Also tells Congress “we’re on the right track with our air tankers”
Continue readingAll-female hazard reduction burn in Australia
In July, 2019 an all-female group of firefighters in New South Wales, Australia conducted a hazard reduction burn in Scheyville National Park.
We are a little late to the party, but here is an excerpt from a news release by the NSW Rural Fire Service at the time:
A hazard reduction burn in Scheyville National Park today is business as usual for NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) firefighting staff. However, there is cause for celebration as the operation marks the first hazard reduction burn with an all-female crew.
NPWS acting Executive Director of Park Operations, Naomi Stephens congratulated NPWS for providing equal employment opportunities and a supportive working environment for women.
“Working for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service offers a vast range of opportunities for those looking for unique employment,” said Ms Stephens.
“Firefighting is just one of the many vital services provided by NPWS to protect local communities and wildlife.
“It is fantastic to see women thriving in a male-dominated field.
“While today may be the first time an all-female crew is running a hazard reduction burn, increasingly women have been playing a vital role in day to day NPWS firefighting.”
“Having an all-female managed burn highlights the growing number of women at NPWS taking on roles in the firefighting field.
“Although we have women in just about every different role when it comes to firefighting, we’ve never conducted an all-female burn before. It’s one thing to say that women are every bit as capable as men, but actions speak louder than words, so we decided to prove it. And it’s fantastic that women from the RFS and Fire and Rescue NSW are joining us on the burn today.
“Twenty percent of NPWS firefighters are female and women make up 23% of incident management specialists, which is significantly above the average in the fire and emergency sector.
Ohio firefighter killed in UTV accident on prescribed burn
A firefighter in Ohio was killed as a result of an accident on a Utility Task Vehicle (UTV).
Selinde Roosenburg, an employee with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry, was working on a prescribed burn at Richland Furnace State Forest when the accident occurred, and died March 23, 2021.
She was a student at Ohio State University and had been granted acceptance into the Fire Science program at Idaho State University. She had dreams of pursuing a career in wildland fire and forestry and was looking forward to pursuing her passion and bringing her knowledge back to southeast Ohio. Selinde’s desire and eagerness to learn about prescribed fire’s role in forest conservation was evident while working for the Division of Forestry.
Selinde’s obituary:
Selinde Downey Roosenburg, age 20, passed away as a result of injuries sustained as a passenger in a UTV rollover. She was working on a prescribed fire at the Richland Furnace State Forest. We may be comforted to know that she died doing what she loved; and that she surely wore a beaming, tired smile in the moments before the accident. Her last gift to this world was to give life through the donation of her organs. Our sparkling, vibrant daughter, sister, cousin and partner would have wanted this tragedy to bring life and joy to others.
Lindy was born in Lancaster, Ohio on 10 April 2000, but grew up a barefoot explorer in the woods outside Amesville. From birth, she was a spirited child who confronted the world on her own terms. She attended West Elementary, Athens Middle School, and Athens High School and was a member of the Athens Marching Green and Gold and the Athens Swim Team.
Selinde settled on Forestry after two years at Ohio State University, but when learning changed she decided to experience life rather than merely imagining it from the classroom. In the fall Selinde attended an All-Women Wildland Firefighting Course in Washington State. Working at Zaleski State Forest reinforced her decision to become a Wildland Fire Fighter and Forester. She had been accepted into the best Fire Science program in the country, with a generous scholarship, to finish her training at University of Idaho. Lindy was looking forward to learning all she could about fire and bringing her knowledge back to the woods of SE Ohio.
Lindy was beautiful without knowing it, strong-willed yet vulnerable, bursting with energy and enthusiasm, but also quiet and introspective. She was a fiercely loyal and loving young woman, with a humor so quick and dry that the unsuspecting only caught the pun or barb if they saw the twinkle in her eye. She lived her life with an inspiring liberation, like wearing white shrimper boots on OSU campus in defiance of the standard attire. She rejected pretension and would not tolerate drama. For her, the days were for experiencing life to the fullest, making other people laugh, and becoming a hero to her community.
Lindy loved animals of all shapes and sizes, filling our lives with rabbits, ducks, dead bluebirds, and wiggling snakes, while spoiling the family dogs at every opportunity. She played guitar, fiddle, and trumpet; but mostly she sang, announcing her presence before she arrived and gracing quiet moments with her joyful voice.
Selinde is survived by her parents Willem Roosenburg and Kate Kelley, brother Dirk Roosenburg, grandmother Carol Kelley (Bryn Mawr PA), aunts (Alex Woodard, London England; Eleanne Roosenburg, Acton MA), uncles (Brendan Kelley, Seattle WA; Ian Kelley, San Diego, CA), cousins (Esme and Phoebe Wessel, Asheville NC; Jordan Kelley, Ocean City NJ), her partner Kees Van Dijk (Lancaster OH), and many, many dear friends.
