Map of Patch Springs Fire at 2:26 p.m. MDT August 16, 2013
Fire managers on the Patch Springs fire southwest of Salt Lake City were notified this morning they would be receiving aircraft no longer needed on the Rockport Fire north of Park City, Utah.
The BLM reported that the Tooele County Sheriff’s department evacuated the town of Terra and the BLM Clover Springs Campground on Highway 199 Friday afternoon. The fire is now on the south side of the highway.
The latest acreage number provided by the BLM is 14,000 acres. An order has been placed for Dunford’s Type 2 Incident Management Team.
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Wild horses are attracted to a new water source near the Patch Springs Fire Aug 14, 2013. The tank holds water for refilling helicopter water buckets. Photo credit @UtahFireInfo
(UPDATED at 6:50 p.m. MDT, August 15, 2013)
Map of the Patch Springs Fire at 3:25 p.m. MDT, August 15, 2013. The squares indicate heat detected by a satellite, with the red areas being the most recently burned.
The Patch Springs Fire has been active today, spreading at least two to three miles to the north and moving closer to the town of Terra on the south. By late afternoon officials closed Highway 199 to help provide a better environment for firefighters working in the area. “Precautionary evacuations” are underway for the Willow Community northeast of Terra.
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(Originally published at 11:09 a.m. MDT, August 15, 2013)
The 13,000-acre Patch Springs Fire, started from lightning on August 10, has grown to within a mile of the outskirts of Terra, Utah, which is just south of the fire. The Terra Fire Chief and the Patch Springs Incident Commander have set trigger points for the possible evacuation of the town and the potential closure of Highway 199 (Johnson’s Pass). Today crews, a dozer, and aircraft will be reinforcing a fire line around the community.
The north end of the fire is burning in Antelope Canyon, 10 miles from the Tooele Army Depot, a Superfund hazardous materials site with 902 ammunition storage igloos.
Map of Patch Springs and Rockport Fires, showing heat detected by a satellite. The red dots were seen at 4:20 a.m. MDT August 15, 2013. The location of the Rockport Fire can be seen at the upper right, where 13 homes burned. (click to enlarge)
The Patch Springs Fire is being suppressed by 12 engines, 3 handcrews, a water tender, 2 helicopters, a dozer and air attack, for a total of 149 personnel.
Map showing approximate locations of heat detected on the Rockport Fire at 2:39 p.m. MDT, August 14, 2013 (click to enlarge)
The map above shows the approximate location of the Rockport Fire that has burned at least 13 residences, approximately 20 outbuildings, several vehicles, and 2,000 acres near Rockport, about 8 miles northeast of Park City, Utah. The red squares indicate heat detected by a satellite, but the locations can be off by as much as a mile. The map indicates that the fire is burning through a populated area with homes on large lots.
It started Tuesday afternoon and slowed overnight and Wednesday morning but it was active enough at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday that a scheduled press briefing had to be relocated from Wanshop (north of Rockport Lake) to the Summit County Justice Center in Park City due to “media and staff safety”.
A K-MAX helicopter is being used in an urban area near Sandy, Utah to haul away brush and trees that hand crews cut in an area near homes. Thanks to a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service, the crews spent about 800 hours cutting and spraying brush to reduce the threat from wildfires. KSL has a video and still images of the project.
The K-MAX in the picture below from July 10, 2012, is operated by Swanson Group Aviation and was assigned to Custer, SD last year,
The Governor of Utah has signed legislation, S.B. 120, that will allow the state forester to restrict target shooting during periods of enhanced wildfire danger.
When first introduced by state Senator Margaret Dayton it was temporarily withdrawn after the bill received criticism from some, including Utah Shooting Sports Council Chairman Clark Aposhian who was quoted as saying:
If it restricts gun owners from going there, then it should also restrict bird watchers. It has to be closed to everybody.
The legislation does not close areas to the public. It allows the state forester to “restrict or prohibit target shooting in areas where hazardous conditions exist”.
The legislature in Oregon is considering a bill, HB 3199, that would prohibit the use of sky lanterns (or fire balloons), exploding targets, and tracer ammunition on land within the boundaries of a forest protection district.
Firefighters in Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah have been burning piles left over from a large-scale thinning project conducted last summer. (NPS photo via @FireAviationNPS & @BryceCanyonNPS)
Below is a photo I took in Bryce on August 4, 2011, during different weather conditions.
CAL FIRE expects to fully contain the River Fire on Thursday which has burned 407 acres east of Lone Pine, California. Thick brush and winds measured at 25 mph challenged the 500 firefighters that initially fought the blaze after it started on Sunday. Remaining on the fire Wednesday morning are 234 personnel, 11 engines, 6 crews, and 2 water tenders. CAL FIRE is calling it 85 percent contained.
