Renewed call for the ‘Holy Grail’ of firefighter tracking

A decade ago, the late Bill Gabbert began writing here about the “Holy Grail of Wildland Fire Safety” – the tools, best practices and system for advanced firefighter and fire tracking – and he returned to it often.

In March 2019, one section of Public Law 116–9 (also known as S. 47, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act), was signed into law that called for “LOCATION SYSTEMS FOR WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS” within two years – by March, 2021.

Nearly two years past that deadline, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has adopted this core principle in a report called “Modernizing Wildland Firefighting to Protect Our Firefighters”.

PCAST report - Modernizing Wildland FirefightingAs their letter to the President observes, “Whereas we have a national commitment ensuring that our warfighters are not sent into harm’s way without the best of American science and technology at their disposal, no similar organizational framework exists to protect and empower wildland firefighters.”

Their five recommendations lead off with this problem and an urgent push:

“Recommendation 1: Given the vulnerabilities and shortfalls in wildland firefighter communications, connectivity, and technology interoperability, immediately assess, adapt, and field currently available technologies.”

To support this, their next recommendation calls for cabinet-directed executive authority to “Reverse the current trend of rapidly growing wildfire suppression costs by establishing a joint-agency executive office (hereafter Joint Office) that can accelerate enterprise-level development and deployment of new technologies that enhance situational awareness and initial attack capabilities.”

The recommendation continues that “This Joint Office would serve to advance coordination, streamline authorities, and drive progress in enabling technology adoption across the numerous federal agencies with equities for wildland firefighting science and technology (S&T) within NIFC [National Interagency Fire Center]. It is imperative that the Joint Office leader have Cabinet-delegated decision-making authorities as well as the mandate and budget needed to develop and execute a unified technology roadmap.”

Recommendations 3, 4 and 5 would be led by the proposed Joint Office and serve to unify and expedite the “full operational sequence of wildland firefighting” with current and new technology, with inputs from NIFC, the land management agencies of DOI and USDA, and NOAA, NASA, and the Department of Defense.

While the goals are straightforward the implementation is complex, as indicated in this graphic from the report.

Figure 1. Schematic of key tools and technologies identified in a 2022 assessment by the USFS Wildland Fire Tools and Technology Group. Courtesy of NIFC.

At the NIFC website, a search for the word “safety” produced 641 results. Hits for “technology” totaled 206, “intelligence” 121. “Location-based” yielded 24 results, though most were variations of “allocation.” The most concrete reference is to the 2023 Red Book, where there’s a reference to “Location Systems,” on page 42 of the BLM section:

“The LBS [Location-Based System] Program combines current Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies with BLM fire and aviation preparedness to provide a situational awareness tool by tracking equipment. LBS is incorporated into dispatch and other operating procedures to enhance situational awareness and accountability of WCF 600-class fire equipment. This program meets the intent of S.47 – John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, SEC. 1114. (d) 12 Location Systems for Wildland Firefighters.”

With wholehearted respect for the BLM’s LBS program and the efforts to date, the federal location systems in their entirety seem a far (and hard to track) distance from meeting the intent of the 2019 Dingell act.

This week’s PCAST recommendations seeks to correct the “vulnerabilities and pitfalls” of our current processes and accelerate the urgency toward this decade-long search for the “Holy Grail” of location systems. It’s a race we need to win.

 

 

Shortage of radio technicians may have compromised safety on Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire

More than 1,000 fire personnel were affected by inadequate communication with the Incident Command Post

technician sets up a portable radio repeater
File photo. A Radio Technician sets up a portable radio repeater on the Sprague Fire in Glacier National Park in Montana, September 16, 2017. NIFC photo.

The difficulties in hiring and retaining wildland firefighters which has resulted in one-third of the Forest Service firefighter positions in California being unfilled, may not be restricted to just those who directly battle the flames. The old axiom, “amateurs think strategy, generals think logistics,” does not only apply to the military. If firefighters can’t be supplied with food, water, vehicle maintenance, hose, tools, fuel, and communications they will not be successful in a long campaign.

