A concept for a satellite that would be dedicated to detecting new wildfires.
Researchers at Berkeley have designed a concept for a satellite that would be dedicated to detecting new wildfires. Decades ago we relied on a network of lookout towers staffed by employees and later volunteers who observed emerging fires and reported them by telephone or radio. Today most fires are turned in by residents or travelers with cell phones.
Rapid initial attack with overwhelming force using both ground and air resources, arriving within the first 10 to 30 minutes when possible.
But if a fire is not detected and reported quickly, rapid initial attack is not possible.
This proposed satellite, called FUEGO – Fire Urgency Estimator in Geosynchronous Orbit, would survey the entire western United States every two minutes or less and could detect a fire that is about 10 feet in diameter. Assuming that the data from the satellite could be transmitted to the appropriate dispatch center within a minute or two, this could be a major step toward keeping fires small… IF the fire agencies have the appropriate initial attack policies in place and an adequate number of firefighting resources, both ground and air-based, to respond and arrive at the fire within the first 10 to 30 minutes.
Artist’s concept for FUEGO on orbit (FUEGO Concept Art by R. E. Lafever, LBNL)
While the cost of the satellite could be several hundred million dollars, it could conceivably save money if it prevents a few megafires like the Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park last summer that to date has cost more than $127 million.
The real time detection of new fires is a very worthy goal, but added to this system should be the capability for real time monitoring and mapping of existing fires. The Holy Grail of Wildland Firefighter Safety is a system that could track firefighters on the ground AND the location of the fire, all displayed on one screen. This data should be available in real time to key supervisors and decision makers in the Operations and Planning Sections on fires. Knowing the positions of personnel relative to the fire would be a massive step in improved situational awareness and could reduce the number of firefighters killed on fires. This information could have saved 24 lives in recent years — 19 on the Yarnell Hill Fire and 5 on the Esperanza Fire. In both cases the firefighters and their supervisors did not know where the firefighters were relative to the location of the fire.
All of this technology exists. It would be expensive to implement, but it could save lives.
(Originally published at 11:19 MDT, September 28, 2013; updated at 6 p.m. September 28, 2013. Observations after reading the report are at the bottom of this article.)
The Arizona State Forestry Division has released the Serious Accident Investigation report of the Yarnell Hill Fire, which on June 30, 2013, killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. It was produced by a very large cast of characters, 18 core Team Members, 17 Support Team Members, and 19 Subject Matter Experts, for a total of 54 people.
The report found:
The judgments and decisions of the incident management organizations managing this fire were reasonable. Firefighters performed within their scope of duty, as defined by their respective organizations. The Team found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol.
Air Attack’s photo of the Yarnell Hill fire at 7:24 p.m. June 29, 2013
A news conference about the report was live-streamed by at least two Phoenix area television stations. In the question and answer period several national news organizations as well as local media asked questions of the five-person panel which consisted of the Arizona State Forester, two people from the investigation team, and two officers from the Prescott Fire Department.
Below is a 21-minute video released by the investigation team today, which they described as a “A brief overview of the Yarnell Hill Fire Investigation report.” Much of it comes word for word from the report but it makes effective use of Google Earth to provide an overview of the geography of the fire.
Granite Mountain Hotshot Christopher MacKenzie shot the two video clips below shortly after 4:00 p.m. on June 30, 2013. These are the last images of the hotshots before they died. The video was unexpectedly made available today for the first time by the Prescott Daily Courier, which has an article about how the video and other photos of the fire were found.
Our observations after reading the report and viewing the press conference and the question and answer session.
The official report commissioned by the Arizona State Forestry Division, a case of them investigating themselves, did not break much new ground. There was little of a negative nature written about the crew or their employer, the Prescott Fire Department, which was barely mentioned. The Granite Mountain Hotshots were fully qualified, staffed, and trained and they were on day 13 of a permitted 14 days in a row of fighting fire. And, there was “no indication of negligence, recklessness actions, or violations of policy or protocol”.
Why did the Granite Mountain 19 leave the “black”?
The investigators emphasized that they were unable to answer one of the most-asked questions about the fatalities — why the crew left the safety of the already burned area, the black, to attempt to walk 1.6 miles mostly through unburned brush to another safety zone, the Boulder Springs Ranch. They came to within 0.38 miles of their destination when they encountered one of the heads of the fire that had wrapped around the ridge to their left in the box canyon and was headed toward them, cutting off their path probably much to their surprise. Click the map below to see a larger version of the wind at the deployment site.
No one knew where the crew was in relation to the fire
There was confusion about the location of the crew. Other firefighters thought they had either remained safely in the black where they had been for a while, or they had headed north to another safety zone. But instead, they traveled south. When they reported that they were entrapped and were deploying their fire shelters, no one knew where they were. Finally they told Air Attack they were on the “south side”, but even though a DC-10 air tanker was orbiting and ready to drop on them, airborne personnel could not find them, either due to heavy smoke or because they were looking in the wrong place. But under the extreme wind and fire conditions, it is unlikely that air support would have helped the firefighters very much.
