The aftermath in Wallace, Idaho

Exactly 100 years ago, the summer of 1910 was hot and dry like no other. The resultant drought left plenty of dry vegetation in the forests of northeast Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana.  By mid-August there were 1,000 to 3,000 fires already burning due to hot cinders flung from locomotives, sparks, lightning, and backfiring crews.

Then came the wind.

On August 20, a cold front swept through the area bring hurricane-force winds which blew all the smaller fires into one or two gargantuan blazes- far too huge for the U.S. Forest Service- then only 7 years old- to handle with little manpower, and even less resources.

Some firsthand accounts from rangers who lived through the horror:

“They told of trees swelling, sweating hot sap, and then exploding; of horses dying in seconds; of small creeks boiling, full of dead trout, their white bellies up; of bear cubs clinging to flaming trees, wailing like children.”

The scale was immense. Telegraph operators sent out desperate messages describing the approach of a solid line of flame 30 miles wide, and that was no exaggeration. Today, you can drive Interstate 90 east from Wallace, Idaho to just short of St. Regis, Idaho — about 45 miles — and be within the old burn zone every mile of the way. And this was by no means the only burn zone in the Northern Rockies – just the biggest.Smoke from the fire was said to have been seen as far east as Watertown, New York and as far south as Denver, Colorado. Ships 500 miles out into the Pacific Ocean, could not navigate by the stars because the sky was cloudy with smoke.

The fire had no end in sight and would have burned on had Mother Nature not returned to the scene with another cold front containing dousing rains.

The legacy of The Big Burn was the re-shaping of the U.S. Forest Service.

Prior to the fire, debates like those that remain today were taking place: let the fires burn as nature intended, or fight them in order to protect the forests.  However, after the devastation of this fire it was decided that the U.S. Forest Service was to prevent and battle against every wildfire.

Firefighters across the nation are gathering to mark the centennial of the event this weekend.  Numerous events are planned around the region to commemorate lost lives, reflect on a century’s worth of changes in wildland fire management philosophy, and celebrate how far we’ve come.

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While wet weather initially delayed the start of the fire season in places like Arizona and New Mexico, the 2010 fire season is now well underway.  According to a report from KTUU, 530 people were battling the Eagle Trail Fire near the village of Tanacross in eastern Alaska which caused the hurried evacuation of over 500 residents.  The fire, now only 15% contained, was started last Wednesday by a lightning strike.  A Red Flag Warning has been issued by the National Weather Service due to additional dry thunderstorms forecast in the region this week.

(Photo by Susan Stancliff.) The Eagle Trail fire near Tok blew up again Thursday during hot and dry daytime conditions.

Of the 14 active fires burning right now across the United States, Alaska is home to eight of them.  You can track their progress here at the U.S. Forest Service Active Large Incident Map as well as follow additional large scale wildfires throughout the season.

Additionally, detailed status information can be found on a cool site called InciWeb, which is an interagency all-risk incident information management system. The system was developed with two primary missions:

1. Provide the public a single source of incident related information
2. Provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public Affairs community

A number of supporting systems automate the delivery of incident information to remote sources. This ensures that the information regarding active incidents is consistent, and the delivery is timely.

The site offers news, announcements, maps, and even photographs from the front lines like this one (above right) from the Eagle Trail fire.

Meanwhile in California, joint training exercises between CalFire, the California National Guard, The U.S. Marines and the U.S. Navy have been taking place.  Coordinating an aerial assault with several different agencies with differently trained pilots and personnel can be daunting, but scenario training such as this helps ensure a safe and efficient mitigation of any large scale incident involving numerous agencies and entities.

As the season progresses, we wish all of our wildland firefighters great health and safety as they risk their lives over and over during grueling conditions.  They are excellent representatives of the U.S. Fire Service!

Stay stoked!

-J

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All week long, I’ve been looking at new fire service technology.  Always one for gadgets and things with buttons, I’m still amazed by some of the products that are under development.  Big changes in the way we fight fires are right around the corner!

In my research, I ran across one of the new ways that homeowners are tackling the protection of their houses without standing on the roof with their 5/8 line during the inevitable wildfire season.

Most houses are in danger well before flames hit their doorstep — burning embers can travel up to a mile in the wind. So the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) teamed with Foster-Miller to adapt a tent typically used to protect military vehicles from chemical attacks into a system that deflects flames from houses.

A year and a few hundred yards of fireproof, rugged nylon cordura later, they produced the SAFE Quick Cover, a rooftop system that automatically covers a house or other fire-threatened structure with fireproof fabric. It rolls out the fabric at the flip of a switch, covering an evacuated house in minutes (you couldn’t stay in the covered house, because the fire’s heat would still kill you). “

There are 3 steps to the fireproof tent deployment process:

1. The Quick Cover system is activated, this sets off a semi-explosive chemical reaction similar to inflating a car airbag that unfolds fireproof fabric from roof-mounted storage.

2. Two large fans, like the ones at carnival bounce tents, pump air into airtight, flexible exoskeleton tubes.

3. The fabric cover follows the exoskeleton lead and unfolds along the roof, dropping over the sides of the house.

The system reportedly works and remains rigid, even in strong winds. It could potentially save hundreds of people who die each year trying to save their homes in the face of fire. Additional benefits include the cost savings to insurance companies and home owners who are spared from property loss because of the protection.

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A view of Los Angeles 2009 Station Fire.  (Kevin Dean/Flickr.com)

Just like Groundhog Day kept kicking Bill Murray’s ass, we can count on the upcoming wildfire season to provide a boot of its own- yet again.  As she has for ages, Mother Nature will provide wildland firefighters with more than enough with which to contend.

As state and federal agencies face dwindling resources and taxpayer funding, wildland firefighters find themselves thinking outside the box- looking for new and creative methods to meet these challenges.  Constantly-evolving 21st-century technology are generating some pretty cool new arrows to fill their depleted quivers.

Personal Personnel GPS

Even the simplest GPS navigational devices can also prove indispensible in the hands of out-of-town firefighters trying to locate water sources fast while working in unfamiliar territory. Devices like the Spot Personal Tracker, a budget-friendly gadget and service combination used by some hikers in mountainous terrain, also has potential. It sends signals to a satellite where there is no cell tower or pager network. Just as it does for hikers, it could send “here I am” messages from firefighters back to a server, which would mark a global map with dots or spots giving fire commanders critical firefighter location information at a glance.

Flying Eyes

Imagine you are footing it around the side of a mountain, looking for the best way to attack the fire as it burns in areas close by, yet unable to be seen due to terrain. Wouldn’t it be nice to fly your eyeballs around your immediate area to avoid wasting time and energy going somewhere to look?  Now, an innovative system designed to fly small unmanned aerial vehicles around, rather than above, forest fires. It’s so compact that it could be used by firefighters on scene and stored on fire trucks when not in use. SwissCopter’s Fire Mission system consists of a mobile cockpit, a backpack and the Peyelot helmet, a headset that can pick up signals within the UAV’s 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) range. If you move your head while wearing the helmet, the camera on board the UAV will follow your movements in real time. It looks like you are on board the UAV, and you see everything as if you were on board. No time is lost in getting the images and information to the firefighters; because they are operating the system themselves.

At a potential cost of zero, San Diego State University has an interesting take on another UAV that can be used virtually anywhere by almost anyone. The drones are demonstrated in this video.  They carry two cameras, one for high-resolution photos, and another for real-time video that can be monitored by an IC on the ground. They offer better imagery than NASA’s Ikhana UAV for a mere fraction of the cost and immediacy that can’t be beat.

These UAVs clearly are a welcome new tool. Improved models are definitely viable and will likely be developed as budgets permit, so it can be expected that the civil use of UAVs in wildfire fighting will expand. With the optimal craft, you could fly around a fire, collect imagery, process it, send it down to the ground, and maybe get a fire perimeter every 10 minutes.

Tree-mounted sensors

Better situational awareness is only the beginning. Knowing precisely which areas are at highest risk of fires could transform how we fight them. Voltree Power in Canton, Massachusetts, has developed a shoebox-size sensor that, planted one per acre, could gather microclimate information, such as spikes in temperature and drops in humidity, that signal a nascent fire. In April the Forest Service began field-testing the device, which can run for a decade on voltage generated from the pH imbalance between a tree and soil.

Tree-mounted Weather Sensor: One of Smokey’s new tools for keeping fire at bay  Courtesy of Christopher Huang

To help deal with the flood of new information, the Forest Service and the National Park Service will use the the Wildland Fire Decision Support System, an online tool that crunches data in real time, using fire behavior models and weather forecasts to determine whether to attack flames on foot or call in planes to dump fire-suppressant gel.

Even with technological advances in firefighting, perhaps the best way to minimize damage is to recognize that fires play a necessary role in restoring certain ecosystems, and so we should stop building in at-risk areas and use fire-retardant materials, says fire ecologist Max Mortiz of the University of California at Berkeley. Mortiz recently published data predicting that climate change will increase wildfire activity across much of the U.S. “We don’t fight earthquakes and floods — we coexist with them,” he says. “We need to learn to do the same with wildfires.”

