2019 NJ fire season: Spring Hill Fire in Burlington/Ocean Counties NJ Burns 10,000 Acres

direct link to video from NJ Advance Media (March 30th)

The Spring Hill Fire was first reported about 1:45 PM on Saturday, March 30th in Penn Forest  in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Spring Hill Fire is located in Barnegat and Woodland Townships, Burlington County NJ. When first observed by the Apple Pie Hill Observation Tower, the fire was very small. The video from NJ Advance Media that I embedded above was shot on the afternoon of March 30th when the wildfire was at about 1,000 acres. During the next several hours the wildfire grew to 5,000 acres. A SEAT flew the fire yesterday as well as a helicopter with a bucket. Voluntary evacuations were in place, but there were no mandatory evacuations and no residences have been damaged or destroyed. It is possible that some hunting cabins have been destroyed. Road closures remain in place. The latest update has the fire at about 10,000 acres. At last report the fire is at 75 percent containment. There was some rain that moved through the area this morning into this afternoon, however while the rain will help it may is not enough to put out the fire. According to John Rieth (reported by the Asbury Park Press (March 31st, 1:52 PM) :

As of noon Sunday, about 75 percent of the fire is contained, but not under control, said John Rieth, an assistant warden with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. 

A wildfire is under control when the threat of it spreading has been halted, and that hasn't yet happened, Rieth said. 

There are no threats to structures and no reported injuries or property damage, but local fire departments are standing by in case that changes, Rieth said. On Saturday, Burlington County activated its wildfire strike team. 

The fire grew from about 8,000 acres to 10,000 acres Sunday morning, but the growth is in part because the state's forest fire service is fighting the wildfire by setting fires around it to stop it from spreading, Rieth said. 

The fire control line may even expand out further than the 10,000 acres, Rieth said. Ten thousand acres is equal to about 15.5 square miles.

To place the Spring Hill Fire in context, David Livinisky of the Burlington County Times wrote about large fires in Burlington County in a March 31st article about the Spring Hill Fire:

Forest fires are not unusual in New Jersey’s Pinelands forests. The forests sandy soils and pines are highly combustible fuel, particularly during warm, dry and windy days in the spring. But fires as large as this one are infrequent. 

This fire is believed to be one of the largest to spark in the county since May 2007 when an F-16 jet on a training mission over the Warren Grove Bombing Range near the border of Burlington and Ocean counties dropped a defensive flare below the minimum required altitude. The resulting fire burned more than 17,000 acres over six days. 

The last major fire to threaten homes in Burlington County was in April 2014 when more than 1,300 acres of pine forests and brush burned in Woodland and Tabernacle between Sooy Place Road and Route 532. That fire was far smaller than a 1992 fire than burned more than 13,000 acres in Burlington and Ocean counties and forced the evacuation of about 150 Woodland residents and the closing of the Chatsworth Elementary School.

Thanks to the ground crews and air support of the NJ Forest Fire Service along with mutual aid firefighters for all your work on this fire. Thanks for keeping us in New Jersey safe. Stay safe.

Some media reports on the Spring Hill Fire
NJ Advance Media with photo gallery (March 31st, 12:45 PM)
Asbury Park Press with photo gallery (March 31st, 1:52 PM)
ABC 6 Philadelphia (March 31st, about 1 PM, video from early AM)


I will continue to follow the Spring Hill Fire and will report back with updates. Stay tuned.

New Jersey Forest Fire Service in 84th year of prescribed burns

I know that the New Jersey Forest Fire Service is continuing to do prescribed burns. The New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) is in their 84th year of doing these prescribed burns. Many of you who follow my blog also follow Bill Gabbert's Wildfire Today. On March 25th, he wrote a very nice article where he shared an article written by Michael Achey and Marie Cook of the NJFFS on their prescribed burn program, Bill's article may be found here. I hope that you take a few moments to read this great article. I was especially interested in a table breaking down 2019 prescribed burning statistics by Division and by grass, forest and marsh (by ownership) through March 21, 2019. For example Statewide totals (acres burned):

state grass              3,336
state forest             8,645
state marsh                 22
private grass               74
private forest          2,915
other grass                  64
other forest             2,917
totals                    17,963 

Note: other refers to government owned landed not owned by State of New Jersey

Thanks to Michael Achey and Marie Cook for a great article and thanks to Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today for sharing their article.

