News and opinion about wildland fire
In August we wrote about three football teams named “Wildfire”. Today we ran across someone talking about wildfire on Twitter and it turned out to be referring to what appears to be a girls’ hockey team in Canada (see the photo above).
Then we found another women’s hockey team in Wenatchee, Washington:
And still another one, Holy Family/Waconia in Minnesota:
(UPDATE at 7:35 p.m. PDT, July 30, 2013)
The Colockum Tarps Fire continued to spread to the south Tuesday, and according to the incident management team has now burned 59,316 acres.
In the map of the fire below, the red squares represent heat detected by a satellite during the day on Tuesday. The red line was the perimeter at 1 a.m. Tuesday. Despite the appearance of some of the red squares, the fire has not crossed the Columbia River.
About three miles southwest of the fire is a new wind farm with hundreds of wind generators. It is under a “level 2” evacuation notice, which is the next level before Get Out NOW. The fire is moving in that direction but the vegetation in the area is fairly light and firefighters are hopeful that the facilities will not be too difficult to protect. They had structure protection personnel checking it out Tuesday evening. (I wonder how retardant would affect the wind generators?)
Hotshot crews were transported by boats on the Columbia River to their assignments on the south side of the fire Tuesday.
Single engine air tankers are working the fire along with helicopters and one of the DC-10s, which is reloading at Moses Lake.
****
(UPDATE at 7:40 a.m. PDT, July 30, 2013)
We have a more accurate map of the Colockum Tarps Fire, which, according to our sources, has burned approximately 46,000 acres, or 72 square miles. The fire is still active and continues to spread on the west and south sides. Information about evacuations can be found on InciWeb.
Carl Buick explained to us, with a visual aid, how the Colockum Tarps Fire got its name. It started near Colockum Creek and the next drainage over is Tarpiscan creek. The initial attack operations were first set up at the road junction seen below.
Former volunteer firefighter sentenced for arson
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a former volunteer firefighter was sentenced to a total of two years in jail for setting fires in the northern California counties of Sonoma and San Mateo. Our original story on the charges is here, and the Chronicle has the details about Friday’s sentencing of Nathaniel Ridgway Schmidt, 20, of Cazadero, California.
Extreme heat forecast for some areas in the West
This weekend and the first part of next week some areas in the west will experience extremely hot weather. The temperature for Death Valley was expected to reach nearly 130 on Friday — just short of the 134-degree reading from a century ago that stands as the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth. More details.
This is a good time for firefighters to review the video on Heat Related Illness.
Helicopter crashes into river near Missoula
A helicopter made a crash landing into a river Friday while recertifying for water bucket operations near Missoula, Montana. Both the pilot and a passenger survived, according to an article in the Missoulian. More details are at Fire Aviation.
Colorado: West Fork Complex Fire
The Papoose Fire, part of the West Fork Complex of fires in southern Colorado, was extremely active Thursday night and early Friday morning, running for four miles and creating new spot fires 1 to 1.5 miles ahead. More details are in our main article about the fire.
New York Times on smaller budgets for fuel management
The New York Times is the latest news organization to run a major story on how the federal government is reducing the budgets for prescribed fire and other types of fuel mitigation which lower the fire risk by removing accumulations of thick vegetation in forests and in wildland-urban interfaces near populated areas. Here is an excerpt from their article:
The government has cut back on programs to reduce fire risks in areas where homes and the wilderness collide. The United States Forest Service treated 1.87 million acres of those lands in 2012, but expects to treat only 685,000 acres next year. Conservation advocates say that is likely to mean fewer people working to prevent runaway fires, fewer controlled burns and fewer trucks hauling away dry brush and tinder.
Trimming trees and clearing brush can make blazes less destructive, and the Forest Service said it had treated more than 26 million acres since 2000. But as the government spends an increasing amount to battle wildfires, critics say it makes little sense to cut back on prevention.
“There is a growing consensus in the West that dollar for dollar, these kinds of prevention efforts are paying off,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon. “And when the big fires break out, the bureaucracy steals money from the prevention fund and the problem gets worse. The Forest Service has become the fire service.”
Senators write letter about cuts in fuel treatments
More Senators have written another letter about cuts to fire budgets. The AP reports:
A bipartisan group of Western U.S. senators on Friday urged the Obama administration to focus more on preventing wildfires rather than taking money from programs that clear potentially hazardous dead trees and brush to fund efforts to fight the increasingly destructive blazes.
It is easy to write letters. Politicians tend to look the other way when it comes to actually DOING SOMETHING MEANINGFUL to correct the problem, such proposing and passing budget legislation. (sigh)
Wildfire smoke closes George Parks Highway in Alaska
Smoke from the Skinny’s Road Fire, which is named after a nearby bar, forced officials to close a section of the George Parks Highway between Nenana and Fairbanks on Wednesday. It reopened Thursday but travelers had to be escorted by pilot cars through the smoke. The highway is the main route between between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska.
Lightning in the Yukon starts 23 fires
Fire managers in the Yukon Territory asked the British Columbia government to send 62 more fighters to help put out 23 new fires started by lightning Thursday. They will join the other 45 firefighters that B.C. sent to help out earlier.
Below is an excerpt from an article at CBC.com:
“Obviously, the emphasis right now is the protection of life and property, while maintaining the safety of our staff,” said Fire Information Officer George Maratos.
“Given the intense fire behaviour on some of these fires, the safest and most effective response was from the air with air tankers and helicopters.”
One of the priority fires is burning 18 kilometres east of Faro. Two are near Carmacks: one 45 kilometres east of the community near Little Salmon River and another 16 kilometres northwest near Free Gold Road. The fourth is 36 kilometres northeast of Mayo.
