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.

 

Reflections: Drought affecting Southern CA (including Mt. Wilson)

I was in southern California for the week of November 17th when I began my series on Mt. Wilson. As fate would have it, there were about 48 hours of Red Flag Warnings for areas east of where I was staying north of San Diego. If memory serves, the Red Flag Warnings included the Angeles National Forest where Mt. Wilson is located.

Before going to southern California I was aware of the severe drought that according to my my meteorologist friends in souther California has been ongoing for three years. As fate would have it, there is a rain storm expected this week in Southern California, and several of these storms will be needed to alleviate the drought in Southern California. I wonder what will happen if there is another year of extreme to exceptional drought?

As I write this, Southern California ranges from severe to exceptional drought depending on the exact location. I believe but am not certain that Mt. Wilson lies in an area that is in an exceptional drought (the most severe drought category). For information on the current status of droughts in the U.S. go to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

As you can guess while I was in San Diego County, I was very much aware of the drought and the fire danger. I did my best to use as little water as possible, but admit that some of my bad and wasteful water habits were a little hard to dispel. But I got better as the week wore on. I thought of my friends at the Mt. Wilson Observatory, wondering how they were making out. I suspect that everyone in southern California is in the same boat, more or less, as my friends at the Mount Wilson Observatory — too little water and serious water conservation efforts are under way.

I was and am scared for all of Southern California and all the other dry wildfire prone areas out west. I think that I am more scared now that I recently spent a week in Southern California. Whether or not there are active Red Flag Warnings, it won’t take that much for a wildfire to start that could, depending on winds and other factors, threaten Mount Wilson Observatory, Palomar Observatory and other residences, schools, research centers and businesses in Southern California. I also know that CAL FIRE and their sister wildland firefighting agencies (on the ground and in the air) are good at what they do. Stay safe everyone.

I am hoping for a wet winter in drought affected areas out west.

Reflections on willdland firefighting following the Slide Fire (AZ)

I realize that I'm a little late in this, but I have spent some time thinking about the Slide Fire, which burned over 21,000 acres in and around Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona. The fire is now 100 percent contained. Perhaps you have read Bill Gabbert's coverage of the Slide Creek Fire on Wildfire Today and/or followed the Wildland Fire Hotlist thread on the fire or perhaps you followed the fire on the media outlets local to the area. Examples of local and national media coverage of the Slide Fire include:

Yahoo News (AP) on May 22
CNN on May 24, with pictures
MYFoxPhoenix (May 22, with video of damage)
WAFB (posted May 20, updated June 4, pictures and raw video)

Finally, you might also want to check out Bill Gabbert's coverage of the discovery of an historic site by wildland firefighters working the Slide Fire.

Perhaps this particular fire touched home to me because I visited Oak Creek Canyon twenty years ago now, spending half a day there with one of my buddies while we attended a conference in Tempe, Arizona. Now spending what may only amount to a couple of hours in Oak Creek Canyon and another couple of hours in Sedona hardly makes me an expert in the geography of the region. However, my visit left an impression on me. So when I first heard about the Slide Fire, I found myself remembering the Canyon that I visited, albeit briefly, twenty years ago.

To tie this into wildland firefighting, I thought about the wildland firefighting crews, both in the air and on the ground who worked the Slide Fire. I had a picture in my mind, which may or may not have been correct, of ground crews working the fire in the Canyon I had visited all those years ago. My buddy and I may even have driven the local road mentioned in the reports. Various engine crews, and ground crews. Over four hundred firefighters on the ground working the fire in steep terrain doing what you do best, fighting wildfires. I don't have to seen videos or to be on scene to know of the hard work that you did.

I know that there were various aerial resources working the fire, helicopters and tankers. But I have no details. Doesn't matter. You were there working to support the crews on the ground. A team effort, crews on the ground and in the air.

I appreciate all that you did on the Slide Fire. You won't be forgotten. I appreciate all the work that wildland firefighters do in America and globally. Thank-you.

What's been up and what is up next

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been writing a series of articles based on my recent visit to Downstown Aero Crop Services. I have also been involved with another project that will keep me occupied for the next ten days or so. You may have noticed that I have not written a lot about all the wildfire activity going on elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada. However, I have been paying attention to wildfire activity. For example I know of the Banner Fire in San Diego County that has burned 5,321 acres and is at 90% containment today with full containment expected later today.

I also know of the Whitewater-Baldy Fire, and have read Bill Gabbert's recent report on this fire. At the time of this writing, I know that they Whitewater-Baldy Fire has burned over 122,000 acres in New Mexico.

The T.R.E. fire that many were reporting on last week has been contained, see this InciWeb page for more info. The Gladiator Fire (AZ) has burned 16,240 acres and is at 45% containment as I write this.

For those of you who come to this blog looking for information on wildfires currently burning in the U.S. and Canada, I have just added a page to my blog with the tentative title of Looking for Wildfire Info?.

As for multi-engine tanker activity, I know that these tankers have been involved in most of these fires. As have helos.

I will be continuing with me series of articles based on my visit to Downstown through next week. Be assured that I will be revisiting Downstown's operations from time to time in the future.

We don't always see the tankers (intial attack)

Someone sees a small fire, doesn’t matter how it started. Word goes out to the nearest CAL FIRE tanker base, a S-2T tanker and the OV-10 air attack plane are dispatched. The OV-10 arrives first followed in short order by the S-2T tanker. Air Attack communicates with the tanker pilot telling him where to make his first retardant drop, asking him to drop a half load. The tanker pilot flies his pattern and makes his drop. Around this time the wildland firefighters arrive and their incident commander (IC) communicates with Air Attack, discussing the fire. IC tells his crew where to start digging line and tells Air Attack where he wants the second drop, the tanker pilot drops what is left of his retardant as directed by Air Attack and the IC. The IC tells Air Attack that he wants the tanker to come back, doing what is known as a load and return (with more retardant). Air attack continues to circle overhead talking to the IC and talking to the tanker. The tanker returns, makes a couple of more drops as directed by Air Attack and the IC. One more load and return is ordered by Air Attack before Air Attack sends him back to base, satisfied the fire is near containment. Time elapsed maybe an hour or two. Maybe your only witness to your actions, aside from other aircraft and the crews on the ground, were those too far away to comprehend your mission.  I'm sure you got the attention of a Coyote or two as well.  Many of us don’t need to witness your call to duty, we already know. We silently celebrate your safe mission, and silently wait for your next call.

Red Flag warning in an eastern state at the beginning of the spring fire season. The Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATS) just went on contract, AT-602’s. A small fire in the woods, grasses and trees are burning. Wildland firefighters are dispatched along with the AT-602 from the nearest base. An acre maybe two. Winds are blowing, but not strong enough to ground the SEAT. Firefighters are concerned because the winds are favoring the fire moving to some difficult to access terrain. If that happens, the fire could blow up to something bigger. The Huey arrives with her bucket. The Huey and the Air Tractor make drops in strategic areas as designated by commanders to help the efforts of the firefighters on the ground. The firefighters back burn a couple of acres in hope that the fire can be stopped at the road. Helos work hotspots. Another SEAT arrives to help. Three or four hours later the fire is contained at 25 acres, including the burn out. Maybe your only witness to your actions, aside from other aircraft and the crews on the ground, were those too far away to comprehend your mission.  I'm sure you got the attention of a Deer or two as well.  Many of us don’t need to witness your call to duty, we already know. We silently celebrate your safe mission, and silently wait for your next call.

These are hypothetical examples of initial attack. The all important initial attack that often goes unnoticed. But not by me and not by many. I may not know all the incidents where you are flying initial attack. I don’t have to, for you were there, doing what you do best, working to support the firefighters on the ground to put out the fire.

Reflections on firefighting operations on Mt. Wilson

About three weeks have passed since I was following live news helicopter feeds of the Station Fire that was burning in the area of the Angeles National Forest and environs. I was able to watch the early phase of the ground fire fighting operations on Mt. Wilson along with some retardant drops by air tankers, and the Martin Mars making a water/foam drop. Being a little superstitious, I wanted to wait until after these operations were over before writing my reflections on firefighting operations on Mt. Wilson.

I don't mind telling you that I was a little worried about what would happen to the Mt. Wilson Observatory on the evening of August 30 into August 31 into September 1. I woke up each morning and checked on the internet to see if the fire had reached the observatory and the nearby communication towers. It had not.

It was Tuesday September 1 and it was in the early afternoon my time (EDT). A friend had clued me in that there was some live news helo feed of Mt. Wilson. As I was tuning in, I was not sure if there were any firefighters on Mt. Wilson. I could be wrong, but at the time I thought that the ground crews were pulled out of Mt. Wilson a couple of days earlier due to safety concerns. The news helo feed was very good with nice clear video. I was able to see ground crews digging line. I read later that ground crews were back on the mountain, perhaps by the prior morning working on digging line and cleaning out brush, leaf litter, and other vegetation. I was thrilled to see these ground crews, As the camera on the news helo moved around, I saw other ground crews digging line. My fears of the past 36 hours began to fade, turning to hope.

Then the camera turned to the one access road up the mountain. I saw around four engines, maybe more coming up the mountain. The calvary had arrived. I'm not ashamed to say that there were tears in my eyes as I watched this caravan of engines arrive at Mt. Wilson knew at that time that the odds were now in favor of saving the observatory.

I was very glad that I was watching this live, it was special.

Stay safe!

Early thoughts on the wildfires in So. CA

I have spent several hours over the last three days watching live video streams from CBS2/KCAL9 or MyFoxLA of the Station fire burning in and near the Angeles National Forest outside Los Angeles. I want to say from the outset that there is absolutely no way that my watching the live video streams (or you tube videos or any other video of wildfire fighting) is equal to the experiences of fighting these fires either on the ground or from the air. It does not and can not replace being there. But from my vantage point and given my age, this is the closest that I am going to come. I am profoundly moved by what I have watched. This is real stuff folks. This is not the type of video where I can sit on my couch eating popcorn watching a movie on cable or on DVD.

On Sunday, I started out by watching retardant drops by tankers and water drops by helos. Any excitement I felt by watching the aerial attack was replaced by horror as I saw the live feed of the news helo showing live footage of the accident site where two fine firefighters died. I will never forget those images and the words of the helo reporter. I hope I never do forgot. Two people died the other night. A few months ago I was watching live footage of a house being engulfed in flames. This was someone's house. I watched backburning operations this afternoon. And interspersed with these shots are shots of the fire itself, impressive flame heights of I don't know how high. And as I have watched this footage over the last three days, I understand that much of the fire is in extremely inaccessible terrain.

But I have also seen with my own eyes that this inaccessible terrain is sometimes inaccessible to the tankers that can help because the smoke makes it too dangerous to fly. For example on Sunday afternoon, I saw a P-3 make a drop on on side of Mt. Wilson (more on that in a later post) but there was smoke on the other side of the Mountain. One of tanker pilot friends told me yesterday as I was watching yet another video stream of the wildfires that a tanker pilot could see to approach the drop, would barely be able to see while making the drop, and has zero visibility leaving the drop because of the smoke. These conditions, he pointed out, made it unsafe for the tankers to fly.

I am only now beginning to absorb what I have seen, and I am not sure that my words can adequately convey the very profound impact that watching these live video streams has meant to me. I will share more reflections in a day or so.

John McPhee and Eddie Parker's cousin

One of the books that I have been reading is a book called The Pine Barrens written by John McPhee in 1967. As I understand it, this book was one of the movers that lead to the preservation of the NJ Pine Barrens through the Pinelands Commission. If any one you out there want to get a feel for the NJ Pine Barrens -- both the ecosystem and her people -- go and pick up this book.

Naturally, he has a chapter on wildfires. I want to cite one of my favorite passages:

One of the first lessons in forest-fire survival is: Get into burned ground. But this is not always easy. Head fires can also be as much as half a mile deep. Lateral fires can be only a foot deep, but they can also be a hundred feet deep. In 1936, a cousin of the fire watcher, Eddie Parker was caught in the middle when a head fire and a backfire came together. He had to time to get to burned ground. The last living thing he did was to kneel as he burned, and embrace a pine tree (McPhee, The Pine Barrens, p. 111)

I have never been near a wild or forest fire. If I was caught in a forest fire, I think that I would embrace a pine tree.