More on Himawari 8

I continue to be interested in Himawari 8 out of the Meteorological Satellite Center of the Japan Meteorological Agency which I first wrote about on March 13th. I am in the process of doing some doing some reading about Himawari 8 on the internet. I hope, but am not certain that at some point in the future I will be able to write a little more about Himawari on this blog. I understand that yes, Himawari imagery can show good imagery of wildfires (or bush fires). Here is a 4 second clip of Himawari 8 imagery of a November 2018 bush fire in Queensland Australia.


direct link to video

While I am continuing to try to learn more about Himawari 8, I thought I'd share some imagery from Himawari 8 of Super Typhoon Mangkhut that devastated the Philippines in September 2018. Here is an article from the BBC and a write up on Mangkhut on Wikipedia


direct link to video

A look at prescribed burns in Florida, Oklahoma, and Virgina

Because it is still prescribed burning season in parts of the United States, or it was prescribed burning season a couple of months ago, I wanted to find some nice videos where officials are describing the prescribed burns that they are doing in their corner of the country. With the help of my friends at the B10 NJ Wildland Fire Page who post several weekly wildfire videos on their fire videos of the week page, I found three short videos to share with you. These videos are from Florida, Oklahoma and Virginia. Please note that what is described in each video is specific to the prescribed burn done in an ecosystem on a specific piece of land. While the land and conditions are likely to be different in your part of the world, I hope that you will get an idea about the planning that goes into prescribed burns, the ecological importance of the particular prescribed burn and how the prescribed burn is done. Enjoy.

Florida

direct link to video

Oklahoma

direct link to video

Virginia

direct link to video

IMET annual refresher training (2019)

It is early spring here in the United States so I know that various federal and state agencies with some responsibility for wildland firefighting are doing their annual refresher training for their wildland firefighters, pilots, etc. In past years I have written about the important work that NWS Incident Meteorologists (IMETs) do to provide on-site weather forecasts on wildland fire incidents. The IMETs have to have four years experience as a National Weather Service Meteorologist and be what is known as a journeyman or general forecaster. I wrote about the training of new IMETs on July 21, 2017.

IMETs do what they do so that when they are deployed to a wildfire in order to give the wildland firefighters the best incident specific weather forecasts possible. I was wondering about the annual refresher training that IMETs receive, so I corresponded with the staff of the NWS IMET office on Facebook asking them about their annual refresher training. IMETs save lives!

Q1. Random Ramblings: Is annual refresher training in person or on the web or both?
NWS IMET office: The annual IMET refresher training is a combination of virtual, in-person, and continuing education webinars.

Q2.  Random Ramblings: I understand that IMETs get 20 to 40 hours of annual refresher training to keep their skills sharp, can you give me some examples?
NWS IMET Office: We have several avenues of training. First, we have our virtual workshop, which is a 1 day webinar-type workshop where IMETs go through things like updates to software and hardware that is used in the field, updates on administrative items we have to do in order to get out the door and get paid (paperwork, travel, etc.), updates on the GOES satellite and its capabilities, updates on our upper air system and how to send that data back to the NWS from the field so it can be used by other forecasters, and information on Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM), which is basically how people react to stressful situations. 
     Then we have our in-person workshop held every March. Here we bring in all the new IMET Trainees as well as 1/3 of our veteran IMET Cadre and we run them through training and scenarios for a week. We touch on the same items as above, but in addition we practice briefings over handheld radios, working with the RAWS equipment (portable ground observation systems), giving media briefings, etc. We also chose a topic to focus on each year. This year was focused on what a burnout operation is (where firefighters do a controlled burn to get rid of the fuel between a break - fireline, handline, dozerline - and the fire so that when the main fire gets to the area that has burned it doesn't have any fuel to burn and the fire diminishes or goes out). Every year it is required that all firefighters go through an annual safety refresher that includes practice deploying a fire shelter. We hold a class at our workshop so that those IMETs that attend in-person get the safety refresher done at the workshop. Those that don't attend in person take the annual safety refresher training near their home unit. We also have numerous "continuing education" webinars on all sorts of topics to keep us sharp on the latest in science and technology as it pertains to wildfire and fire weather.