Improving situational awareness
This is another fire, like the Esperanza Fire, where if the fire overhead, such as a Division Supervisor, Operations Section Chief, or Safety Officer, had known the location of the personnel on the fire in relation to the real-time spread of the fire, it could have saved lives — 24 on these two fires alone.
It is irresponsible for the wildland fire agencies to continue to do nothing to improve the situational awareness of firefighters, which has proved fatal to too many of them.
We have written about this several times before. Many local fire departments, EMS divisions, and police units have the ability to send location data to dispatchers. If the analog or digital ground-based radio systems being used today can’t handle this task in remote areas, then use a satellite-based system. The U.S. Forest Service asked for proposals to purchase thousands of little location devices last year, and adding high tech video systems to air attack ships could help. We have also written about a device we called a Firefighter’s Emergency Situational Awareness Device, a FESAD.
One of the recommendations in the report was to “review current technology that could increase resource tracking, communications, real time weather, etc.” The Q&A panel today said, in response to a question, that the surviving family members of the 19 Hotshots strongly suggested while being briefed this morning that tracking systems for firefighters be utilized.
Very Large Air Tanker not ordered because of “steep terrain”
The information that the state of Arizona released on July 16 about the resources deployed on the fire said a DC-10 Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT) was in Albuquerque and available on June 29, but was not ordered due to Air Attack’s concern about its effectiveness in steep terrain and inability to deliver retardant before cut-off time. The way this was addressed in today’s report was “ICT4 declines the VLAT offer at 1750 [June 29] based on fire conditions.” There was nothing about “steep terrain”, which didn’t exist on the fire to the extent that it would severely limit the effectiveness of a DC-10 VLAT. In fact, the next day, June 30, they used the hell out of both DC-10s, dropping over 88,000 gallons in 8 flights. A recommendation in today’s report was to “…develop a brief technical tip for fire supervisors/agency administrators on the effective use of VLATs.”
Air tanker drops on Yarnell Hill Fire, June 29 and 30, 2013.
The DC-10s may have been effective on June 29 when the fire was still small, but by the time they both arrived on June 30, the day of the entrapment, the wind event was making it difficult for anything dropped from the air to slow down the fire — too much heat, and too much wind blowing the retardant away before it hit the target.
Aerial Supervision Module taking on too many roles?
During the time of the entrapment the roles of Air Attack and Lead Plane were filled by a single aircraft called an Aerial Supervision Module (ASM), coordinating all of the aerial firefighting, directing air traffic, preventing aircraft from bumping into each other, developing tactics, AND serving as Lead Plane, physically leading the air tankers into their targets about 200 feet above the ground. The Lead Plane duties limited their ability to perform full Air Attack responsibilities over the fire at the same time. The report said, “ASM was too busy handling multiple duties to communicate with the crew just prior to the deployment”.
One of the recommendations in the report is to request the National Wildfire Coordinating Group to develop guidance to identify at what point is it necessary to separate the ASM and Air Attack roles to carry out required responsibilities for each platform.
No overwhelming force
The ordering and use of ground and aerial firefighting resources was less than aggressive on June 29, the day before the tragedy when the fire was still small. The only air tankers used that day were two single engine air tankers, and for only part of the day, dropping a total of 7,626 gallons. After being released, they were requested again by Air Attack, but dispatch only allowed one to respond to the fire, wanting to keep one in reserve in case there were other fires. General Norman Schwarzkopf’s philosophy when confronting the enemy was to use “overwhelming force”. This strategy also is effective when confronting a wildfire. Overwhelming force for a short amount of time can prevent megafires burning for weeks, consuming many acres, dollars, and sometimes homes and lives.
Example of a Satellite Emergency Notification Device. Photo by Bill Gabbert
The U.S. Forest Service has issued a solicitation indicating that they intend to purchase thousands of Satellite Emergency Notification Devices (SEND). The specifications listed by the USFS require that the device be able to:
Determine location using GPS.
Send via satellite an emergency message containing the device’s location after pressing an “SOS” button. A monitoring facility would then notify a nearby emergency services agency.
Track location by sending the device’s location via satellite every 10 minutes, minimum, if activated by pressing the TRACK button.
Display the tracked locations on a map on the internet.
Send a pre-programmed HELP message including the device’s location.
Send a “check-in” message, including the location, after pressing a “check-in” button.
I have used one of these for years. In fact, the photo is my “SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger“, which is a second generation SPOT device. I always carry mine when I am on an extended motorcycle trip, or sometimes on a 4-wheeled vehicle trip. The two features that I like best about it are the SOS which works via satellite even when there is no cell phone service, and the tracking feature so that my family or friends can know where I am. If I’m running late, they can check the map on the web site and know that I’m still on the road and moving… or not.
