We all hate paying for something and then not receiving what we paid for. That is what is happening now to taxpayers who pay for government-funded research and then have no access to the findings.
We have ranted about this before, and documented another example a few days ago when we discovered that it will cost us $41 to obtain a copy of the findings from research conducted by the University of Georgia. Associate Professor Luke Naeher and others found that lung function decreases for firefighters who work on prescribed fires for multiple days and are exposed to smoke. Further, it showed that respiratory functions slowly declined over a 10-week season.
This is not the only research that has explored the effects of smoke on wildland firefighters, but it may significantly add to the limited body of knowledge we have on the topic. We won’t know, however, unless we pay a second time in order to see their conclusions.
Researchers at some organizations receive pay raises and promotions based partially on the “publish or perish” meme. A system that requires researchers to publish in journals that are not completely open to the public, is antiquated and has no place in 2011 when a paper can be published in seconds on the internet at little or no cost.
There is no reason for firefighters to go to extreme lengths to help researchers advance the researcher’s career paths unless the firefighters can receive some benefits from the project. So, we are jumping on the idea proposed by Rileymon in a comment on the University of Georgia article:
Maybe it’s time to suggest that firefighter/research subjects boycott new research studies unless the findings are put into the Public Domain?
Here is what we are proposing:
Firefighters, administrators, and land managers should not cooperate with researchers unless they can be assured that findings from the research will be available to the public at no charge immediately following the publication of the findings, or very shortly thereafter.
Researchers should conform to the principles of Open Access.
A new study from the University of Georgia found that lung function decreases for firefighters who work on prescribed fires for multiple days and are exposed to smoke. Further, it showed that respiratory functions slowly declined over a 10-week season.
Unfortunately, even though the study was probably funded by taxpayers, you will have to pay a second time see the study’s results. It will cost you $41 to purchase the article that contains the detailed findings uncovered during the research. The University of Georgia decided to pay a private journal to publish the article, rather than placing it on the
Firefighter working in smoke, fire near Hot Springs, SD in 2006. Photo by Bill Gabbert
After monitoring firefighters working at prescribed burns in the southeastern United States, University of Georgia researchers found that lung function decreased with successive days of exposure to smoke and other particulate matter.
“What we found suggested a decline in lung function across work seasons,” said Olorunfemi Adetona, a postdoctoral research associate and lead author of the study published recently in the journal Inhalation Toxicology.
Luke Naeher, senior author and associate professor in the UGA College of Public Health, explained that the study was designed to investigate whether the 26 firefighters experienced a decrease in lung function working at prescribed burns compared with days they spent away from the fires. Previously, researchers had looked only at changes in lung function of wildland firefighters on days with exposure to smoke.
“Over a 10-week season, these workers’ respiratory functions slowly declined,” Naeher said, adding that there is need to investigate the degree to which these declines returned to their baseline after the burn season. Although results of the study show that lung function at the start of two burn seasons in a limited number of nine firefighters in 2003 and 2004 did not vary significantly, more definitive answers relating to the issue of longer term effect of exposure on lung function would require a different study design.
In recent years, the U.S. Forest Service has sought to better understand and improve its occupational exposure limits for firefighters across the country. Most studies have concentrated on burns in Western states where exposure to and composition of wood-smoke particulate matter may vary to some degree when compared with fires in the Southeast, including South Carolina, where the study was done.
Naeher said the study provides some preliminary information regarding the health effects of fine particulate matter exposure that is intermediate between two exposure extremes. On the low extreme lies ambient air levels typical for developed countries, while inhalation of particles by a smoker represents the opposite extreme. Much research in the field has focused on health effects at both extremes. However, the study of exposure at intermediate levels, like that experienced by wildland firefighters, and women and children exposed to indoor air pollution from cook stoves in developing countries is limited. Naeher’s research focuses on these two different populations, and he explains that the study of the body’s response tothese intermediate exposures may now be more urgent. For example, Naeher said, an initiative led by the United Nations Foundation aims to put clean-burning cooking stoves in 100 million homes in developing countries by 2020.