Q3. Random Ramblings: To clarify, the annual refresher safety training includes fire shelter deployment, fire behavior and fire safety?
NWS IMET Office: Yes, the annual safety refresher is actually taught by the fire agencies (Dept of Interior or the US Forest Service) and we attend those. All sorts of fire safety issues are addressed such as fire behavior, burnover situations, aircraft safety, etc.

Q4: Random Ramblings: IMETs are already at least journeymen (general forecasters) so they probably get training as needed for new technology and software (models, radar, software and our new GOES 16 and 17 satellites. Might this annual refresher training cover changes to technology, equipment, software, etc. used in the field?
NWS IMET Office: Yes, a lot of what we do in refresher training is learn about the latest in capabilities of satellite, radar, observing systems, etc. Our software is continually being updated and we ensure that our IMETs can use the latest version of the software that is on their system. It is akin to being a pilot or other specialist, we train often on the equipment and the information it is telling us so that we stay proficient and ready to go any time.

New Jersey Prescribed Burns (March 19th)

I am glad to see that the New Jersey Forest Fire Service started to do prescribed burns in northern New Jersey yesterday March 19th. This probably meant that things have finally dried out enough up here, including snow melt, to allow for prescribed burns. For reference, the NJFFS has a county map of New Jersey showing current fire conditions and a listing of counties assigned to the three NJFFS divisions here. Middlesex County is split between Division A (northern NJ) and Division B (central NJ).

Burlington County

Washington Twp. Wharton State Forest – Washington Turnpike

Washington Twp. Wharton State Forest – Bulltown Road

Little Egg Harbor Twp. Bass River State Forest


Cape May County

Dennis Twp. Sunset Avenue, Belleplain

Dennis Twp. Belleplain State Forest


Camden County

Waterford Twp. Wharton State Forest – Johnson Rd., Parkdale City

Cumberland County

Lawrence & Downe Twp Millville Wildlife Management Area

Gloucester County

Monroe Twp. Cedar Lake Wildlife Management Area

Hunterdon County
Union Twp.
Spruce Run State Park

Monmouth County 

Manasquan Twp. Route 71 & Railroad Tracks

Wall Twp. Hurley Pond Road

Morris County
Jefferson Twp. Rockaway River WMA

Jefferson Twp. Berkshire Valley WMA

Ocean County 

Manchester Twp. Greenwood Wildlife Management Area

Manchester Twp. Whiting Wildlife Management Area
J
ackson Twp. Metadeconk Golf Course

Jackson Twp. Diamond Road

Sussex County

Hopatcong Twp. Hudson Farms

New Jersey: Prescribed Burns (March 18th)

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS)  continues to conduct prescribed burns. The ones that I know about are in southern and central New Jersey. The short video embedded below shows a prescribed burn conducted by the NJFFS on March 13th in the Black Run Preserve (Evesham Township, Burlington County) in the New Jersey Pinelands (aka the NJ Pine Barrens).


direct link to video from the New Jersey Pinelands Commission


Burlington County
Medford, YMCA Camp (Stokes Road)