Environment Canada is forecasting more thunderstorms in the area for Friday.
Los Alamos National Laboratory criticized for wildfire preparedness
A report issued by the Department of Energy’s inspector general said the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has not done enough to protect the facility from wildfires and other natural disasters. The inspectors were concerned about what would happen if an earthquake or fire caused damage that could lead to exposure from some of the radioactive waste stored at the lab.
On May 10, 2000, a fire that began as a prescribed fire in Bandalier National Monument burned into Los Alamos. The Cerro Grande Prescribed Fire was carried by very strong winds, with embers blowing a mile or more across the fire lines to the north, south, and east. The towns of Los Alamos and White Rock were in the fire’s path and more than 18,000 residents evacuated.
By the end of the day on May 10, the fire had burned 18,000 acres, destroyed 235 homes, and damaged many other structures. The fire also spread towards the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and although fires spotted onto the facility’s lands, all major structures were secured and no releases of radiation occurred.
Washington: Soap Lake fire department quits
The Columbia Basin Herald reports that after the Mayor of Soap Lake, Washington (map) fired the Fire Chief, 11 volunteer firefighters resigned from the fire department, leaving the town with no fire protection. This mess began from a fund raiser to replace the water tank on a wildland fire truck.
Oregon drought worries ranchers and firefighters
A severe drought in southeast Oregon has firefighters concerned and has forced the Bureau of Land Management to haul water to herds of wild mustangs and pronghorn antelope.
Mount Rushmore cancels July 4 fireworks show
Mount Rushmore has again cancelled the July 4 fireworks extravaganza, which rains down large quantities of fireworks debris into the forest and rocky slopes around the sculpture. Previous fireworks at the Memorial have caused over twenty small fires. The Park Superintendent, Cheryl Schreier, cited the fire hazard in the nearby beetle-damaged forest as the reason for the cancellation.
Thanks go out to Dick and Kelly.
Since the Dog Mountain Fire about 30 miles southwest of Mt. Rainier in Washington (map) was reported May 4, 2013, it has burned approximately 100 acres near the eastern end of Riffe Lake in Lewis County. It is 50 percent contained, and approximately 80 people continue to be assigned to it under a Type 3 organization lead by Incident Commander Charley Burns. The fire is burning in a recently logged area and 8-year-old forest plantation owned by the Port Blakely Tree Farms.
Bulldozers, fire engines, and water-dropping helicopters are assigned to the fire which was initially fanned and spread by dry east winds.
Crews continue to construct containment lines and mop-up where possible. The cause of the fire is under investigation. No structures are threatened and no homes have been evacuated.
U.S. Forest Service investigators have determined that target shooters using exploding targets caused the Goat Fire which burned 7,378 acres three miles southwest of Pateros, Washington (map) in September. Investigators had previously said that two other fires in the state may have been started by exploding targets — a 120-acre blaze in Mud Creek Entiat and another on Deadman Hill near Cashmere.
Here is an excerpt from the Wenatchee World:
…The U.S. Attorney’s Office is reviewing the U.S. Forest Service investigation into the Goat Fire near Pateros, said Forest Service spokesman Tom Knappenberger.
He said criminal charges could be filed later.
Anyone convicted of igniting the blaze could also be required to pay for suppression costs and other damages.
The Goat Fire burned mostly on Forest Service land, but also charred some private property and Bureau of Land Management land.
Emergency service towers, cellular phone towers, local television broadcast equipment, and buried power lines were threatened in the fire that burned from Sept. 15 until Nov. 9.
These devices have become more popular in the last year. When we wrote about this dangerous trend last October, with a quick Google search we found 22 fires during a 5-month period that were started by the use of exploding targets.
Thanks go out to Carl
A facilitated learning analysis has been released for a serious injury that occurred while firefighters were taking suppression action on an extremely steep slope above the Columbia River Gorge on the border between Washington and Oregon.
That portion of the Milepost 66 fire was too steep for firefighters to work without some form of protection or a fall arrest device. An engine crew from the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area certified in tree climbing and low angle rope use was assigned to work the slope using ropes. The CRGNSA is managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
Two crew members rappelled down the slope, taking action on hot spots they ran across. They arrived at a bench and mopped up more of the fire. When finished, they rappelled down to the highway below. What happened next is in the excerpt below:
…As crew member #2 reached the edge, or lip, of the 70’ cliff, he though “it’s a little loose,” meaning that rock was falling from the slope below the bench. The loose rock was also noticed by someone watching from below. Crew member #2 continued his descent down the rope when his hand tool got stuck about 20’ below the lip. He reached back to make an adjustment and continue his descent. At the halfway point crew member #2 called crew member #1, “I just got hit by a rock.” Crew member #3 was at the HWY taking photos and witnessed a rock fall and hit crew member #2. Crew member #3 didn’t see where the rock came from but estimated the rock was the size of a small melon or softball. This happened approximately 30’ above the HWY. Crew member #2 paused and then continued the descent to the HWY. Crew member #3 called out to #2, “are you OK?”, received no response and started moving toward #2. By the time crew member #3 arrived, #2 said he wasn’t doing well. Crew member #2 was bleeding and had some deformity on the left side of his face. Crew member #3 removed #2’s harness and called for the trauma kit from the engine. Crew member #3 said it was obvious that Crew member #2 was in serious pain.
According to the report, the injured firefighter was treated on scene by two paramedics and transported to a hospital within 17 minutes of the injury. There are no details provided about the diagnosis of the injury or the patient’s recovery, but the firefighter was admitted to the Hood River County Hospital and later referred to Oregon Health Science University hospital for a more complete evaluation.
Some of the conclusions, lessons learned, and suggestions in the report included:
