Monday, December 31, 2012

Wildland Firefighters: About Smokejumping


I embedded a short video about smokejumping in Alaska last Friday  and want to spend a little more time on the important role that smokejumpers play in fighting wildland fires. Rather than reinvent the wheel so to speak, I am going to embed two videos about smokejumping that I first embedded over three years ago (July 2009) in a series on smokejumpers.


direct link to video, that I first shared on July 17, 2009. Note, you will see some footage of the DC-3 used in Missoula for smokejumping. One DC-3 smokejumping aircraft was retired this past October, see this article on Wildfire Today for more info. I believe that the DC-3 smokejumping aircraft based in Missoula will be flying again this coming season.


direct link to video, that I first shared on July 20, 2009.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Wildland Firefighters: Crews battle 2007 fire near Prescott, AZ



direct link to video Click on the about link when you get to youtube for more information on the wildfire that you see in the video. This fire that burned on June 28, 2007 came very near to some houses before being stopped by the wildfire crews. 

Remember that the airtankers and helicopters do what they do to support the crews on the ground. I am going to continue posting about the wildland fire crews on the ground over the next week to 10 days, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, stay safe everyone.

Monday, December 24, 2012

The Shepard




A good friend of mine first told me about The Shepard about three years ago now. I love this story. Some of you may already be familiar with this story, others of you may be hearing this for the first time. Enjoy!

Stay safe!
Happy holidays everyone!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Wildland firefighters: hotshot crews (2 of 2)

And continuing with hotshot crews, this video is about  a 2008 hotshot crew from Idaho City.



direct link to video

Monday, December 17, 2012

Wildland Firefighters: Hotshot Crews 1 of 2

In the next few articles, I'll be using some videos to let you into the world of wildland firefighters on the ground. This video is about the Dela Rosa Hotshots, the oldest hotshot crew in the U.S. You will also see some footage of air tankers and helos working in support of the crews on the ground. For a description of the different type of wildland firefighting ground crews (U.S. Federal Government), including type 1 interagency hotshot crews, see this webpage.


Friday, December 14, 2012

Esperanza Fire (2006, CA) Entrapment

This copyrighted video from Photo1Productions is about the 2006 Esperanza Fire where five USFS Firefighters lost their lives in a wind driven burn over. May we always remember: Pablo Cerda, Mark Loutzenhiser, Jason McKay, Jess McLean and Daniel Najera.

  direct link to video, please read the info about the video

To read more about the Esperanza Fire you will want to read the Oct. 26, 2012 article from CAL FIRE News. In addition, the WLF Always Remember Website has a page devoted to the 2006 Esperanza Entrapment.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Wildland Firefighters: staying safe - fire shelters

Aerial wildland firefighters do what they do in order to help and support the wildland firefighters on the ground (aka ground pounders) contain and control the wildfire. They do this by putting the retardant or water/foam where the ground pounders need it most. From time to time I want to remind myself and those of you who find your way to this blog about the important work that wildland firefighters on the ground do to keep us safe. My intent in this article is to talk a little about what I have learned about one specific piece of safety equipment that wildland firefighters carry, the fire shelter.

After I first got interested in wildland firefighting in the Fall of 2008, it did not take me long to learn about fire shelters that wildland firefighters carry, these shelters are only deployed as a last resort. I wrote and article on this blog about fire shelters on Aug. 10, 2009, I urge you to take a few moments and review some of the information in that article. I believe that much of the information in that article is still applicable and you might want to take a look at the video of the Santiago Fire Shelter Deployment (with a happy ending).

A few months later, in May 2010, I posted an article here, with a video showing some of the training that wildland firefighters do with their shelters. I understand that the video makes it look a lot easier than it is.

I'm not sure that there is much more about fire shelters that I can say at this time, except to stress that a wildland fire fighter's fire shelter may be the most important piece of equipment that they carry. I did find a nice, but albeit long video (25 minutes plus) about the new generation fire shelter. I think the video is meant to be a training video, however I learned a lot from watching this video. I thought that some of you might enjoy watching this 25 minute video. 

Direct link to video.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Wildland Firefighters: Staying Safe - Personal Protective Equipment

Aerial wildland firefighters do what they do in order to help and support the wildland firefighters on the ground (aka ground pounders) contain and control the wildfire. They do this by putting the retardant or water/foam where the ground pounders need it most. From time to time I want to remind myself and those of you who find your way to this blog about the important work that wildland firefighters on the ground do to keep us safe. My intent in this article is to talk a little about what I have learned about one specific aspect of what the ground pounders do, in this case personal protective equipment.