Cape May County
Upper, Tuckahoe WMA
Dennis,Belleplain State Forest

Cumberland County
Maurice River, Whibco

Monmouth County
Wall, Allaire (Between 195 & Atlantic Avenue)

Ocean County
Ocean, Wells Mills Park (Route 532)
Manchester, Greenwood WMA

New Jersey: prescribed burns (March 14th)

I am happy to follow-up on the post I made the other day about the start of prescribed burning season in NJ, see my March 11th post for more information about  the New Jersey Forest Fire Service's (NJFFS) prescribed burning program along with a couple of short videos. I saw a report yesterday, March 14th, about prescribed burns that the NJ conducted in five central and southern New Jersey counties. I am looking forward to hearing about prescribed burns in my part of New Jersey, it may still be too wet. As I  have in prior years, I will be making periodic posts about NJFFS's prescribed burns.

Thank-you to the NJFFS wildlife service for doing these prescribed burns and for all you do to keep us safe.

Atlantic County

Estell Manor City, Peaslee WMA  (Tuckahoe Rd./1st Ave.)

Hammonton, Wharton State Forest

Galloway, Stockton University


Burlington County

Washington, Wharton State Forest  (Washington Tpk.)

Woodland, Parker Preserve

Cumberland County

Maurice River, Peaslee WMA  (Estell Manor Road)

Maurice River, Peaslee WMA  (Cedar Branch)

Maurice River, Peaslee WMA  (Cedar Branch/Cow Road)

Middlesex County

East Brunswick, Jamesburg Park

Ocean County

Barnegat, Warren Grove  (Rt. 539)

Barnegat, Greenwood WMA (Rt. 72 & 532)

Berkeley, Hovnanian  (Audubon)

Lakewood, Ocean Co. Park  (New Hampshire Ave.)

Jackson, Colliers Mills WMA  (Stump Tavern Road)

Jackson, Colliers Mills WMA  (W. Veterans Hwy.)

GOES 17 and Himawari-8: coverage in the central Pacific

Some of you may remember that I wrote three posts in October 2017 of some Aero Clipper research in Guam, some of the links in these articles have expired but I am leaving these posts up. This research was done with the cooperation of the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Guam. My friends at the NWS Guam WFO were wonderful, answering my questions via Facebook Messenger. I have periodically kept in touch with the Guam WFO since then.

I have been writing about GOES-17 aka GOES West recently. I was wondering if the GOES-17 coverage area reached as far west as Guam, I thought that it might but was not sure. So, I contacted them on Facebook this past Monday, March 11th) and asked them. They were. as always, very helpful. I learned that Guam and the nearby islands in the Mariana Islands are barely on the western edge of the GOES_17 coverage area. While technically visible on GOES-17 images, they get much better coverage from the Japanese Meteorological Agency's Himawari-8 satellite. I will get to those images a little later, but first some information about the Himawari-8. The Himawari-8 was launched on October 7, 2014 and flies in a geostationary orbit (22,300 miles above the Earth) at 140° East (I think). According to an October 2014 press release from the World Meteorological Association announcing the launch of Himawari-8:

Himawari-8, with the first of 16-channel imager onboard geostationary satellites with highest resolution of 0.5 km and a full disk scanning of 10 minutes,  heralds the advent of a new generation of meteorological geostationary satellites. Satellite launches in the 2015-2019 timeframe are also planned by the China Meteorological Administration, EUMETSAT, India Space Research Organization, Korea Meteorological Administration, the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To read a brief description of the about the Himawari (AHI) Imager go here. The home page of the Meteorological Satellite Center (MSC) of the Japanese Meteorological Agency may be found here, and is chock of all kinds of information that some of you might find useful including but not limited to Himawari-8 images and a users guide. Finally, NOAA has a page dedicated to Himaware-8 images that may be found here.

