean of communication while in the wilderness is 2 way radios. Normally the employees use mobile and handheld radios to communicate their locations and status to the dispatch center. Approximately 20% of the forest is outside of the area of coverage of radios because of terrains.
It will be interesting to find out if they can use this device to track multiple wildfire suppression resources on one map. Will a dispatcher be able to see where all of their engines and crews are? Could it even be displayed on a smart phone? Will an Incident Commander or Branch Director have access to a map that shows where their firefighting resources are? This could add an element of safety. At times like this I think of the Esperanza fire, and wonder if it would have made a difference if the Operations Section Chief or Division Supervisor had had maps in front of them that displayed the location of Engine 57 at the top of that drainage before the fire overran their location. Could five lives have been saved?
Actually, using this little portable device for mass resource tracking is a half-assed approach, rather than putting professional-quality location-tracking devices in all wildfire suppression rolling stock and radios…like many professional-quality fire departments, police departments, and ambulance services have been doing for years.
I am not entirely fluent in translating contracting-speak into English, but it appears that the USFS has $1.2 million burning a hole in their pocket and they want to use all of it over the course of one year to buy as many devices as they can, to include a year of service — monitoring, mapping, and satellite messaging. A SPOT Personal Tracker is listed for $60 to $170 on Google, and a year of service costs $99. There are other brands out there with different pricing. The government would no doubt get a deal if they buy a few thousand, so picking some numbers out of the air, if they pay a total of $120 per device for a year, that would be 10,000 units. WOW. Even if they pay retail at Best Buy for a SPOT device, on sale now for $60, then pay retail for service, $99, that’s 7,500 of the little things.
Here is another excerpt from the USFS solicitation:
4.3 Minimum delivery requirements shall be 1,000 units 30 days ARO; 3,000 units (or the balance of the total) 60 days ARO; 5,000 units (or the balance of the total) 90 days ARO; and the balance 120 days ARO.
This technology is evolving rapidly, and since the SPOT is on sale at Best Buy, maybe the company is about to introduce a third generation device. DeLorme has an inReach device that can apparently do most if not all that a SPOT can do, but can also send AND receive text messages… anywhere. It’s a little pricey, costing several times more than a SPOT.
UPDATE, January 14, 2014: The U.S. Forest Service bought 6,000 of the devices. There is a discussion of them in the report of an ATV accident that occurred on the Schoolhouse Fire in New Mexico in 2013.
A firefighter on the Apple fire improves the fireline on March 28, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert
Firefighters on the Apple fire 8 miles southeast of Custer, South Dakota have completely lined the fire and burned out the indirect line we reported yesterday. The fire was first detected at about noon on Wednesday and started from a lighting strike on Monday.
Today the 132 firefighters will be mopping up, strengthening firelines, and mitigating the hazards from possible falling trees along Flynn Creek Road. The weather today and tomorrow will be challenging, with the relative humidity in the teens and 15 mph winds gusting up to 22 mph.
The two National Guard blackhawk helicopters have been released.
While the completed and burned-out fireline meets the definition of 100% containment, the Incident Commander is calling it only 15% contained. This has been a trend in recent years, with ICs confusing the terms control and contain.
The dispatch system has had to reach out far and wide to find resources for this 546-acre fire. We know of one engine crew in the Greater Yellowstone area that was dispatched Thursday night to the fire. Hand crews came from Montana and other states. Soon after it started on Wednesday, the IC requested two large Type 1 helicopters. One of the orders has been filled, and that was with a Kmax helicopter which barely (if that) qualifies as a Type 1. The other order was still unfilled as of Thursday night. The two large air tankers that arrived empty at Rapid City more than 6 hours after the first initial attack resources were dispatched had to be stolen from the Lower North Fork fire in Colorado. At the time that fire was reportedly “15% contained”, but as discussed above, containment percentages have become meaningless. The statistic can no longer be used for prioritizing fires.
P2V air tanker flying off into the sunset. Photo by Bill Gabbert
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
The U.S. Forest Service is going to pay for still another air tanker study. The agency has issued a solicitation (AG-024B-S-12-0003) for private contractors to produce a report that:
…proposes at least three (3) alternatives that demonstrates the effectiveness of airtankers, heavy helicopters and water scoopers (defined in terms of aircraft use, aircraft characteristics, bases, contracts, costs, dispatching, mission objectives, tactics, strategy and communications).