We have devoted a lot of “ink” to the Pagami Creek fire that burned over 92,000 acres in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in September. The U.S. Forest Service has received much criticism for their decision to only manage it, rather than suppress it, not expecting the wind events that pushed the fire dozens of miles to the east and south.
Taking a view that differs from many others that have been expressed publicly is Rod Sando, a former commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Here is an excerpt from an article he wrote for the Star Tribune:
…When the Pagami Creek fire started, the decision was made to allow it to burn. It was located well inside the wilderness, and it was unlikely under normal conditions that it would travel outside the wilderness boundary.
That, of course, changed with the very unusual weather, which caused the fire to completely change its character. The probability of this was extremely low, and the actions taken before Sept. 10 were prudent and within the usual assessment of risk.
One significant fact that should be understood is that when a fire has extreme behavior, as in the case of the Pagami Creek fire, it is nearly impossible to control. The only alternative is to let it run its course and get out of the way.
It also needs to be appreciated that predicting fire behavior is one of the most complex and difficult tasks land managers must face. Even with good weather forecasts, it is still very difficult to predict how fire will behave.
Meanwhile, the long-term benefits of the Pagami Creek fire (and others in the future) will enhance the values of the BWCA. It may not seem so at the moment, but restoring fire to the system in this fashion is the best alternative if long-term ecological integrity is to be protected.
[…]
It is important that we support the managers who have the courage to take the risks necessary to use fire to manage the land rather than second-guessing their decisions.
The official review of the fire will help everyone assess what was done, and I expect it to show that the Forest Service operated in a competent and professional manner. To continue with blame and recrimination at this point is counterproductive.
Will suggestions for improvement emerge? You can count on it.
The lessons learned from this fire will certainly strengthen the program, and we should have confidence that the next time this occurs (which could be as long as 100 years from now), it will be managed as well or better.
My thanks to the Forest Service for doing the best that it could under very difficult circumstances.
Evacuating horses during a fire storm
The wildfires of October, 2007 in southern California required over 1,000,000 people to evacuate, destroyed at least 1,500 homes, and burned 500,000 acres. An article at the Horse Channel describes the plight of Micaela Myers, a horse owner that struggled to relocate two horses that were in the path of one of the fires.
As standards for particulate pollution continue to tighten, land managers that approve or conduct prescribed burns must manage smoke production carefully to minimize smoke impacts in sensitive areas. BlueSky Playground is an interactive, web-based tool for exploring smoke emissions and resulting downwind smoke concentrations from wild and prescribed fires. It connects to state-of-the-science models within the BlueSky Framework, providing access to powerful modeling tools in an easy-to-use interface. BlueSky Playground is freely available and requires no login to access the core features. BlueSky Playground has recently been expanded to provide more useful tools for prescribed burn planning and is part of the Wildland Fire Decision Support System Air Quality suite (WFDSS-AQ). We will demonstrate BlueSky Playground and show how it can be used in both wild and prescribed burn analyses.
Comments on articles here at Wildfire Today
We moderate the comments our readers leave on the articles at Wildfire Today. One of the reasons we do this is because we receive an average of 10 comments a day from spam robots and others that want to promote their nefarious web sites or get rich quick schemes. They leave a generic comment, but include their web site address in the space provided. Many of these are written by people for whom English is not their first language. Here is an example you might enjoy that apparently originated from someone wanting to promote a web site hosting company in Thailand:
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Above: Firefighter on the Shep Canyon fire in South Dakota, September 6, 2011. Photo: Bill Gabbert/Wildfire Today.