Ok, back to satellite imagery of Guam and the adjoining Mariana Islands (part of Micronesia). First I asked my friends at the WFO Guam to clarify the geography of the region to provide a context for the two satellite images that I will share at the end of this article:

For the geographical stuff, some circles confirm all of the region Micronesia, but most refer to Guam as part of the Mariana Islands, Guam being the southern most; the Marshall Islands are the easternmost of Micronesia, Palau being the westernmost. All of these island regions are part of our forecasting domain.

My friends at WFO Guam told me that their forecasting area of responsibility (AOR) "as the Equator to 25N latitude, from 130E longitude to the Date Line." That is quite a large area. I did a rough image of their AOR from Google Earth. Unfortunately Google Earth does not show the international date line, but it does show the antimeridian (180° from the prime meridian) that goes through Greenwich England. The antimeridian is not co-terminus with the international date line, but it is close enough and my friends at WFO Guam said that my image from Google Earth is a good representation of their AOR.

Finally! Now for the two annotated satellite images that my friends from the WFO Guam sent to me on March 11th. I don't know date of this satellite imagery. You can easily see that Hawaii shows up in the GOES West image with Guam, the Mariana Islands and the rest of Micronesia is on the far western edge of the coverage area. Then note in the Himawari image how clearly Guam and the rest of Micronesia shows in this image.

Thanks to the NWS Guam WFO for sharing and annotating this image

Thanks to the NWS Guam WFO for sharing and annotating this image

Late winter and early spring in New Jersey means prescribed burning season

It is late winter, a couple of weeks to go until spring officially arrives, and this means that prescribed burning season, which officially began on February 19, 2019, running until early spring. As I understand it, prescribed burns conducted by the New Jersey Forest Fire Service may occur at other times. More importantly, prescribed burns are weather dependent. High winds are an obvious example that will but a stop to a planned prescribed burn. Snow and wet soils may be another example. For example, in my corner of New Jersey we are still losing the last of our snow cover from two snow events from March 1 through March 4th, so I think that is likely that ground conditions may have been too wet in much of northern New Jersey to allow for prescribed burns.

Those of you are interested in learning more will want to read the February 19th press release from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announcing the New Jersey Forest Fire Service 2019 prescribed burning season. The press release also references landowners rights to prescribed burns as well as the the 2018 New Jersey Prescribed Burn Act. The New Jersey Forest Fire Service has a nice FAQ document on prescribed burning facts for private landowners, go here to see the FAQ. I am including an excerpt from the February 19th press release:

Forest Fire Service personnel use best management practices and follow a plan to control smoke impacts during the burns, but nearby residents and visitors should expect to see large plumes of smoke and may experience temporary impacts from smoke.  

Motorists are also reminded to use caution when approaching areas where prescribed burns are taking place, by observing posted reduced speed limits, and being alert to the presence of trucks and Forest Fire Service personnel. 

“Since 1906, the Forest Fire Service has protected property, lives and infrastructure by creating defensible space and strategic fire breaks near developed areas,” said Greg McLaughlin, Chief of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. “These prescribed burns help prevent wildfires, reduce the intensity of these fires, and provide a foundation for safer, more effective fire suppression and protection operations.” 

Prescribed burns, also known as controlled burns, will continue if weather conditions are appropriate. The burns are generally conducted during late winter months to reduce the amount of smoke produced and because weather conditions tend to be more predictable for safer controlled fires.

In past years, I have driven by areas where the New Jersey Forest Fire Service was conducting prescribed burns. While I have no photos of these burns, I can attest to seeing signage warning drives that a prescribed burn was going on.

I close with a couple of videos showing prescribed burns. I have driven on the road in the first video many times driving to the NJ Pine Barrens and the Tuckerton area of the New Jersey shore. I am less familiar with the Monmouth Battle Field that you will see in the second video, but I know that the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B-10 has conducted prescribed burns in past years.


Direct link to video from 105.7 The Hawk


Direct link to video from NJFFS Section B-10

GOES-17: some imagery

I wrote about GOES-17 becoming GOES West on March 6th. Today I continue with GOES-17 by sharing some short videos from GOES-17 uploaded to Youtube by the NOAA Satellite and Information Services.

