Wildfire Tragedy in California

My heart weeps for those so suffering.

Driven from their homes by firestorms, not knowing if they will return to a welcome home, or to a smoking ashen ruin.

The world can be such a beautiful place. Southern California holds some of the greatest delights on earth. But with the beauty and splendor, there lurks insidious danger. The architecture and climate of many S.Cal locales lends itself to this kind of wildland fire event. Native chaparral is adapted to thrive in the xeric environment that is natural to so many of the areas that burned. And the notorious Santa Ana winds, so wild and unpredictable, are born and formed in the natural topography of the region. They come raging downslope, from the high desert toward the ocean, dessicating every bit of moisture from the air and from the plants, and the fuels on the ground. Under those conditions it only takes a tiny spark to start up an incendiary inferno.




In these circumstances most of the firefighters can only stand and watch it burn. The danger to human life is far to high to allow them to protect property. When the winds finally subside, the firefighters can move in and establish containment lines, hold the flames in check, and wait for the fire to burn itself out.



These guys were very lucky.

They got caught by the firestorm on an exposed ridgetop. On realizing that their escape route was cut off and their water supply interrupted, the team leader ordered them to deploy their emergency fire shelters. Fortunately, a helitanker was able to drop water on top of them before the fire became too intense. Their shelters protected them through the hottest period of the firestorm.

FIRE SHELTER DEPLOYMENT - PRELIMINARY SUMMARY REPORT

Orange County Fire Authority (ORC)
Twelve Firefighters Deploy Fire Shelters – All Twelve Survive Uninjured
October 22, 2007
Santiago Incident CA-ORC-07068555

This Preliminary Summary Report is intended as an aid in accident prevention, and to provide factual information within a short time frame. Information contained within may be subject to revision as further investigation is conducted, and other reports and documents are received.

Synopsis

Twelve OCFA firefighters were advancing a progressive hose lay on a hillside near a road cut along Santiago Canyon Road in eastern Orange County (Unincorporated). Upon reaching the top of the 200-foot hill, their hose line apparently ruptured, causing them to run out of water. As fire encroached upon their position, the firefighters deployed their fire shelters, and all twelve firefighters escaped injury.

Narrative

A wildland fire was reported near Santiago Canyon and Silverado Canyon at 1755 on 10/21/07. The Orange County Fire Authority dispatched a watershed fire assignment, and initial reports indicated a 20-30 acre fire. Firefighters held the main body of the Santiago Fire to the west side of Santiago Canyon Road, which was a critical control line for keeping the fire out of the communities of Silverado and Modjeska Canyons.

On 10/22/07 at approximately 1530, firefighters discovered that the fire had jumped Santiago Canyon Road approximately 200 yards south of Call Box SC-13. Two teams of firefighters immediately initiated two separate but coordinated progressive hose lays anchored on the eastern edge of Santiago Canyon road. One hose lay progressed along each flank. The hose team on the left flank consisted of two members from Engine-22, three members from Engine-9, three members from Engine-34, three members from Patrol-16, and one member from Engine-53.

The left-flank hose team had reached (or nearly reached) the top of the 200-foot hill when they lost water, apparently due to one or more ruptured hose lines. With fire below, the progressive hose team leader selected a level site at the top of the hill and ordered all twelve members to deploy their shelters. OCFA helicopter(s) made one or more high-priority water drops on the fire immediately adjacent to the deployed firefighters. The firefighters remained in communication while they were inside their shelters.

Once conditions were cool enough, all twelve firefighters exited their shelters and walked unassisted down the hill to Santiago Canyon Road. All twelve firefighters were evaluated on-site, and then transported to OCFA Fire Headquarters for further evaluation. None of the firefighters required treatment at a hospital.

Recommended Actions: All firefighters should review and practice Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes and Safety Zones. All firefighters should regularly review and practice fire shelter deployment. Commanders should develop procedures for managing deployment emergencies.

Future Reports:

A full report is forthcoming pursuant to OCFA SOP AM 115.02

Firefighting 2007

Several major fires in this region so far this summer.

I missed working on the Milford Flats fire that charred a huge patch of central Utah in June. We were keeping busy at the time, trying to eradicate noxious weeds in the Manti La Sal National Forest.

In July we had a very close call with the Salt Creek fire that burned within a mile of homes in my neighborhood. I spent a big chunk of time working on that incident. Most of my work involved manning and operating the water tender. It is basically a big water tank on wheels. Water tenders are vital to fire operations in this area because there are so few places with available water resources. The tenders shuttle water from local sources out to the fire to replenish the small water supply carried by tactical firefighting engines.

Indianola Valley Fire Department Tender 18

The water tender can also bring water in to provide local resources for helicopters. There were several helicopters and small planes dropping water and chemical fire retardant on hot spots during the Salt Creek fire.

One of the most impressive aircraft at the fire...