This will be the sixth air tanker study in the last 17 years. Here is the list:
1995-1996: National Air Tanker Study (NATS)
2002: Blue Ribbon Panel report
2005: Wildland Fire Management Aerial Application Study
2007-2009: National Interagency Aviation Council, Interagency Aviation Strategy
2010: “An Examination of the United States Forest Service’s Need for Large Aviation”, by the Rand Corporation
2012: (this new study: “Aerial Firefighting Effective Use and Efficiency”)
In 2010 the USFS hired the Rand Corporation for an air tanker study that is being kept secret. The agency would not provide a copy of it even after we requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. They replied, saying “…the report is proprietary and confidential Rand business information and must be withheld in entirety under FOIA Exemption 4”. Their refusal letter went on to say: “The data, analysis, and conclusion in this report are not accurate or complete.” The letter also said they wanted “to protect against public confusion that might result from premature disclosure.” But, according to Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service in Boise, the agency paid the Rand Corporation $840,092. What a deal for Rand, for submitting an inaccurate and incomplete report.
The new study
This new report must be submitted within 154 days after the award, which makes it due as the 2012 fire season is winding down, probably in October or November.
The USFS ordered the writers of the 2010 Rand report to specifically exclude Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT) from their study. The new solicitation does not exclude them in writing, but neither does it include them. It requires the contractor to:
Define the utility and operational parameters of large airtankers (LAT), heavy helicopters (defined as Type 1), and water scoopers in accomplishing the variety of aviation missions supporting wildfire management…
The solicitation repeatedly refers to “large air tankers (LAT)” being studied, so it appears that again VLATs will not be included since they are not mentioned at all. Apparently the USFS thinks they already have enough information about the DC-10, 747, and any other air tankers that can carry 5 to 10 times more retardant than the air tankers we are currently using. In other words, “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts”.
The aborted study
This is at least the second solicitation for an air tanker study that has been issued since the 2010 Rand report. The USFS announced on August 15, 2011 that they intended to award a second contract, at that time a non-competitive contract, to the Rand Corporation to continue studying the air tanker issue. It seemed counter-intuitive that anyone would award another contract, especially a non-competitive contract, to a company that months before had produced a similar product the same buyer described as inaccurate and incomplete. Two weeks later the USFS canceled the solicitation, “due to the responses received expressing interest in this procurement”. The USFS has not announced that any contracting officers or high-level managers were disciplined or fired over that debacle.
Why pay for another air tanker study?
This additional air tanker study continues the analysis paralysis of the last 17 years. Continuing to kick the can farther down the road decade after decade allows our leadership in Boise and Washington D.C. to postpone the terrible ordeal of making a decision. Their air tanker strategy appears to be: “Make no tough decisions, but continue to order and pay for study after study until we retire. Then let someone else deal with it.”
And while Rome our forests and grasslands burn, the USFS leadership fiddles around, making only 11 or 12 large air tankers available on exclusive use contracts this fire season, 75 percent less than we had 10 years ago.
Another theory about why the USFS repeatedly pays for more studies is that they will keep doing it until an “unbiased” outside expert submits a result that the agency silently is hoping for. For example, the 2010 Rand report recommended an emphasis on scooper air tankers. But the USFS has never awarded an exclusive use contract for scoopers, unless the two that USFS Chief Tom Tidwell referred to when he testified before Congress on March 6 turn out to be exclusive use. (He may have been referring to the two CL-215 scoopers that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has had on contract.)
It is a common belief that USFS leaders have a strong bias against scoopers, even though many agencies have had great success with them, including: Los Angeles County, Minnnesota, North Carolina, Department of Interior, Canada, and several countries in Europe. According to the Rand report, when a suitable body of water is reasonably close, a scooper can deliver more gallons onto a fire and at a much lower annualized cost than a conventional air tanker or a large helicopter, especially when considering the cost of retardant, which ran $1.97 per gallon on the Fourmile fire in Colorado in 2010.
On a news program today someone described military officers as being decisive. My first thought was that effective managers and leaders in the fire service are decisive. (As proof, I offer the 2008 Sprint-Nextel commercial.) I’ve worked with hundreds of them. Then I thought about the inability of the U.S. Forest Service leadership to make a decision about a specific and detailed long term air tanker strategy.
The White House declares Open Government – except for the U. S. Forest Service?
I can’t find anything in this new 62-page solicitation that says the information submitted will remain private, secret, proprietary, or confidential — or, that the public is likely to be confused by its disclosure. I will be very interested to see if the U.S. Forest Service treats this report, like the Rand report, as secret as the information held in the vaults of the CIA. Mr. Tidwell and Tom Harbour, USFS Director of Fire and Aviation, should remember that the cover-up is worse than the original crime.
From the White House’s web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open
The principles of Open Government, as described by Mr. Tidwell’s boss, do not necessarily apply to the operations of the CIA, but the U.S. Forest Service is in a very different category.
