Here is an eleven minute helmet cam video with radio feed of a helicopter extracting two people and a dog from a hilltop during the 2018 Woolsey Fire. This video left me on the edge of my seat as I watched skilled piloting by the helicopter pilot. Another example of the important work that a helicopter can do during a wildfire.
Monday, October 31, 2022
Friday, October 28, 2022
A view inside of a medivac helicopter
I posted about medivac helicopters on October 26th with a video of a medivac helicopter working in New Jersey. I knew that I wanted to embed a video of what it is like inside a typical medivac helicopter. I was hoping to find such a video of a medivac helicopter based in New Jersey or adjoining areas, but this is not to be. At least not today. However, I did find a video showing the inside of a Life Flight helicopter, shot three years ago and narrated by a young man on his EM rotation who got permission from Life Flight to do the video that I will share with you. I believe that his intended audience are folk in the medical community who might be interested in working as medical staff on a medivac helicopters, but I certainly learned a lot and I hope you do as well.
According to this video's information, see below for the direct link and expand the about this video window, information about Life Flight may be found here. You will learn about the medical personnel on Life Flight helicopters and get a peak at some of the medical equipment on board. I know that there are medivac helicopters in my part of the United States, that like the Life Flight helicopters, are staffed with a flight nurse and an emergency medical services specialist.
According to the Life Flight service area page serve Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. As I have friends who currently live or used to live in this part of the United States, some of whom subscribed to medivac helicopter services, it seems fitting to share this video with you. Please keep in mind that the medivac helicopters in your state may be equipped differently with different protocols and perhaps different medical personnel.
Allow under eleven minutes to watch the video. Yes, there are some ads interspersed during the video.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Medivac Helicopters
I have recently been writing about different ways that helicopters are used in different aspects of wildland firefighting. There are other ways that helicopters are used in wildland firefighting, but I want to take a time out from writing about those uses and write about a different use of helicopters. That is helicopters used to evacuate a patient to a hospital for treatment. This could be after a traffic accident where either the helicopter is landing near the scene of the accident are an emergency squad takes the injured person to a nearby landing zone for evacuation. Perhaps it is an evacuation from a local hospital to another hospital when the local hospital determines that the injured or sick person needs treatment at another hospital and time is of the essence. And I am sure that there are other medical uses of helicopters that I am not listing here.
I wanted to find a video of a medivac helicopter in my own state of New Jersey, and found this video if someone being transported from the Surf City New Jersey to a local trauma center. Allow about three minutes to watch the video. Thanks to all who are involved with medivac helicopter flights from local EMS to the pilots and medical personnel on the helicopter to the staff at the hospital or trauma center. You do important work and help to save lives!
Monday, October 24, 2022
Aerial wildland firefighting: helicopter bucket drops
Late on a Monday evening after a long day dealing with technology, <ick>, I want to embed a complication of helicopter bucket drops on fires. You will see dipping and dropping. Enjoy. Allow just under five minutes for the video.
Friday, October 21, 2022
Wildland firefighting: aerial ignition by helitorches
Another use of helicopters in wildland firefighting is aerial ignition using a helitorch. A helitorch is suspended from the helicopters and is used for backfires, burnouts and prescribed burns. I found the video that on using a helitorch when I was poking around on YouTube just now. I liked what I saw and want to share it with you. Before posting, I saw that Bill Gabbert of Fire Aviation shared this same video on August 6, 2015. The video was shot in 2009 by BrimAviation, enjoy!
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Wildland Firefighting: more on aerial ignition by helicopters using PSDs (ping pong balls)
In my previous post, I shared a video about how helicopters are used in aerial ignition using ping pong balls or PSDs to perform backburns (go here to see my October 17th post). I follow-up on that post by embedding two more videos.
The first video is shot in 2014 during a training run where you will see how the PSDs or ping pong balls are loaded into the assembly on the helicopter for dropping on the wildfire or controlled burn. Both videos are a few years old and perhaps some of the drop mechanisms and technology have changed, but I think you will get the idea, I know I did.
Direct link to video by Phillip Garrett on YouTube
In the second video, shot in 2013, you will hear John Holloran from the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee discuss how PSDs are loaded onto a helicopter and later dropped to help with controlled burns or prescribed fires.