Oregon may regulate exploding targets and sky lanterns
A bill has been introduced in the Oregon legislature, HB 3199, that would prohibit the use of sky lanterns (or fire balloons), exploding targets, and tracer ammunition on land within the boundaries of a forest protection district. (UPDATE: the bill was signed by the Governor and will take effect January 1, 2014.)
“Concealed carry is a right, target shooting is not”
Those were the words of Utah state senator Margaret Dayton who resurrected her bill that would give the state forester the authority to ban target shooting on state lands during periods of enhanced wildfire danger. Earlier she withdrew the bill after it received criticism from some shooting enthusiasts. The bill passed the Senate this week along with another that would allow firefighters to access water on privately owned land to aid them in fire suppression efforts.
A bill is speeding through the Colorado Senate that would add safeguards to prescribed fires conducted in the state. Senate Bill 13-083 would:
Establish control over prescribed burning within the Division of Fire Prevention and Control in the Department of Public Safety;
“Prescribed Burn Managers” must be certified by the Division for prescribed fires occurring on state lands or conducted by state agencies on private lands. This does not apply to “burning conducted by an agency of the federal government”;
A Prescribed Burn Manager must be on site during a prescribed burn “until the fire is adequately confined to reasonably prevent escape”;
Allows the Division to collect fees for providing training and certifications.
Getting manufactured crisis fatigue?
While the people we send to Washington to conduct the nation’s business have not passed a federal budget in four years, and they propel us from one manufactured crisis to another, some of us may tire of the hype as we reel from one ridiculous deadline to another. Unfortunately the impacts on the land management agencies from the budget cuts required by the sequester will be significant unless they are reversed within the next few weeks.
On October 13, we first wrote about the sequester, which will require federal wildland fire programs to be cut by at least $218 million, or 8.2 percent.
Here are some excerpts from an article at the Union Democrat with examples of impacts on the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service in California:
The Associated Press obtained a Park Service memo Friday that detailed some of the planned Yosemite cuts. Staff reductions would end guided ranger programs at Wawona and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, eliminate a program in which 3,500 volunteers provide 40,000 hours of activities and mean less frequent trash pickup due to loss of campground staff.
Park administrators fear that less frequent trash pickup would potentially attract bears into campgrounds.
Seasonal road closures like that of Tioga Road may be extended later than usual because there will be less staff available to clear snow.
“The reductions would limit the National Park Service’s ability to sustain a full complement of seasonal employees needed for interpretive programs, maintenance, law enforcement and other visitor services as we are preparing for the busy summer season. Local communities and businesses that rely on recreation to support their livelihoods would face a loss of income from reduced visitation to national parks.”
In the Stanislaus National Forest, cuts could reduce funds available for fuels reductions that help prevent catastrophic forest fires. About $134 million in lost wildland fire management funds would lead to as many as 200,000 fewer acres treated nationwide, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wrote in a letter dated Feb. 5 to U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Forest Service is also prepared to close up to 670 of 19,000 developed recreation sites nationwide, such as campgrounds, picnic areas and trailheads, according to Vilsack.
Webinar today: Debunking Myths in Wildland Fire
Today from 1 until 2 p.m. MT:
Sarah McCaffrey will present findings from recent research on social issues of fire management with particular emphasis on the accuracy of various accepted truths about the public and fire management and the variables that actually are associated with approval of different fire management practices.
The bill that Utah state senator Margaret Dayton withdrew after it received criticism from shooting enthusiasts will continue to be pushed through the legislative process, the senator announced on Thursday. The bill would give the state forester authority to temporarily restrict target shooting during periods of enhanced wildfire danger. The new version of the bill would stipulate that the ban could only be enacted with the support of the locally elected sheriff.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Salt Lake Tribune.
[Senator Dayton] decided to hold the bill last week to try to iron out the differences, but the two sides couldn’t forge a compromise. [Utah Shooting Sports Council Chairman Clark] Aposhian didn’t attend Dayton’s press event Thursday.
“He did not agree to this,” Dayton said. “We didn’t ask the gun community to be present today. But we feel by working with Representative Curt Oda and the Sheriffs’ Association, we can help people understand these are intense efforts to protect Second Amendment rights.”
Aposhian said he wanted the bill to restrict access to everyone — not just target shooters.
“If it restricts gun owners from going there, then it should also restrict bird watchers,” he said. “It has to be closed to everybody.”.
A state Senator in Utah, worried that her proposed legislation would enrage the gun lobby, withdrew a bill that would have allowed the state to restrict target shooting on state-owned lands due to fire danger. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Deseret News:
Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said she is a gun owner who had no intention of interfering with anyone’s Second Amendment rights.
So when sparks were poised to fly over her legislative proposal empowering the state forester to restrict target shooting on state-owned lands due to fire danger, she backed off.
