Scene of two accidents on Highway 56 in Kansas, February 18. The photo was taken after visibility had improved somewhat. Photo courtesy of Kansas State Firefighters Association.
Smoke from a controlled burn on February 18 caused two accidents on Highway 56 in Kansas two miles east of the Osage-Lyon county line. The series of accidents began when a truck was hit from behind when it slowed as it entered the smoke and the vehicle in front of it also slowed down.
The second accident happened when other vehicles stopped in the smoke to help those in the first accident. One driver was parked partially in the roadway when she was hit by another vehicle which then kept moving and hit two pedestrians who were helping one of the drivers in the first accident. After injuring the pedestrians the vehicle then hit another car.
The Osage County Sheriff’s Office that provided the above information reported that three people were transported to hospitals and five vehicles were damaged.
Dan Romine, Chief of Osage County Fire District #2, said the smoke across the highway was a lot worse than shown in the photo above when his fire department first arrived on scene.
Hours before the fire escaped, all eleven firefighters that had been mopping up the prescribed fire left the project and returned to their stations between 1:30 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. on October 13, 2016. During that day there were a number of smokes that received the attention of the firefighters. During the last two hours before the seven-person helitack crew departed they noticed the wind increasing — trees were blowing down and branches were falling.
The RGJ reported on the reason the firefighters were ordered to leave the burn site.
Gene Phillips, NDF forest health specialist and burn boss for the Little Valley Burn, made the decision to pull crews from the burn site after discussing the high wind forecasts for the evening with a burn boss trainee, according to the review.
The decision not to staff the site on the evening of Oct. 13 was made, according to NDF, “based on the limited amount of heat near the control lines, success of the current mop-up effort, and the risk to firefighters working in timber during high winds.”
From the NIMO report.
At 5:38 p.m. the Little Valley weather station recorded sustained winds out of the west at 15 mph with a maximum gust of 39 mph. By 12:38 a.m. on October 14, about the time the fire escaped, the wind was at 19 mph with gusts up to 87 mph. The relative humidity was 32 percent.
A Red Flag Warning for gusty winds and low humidity was in effect from the morning of October 11 through 5 p.m. on October 14. Strong winds persisted until mid-day on October 17.
The NDF’s report was written by the U.S. Forest Service’s Phoenix National Incident Management Organization (NIMO), a team that usually manages fires and other incidents that are often of longer duration than a typical wildfire. The team was supplemented with a Fire Behavior Analyst, a GIS/Fire Behavior Analyst, a Public Information Officer, a Fire Investigator, and others for a total of 10 personnel that were listed in the report.
The NIMO team concluded that the fire escaped when embers from a burning stump hole were blown 34 feet and crossed the fireline at a corner, or “dog leg” in the fire perimeter.
According to the RGJ there was confusion in initially responding to the fire after it escaped at around 12:38 a.m. on October 14:
Response to the fire was delayed, affecting how fast it could be contained: A call at 1:23 a.m. about smoke at the burn site was later dismissed as “unfounded,” causing a TMFPD [Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District] fire engine to return to the station three minutes after it left. After a second call about smoke at the burn site, it took TMFPD more than an hour to get to the site after crews were dispatched, according to 911 transcripts.
The fire burned 1,008 acres on the Superior National Forest.
Above: Photo of the Foss Lake Fire, from the report.
A report has been released for a prescribed fire that escaped on May 19, 2016 and burned an unexpected 1,008 acres 10 miles west of Ely, Minnesota. The U.S. Forest Service had intended to burn 78 acres, but extremely dry conditions and winds pushed a spot fire beyond the capabilities of the Hotshot crew and the engine initially assigned to the project. The fire danger index for the Energy Release Component at the time was setting 20-year maximums.
The perimeter of the planned prescribed fire is outlined in black, in the gray shaded area. The escaped area is in red.
Some of the firefighting resources listed as contingency forces in the burn plan were national resources not committed to the prescribed fire and were assigned to other fires when needed on the escape.
According to a spot weather forecast the conditions that morning were at the hot end of the prescription and in the afternoon may go out of prescription. There was a discussion about possibly having to pause ignition for a period of time in the afternoon.
The test fire began at 11:40 a.m. Soon thereafter the primary ignition began.
Within 40 minutes of starting the test fire spot fires began to occur near the fireline, but they were suppressed. At 12:50 p.m. a larger spot fire, 1/4 to 1/2 acre, was discovered 100 yards north of the main burn by firefighters patrolling in a canoe. The firing boss ordered the igniters to slow down.
When the larger spot fire occurred, firefighters installed a hose lay from a river to the site but were not able to start a pump to supply the water. A replacement pump that had been working in another area that day was brought in but it also refused to run.
At 12:53 p.m. a water-scooping Beaver air tanker that could carry up to 130 gallons of water was requested by the Zone Fire Management Officer (ZFMO) who was at the site, and 11 minutes later he asked for a Type 3 helicopter.