Direct link to video by the Knoxville News Sentinel on YouTube.
Monday, October 17, 2022
Wildland firefighting: aerial ignition by helicopters using PSDs (ping pong balls)
Helicopters have many uses in before, during and after wildland fires. One of the uses of helicopters is to drop small balls filled with compounds that ignite on the ground. These balls can be dropped to help with a prescribed fire as well as being dropped during a wildfire in remote areas to light a backfire. In the video below you will learn about these "ping pong balls" or PSDs are prepared and then dropped on the fire along with safety measures. I have not yet been able to find a video where you can see these PSDs being dropped on a fire. If I find one, I will amend this post.
Friday, October 14, 2022
2022 wildfire season: Midewin Hotshot 2022 season video
To the best of my knowledge, the Midewin Hotshots are the only hotshot crew based in the eastern region of the United States. They are based out of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Wilmington, Illinois. They have a nice Facebook page where they post including periodic posts during their season, Midewin Hotshots on Facebook. They released their 2022 season video which I am embedding below. Crew videos from past seasons may be found here. I checked out their Facebook page and saw that the Midewin Hotshots fought fires in the following regions in 2022: Eastern, Southern, Southwest, Great Basin, and Northern California, a map of the regions in the United States may be found at the Geographic Area Coordination Center National Website Portal.
According to the description of their 2022 season video, the Midewin Hotshots nine fourteen day assignments during 2022. Thanks Midewin Hotshots for all you do to keep us safe. Enjoy your off season.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Wildland Firefighting: Dozers in Action
I have recently been thinking about the important work that dozers do in wildland firefighting operations. At the same time, I have also been thinking about wildland firefighting on the east coast of the United States. So, you guessed it, I have two short videos that I am embedding below for your viewing pleasure. I enjoyed seeing these dozers operating up and down hill. I can only imagine the skill of the dozer operators in driving their dozers.
The first video is of a dozer plowing a containment line down hill at the 2016 Bluff Mountain Fire in Tennessee.
Direct link to video from the Tennessee Division of Forestry on YouTube
In the second video from August 2022 you will see a dozer plowing uphill in support of wildfire IR mapping for the Mckinney Fire that burned near the Oregon-California border.
Monday, October 10, 2022
2022 wildfire season: NWS Incident Meteorologist (IMET) deployments (Sept 28 to October 10)
As you can see from the Facebook post from the NWS IMET Operations Office that I embedded above, on September 27th, there were 10 IMETs deployed nationwide. I would imagine that since that time some of those IMETs that were deployed on September 27th have finished their deployment and returned home. Also of note is that the National Wildland Fire Preparedness level was lowered to 2 on September 27th. As I write this, to the best of my knowledge the Preparedness Level remains at 2, even so that does not mean that the worst of the fire season is over, one never knows what might happen. While IMET deployments have decreased, IMTs continue to be deployed to wildfires. Since September 27th four IMETs have been deployed.
On September 30th, an IMET was deployed to the Moose Fire in Idaho
. @NWSReno IMET en route to #MooseFire located 17 miles N of Salmon, ID #IDwx #IDFires @NWSPocatello @salmonchallisnf https://t.co/9M4o3ybV9Y pic.twitter.com/P7oNlcxFhn
— NWS IMET Operations (@NWS_IMET_OPS) September 30, 2022
On October 3rd, an IMET was deployed to the Mosquito Fire in California
. @NWSAnchorage IMET en route to #MosquitoFire located 20 miles S of Emigrant Gap, CA #CAwx #CAFires @NWSSacramento @Tahoe_NF https://t.co/sozZbFGw2P pic.twitter.com/60wNn8NHzF
— NWS IMET Operations (@NWS_IMET_OPS) October 3, 2022
On October 4th an IMET was deployed to the Goat Rocks Fire in Washington.
. @NWSMoreheadCity IMET en route to #GoatRocksFire located 8 miles E of Packwood, WA #WAwx #WAFires @NWSSeattle @GPNF https://t.co/4QvNgdG8tn pic.twitter.com/q9GSwJCyn0
— NWS IMET Operations (@NWS_IMET_OPS) October 4, 2022
On October 5th an IMET was deployed to the Bold Creek Fire in Washington.