Wildfire detection in New Zealand


Direct link to video


Hawaii


Direct link to video


Atmospheric Rivers in California

Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics. These columns of vapor move with the weather, carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapor in the form of rain or snow (What Are Atmospheric Rivers, NOAA, obtained on March 8, 2019 from https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers). GOES-17 will aid forecasters in monitoring atmospheric rivers, see this February 15th news article from NOAA Satellite and Information Services

Atmospheric River -- GOES-17 -- February 14, 2019

Direct link to video

GOES-17 is now GOES West

GOES-17, then known as GOES S was launched on March 1, 2018. After almost a year of various testing on February 12, 2019 she was operational as NOAA's GOES west. She is in geostationary orbit at 22,300 miles above the Earth at 137.2º West. There is a great article with some nice pictures and other images explaining what GOES-17 will bring, it is the February 12, 2019 article posted by NOAA's Satellite and Information Service. Here are some excerpts explaining how important GOES West will be.

GOES-17 is NOAA’s second advanced geostationary weather satellite and the sister satellite to GOES-16 (also known as GOES East). Together the two satellites provide high-resolution visible and infrared imagery as well as lightning observations of more than half the globe – from the west coast of Africa to New Zealand, and from near the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle.

Greatly improved weather forecasts over the Pacific.

In Hawaii and the central Pacific Ocean, GOES-17’s high-resolution visible and infrared imagery will improve hurricane forecasts and allow meteorologists to better predict areas of intense rainfall. … 

Forecasters in Hawaii and other remote territories like the Marshall Islands and American Samoa are also now able to track thunderstorms in real-time.

A boon to forecasting in Alaska with GOES-17 providing coverage not possible from older satellites.

“In my nearly six years forecasting here, I have never seen a product revolutionize our ability to forecast the way GOES-17 has,” said Michael Ottenweller, a National Weather Service forecaster at the Anchorage, Alaska field office. “The advent of GOES over our domain makes forecasting tangibly easier and better.”  

Ottenweller described a recent experience forecasting fog over southwestern Alaska. Before GOES-17 data was available, forecasters would have to wait for data from polar-orbiting satellites passing over Alaska. “Now, not only do I have reliable data, but I can loop that data. This changes everything,” said Ottenweller. “We are excited to see what [GOES-17] brings for the convective and fire weather season.”

Wildfire Detection

Finally like her sister satellite, GOES-16 (GOES East), GOES-17 is able to provide wildfire and smoke detection not seen under older geostationary satellites. I wrote an eight-part series a couple of years ago on the application of GOES-16 for wildfire detection. In part 4 of that eight-part series I discuss how GOES-16 improved wildfire detection, the same will apply to her sister satellite, GOES-17. I am embedding a video that I included in part 4 for you so you may see how GOES-16 and 17 will improved wildfire detection.


Direct link to video on Youtube from NOAA Visualizations

In the coming weeks, I hope to write more about GOES-17.

2018 fire season: Slave Lake "Muskwa" Unit Crew 2018 Crew Video

Enjoy the video highlighting the 2018 season of the Slave Lake "Muskwa" Unit Crew. Nice footage of tankers making drops. I enjoyed the footage of the helicopter, wondering if perhaps the helo was used by the crew? The best part is the footage of the crew and the fire footage.

Direct link to videoon Youtube uploaded by Cubes

2018 wildfire season: more on post-fire clean-up

I have recently written about the post-fire hazardous waste and debris removal following the Camp Fire in Butte County, the Woolsey Fire (Ventura and Los Angeles County) and the Hill Fire in Ventura County which burned close to the Woolsey Fire ( see my February 27th article which includes links to earlier articles). According to the CAL Fire incident database, structures destroyed in each fire are as follows:

Hill Fire: 4 buildings destroyed.
Woolsey Fire: 1,643 destroyed and 341 damaged.
Camp Fire: 18,804 buildings destroyed.