Sikorsky SkyCrane helitanker

Also in use were fixed-wing retardant bombers like this one...

And smaller aircraft...

As well as bucket-carrying smaller helicopters...

Sometimes there is no nearby source for the helicopters to draw water.


So we deploy these big plastic pools that hold 6000 gallons. The water tenders bring water from available sources and replenish the supply in the pool, while the helicopter dips the bucket into the pool and carries another drop to the fire.

For the last week we have been working on the Lowry Canyon fire.

Location of Lowry Canyon fire.

It is a curiosity that the valley east of the fire is named "Japanese Valley". Several stories circulated about an internment camp that was located here during WWII, but I have never heard of it before, and was skeptical. I know about the big camp that was at Topaz, but didn't know of any such in Sanpete County.

The fire started from a lightning strike last week, and was burning in Juniper and Oak chaparral in the wild mountain area between Gunnison and Scipio. No homes or properties were threatened, so the strategy for firefighting was mostly just to keep it confined to the top of the mountain, and prevent it from spreading down through any of the nearby valleys.

Here's a news story from the Salt Lake
Tribune

Another news article, from the Sanpete County Messenger

Indianola fire dept. back to normal after baptism by fire
By Suzanne Dean
9-29-07

INDIANOLA—The Indianola Valley Fire Department (IVFD) is back to its routine of training meetings and fighting routine fires after a baptism by fire, at least figuratively, this past summer.
Established two years ago, IVFD volunteers, who specialize in wild land fires and fire in urban interface zones, tested their mettle in three state-level fires—Milford Flats, Salt Creek and Lowry fires.
In the Milford Flats fire, said to be the biggest forest and wild land fire in Utah history, and in the Salt Creek fire, which threatened populated areas in Sanpete County, the IVFD firefighters got to rub shoulders with Type 1 teams, the crackerjack national teams that are sent in to fight the most serious fires.
“They were very willing to teach and share, and very appreciative of what we did and how we did it,” said Graciela Torino Myers, IVFD public information officer and volunteer. “We had the satisfaction of being appreciated.”
Three IVFD volunteers spent five days fighting the Milford Flats fire, which led to two deaths and scorched 160,000 acres in Sevier, Millard and Beaver counties.
“Bless their hearts,” Meyers said of the three volunteers. “They came home, took a shower, had one night at home and then were called out on the Salt Creek fire.”
On July 19, several IVFD volunteers, with support from a Utah County fire team, were fighting a routine fire near Eagle’s Landing near the Sanpete-Utah County border.
That’s when they were alerted to a forest fire moving from Salt Creek Canyons up mountain draws into the hills above the Indianola Valley.
“They went from one fire to the other without touching home,” Meyers said.
All 13 certified IVFD firefighters worked on the front line of the fire. Some of them even came off their assignments “with retardant on their uniforms,” she said.
One of their main duties was constructing hand lines, or trenches, to stop the fire’s advance.
They also stood by the county’s tanker truck at the Hilltop command post and supplied water to fire engines from a host of fire departments. Those trucks then drove into the fire area and used the water to put out flames or to wet down vegetation to reduce its vulnerability to fire.
IVFD also played a big role in “mop up,” which primarily involves “cold trailing,” several firefighters walking in formation across burned area feeling the ground to make sure it’s cold.
When firefighters saw a wisp of smoke, they dug at it with picks to cover it with dirt and sprayed the site with water.
“More than one fatal fire has been assumed to be contained, only to blow up later and unexpectedly trap people,” Meyers said.
That’s why there’s an adage in firefighting that says, “A fire department is only as good as its mop-up capability.”
The Salt Creek fire exacted a big commitment from the IVFD volunteers. They left home at 6:30 a.m. to attend a briefing at Juab High School in Nephi, where they got their assignment for the day.
They fought the fire until after dark and then returned to Nephi to do paperwork. They got home about 11:30 p.m.
Since its founding, the IVFD has always brought one of its engines to the Fairview Parade on July 24.
This year, Meyers rode in the parade in a Volkswagen Jetta decked with signs that read, “Indianola Valley Fire Department—Sorry we missed seeing you. Our four trucks and crews are fighting THE FIRE.”
Meyers said she got a tremendous response from the crowd.
The Salt Creek fire not only taught IVFD firefighters new skills but also helped them identify equipment that would support their mission of preventing and fighting wild land and urban interface fires.
The Salina Fire Department brought two “pumpkins” to the fire. The big orange devices look like giant versions of a child’s inflatable wading pool.
The pumpkins hold 5,000 and 6,000 gallons of water. They provided a water reservoir where helicopters swooped down and refilled their buckets.
The IVFD looked into acquiring one, managed to get it, and about a month later took it to the Lowry fire, which burned about 1,000 acres west of S.R. 28 near the Juab-Sanpete border.
The department’s next goal is to get its own fire station in the Indianola Valley, although so far, the Sanpete County Commission hasn’t come up with a way to finance the project.