Reflections on wildland firefighting and where I am going

This is not going to come out right, but I'll try. The more that I read about fighting wildfires, the more respect that I have for wildland firefighter. The more I read, the more I realize that wildfires are very complex, that techniques that work to contain one wildfire may not work on another. After a few weeks, I think that I might be starting to get a handle on some of the lingo, different types of wildland fire fighters, the different agencies, the differences between fighting wildfires in NJ and those out west. However, I can not begin to put what I am learning into words. Rather, I hope that whatever little knowledge and insight I have might help me as I begin to pursue my own special interests in wildfires.

I'm just beginning to get a handle on where my interests in wildfires will take me. I ask for your patience as I have some more reading and research to do before I say anything here. It also might be a couple of weeks before I can say anything substantial about this new direction in this blog. I have some business to attend over the next several days.

I will keep up with the blog in some way over the next several days, but I may or may not be writing about my journey of learning about wildfires.

In closing, what I can say is that I have new found respect for those who fight fires, whether you be wildland firefighters, structure firefighters, or a combination of the two. And these words feel wholly inadequate.

Revisiting why I am writing about wildfires

I have been thinking about why I have been posting about wildfires on this blog as I continue to read books about wildland fires, read incident reports of certain wildfires (e.g. certain fires that had tragic outcomes), look at web pages from various federal and state forest fire agencies, and other prowl the internet researching wildfires and the people who fight wildfires.

The answer that I came up is, at least for now, that I am using this blog to write about some of what I have been learning about wildfires and the people who fight wildfires. In a way, I am taking you along on my journey into the world of learning about wildfires and the people who fight wildfires.

Sometimes I do no more than post links with some added sentences to make the post coherent. Other times, I have posted links where others have been writing about current wildfires such as the recent Santa-Ana wind driven wildfires in southern California. Or I have posted what I hope are accurate references to sites explaining terminology used by wildfire fighters and the agencies that employ them. I hope that I am getting "it" right. I may not be. And when I later recognize that I may have gotten something wrong, then I might edit the post in question and/or write a follow-up post.

There is much that I still have to learn, and where I am uncertain about my facts or if I recognize that I still have more to learn before I can write about a particular aspect of the world of wildfires, I do not post. There has been one occasion, as happened earlier today where I posted a reference only to delete the post later when I realized that I still had more to learn about issues that I was attempting to raise. So, I decided that the simplest thing was to delete the post.

When I first started writing about the Basin Complex Fire in CA in early July, I knew very little about wildfires. I have learned a great deal since that time, and have recently become aware that I have only scratched the surface of what there is to know.

Interesting

I had a dream about fires last night. I was either a fire fighter or an observer, there was no actual fire only the expectation of a fire. Interesting. This says something to me about my involvement in the writing and research that I am doing about wildfires. A few years ago I was a member of a research group doing some research about remediating the nuclear weapon production complex in America. At the time I would sometimes dream about nuclear waste. And at other times in my life, my work or school activities, coworkers, school buddies and friends would show up in my dreams.

Global Warming and wildfires

I have been thinking about global warming for a few weeks now. I have known that the southwest is among the regions in the United States that have been experiencing an extended drought. I have to be honest that I had not thought all that much about the relationship between wildfires, the extended drought in the southwest, and global warming until I first heard about the wildfire outbreak in California in June.

When I began to spend more time reading about the wildfires in CA with a special focus on the basin complex wildfire, I started thinking about wildfires and global warming. Not that I'm in a position to make any sort of "educated" statement equating the recent wildfires in California with global warming. I'm not. At this point all I have are questions that I can only answer with hunches.

On the question of the relationship of the CA wildfires and the extended drought, it seems to me that there has to be a relationship between the two. It only makes sense. In my way of thinking, it is not exactly rocket science to say that when there is an extended period of drought conditions that their is a greater risk of wildfires. Are these wildfires more serious and occurring earlier? I seem to recall seeing something to that effect on either a National Park Service or a U.S. Forest Service wildfire website within the last couple of days. I'll need to go back and check this out to find my answer. What are the folk researching global warming and/or wildfires saying about global warming and wildfires? I'll have to check this out.

As I explore these and other questions over the coming weeks, I'll fill you in on some answers with links for more information on this blog, so stay tuned.