The concept of firefighters ensuring that before they engage, they must have adequate Lookouts, Communications, Escape routes, and Safety zones (LCES) was developed by Paul Gleason. It is shorthand for combining a list of Standard Orders fire personnel must follow to protect themselves from fireline hazards such as being entrapped in the fire. According to a report on SAFENET, there was a four-day period from May 15 until May 19 when the Communications leg of LCES was not covered adequately on the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in Northern New Mexico.

The National Situation report for May 15 shows that in the United States that day there were 10 large uncontained fires, with all of the fires in the country being staffed by a total of 4,708 personnel. When the fire season nears its peak this summer there could be five times that many people assigned to fires. But in the middle of May there was a shortage of radio technicians and radio operators which made it impossible to set up an adequate radio communications system when it was needed on the north zone of the fire following a reorganization.

I was told by mentors as I came up through the ranks that firefighting is not an emergency — not to firefighters. It’s what we do. So when the situation gets suddenly more complex and decisions must be made and executed quickly, think calmly, act decisively, and communicate clearly. At least one of these suddenly complex situations occurred on the fire. A person needed medical treatment and extraction by air. It is referred to in the SAFENET as an incident within an incident. They are usually managed separately by an offshoot organization, and they always require efficient, robust, dependable, instant communication.

The text below is taken word for word from the SAFENET. The only change we made was to translate the acronyms.

Narrative

When Southwest Team 1 took command of the North Zone of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire communications were unable to be linked with Incident Command Post (ICP). The zoning of the incident required the current radio communications system to be split. The North Zone remained on the current system with the South Zone moving to their own system. During this transition there were no radio techs to switch the repeater link for the North Zone and install the repeater to cover ICP. For a duration of 4 days, the link with communications at the ICP was ineffective. This was highlighted on 5/17 with a red medical that required extraction by air. During the Incident Within an Incident (IWI) communication were not able to function from ICP to the field and back. As the fire progressed, the repeater that was required for ICP was also needed to cover field personnel. Approximately, 300 personnel in the field had limited communications, with the only link established through a human repeater. During high fire behavior periods, several resources were forced to abandon tactics and leave the line because communications could not be established. The contributing factor, is the lack of radio techs available nationally. Orders were placed for radio techs days before transition and after transition. Orders for one week were returned unable to fill (UTF). Furthermore, radio operators were also unavailable. Orders were also placed for CAT personnel which was also UTF. The lack of communications personnel resulted in decrease support for the field and inability to coordinate IWI response and transport through ICP and the communications unit. About 1,200 firefighters were affected by the lack of communications with ICP.

The lack of communication personnel is limiting the “C” in “Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, Safety Zones” (LCES) and needs to be resolved at the national level. The trend of unable to fill communications personnel has progressively gotten worse over the last few years and will most likely result in incidents without communications in the future.

Immediate Action Taken

Field personnel had communications on the most fireline through the existing repeater system. Approximately, 25% of fireline personnel had no communications coverage which was unsatisfactorily resolved with a human repeater during the 4 days without a radio tech. Field Operations was utilized to coordinate response and transport for IWIs placing their self in a location with cell service and radio service. A radio tech was sent from the South Zone once their system was installed and working. That individual then moved to the North Zone on Day 4 to begin configuring the North Zone communication system. On 5/20, 4 days after transition, the North Zone communication system was operating providing coverage for ICP and the incident.

Other mitigations for correcting the problem took considerable time to no avail and included contacting commercial vendors, national guard and state compact agreements. The solutions did not pan out. Currently, land management agency fire organizations have no capacity for implementing a communications system on an incident without reliance on personnel outside of the fire organization.

Fire shelters made before 2006 may delaminate more than newer versions

Confirmed by testing and actual use in entrapments

Pre-2006 Fire Shelter
Pre-2006 fire shelters may experience greater delamination between the silica cloth and aluminum foil when deployed.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Equipment Technology Committee has issued an advisory about fire shelters. Actual use on fire entrapments confirmed by testing shows that shelters manufactured before 2006 “function as intended” but may experience greater delamination between the silica cloth and aluminum foil when deployed.

