Wind Cave National Park — click to see larger version. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
Tonight’s sunset photo
The sunset tonight in the Black Hills. (Click on it to see a larger version.)
Aussies use Pyrotron to study bushfires
Researchers use a “Pyrotron” to study the behavior of bushfires. The equipment appears to be similar to that used at the Missoula Fire Lab, below.
Steam over the Fall River
Steam rising over the Fall River early this morning. Several hot springs flow into the river, making it warmer than it would be otherwise. The thermometer in my truck said the air was -5 degrees.
In-flight videos shot from Tanker 131
These videos were shot with a GoPro camera attached to Tanker 131, a C-130Q, while it was dropping on the King Fire between Placerville and Lake Tahoe, California. That was the fire where 12 firefighters deployed their fire shelters in front of advancing flames and were led to safety by a pilot in a helicopter.
Thanks go out to Britt Coulson for making these available.
We wish other air tanker operators would invest a couple of hundred dollars in a camera they could attach to their aircraft.
I’d love to see a split screen video of an air tanker dropping. On one side we would see the ground and the drop itself, and the other side would be shot from the cockpit and would include the audio of the crew — like this video shot from MAFFS 3 in July. It would take a little bit of advanced video editing, but I imagine if the raw footage was available we could find a volunteer who could put it together.
The photo below of Coulson’s Tanker 131 was shot while it was on final for landing at Redding, California, August 7, 2014.
New way to share lessons learned
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has added a new lesson sharing tool to their bag of tricks. Using the 18-minute video about the experiences of the two firefighters that were entrapped in one fire shelter on the 2007 Alabaugh Fire south of Hot Springs, South Dakota, they created a new training experience using a system developed by TED, called TED-Ed. The way it works is that you view the video, then answer or discuss 12 questions. (Link to the final TED-Ed product.)
In case you’re not familiar with TED, it is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.
(UPDATE: there is another TED-Ed that the LLC created. It’s for the Mudd Fire, where an engine crew survived an entrapment.)
The video below is not the TED-Ed product, it is the original lesson sharing video in which the two firefighters tell their story about the entrapment. This video is the foundation for the TED-Ed product which can be found HERE.
Prescribed fires in Wind Cave continue
The National Park Service fire staff at the Northern Great Plains Area has been busy this week in South Dakota. On Monday and Tuesday, along with other federal and state cooperators, they executed the 1,938-acre Norbeck Section 2 prescribed fire. On Friday they accomplished about 200 acres in Jewel Cave National Monument, and on Thursday and Saturday burned two units for 1,199 acres in the Cold Brook project in Wind Cave National Park. They still want to burn a third 1,000-acre unit in the Cold Brook area, but are waiting for a specific smoke dispersion condition near an urban interface area.
The weather this week has been close to ideal for burning in the Black Hills, obviously. The high temperatures have been in the low 70’s, the winds moderate and mostly consistent, and the relative humidity has been in the 20’s.
South Dakota: Cold Brook prescribed fire
Today the National Park Service began igniting the 2,199-acre Cold Brook prescribed fire in Wind Cave National Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The project is in a wildland urban interface area with several private residences within a quarter mile of the site. The expectation was that Unit #1 would be burned today, October 23, and additional burning in Units #2 and/or #3 would occur on Friday. (See the map below.)
The goals are to reduce fuel loading in the ponderosa pine forest, decrease encroachment of young ponderosa pine into the prairie, and to decrease the wildfire threat for the nearby residences.
The project is adjacent to US Highway 385, which could be occasionally closed.
Video from the Norbeck prescribed fire
The Alpine Hotshots, a National Park Service hotshot crew from Colorado, is shown using drip torches to ignite vegetation on the Norbeck Section 2 prescribed fire. The project which began October 20, 2014 involves almost 2,000 acres in Custer State Park, Wind Cave National Park, Black Hills National Forest, and private land.
Photos from the Norbeck prescribed fire
These are photos taken October 20-21, 2014 at the Norbeck Section 2 prescribed fire being managed on State, Federal and private lands approximately 4 miles northeast of Pringle, South Dakota. More details about the project can be found here.
As far as I know, there were no significant spot fires or slop-overs in the area shown above.