An important aspect of how wildland firefighters on the ground (aka ground pounders) stay safe is because of the type of clothing, helmets, gloves, boots, etc. that they wear. A few years ago, NOVA did an episode called the Fire Wars, the website that went with the program is still up and they have a page devoted to what wildland fighters wear and carry in their packs, for those of you who have a flash plug-in for your browser, there is a flash version. You will see that wildland firefighters also carry a fire shelter, which I'll get to in a later post.

The clothing, boots, gloves, helmets, boots, etc that wildland firefighters wear are also known as personal protective equipment or PPE. PPE must be worn properly, the video below goes into some detail about what happens when PPE is not worn or used properly. I believe that the intended audience for the video is probably wildland firefighters. However, I learned something from watching the video and I thought that some of you might enjoy the video.


direct link to video on youtube from the National Interagency Fire Center.

Note:

If you are interested in a federal wildland firefighting job, you might want to go to the jobs page of wildland fire dot comA brief discussion of what is involved in applying for federal and/or state/local wildland fire crews, may be found on this webpage from the National Wildfire Coordinatiing Group . Most states have state wildland firefighting agencies, a partial listing of (U.S.) State Wildland Fire Agencies by the folk at Wildland Fire dot cam may be found here.

Friday, December 07, 2012

Wildland Firefighters (ground pounders) 10 and 18


It was not all that long after I I first wrote about wildland firefighting in the summer of 2008 that I first heard about the 10 Standard Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations (go here to read this article). Before I began focusing first on wildland firefighting and then on aerial wildland firefighting I had a vague idea that safety is of the utmost importance to any emergency responder. A while back, one of my friends was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in New Jersey. If memory serves, she told me once that they were trained not to put their own lives in jeopardy when responding to a call. 

As I began to learn more about wildland firefighting both on the ground and in the air, I the importance that wildland firefighters put on staying safe had an increasingly profound impact on me. As I read various remarks, comments and forum posts by wildland firefighters (ground pounders) and those engaged in aerial wildland firefighting I observed that they would often their remarks with "stay safe."

When I thought about how to start this series of posts about wildland firefighting I knew that I had to begin by writing about the tools that wildland firefighters  (aka groundpounders) use to stay safe. And one of these "tools", if you will, are words in the form of the 10 Standard Fire Orders and 18 Watch Out Situations.



This is another nice short video from the National Interagency Fire Center on the 10 Standard Fire Orders that all wildland firefighters follow. In addition there are list of 18 situations that all wildland firefighters watch out for, aka the 18 Watch Out Situations:

1. Fire not scouted and sized up.
2. In country not seen in daylight.
3. Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
4. Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior
5. Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
6. Instructions and assignments not clear.
7. No communication link between crewmembers and supervisors.
8. Constructing line without safe anchor point.
9. Building line downhill with fire below.
10. Attempting frontal assault on fire.
11. Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
12. Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
13. On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
14. Weather gets hotter and drier.
15. Wind increases and/or changes direction.
16. Getting frequent spot fires across line.
17. Terrain or fuels make escape to safety zones
18. Feel like taking a nap near fire line

(obtained from http://www.nifc.gov/safety/safety_10ord_18sit.html on Dec. 5, 2012)

Over the last four years that I have writing the blog on aerial wildland firefighting, I have often referred to what is commonly known as the "Red Book" (revised annually) outlining standards for wildland firefighting here in the U.S. Chapter 7 of the Red Book is on safety, a link may be found here. For a listing of each chapter in the Red Book, as well as a link to a single PDF file for the latest Red Book, go here.

Aerial Wildland Firefighters fly to support the groundpounders.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Wildland Firefighters love what they do



Direct link to video

I want to spend sometime over the next few posts revisiting what wildland firefighting crews on the ground do. I am still thinking through how to go about this without rehashing what I have already done. I found the video this video in a group of videos from the National Interagency Fire Center on youtube. I expect that I'll be using some of these videos in the coming days as appropriate. In the meantime enjoy the video.

Monday, December 03, 2012

A Tribute to all wildland firefighters in the air and on the groud



Direct Link to Video

This video by 664 Freedom was done in 2008 and expresses in photos my heartfelt gratitude for all that you in the wildland firefighting community do to keep us safe. You will see groundpounders, smokejumpers, helos, and airtankers of various sizes. Remember that the airtankers and helos work to support the firefighters on the ground by putting the retardant or the water where it is needed.


Saturday, December 01, 2012

About wildland firefighting airspace



Here is a nice video about wildland firefighting airspace from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. I'd like to thank my friends from Section B-10 of the NJ Forest Fire Service for bringing this to my attention. I enjoyed the video and hope that you do as well. A direct link to the video may be found here.