The U.S. Forest Service National Technology and Development Program detected differing levels of fire shelter degradation during two separate entrapments in 2020 where fire shelters were used. Further investigation revealed that those manufactured prior to 2006 showed more degradation.

The NWCG advisory does not describe how serious the delamination is, or the differences in temperature and effects on a person inside who is hoping the device will save their life. Nor does it take the obvious step of recommending any actions that should be taken or not taken, such as discontinuing use of the pre-2006 models. It only says the advisory “provides technical information to support agency-specific decision-making regarding replacement of fire shelters manufactured prior to 2006.” The fact that they issued the advisory, and surrounded the document with yellow and gray slashes (see below), promotes the assumption that it is an urgent concern.

Fire Shelter $326
Fire shelter, from the 2019 Federal Defence Logistics Agency Wildland Fire Equipment catalog.

The failure to take a stand on this important safety issue could be because the agencies do not want to be forced to spend the money to buy new shelters. They are listed in the 2019 Federal Defence Logistics Agency Wildland Fire Equipment catalog starting at $326 for the regular size — without the case. Purchased on the open market the costs are considerably higher. I found prices ranging from $441 to $595.

The advisory is below. Click the arrow at the bottom-left to see the photos on the second page.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Fire-Shelter-Advisory-3-16-2022.pdf” title=”Fire Shelter Advisory 3-16-2022″]

Report: some firefighters in Colorado do not have adequate personal protective equipment

Recent legislation could help provide the gear

Cherry Canyon Fire Colorado
Cherry Canyon Fire, 58 miles east-northeast of Trinidad, Colorado, May 24, 2020. Photo: Colorado Fire Prevention & Control.

A television station in Denver, 9News, reports that some firefighters in the state, especially volunteers, do not have the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) to reduce their risks when fighting fires.

A bill recently passed by the legislature that appropriates $5 million to help provide the gear is waiting on the Governor’s desk for a signature.

A 9News video on YouTube has more details.

The additional funding will most likely address PPE for all types of fires, including self contained breathing apparatus for hazardous material incidents and structure and vehicle fires. As Wildfire Today reported December 22, 2021, a recent survey conducted by the NFPA asked 26,000 fire departments of all sizes about their readiness and capability for suppressing wildland fires. Here are three of the questions.

NFPA Needs Assessment wildland fire
Excerpt from the Wildland Fire section of the NFPA Needs Assessment.

Five common denominators on tragedy fires

And updated data

Entrapment Time of day wildland firefighters
Figure 1 from the research paper. Distribution of 166 US wildland firefighter entrapments that occurred within CONUS (1981–2017) by time of day (local time) and month of the year.

A reminder:

Five common denominators of fire behavior on fatal and near-fatal fires have been identified through studies of tragedy fires. It is important for firefighters to readily recognize them to prevent future disasters.

Such fires often occur:

  1. On relatively small fires or deceptively quiet areas of large fires.
  2. In relatively light fuels, such as grass, herbs, and light brush.
  3. When there is an unexpected shift in wind direction or in wind speed.
  4. When fire responds to topographic conditions and runs uphill.
  5. Critical burn period between 1400 and 1700.

Alignment of topography and wind during the critical burning period should be considered a trigger point to reevaluate tactics.

Blowup to burnover conditions generally occur in less than 60 minutes and can be as little as 5 minutes.


Updated research

On October 9, 2019 a document was published that summarized the work of four researchers who sought to find commonalities that led to the entrapments of firefighters on wildland fires. The paper is titled, “A Classification of US Wildland Firefighter Entrapments Based on Coincident Fuels, Weather, and Topography.” Apparently they were hoping to confirm, fine tune, revise, or update the “Common Denominators of Fire Behavior on Tragedy Fires” defined by Carl C. Wilson after the 1976 Battlement Creek Fire where three firefighters were killed near Parachute, Colorado.

