Fire

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The $120 Million Dollar can of soda:

Sierra Pacific to pay nearly $50M, give 22,000 acres to settle lawsuit over N. Calif. wildfire - The Washington Post

Short and sweet...Sierra Pacific had two dozers working in red flag conditions. The fire watch left to get a can of soda, returned 30 minutes later to a fire burning. Also sounds like there was inadequate equipment on scene even if he had been in attendance (but it's a newspaper article so it's tough to figure out what is journalistic editing or not).

$22.5M in firefighting costs.

The costs and fines add up to $55M in cash, and land worth approximately $65M.
 
Is windthrow a problem for you, slow p ?

Around my house? Not unless a big horrible wind hits. The trees have not been recently opened up and are pretty windfirm. I cut down a few that had root rot, which I saw when I cut down one just because I didn't like where they were. Those would have died soon from being overtopped by the cedar. I had no blowdown when a wind ripped through here two winters ago. Others were not so lucky.

It's a chance I take. I like not seeing my neighbors and have been planting trees every spring.
 
Chance anyone growing timber takes.

I thinned some 40' 50yo DF about 20 yrs ago to 14x14 or so. Only an acre on a east slope. 50% of it went over bout 5 yr ago. I was fortunate. My neighbor salvage logged all summer. Took out 25 loads.



OR went to hoot owl monday.

We had alot of lightening last PM. storm came out of the east. Weird for here. Have not heard about any fires from it.
 
Last edited:
Another near miss. A P2V lost an engine tonight just after takeoff but was able to return to the strip and land. The last incident involving a P2 was...two days ago. Another engine failure. Can you imagine commuting in today's traffic in a 1962 Chevy Malibu? All the P2s are over 50 yers old. Where has my tax money gone?
 
I predict that air support will be an issue that is never resolved. The FAA is too restrictive, operations are too expensive, and the government is too broke to make things right. Instead, we'll continue to limp an aging fleet along from year to year, losing crews too often, and nobody will pony up the cash to solve the problem. As always, it's about money.
 
I found this commentary on That Other Site regarding the Waldo Canyon fire, and the WUI concerns I mentioned earlier:

This was not a group of homes in a brush field on the Berdu, this was a subdivision of 1700 homes. Yes there was fire below, there was fire above, there was fire to the side, in short there was fire everywhere. But the fuel type was homes, there were no light flashy fuels to carry the fire, there was no continuous fuel at all. By the time we got in the main carrier of the fire was firebrands and radiant heat from home to home. The streets were wide, the utilities were underground, the possibility of being cut off was low. Even with the radiant heat put out by the homes as they burned, in the street it was not unbearable. Parks were abundant. Once we reconned the area, we knew that most roads were viable escape routes and in some cases were even potential escape routes or had one very close by.

Three strike teams went into Mountain Shadows, that's fifteen engines to cover 1700 homes, admittedly with the help of a few local government engines, at least one hotshot crew and LEOs patrolling for spots. Modules working alone was expected and necessary. Each strike team took several blocks, each engine took a street, we did what we could and then moved on. Five engines working on one house would have been exceedingly inefficient. When necessary multiple engines or entire strike teams tied in and made some very impressive stops, but this was after we had done what we could for individual homes and were now working on entire blocks in flames.

As I've said, each engine was working individual houses. The entire crew was working the house, within 200 feet of one another. That is why radios were not picked up. Communications on the modules were done by voice, module leaders called the STENs when needed, but that was mostly to relay intelligence and face to face was used most often at that level. There was radio traffic, just not on the intramodule level, as it wasn't needed and 15 people calling to say they were about to cut a deck off a house would have jammed up the one frequency we had.

You mention a "deliberate, tactical engagement" being thrown out. The deliberate plan was to keep the fire west of Centennial. We did. We could have burned off Centennial I guess, but that would have been frowned upon. Instead the tactical evolution went like this: Decision is made to hold the fire at Centennial, strike teams head up Centennial and spread out to the west to find the extent of the flaming front, engines report in where they have found the fire and attack what homes they think they can save while waiting for the intel to be collated, strike teams reconvene on Centennial and areas of responsibility are decided, engines head east of Centennial to control spots, at this point the wind has died down and the fire is now and urban conflagration west of Centennial, the engines are sent west of Centennial to save what we can with the focus being between Centennial and Flying W Ranch Rd. At no point was the plan thrown away, it was amended and the individual modules followed their bias for action and did what they could, but we are not automatons. Standing by the letter of the original plan would have meant sacrificing every home from Centennial to the Forest boundary when a good deal could and were saved.

Taking things at face value is the same as assuming, and we all know what that does. If you wish to ask probing questions, look higher. Why did the engines, STENs and Group Supervisor need to raid a gas station for maps? Why were three strike teams of federal type 3s the main structure protection force in an area that was under mandatory evacuation two days earlier on the priority fire in the nation? Why was no route into Mountain Shadows left open for fire traffic during the evacuation?

I think this does a pretty good job of showing the disconnect between Federal, State, and Local fire agencies regarding both jurisdiction and tactics when it's unclear whether a fire is going to breach the WUI boundary or not. This is likely to remain a problem until the structure vs. wildland dichotomy breaks down and we all train together. We're getting there in my agency, but it's a long, slow process. We wildland guys are still pretty ignorant of what the structure guys do and vice versa. Comms are always an issue.
 
Yeah. I work for the State side of fire. Our relationship with the "federal" side of fire isnt very pleasent. They manage fire for the money, we are paid to put the red stuff out and keep them small.

There's varying motivations at all levels in fire management. I've worked for your agency and I've worked for just about every other state and federal agency in fire and there's dysfunction at all levels.
 
There's varying motivations at all levels in fire management. I've worked for your agency and I've worked for just about every other state and federal agency in fire and there's dysfunction at all levels.

You are right JJ. Right now we are undergoing a power change and a major one. The ripple is effecting every level of the agency. I hope its for the better.
 
Recent Pics from Colorado Springs

WHY do people KEEP BUILDING IN THE WORST POSSIBLE PLACES?!? Look at that slope and those fuels! That's no place to put a road, much less a home, much less a whole subdivision! Here's hoping there aren't a thousand lawsuits as soon as the ashes cool.

When you say "people" what you're really referring to are wealthy developers and speculators who are making fortunes off these "subdivisions."
 
You are right JJ. Right now we are undergoing a power change and a major one. The ripple is effecting every level of the agency. I hope its for the better.

I think it will be. I noticed you got a new North Unit Forester which I think is going to work out well.

The Forest Service in your area just cut 16 permanent staff positions and 43 seasonal firefighter positions and obsoleted 22 major pieces of equipment. The equipment will be sold at auction to private bidders. The directive from the Obama administration now is "use more contractors" in all phases of land management, including fire. This is a repeat of the 1999-2002 scenario which included Title 3 and Title 4 amendments to the national fire plan. We all know how that turned out.
 
The TV news was showing night time pictures of The Antoine Fire. That area burns every few years. It always has.

Maybe it is time to slow down building in areas like that--kind of like we do for flooding (except along I-5 in our county).

I grew up in the Wenatchee Valley, and fires on the hills were regular events. Now there are some big honking houses built on those hills--for the views. :(
 
there has been a few big fires around wenatchee in the last few years think they would pay attention??? flooding is why I won't buy a house near ANY big rivers around here watched lots of em go down stream out Darrington way and spent lots of time not in high school filling sand bags
 
Back
Top