I know about the magnitude of the Camp Fire clean-up, I also know that disasters that destroy a large number of properties such as tornadoes, massive flooding, hurricanes have the potential to at least put a strain on local landfill capacity. At the same time, I know from my work on earlier articles about the 2019 post-fire clean-ups that each of the affected counties have put in a lot of work in planning their respective clean-ups including finding landfills that can take both hazardous and non-hazardous debris as well as ash. I also understand that some debris, e.g. concrete and metal, will be recycled. With all this in mind, I did a search on the internet earlier today and found a January 10,  2019 article, updated on January 29th from the Sacramento Bee reporting on some challenges facing local and state officials involved in the Camp Fire clean-up. This article reports that the recycling of concrete and metal is controversial because near-by Chico residents are understandably hesitant about plans to have a scrapyard in their town (in addition, see my January 11th article). As I write this article, I don't know where this scrapyard is located.

I was interested in a second challenge cited in the Sacramento Bee article, a controversy involving one of the subsidiaries of the contractor awarded the soil testing contract,  two employees plead guilty to faking soil tests on an earlier project and sentenced to prison. The company, Tetra Tech said that they were rogue employees and have addressed the problems. CalRecycle, one of the California agencies involved in the post-fire clean-up said:

CalRecycle officials said Thursday Tetra Tech was the lowest responsible bidder for the contract and that the state has confidence in the company’s work. 

“In previous wildfire debris removal operations, Tetra Tech has proven to be a reliable debris management contractor, meeting CalRecycle’s high standards for health and safety, performance, and operational accountability,” spokesman Lance Klug said in an email to The Bee.

Klug said CalRecycle has, however, implemented a new auditing process as an additional layer of oversight on current and future projects, in part because of the large size of the Camp Fire contracts. 

“All CalRecycle-managed wildfire debris removal operations are conducted with strict contractor oversight measures to protect the health of wildfire survivors, communities, and all workers involved in debris removal efforts, in addition to internal auditing systems to ensure operational accountability,” Klug wrote.

Hopefully Tetra Tech has corrected the problems and updated their procedures so that employee fraud won't happen again and that CalRecycles new audit procedures will address potential problems in the clean-up so that they can be corrected before the clean-up is completed.

The third challenge that I read about in the Sacramento Bee article concerns the question that I had: Where will the debris from the Camp Fire go? Apparently, local officials have identified three landfills that  will accept Camp Fire debris (with requisite permits). There is a nice map locating likely and possible landfills that could take Camp Fire debris. According to the Sacramento Bee:

The massive cleanup prompts other longer-term concerns. If wildfires continue to happen, are California landfills at risk of being over taxed? . . . 

Waste Management, one of the biggest haulers and landfill operators in the country, owns the Anderson landfill near Red Bluff, which just finished taking most of the Carr Fire debris and is now prepping new space for the Camp Fire. Ken Lewis, an executive with the company, says its Anderson landfill has about 60 years of capacity left. But the Camp Fire debris alone could shorten that lifespan by five years. Still, he said, he’s lobbying for the Camp Fire waste to come to his door.

Is California's landfill capacity adequate to take the waste from the 2018 wildfires, especially debris from the Camp Fire? I hope so. I know from all of my reading that the local and state officials have worked hard on the planning for the post-fire clean-up but not limited to identifying landfills that will accept the waste. I am cautiously hopeful that there is enough landfill capacity to take debris from these three wildfires, but you never know. For good or bad, time will tell. Looking to the future, since debris from each large wildfire can shorten the lifespan of a landfill, what will happen if these mega-fires in California continue?

I have only been writing about mega-wildfires in California. Mega wildfires can occur anywhere so other states and countries may well face the issue of adequate landfill capacity sometime down the road.