The researchers conducted an analysis of the environmental conditions at the times and locations of 166 firefighter entrapments involving 1,202 people and 117 fatalities that occurred between 1981 and 2017 in the conterminous United States. They identified one characteristic that was common for 91 percent of the entrapments — high fire danger — specifically, when the Energy Release Component and Burning Index are both above their historical 80th percentile.

They also generated an update of the time of day the entrapments occurred as seen in the figure at the top of this article. This has been done before, but it’s worthwhile to get an update. And, this version includes the month.

You can read the entire open access article here. If you’re thinking of quickly skimming it, the 7,000 words and the dozens of abbreviations and acronyms make that a challenge. There is no appendix which lists and defines the abbreviations and acronyms.

The authors of the paper are Wesley G. Page, Patrick H. Freeborn, Bret W. Butler, and W. Matt Jolly.

Below are excerpts from their research:


…Given the findings of this study and previously published firefighter safety guidelines, we have identified a few key practical implications for wildland firefighters:

  1. The fire environment conditions or subsequent fire behavior, particularly rate of spread, at the time of the entrapment does not need to be extreme or unusual for an entrapment to occur; it only needs to be unexpected in the sense that the firefighters involved did not anticipate or could not adapt to the observed fire behavior in enough time to reach an adequate safety zone;
  2. The site and regional-specific environmental conditions at the time and location of the entrapment are important; in other words, the set of environmental conditions common to firefighter entrapments in one region do not necessarily translate to other locations;
  3. As noted by several authors, human factors or human behavior are a critical component of firefighter entrapments, so much so that while an analysis of the common environmental conditions associated with entrapments will yield a better understanding of the conditions that increase the likelihood of an entrapment, it will not produce models or define characteristics that predict where and when entrapments are likely to occur.

The factor that was common for the majority of entrapments (~91%) was high fire danger. As a general guideline, regardless of location, the data suggest that entrapment potential is highest when the fire danger indices (Energy Release Component and Burning Index) are both above their historical 80th percentile.

More information about this research.


Recent burnovers in the United States that resulted in fatalities; with time and date:

Looking forward

One thing that will be interesting to watch is if the historical three-hour window from 1 to 4 p.m. when many of the fatalities have occurred is going to be stretched as the earth warms and extreme fire behavior becomes more frequent.

Hey! Let’s be careful out there.

Processing the trauma of a near miss

Dozens of firefighters had a very close call on the Route Fire

Fire crews on the Route Fire entrapped
Fire crews on the Route Fire, 4:40 p.m. Sept. 11, 2021, five minutes before they were nearly entrapped. Photo by one of the firefighters.

Many of the firefighters on the Route Fire who escaped from what was close to becoming a mass casualty incident on September 11, 2021 no doubt had stress levels that were very high as it was happening, and possibly for days, weeks, or months later.

As we covered in an article on December 11, dozens of firefighters on the fire north of Los Angeles suddenly found themselves on a road with fire on all sides of them. Even though it occurred three months ago the story had not been publicly told, until yesterday. As flames closed in on them, a Captain on a US Forest Service engine took charge and organized an effort for 13 firefighters on foot with no access to their regular transportation, to take refuge in two USFS Type 3 engines, each already carrying their normal complement of 5 firefighters. Almost unbelievably, 7 crammed into one engine and 6 got in another. There were a total of 23 bodies in the two engines. Then with flames on both sides of the road, they drove through smoke to safety. Two firefighters were treated in a hospital burn unit and released.

It could have been much worse. One person thought he was going to die.

“The more experienced firefighters were more shaken up than the new guys,” a firefighter told Wildfire Today. “Firefighters on the outside looking in were pretty shaken up, but as best as I can tell I think we are all doing good.”

One person said that as they were becoming entrapped and during the escape from the nearby flames he realized later that he does not have a complete memory of the event, “My memory blacked out from time to time…It’s psychology I don’t fully understand.”