As we progress toward this end, we may begin to see Groundhog Day scenarios give way to the the upcoming advent of spring- and St. Patrick’s Day!

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Chicago’s Gold Badge Society- One of a Kind

We know that a special type of brotherhood exists in the fire service.  In a Chicago Tribune story we see an example of the true blessings that brotherhood is made of.  Chicago’s Gold Badge Society recently held a Christmas Party bringing together many of the group’s 75 members, all of whom are relatives of Chicago firefighters and paramedics killed on the job. Read the story of how these wonderful people have helped the family of a Buffalo NY firefighter nearly killed in a roof collapse and putting him into a coma lasting almost 10 years.  If your active on Facebook, Chicago’s Gold Badge Society has it’s own Cause page, nearly reaching the goal of 2500 members.  Pop in and show your support!

Grab the Right Tool

If you cant get to the fire, you can’t make an interior attack.  Without good forcible entry skills, just prepare to set up for an exterior attack and all the fun that ensues with a winter water carnival.

The blog site VentEnterSearch.com is always a great spot to check out when looking to review your ability to recognize the way to best force entry in a given situation.  The most recent post gets you thinking about which is the best tool to use for gaining access into a special kind of door (your first choice is probably wrong).

As always, VentEnterSearch.com is worth your attention on a regular basis.

Station Fire Government Report Indicates Planes Ordered, Canceled, Then Re-Ordered

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich reportedly wants Congress to investigate how the firefighting was conducted in the county’s largest wildfire in history. The “Station Fire” ultimately killed two firefighters, destroyed 89 homes and blackened 250 square miles on the edge of Los Angeles.

According to a report from the Associated Press, questions still linger regarding the handling of the incident.  Chief among them is the apparent two-hour delay of three aerial tankers summoned by the U.S. Forest Service who later canceled then reordered them again according to Forest Service records obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act.  Read the entire story here

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On a sizzling August morning, as flames burned unchecked down the road, fire crews milled about at an Angeles Crest Highway ranger station. Others were parked along the pavement — a critical line of defense — their engines quiet and hoses slack.

It was more than an hour after first light, and some six hours after U.S. Forest Service commanders had determined that the fire required a more aggressive air attack. But the skies remained empty of water-dropping helicopters — tankers that were readily available.

What was happening?

In a story to be published in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, Paul Pringle reports on the mounting quest for answers regarding the response to what turned out to be the largest fire in LA County history. The Station Fire eventually killed two Los Angeles County firefighters, destroyed about 90 dwellings and devastated one of America’s most-visited national forests.

It had been previously reported that the Forest Service issued a memorandum to Southern California Managers three weeks prior to the Station Fire. It had directed its Southern California managers to trim expenses by reducing the use of reinforcements from municipal departments and the state.

Many have charged that the initial response to the fire was inadequate, and assets that were ready and available were not used soon enough, resulting in a conflagration that should never have occurred.

County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman said he has ordered an executive review of his department’s response during the first five days of the fire.  It is due out November 17.

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For 37 years, he had been a proud LA County Firefighter saving lives and homes.  Last August, retired LA County firefighter MIke Weatherbie was at the end of a long illness, unconscious, and the largest fire in LA county history was knocking on his back door.  His wife didn’t know how she could themselves out of harms way and desperately needed help.

During the Station fire , LA County firefighters were busy evacuating the remote Antelope Valley area when they  recognized a special emblem on the Weatherbie’s address sign.  It indicated that a fellow firefighter lived there.  They met up outside with Lori, his wife of 55 years.

“I told them that he is not really conscious right now,” she said.  “And he said ‘Is that the fireman?’, and I said ‘yeah’. and he says ‘we’ll take care of our brother.’”

A video showing yet another example of the meaning of brotherhood, and the special gift of passage given by his brothers at LA County fire….

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Residents Demand a Federal Investigation Into Initial Response

The Sunday edition of the LA Times reported that the U.S. Forest Service initially underestimated the scope and potential of the massive Station wildfire that burned over 250 square miles earlier this month near Los Angeles.

The report refers to records and fire officials that show the initial response was scaled back as crews prepared for a mop-up style of operation, errantly believing the fire was under control. More air and ground was available than was used, according to the report. 

The blaze turned out to be the county’s largest in recorded history, torching dozens of homes and killing two brothers when their truck rolled down off a mountain road.

The LA Times story describes a timeline accompanied by specific actions that were taken. A group of very pissed-off Big Tujunga Canyon residents confronted fire officials at a meeting Monday night demanding answers.

Read the full report here.

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