Learn more about Selinde at, https://www.forevermissed.com/lindyofthewildlands/lifestory
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Cary and Matt.
Great Smoky Mountains NP completes two prescribed fires
Near Wears Valley and Cades Cove
Continue readingFirefighters in New Jersey are taking advantage of good weather to conduct prescribed burns
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service hopes to treat 30,000 acres this year
Continue readingBlack Hills National Forest conducts 380-acre prescribed fire
Red Flag Warning in effect for the area Saturday
Continue readingAs bushfire conditions in Eastern Australia have eased this summer firefighters train and conduct prescribed fires
The cooler and wetter weather in the Eastern Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria this summer has resulted in a very different bushfire season than the one that led to multiple very large fires a year ago.
Firefighters in Victoria have taken advantage of the conditions to conduct rappel training and complete prescribed fires.
Our newest recruits now go through a new course known as 'General Firefighter', replacing the previous Minimum Skills Wildfire training.
Wodonga West's newest recruits have been training hard and once final assessments are done, they will be ready to fight wildfires ? pic.twitter.com/ZAL3ZWBnee
— cfa_updates (@CFA_Updates) February 15, 2021
In the video below Victoria’s new Deputy Chief Fire Officer Geoff Conway and CFA’s Deputy Chief Officer for the South East Region Trevor Owen provide an update on how the bushfire season is going and what to expect ahead in the Gippsland region of Southeast Victoria. It was recorded February 10, 2021.
Do fuel reduction treatments increase resistance to insects and drought?
Not always, according to researchers
Continue readingLearning from the centuries-old prescribed fire practices of Native Americans
National Geographic has a long, interesting article about the differences in Northern California forests before and after the resident native Americans were prohibited from continuing their practice of prescribed burning. The author, Charles C. Mann, interviewed members of the Karuk tribe that were affected by last summer’s fires, including the Slater Fire that destroyed hundreds of structures near Happy Camp. They are hoping to restore, in a current-day context, a more robust prescribed fire program.
Below is an excerpt:
…The anti-flame campaign profoundly altered the American environment. Wildfire had been common in western forests. Much or most of that burning was due to the area’s first humans, who torched away the undergrowth that fueled future fires before it could build to dangerous levels. Thousands of years of controlled, targeted combustion created a landscape that was a patchwork of new and old burns—meadows, berry patches, park-like woodland, and so on. As these flames ceased, a new kind of forest emerged: a nearly fire-free ecosystem that was unlike anything that had existed since the end of the Ice Age.
[Kathy] McCovey is a retired Forest Service anthropologist. With [Joe] Jerry, she belongs to a Karuk fire-lighting brigade. For years they had been begging the Forest Service to let them burn the brush on the slopes around their homes. If you don’t let us burn, they had warned, there will be a catastrophic fire.
“Whoops,” McCovey said.
When something—lightning, a campfire, a downed utility line, a spark from a tool hitting a rock—sets the forest debris on fire, the flames climb the “fuel ladder” to shrubbery and young trees, then jump to the crowns of the older trees, creating a high wall of flame that can be caught by the wind. “We’re going to have to get these trees out,” she said, pointing to the mass of fire-blasted fir around us. “If they don’t, in five years it will burn again and be worse.” (Here’s how wildfires get started—and how to stop them.)
To McCovey, the problem was not just that the new forests were flammable. It was that they were “a food desert for animals and people.” The Forest Service and western state governments, like her ancestors, had managed the forest—had, in effect, farmed it. But the Forest Service and the states had farmed the forest to produce a single commodity: timber. McCovey’s ancestors had farmed the landscape for many reasons.
(end of excerpt)
More information is at the Indigenous Peoples Burn Network, a growing collaboration of Native nations, partnered with nonprofit organizations, academic researchers, and government agencies. It is a support network among Native American communities that are revitalizing their traditional fire practices in a contemporary context.
TBT: Senator John Kyl on reducing budgets for fuel reduction
For Throwback Thursday, let’s take another look at an article published on Wildfire Today February 12, 2008 about a topic that is still an issue 12 years later.
Senator John Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, in an article on his web site criticizes the President’s proposed budget for 2009 which reduces the funds allocated for fuel treatments.
“With almost 48 percent of the proposed budget going toward fire fighting, the Forest Service might be more appropriately called the “Fire Service.”
I believe funding for fighting fires must be complemented by adequate funding for preventing them. Proactive management of our forests not only is the best tool in combating wildfires, it is critical to restoring forest health and improving habitats for diverse species.
Typically, there are two complimentary methods of treatment: mechanical thinning of brush and smaller diameter trees, and prescribed burning. These treatments open up forests so they are less susceptible to “hot” crown fires. More importantly, reducing competition for soil nutrients, water, and sunlight immediately enhances the health of the trees, allowing them to grow bigger and fend off diseases and deadly insects like bark beetles.”