Dayton told her colleagues Friday on the floor of the Utah Senate she is not sure her bill, SB120, will be addressed this legislative session because she wants it to get a full airing before the public.
“They deserve a right to have their voices heard, especially those people who oppose the bill,” Dayton said afterward. “Gun issues are a touchy subject right now. As a gun owner, I understand that.”
Because of the relentless wave of wildfires — some started by target shooting — that burned through thousands of acres of state-owned land last year, State Forester Dick Buehler enacted a host of restrictions last July.
Some of those included bans on types of ammunition, while others shut down target shooting altogether in specific areas of Summit, Davis, Utah and Cache counties.
Because there was some question about the state forester’s ability to enact such a ban — pro-gun groups said the move was not only unwarranted but illegal — Dayton sought to have that authority clarified in state law.
UPDATE February 3, 2013: The Salt Lake Tribune has more details about the death of the bill that would have limited target shooting during periods of high fire danger.
Church Camp fire, burnout along Highway 191. Photo credit: UT-FFSL
The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that slash burned after a logging operation on state land 22 miles south of Duchesne, Utah may have smoldered for 18 months before igniting a wildfire that burned 7,211 acres in June, 2012. The Church Camp fire was discovered June 24 and caused the evacuation of Argyle Canyon, a popular summer cabin and recreation area for Salt Lake City residents. The fire destroyed 15 homes and was suppressed at a cost of $5.7 million.
The investigation report is not yet final, but cause and origin investigators for the Utah Division of Forestry said there is no evidence that lightning, arson, or anything else — except the 18-month old slash burn — could have started the fire. They admit that it is “highly unlikely” that the slash burn was the cause, but they can’t come up with a more likely cause.
…One cabin owner told investigators that two weeks before the Church Camp Fire ignited, he and his daughter visited the slash pile. The cabin owner said he stepped in a 1½-inch pile of fluffy white ash that appeared to have been recently burned. The cabin owner said he suspected dirt around the pile was helping retain heat.
Also, another slash pile burned in the fall of 2011 several miles west of the Church Camp Fire reignited in the spring. The report implies this is evidence the 18-month-old burned slash pile could have reignited, too.
DC-10 dropping on Church Camp Fire – InciWeb photo
Two men have been charged with starting the Dump Fire near Saratoga Springs, Utah that burned more than 5,500 acres and cost $2.1 million to put out. About 2,500 people were forced to evacuate.
Investigators say the men were shooting on June 21 when they hit an explosive target that started the fire in nearby vegetation. Identified as 37-year-old Kenneth Nielsen of Washington, Utah, and 42-year-old Jeffrey Conant of Woodinville, Washington, they were charged with misdemeanor reckless burning and using prohibited targets,
We first wrote about the surge in popularity of exploding targets and the increasing number of wildfires caused by these devices on October 11, 2012. In that article we listed 21 fires that were either confirmed or suspected to be caused by exploding targets since the first of June, 2012. And these are just the ones that we were able to find using Google.
Car destroyed by exploding target. Credit ABC7.com
These devices are sometimes called “binary exploding targets”, since they are completely inert until two powders are mixed at the site by the target shooter. After they are combined, the compound is illegal to transport. The manufacturers claim that the only way they can be detonated is by striking them with a high-velocity bullet fired from a high-powered center-fire rifle. At least one company has recently started offering targets that will explode when hit with a much less powerful .22 caliber rim-fire rifle.
Most of the wildfire community is only beginning to learn of of this disturbing trend.
Laws regulating the devices vary from state to state. CAL FIRE investigator Capt. Gregory Ewing, issued a safety bulletin following a June, 2012 fire in Riverside County that was started by exploding targets. He suggested that users of the targets could be charged with multiple felonies.
Possessing it with the intent to mix the two parts (thus creating an explosive) is a felony. Actually mixing the two parts is also a felony, and detonating it is yet another.
John N. Maclean, the author of several books about wildfires, in an October 18 OP-ED article on the New York Times’ web site, wrote about penalties that have been assessed against arsonists and others who have started wildfires. He briefly mentioned exploding targets:
Some practice shooters fire at exploding targets — store-bought canisters that blow up when pierced by a bullet. These are largely legal, but they should be banned immediately.
I agree with Mr. Maclean. It is ridiculous that these incendiary devices which have been demonstrated to be extremely dangerous in the hands of the average shooter, are legal. They should not only be illegal to transport after the two chemicals have been mixed, the kits to assemble them should not be legal to sell or possess.
Specific legislation is needed so that a person starting a fire with an exploding target can be charged with a crime that is more punitive than misdemeanor reckless burning or using prohibited targets, as was the case in the brain dead shooters that started the $2.1 million Dump Fire.