. @NWSPortland IMET en route to #BoltCreekFire located 2 miles N of Skykomish, WA #WAwx #WAFires @NWSSeattle @waDNR_fire @MtBakerSnoNF https://t.co/uxi2yVQOsM
— NWS IMET Operations (@NWS_IMET_OPS) October 5, 2022
IMETs save lives! Thanks all IMETs for your service.
Friday, October 07, 2022
About the National Wildland Fire Preparedness Levels and the Fire Danger Rating System in the United States
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| Obtained from https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information#current-level on October 10, 2022 |
Edited on October 10, 2022
I was looking at the NWS IMET Office on Twitter earlier today where I noted on September 27th the National Wildland Fire Preparedness Level (NWFPL) was lowered to a rating of 2 (go here to see the post on Twitter). Now I did have something else in mind for today where I was going to start out by referencing that same post from the NWS IMET Office and I am holding off on that post for the moment. I know about the National Wildland Fire Preparedness Level (see the graphic and link above) because I see this referred to on social media wildland fire agencies. I also know that there is the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) used by wildland firefighters. Now I have to be honest and say that I am not certain of the similarities between the NWFPL and the NFDRS. However, I was curious about the NFDRS and found a video that I thought you might be interested in, I know that I was. I found the one I was looking for from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG). While the video seems to be focused on being a training aid for wildland firefighters, I think that watching this 10 minute video will give you an idea about what the different catagories in the NFDRS are and what they mean, and how the NFDRS is used by federal and state wildland fire fighting agencies.
Wednesday, October 05, 2022
Reflections and thanks to sources and people who help me with this blog
For reasons that I won’t go into,, I have thought often about what I try to do on this blog over the last few days. I am grateful to know of reliable resources that I can turn to from those who have more hands on knowledge of wildland fire fighting than I do. Two sites come to mind that I check out on an almost daily basis, the first one is the two websites of Bill Gabbert, Wildfire Today and Fire Aviation. He does good reporting and because I believe that he had some background in wildland, he has some first hand knowledge that I do not. His firsthand knowledge adds credence to his reporting. Then there is Mike Archers Wildfire News of the Day (WNOTD) a five day a week e-mail where he culls together articles on wildland fires from around the world. As appropriate, I will turn to state agencies responsible for wildland firefighting and related social media (for example as a NJ resident I often refer to the NJ Forest Fire Service and the NJ Forest Fire Service Facebook and Twitter accounts), national resources such as Inciweb and the Geographic Area Coordination Centers, and local media for the area where a specific wildfire is occurring. It took me some time to learn about some of these resources and I am certain that there are some resources and other blogs on wildland firefighting that I am not aware of.
There are many individuals in the wildland firefighting business who have taken an interest in and supported me over the years that I have been doing this blog including those of you who quietly read my blog. You answer my questions. When I have failed to be correct, you let me know so I can make a correction. Without you, this blog would not be possible.
Monday, October 03, 2022
New Jersey helping with recovery from Hurricane Ian
I have been following the aftermath of Hurricane Ian more than I usually do because I have some friends who had houses on the Florida gulf coast barrier islands of Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel. All my friends are alive and evacuated while others are winter residents and had not yet gone to their winter homes.
I am always interested in what New Jersey does to help other states in need after disasters. In part because I know for a fact that other states have helped us out be sending utility crews after storms. One example being the Florida electric utility crew that helped to restore power to my neighborhood after Superstorm Sandy the fall of 2012. So I was delighted when I heard from reliable sources, sorry I have no media articles to show you, that New Jersey electric utilities have sent trucks and crews down to Florida to help them restore power. In addition, the New Jersey Red Cross has sent a team down to Florida, see this article from News 12 New Jersey for more information
Just this morning, thanks to the NJ Forest Fire Service Section B10, I saw the following video showing footage of the deployment of New Jersey Task Force 1 to Florida on October 1, 2022. According to their website The New Jersey Task Force 1 is one of 28 FEMA urban search and rescue teams in the country.
Direct link to video from Shane Branin on YouTube