On the solicitation the USFS says they want the devices because:
Forest Service employees routinely work in the wilderness. Their main mean of communication while in the wilderness is 2 way radios. Normally the employees use mobile and handheld radios to communicate their locations and status to the dispatch center. Approximately 20% of the forest is outside of the area of coverage of radios because of terrains.
It will be interesting to find out if they can use this device to track multiple wildfire suppression resources on one map. Will a dispatcher be able to see where all of their engines and crews are? Could it even be displayed on a smart phone? Will an Incident Commander or Branch Director have access to a map that shows where their firefighting resources are? This could add an element of safety. At times like this I think of the Esperanza fire, and wonder if it would have made a difference if the Operations Section Chief or Division Supervisor had had maps in front of them that displayed the location of Engine 57 at the top of that drainage before the fire overran their location. Could five lives have been saved?
Actually, using this little portable device for mass resource tracking is a half-assed approach, rather than putting professional-quality location-tracking devices in all wildfire suppression rolling stock and radios…like many professional-quality fire departments, police departments, and ambulance services have been doing for years.
I am not entirely fluent in translating contracting-speak into English, but it appears that the USFS has $1.2 million burning a hole in their pocket and they want to use all of it over the course of one year to buy as many devices as they can, to include a year of service — monitoring, mapping, and satellite messaging. A SPOT Personal Tracker is listed for $60 to $170 on Google, and a year of service costs $99. There are other brands out there with different pricing. The government would no doubt get a deal if they buy a few thousand, so picking some numbers out of the air, if they pay a total of $120 per device for a year, that would be 10,000 units. WOW. Even if they pay retail at Best Buy for a SPOT device, on sale now for $60, then pay retail for service, $99, that’s 7,500 of the little things.
Here is another excerpt from the USFS solicitation:
4.3 Minimum delivery requirements shall be 1,000 units 30 days ARO; 3,000 units (or the balance of the total) 60 days ARO; 5,000 units (or the balance of the total) 90 days ARO; and the balance 120 days ARO.
This technology is evolving rapidly, and since the SPOT is on sale at Best Buy, maybe the company is about to introduce a third generation device. DeLorme has an inReach device that can apparently do most if not all that a SPOT can do, but can also send AND receive text messages… anywhere. It’s a little pricey, costing several times more than a SPOT.
UPDATE, January 14, 2014: The U.S. Forest Service bought 6,000 of the devices. There is a discussion of them in the report of an ATV accident that occurred on the Schoolhouse Fire in New Mexico in 2013.
I use a SPOT satellite messenger on motorcycle trips. It’s a handy little device about the size of a small digital camera and is equipped with a GPS receiver and a radio transmitter. By pushing just one button, it can send via satellite a message that 1) you are OK, 2) that you need help, or 3) that you have an emergency and need 9-1-1 services. It sends your location with every message. It can also, optionally, send your location every 10 minutes, plotting your location and a track on Google Maps that can be viewed on the Internet by anyone to whom you give the web site address.
The device is fairly reliable. Approximately 80-90% of the auto-tracking messages have gone through when I have used it, but it can be affected by tree canopy, much like other GPS devices. If you send an “OK” message, it sends three identical messages to the SPOT service for redundancy. The first of those three messages is delivered.
If you send a 9-1-1 message, it will keep sending it every 5 minutes until it is canceled or until the batteries run out. When sending your location every 10 minutes, the batteries, two AA Lithiums, will last about 14 days. If the auto tracking every 10 minutes is not turned on, 1,900 “OK” messages can be sent on one set of batteries.
I was looking at the web site today of the Laguna Hot Shots, one of my old crews, and saw a link for “Where are we; crew’s location” which leads to a map of their location. It turns out that the crew, or someone on the crew, is carrying one of these SPOT devices, making it possible to know where the crew is. Apparently they don’t have the every 10 minute tracking feature turned on, but they are pushing the “OK” button every now and then, one to eight times a day.
I imagine that the families of the crew members very much appreciate being able to go to a web site and follow the travels of the crew. While this is a great thing for frequent travelers to have, it probably should not be depended on by firefighters for rescue on fires in a life or death situation, but I doubt if the Hot Shots have that in mind. Having said that, this service which only began early this year, already has some examples of people that have been rescued from various types of mishaps.
The suggested retail price is $169.99, but it can be found for less at Saltys Marine and Cabela’s. You also need to subscribe to the service which is $99 per year for standard service and an extra $49 per year for the SPOTcasting tracking service (the map on the Internet).
Below is an example of a map display of where the Laguna Hot Shots have been. If you go to the site, you can zoom in and out and pan. I believe the tracking data only remains on the web site for 7 days.
HERE is another example of tracking someone who is carrying the device on a multi-day motorcycle rally, Matt Watkins, who has the 10-minute tracking feature turned on. Matt also has a BLOG about his adventures.