After reading our excerpt and later the full document from the the Serious Accident Investigation Factual Report for the hyperthermia fatality on the CR 337 fire in Texas, we heard from Dr. Brent Ruby, who has completed studies on this exact issue, even having studied wildland firefighters while they were working on fires. In one of his studies he was monitoring a wildland firefighter outfitted with a core temperature monitor, an ambient temperature sensor, and a special Camelback hydration system that monitored his water intake. This firefighter experienced a heat-related illness, heat exhaustion, and had to be evacuated off the fireline by a helicopter. That was a terrible thing to happen to a firefighter, and I’m sure the researchers thought the same thing, but it was probably a once in a lifetime cornucopia of incredibly useful data. Dr. Ruby sent us this message, reprinted here with his permission:
I was bothered by the findings of the CR337 fatality report from the investigation team. There are issues within this case that are very similar to a published heat exhaustion case study we published recently (Wilderness and Environmental Medicine 22, 122-125, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21664560). In this report, we document drinking behavior, activity patterns, skin and core temperatures in a subject that suffered heat exhaustion and required evacuation. The lessons learned from this research clearly indicate that the best protection against a heat injury is reducing work rate. [*the abstract from the study is below]
Aggressive hydration strategies are over-preached and may provide a false sense of protection. It should be emphasized that the autopsy report as described in the fatality report indicated no signs of dehydration or electrolyte imbalance. I have tried to push these concepts to crews and safety officers when I get a chance to speak to them at meetings. I was bothered by this fatality knowing that it is seemingly directly linked to some of our research findings. I have tried to emphasize this to anyone that will listen in the world of wildfire.
You can certainly review our website to gain a better understanding of the publications we have done from research with the WLFF http://www.umt.edu/wpem. We have a great deal of physiological data, hydration, energy demands of the job, importance of supplemental feedings, etc. from all our work over the years. This peer reviewed research provides objective, scientific evidence that can be used to to change or influence policy to enhance safety on the line.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Regards, Brent Ruby
Brent C. Ruby, Ph.D., FACSM
Director, Montana Center for Work Physiology and Exercise Metabolism, The University of Montana
High work output combined with high ambient temperatures caused heat exhaustion in a wildland firefighter despite high fluid intake.
Cuddy JS, Ruby BC.
Montana Center for Work Physiology and Exercise Metabolism, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812-1825, USA.
The purpose of this case study is to examine the physiological/behavioral factors leading up to heat exhaustion in a male wildland firefighter during wildland fire suppression. The participant (24 years old, 173 cm, 70 kg, and 3 years firefighting experience) experienced heat exhaustion following 7 hours of high ambient temperatures and arduous work on the fire line during the month of August. At the time of the heat-related incident (HRI), core temperature was 40.1 °C (104.2 °F) and skin temperature was 34.4 °C (93.9 °F). His work output averaged 1067 counts·min(-1) (arbitrary units for measuring activity) for the 7 hours prior to the HRI, a very high rate of work over an extended time period during wildfire suppression.
In the 2.5 hours leading up to the heat incident, he was exposed to a mean ambient temperature of 44.6 °C (112.3 °F), with a maximum temperature of 59.7 °C (139.5 °F). He consumed an average of 840 mL·h(-1) in the 7 hours leading up to the incident and took an average of 24 ± 11 drinks·h(-1) (total of 170 drinks). The combined effects of a high work rate and high ambient temperatures resulted in an elevated core temperature and a higher volume and frequency of drinking than typically seen in this population, ultimately ending in heat exhaustion and removal from the fire line.
The data demonstrate that heat-related incidents can occur even with aggressive fluid intake during wildland fire suppression.
Unfortunately, even though Dr. Ruby’s research is funded by taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense, taxpayers are blocked from seeing the full results unless they pay a fee to the privately owned company that published the paper. We have written before about the results of taxpayer-funded wildfire-related research being held hostage by private companies. Dr. Ruby told Wildfire Today that he will send a copy of his paper to individuals that write to him at brent dot ruby at mso dot umt dot edu
The combined information about the fatality of Caleb Hamm on the CR 337 fire and Dr. Ruby’s study on wildland firefighters, is shocking. From the abstract, again:
The data demonstrate that heat-related incidents can occur even with aggressive fluid intake during wildland fire suppression.