Today I found a reference by Mike Degrosky to an article in the Harvard Business Review written by Diane Musho Hamilton that might shed some light on the topic. Interestingly, at the top of the article is an old photo of a P3 air tanker dropping retardant, even though the word “fire” is not mentioned anywhere in the piece. It starts with describing the two amygdala in the brain which were characterized by Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, in his book The Body Keeps the Score, as the brain’s “smoke detector.” (Which may be the genesis for the photo of the air tanker.) The amygdala’s job is to detect fear and help the body prepare for an emergency response.

Here is an excerpt:

“…When we perceive a threat, the amygdala sounds an alarm, releasing a cascade of chemicals in the body. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flood our system, immediately preparing us for fight or flight. When this deeply instinctive function takes over, we call it what Daniel Goleman coined in Emotional Intelligence as “amygdala hijack.” In common psychological parlance we say, “We’ve been triggered.” We notice immediate changes like an increased heart rate or sweaty palms. Our breathing becomes more shallow and rapid as we take in more oxygen, preparing to bolt if we have to.

“The flood of stress hormones create other sensations like a quivering in our solar plexus, limbs, or our voice. We may notice heat flush our face, our throat constrict, or the back of our neck tighten and jaw set. We are in the grip of a highly efficient, but prehistoric set of physiological responses. These sensations are not exactly pleasant — they’re not meant for relaxation. They’re designed to move us to action.

“The active amygdala also immediately shuts down the neural pathway to our prefrontal cortex so we can become disoriented in a heated conversation. Complex decision-making disappears, as does our access to multiple perspectives. As our attention narrows, we find ourselves trapped in the one perspective that makes us feel the most safe: “I’m right and you’re wrong,” even though we ordinarily see more perspectives.

“And if that wasn’t enough, our memory becomes untrustworthy. Have you ever been in a fight with your partner or friend, and you literally can’t remember a positive thing about them? It’s as though the brain drops the memory function altogether in an effort to survive the threat. When our memory is compromised like this, we can’t recall something from the past that might help us calm down. In fact, we can’t remember much of anything. Instead, we’re simply filled with the flashing red light of the amygdala indicating “Danger, react. Danger, protect. Danger, attack.”

“In the throes of amygdala hijack, we can’t choose how we want to react because the old protective mechanism in the nervous system does it for us — even before we glimpse that there could be a choice.  It is ridiculous.”

The first large fire I was on, with El Cariso Hotshots, we had a near miss in Washington state, and had to escape uphill. It was a long, steep, hike out of a canyon with spot fires igniting around us. At the time I was not too concerned, in part because our Superintendent, Ron Campbell, seemed calm, as did the more experienced crew members. I was a sawyer and when another firefighter asked if I needed relief carrying the saw, I was too proud to give it up, and kept it. If I had known the true gravity of our situation I probably would have accepted his offer. As a rookie, I did not appreciate at the time how dangerous the incident was.

Five years later our Laguna Hotshot crew was directed to walk downhill on a partially completed fireline and extend it further. Two other crews were ahead of us. We only got a fairly short distance down the line when all of us were ordered out. We hiked back up to safety with no problem and later the fire ran uphill. After five years on a hotshot crew I didn’t really think too much about it, since to me it did not fall into the near miss category. It can be fairly routine to pull back when it becomes obvious nothing worthwhile can be accomplished or that it can become unsafe. However several days later after we had returned from the fire, one of the rookies quit, citing the event as the reason.

It can be impossible to predict how rookies or experienced firefighters will react to a terrifying narrow escape. It might be life-altering in a negative way, or something that is dealt with, and put away in the “slide file” of experiences to help make better, more informed decisions down the road.

I hope the firefighters on the Route Fire who were nearly entrapped, and those who witnessed it through smoke from a distance, are able to receive counseling if needed and can process what happened September 11, 2021. It’s the kind of traumatic event that can stick with a person and everyone is impacted differently.

As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus used to tell his Hill Street Blues cops as they left the briefing to begin their shift, “Hey. Let’s be careful out there.”