At 1:41 p.m. personnel on the fire declined offers or suggestions for “heavy aircraft” and also a Type 1 helicopter that had become available.
Between 1:59 p.m. and 2:26 p.m. personnel on the fire requested the Type 1 helicopter, air attack, two 20-person crews, a CL-415 scooping air tanker, and two large air tankers.
At 2:07 p.m. the Burn Boss declared the escaped fire to be a wildfire and began shutting down the original prescribed fire.
At approximately 1700 a Type 2 Incident Management Team was ordered for the escaped wildfire, which was then several hundred acres in size.
At 10:09 p.m. all personnel on the prescribed and escaped fires were released and returned to Ely.
Map, produced at 11:41 a.m. MDT Oct. 20, 2016, showing heat detected on the Green Base prescribed fire. The dots nearest the Interstate represent heat that was detected during the afternoon of October 18, 2016. The northernmost dots are from October 17, 2016. Click to enlarge.
We looked further into what led to the smoky conditions that resulted in numerous vehicle crashes on Interstate 40 west of Flagstaff, Arizona early Wednesday morning, October 19. The smoke on the highway from a prescribed fire was referred to as “pea soup”, and was clearly the cause of some of the accidents, but investigators are not yet ready to say the smoke caused the one fatality when a vehicle was sandwiched between two semi trucks.
During the very early morning hours of Wednesday, October 19, smoke settled into the areas around Interstate 40 between Parks and Williams. An electronic sign warned motorists about smoke, but the severely reduced visibility was not anticipated by the U.S. Forest Service. After the accidents started occurring the Interstate was closed for five hours.
Data from the smoke permit issued by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality for the Green Base prescribed fire. Click to enlarge.
The Kaibab National Forest ignited the Green Base Prescribed Fire on Tuesday, October 18, 2016 immediately north of Interstate 40. The smoke permit issued by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality anticipated moderate “impacts on sensitive areas”:
Smoke impacts to the following communities of Flagstaff, Parks, Spring Valley, Pittman Valley, Sherwood Forest Estates and some smoke may impact Williams. I-40 may experience moderate smoke impacts in low-lying areas.
The Flagstaff office of the National Weather Service issued a Spot Weather Forecast for the Green Base Prescribed Fire at 5:28 a.m. MST on Tuesday October 18, 2016. It anticipated a “good” maximum ventilation rate for Tuesday, did not specify one for Tuesday night, and for Wednesday it was described as “fair”.
Spot Weather forecast for the Green Base Prescribed Fire, October 18, 2016. Click to enlarge.
The ventilation rate provides an estimate of how high and how far smoke will disperse. A high ventilation rate suggests that smoke will spread out quickly and through a deep layer of the atmosphere, so that surface concentrations downwind will be lower than they would be with a lower ventilation rate.
The transport winds (from the ground to the mixing height) for Tuesday night were predicted to be “west 5 to 10 knots shifting to the north after midnight, then shifting to the northeast early in the morning.” The wind speed after the shift was not specified. Perhaps this was interpreted by fire managers to mean it would continue at 5 to 10 knots.
The prescribed fire was just north of the east-west Interstate, so a wind out of the northeast would likely push the smoke toward the highway. And if an area is prone to nighttime inversions, visibility can be compromised.
Fox News reported that Cory Mottice, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Flagstaff, said, “[Smoke] always gets trapped after dark,” he said. “It’s just a question of where the wind blows it.”
However that analysis was not described in detail in the spot weather forecast issued by Mr. Mottice’s office. As in many spot weather forecasts, much of the information appears to be generated by a computer, with little interpretation or discussion about how the information will affect the fire. Meteorologists are not expected to be Fire Behavior Analysts, but sometimes a little human-created discussion and interpretation can add value to a computer product.
Below are excerpts from an article at the Arizona Daily Sun:
… A Highway Patrol captain at the scene said smoke in the area reduced visibility down to about 20 feet, Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said. Sherwood Forest Estates Fire Chief Wayne Marx said even his crews had to stick their heads out the window to watch the yellow stripe on the road as they escorted commuters away from the interstate.
“You couldn’t see past the end of the hood,” Marx said.
[…]
One retired meteorologist who lives in the area believes more precautions should have been taken. Parks resident Byron Peterson, who retired from National Weather Service station in Bellemont, said the smoke was already bad on Old Route 66 Tuesday afternoon. Firefighters waved him on, he said, even though there were times when he could not see 10 feet in front of him.
“It was very frightening to say the least,” Peterson said.
He said strong southwest winds coming up over Bill Williams Mountain near Williams formed an eddy of swirling air that then dove down over the prescribed burn, keeping the smoke from dissipating.
“I tried to explain that to people at the Forest Service and it was just like talking to a wall,” he said.