Working on a wildfire on a hot day can lead to heat exhaustion and hyperthermia, and can be fatal EVEN IF a person drinks plenty of water and is not dehydrated.
Symptoms and prevention
We asked Dr. Ruby for more information:
Exertional hyperthermia occurs when the metabolic heat production from hard work overwhelms the bodies ability to off load it to the environment. This unloading can be blocked by clothing and/or slowed due to high radiant heat from the sun or an adjacent fire.
The basic symptoms of heat exhaustion are commonplace and can include profuse sweating, weakness, nausea, sometimes vomiting, lightheadedness, headache and sometimes mild muscle cramps.
The best approach [to prevent heat exhaustion and hyperthermia] is to know thyself and thy physical limits. Establishing a pace schedule that allows temperature to come back down in between periods of work that result in a rise in temperature. The factors of importance are pace, fitness level for the task at hand, hydration behaviors and simultaneously electrolyte concentrations in the blood.
It is important for wildland firefighters to drink plenty of water, but this will not, by itself, totally eliminate all chances of heat-related illness.
Be careful out there.
===============
UPDATE October 27, 2011:
Dr. Ruby sent us the following list of other publications on similar topics that are in peer reviewed journals. I assume that most of them are not available to the public (don’t get me started on that again!) unless you pay the ransom fees at the private companies, or send a message to Dr. Ruby: brent dot ruby at mso dot umt dot edu
====================
UPDATE October 28, 2011:
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has an excellent article about heatstroke, which can follow heat cramps and heat exhaustion and is life-threatening. The article includes causes, symptoms, first aid, what not to do, when to call 911, and prevention (including “avoid exercise or strenuous physical activity outside during hot or humid weather”. Good luck with that one, firefighters.)
Much of the research that is conducted on wildland fire and other topics is funded by taxpayers, but the results of the research are not always available to the public. It is common for government agencies to publish their findings in scientific journals under a copyright. In order to read the paper you have to pay substantial fees to either subscribe to the publication or buy access to a single article.
Government funded research should be published immediately on the internet and made available at no charge to everyone. In the present system, government agencies sometimes pay thousands of dollars in page charges for a paper to be published in a journal, then the journal collects substantial access fees from taxpayers who want access to the information. This makes no sense, when the government agency could publish the information on the web at no cost while making it available to everyone at no cost.
We have written about this previously, HERE and HERE.
There are at least two initiatives working to make taxpayer funded research available to the public. One is the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. The other is a new online pledge, called Research Without Walls, where those who assist in the peer review process for conferences or journals pledge to only do so only if the accepted publications are made available to the public for free via the internet. The web domain “Research Without Walls” was first registered on October 10, 2011 and as of today, October 21, has 89 signatories. It will be interesting to see how much interest it generates.
Here is an excerpt from a U. S. Forest Service news release about a simulation study of more than 45,000 forest stands which provides a scientific basis for fuel reduction guidelines.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2011 – In the largest ever study of fuel treatment effectiveness, U.S. Forest Service researchers have found that intense thinning treatments that leave between 50 and 100 trees per acre are the most effective in reducing the probability of crown fires in the dry forests of the western United States.
The study, the results of which are published in a recent issue of the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, provides a scientific basis for establishing quantitative guidelines for reducing stand densities and surface fuels. The total number of optimal trees per acre on any given forest will depend on species, terrain and other factors.
“This study proves once again that an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “Thinning dense forests reduces the impacts of the catastrophic wildfires we’ve already seen this year and expect to see more and more of in the future. This work helps protect communities, provides jobs and promotes overall better forest health.”
This year, Arizona and New Mexico have already experienced the worst fires in the states’ histories. The importance of thinning was illustrated by the recent Wallow fire in Arizona, which burned more than 538,000 acres. Although 38 structures burned, a system of fuel treatments developed cooperatively by federal, state and local governments, as well as private citizens, successfully reduced fire behavior and allowed firefighters to protect thousands of structures and, in many places, halt the spread of the fire.