Firefighting II

 We have a newly formed community fire brigade, Indianola Volunteer Fire Department. Our crew is designated as Sanpete County Fire Station 18. We are assigned to cover the eight local subdivisions and all of the public and private lands in the north end of Sanpete County.

We have a 1000 gallon tanker truck with pump that we call our light water tender, and a pickup truck with 200 gallons that serves as light brush truck. Next week we are getting a 5000 gallon water tender that is being retired from a Moab fire department. Eight residents in our community are certified for wildland firefighting, and we have a number of other enthusiastic but less formally qualified volunteers.

On Thursday night we responded to a fire alarm in our area. Six members of our department reported to the fire scene at Skyline Mountain Resort with our two engines. It was totally dark by the time we arrived at the fire. There were about 20 vehicles of various types there, with 50 or so firefighters working to put down the flames.

A campfire had gone out of control at one of the many cabins in the area. It started spreading in the deep cottonwood fluff that accumulates like snowdrift in the shady canyon bottom under all the tall old cottonwoods. People who own these homes obviously love the big old trees, but they also make for a serious fire hazard. Anyway, apparently big clumps of burning fluff were drafted up by the quickly growing flames, spinning away on the draft, and spreading more than a dozen spot fires along about half a mile of the canyon bottom. Our crew pulled into one of the nearby home sites and put out one of the bigger spots just alongside the stream. It was burning in a big pileup of dead logs alongside the stream. There was also a nearby cottonwood tree that was actively burning all along the trunk up to about 40 feet high. The tallest flames were too high up for us to reach with our water, and it was too dangerous to run chain saws in the dark to cut it down, so we hosed down what we could reach and stayed away out from under the burning tree.

We worked on putting out flames and wetting down hot spots until just after midnight. Then rolled up the hoses and came home.

Then, on Friday morning we went back to do the mopping up. We spent several more hours in the canyon, searching the area for remaining hot spots that might flare up again.

In fact the entire Skyline Drive area of the Manti-La Sal Forest is currently in a stage where old dead trees predominate. People love those big old trees because they are so picturesque, but most don't realize that they represent a forest nearing the end of life. Sooner or later the whole forest will burn, mostly all the range over 8500' elevation, an area over 100 miles long and 30 miles wide. All those aging Engleman spruces and subalpine firs -- old and susceptible to bark beetles. The growth habit of this forest ecosystem tends toward cycles of new growth, maturation, senescence, bark beetle infestation, fire, and regeneration, over a period of a couple of hundred years. Right now, we are waiting for a really big fire. There has not been a very large scale fire on this range in recorded history.

Some forest ecologists believe humans have disturbed the natural cycle by putting out fires too quickly. Not too long ago this interrupted cycle balanced out the logging and clearcutting practices we used to harvest timber. But timber cutting is much curtailed these days, as many environmental groups find such fault with cutting down forests, and tend to sue everyone that tries. The US Forest Service has been developing a "fire use" policy for some time now. The idea is to let moderate to small wildland fires burn, with emphasis on monitoring and containment to protect developed areas. Some think it is already too late, and the only thing that can happen now is massive fires all over the west, on the scale of the Yellowstone conflagration.

The Millburn and Oak Creek areas are our neighbors -- the southern end of our Indianola Ward, though our communities are separated by an undeveloped mountain ridge between us. Happily for them, their firefighting duty is covered by the Fairview FD, which is better manned and equipped for the job. Up until a month ago, we had to rely on Fairview to cover our fire calls. In most cases their response time for this area was almost an hour. Mostly they would show up to help comb the ashes. We're hoping to do a lot better, given some time and a bit of practice.

This summer we are bidding on a work contract up in the Joe's Valley area. The project is to spray weedy species that thrive in areas where cattle have heavily overgrazed for many years.

Firefighting

We had a forest fire in our back yard yesterday.

I mean, it was a fire. And it was in the forest. That makes it a forest fire -- right?

Okay, it was really little, for a forest fire. But it was all ours. :-)

Dad and I were working in his garden about 3 p.m. when a huge clap of thunder nearly knocked us out of our boots. (Fortunately I was wearing Tevas.) We saw the flash of lightning on the mountain. After a moment of stunned silence we looked at each other and both said, "Wow, that one was CLOSE!"

Shortly thereafter, dad noticed a smoke plume tendrilling up from the trees on the mountainside north of us.

We called the local fire chief of our just-getting-started volunteer fire department, and notified him that a wildland fire was in progress within our jurisdiction. I hurried and got my boots on. Then my dad and brother-in-law and I loaded our firefighting gear and shovels and chainsaw into the SUV and went wheeling up the mountainside trying to spot the fire.

We found access to the area that was burning, from a rocky road high up on the mountainside, then hiked down through the pinyon pines and junipers searching for the fire. It smelled smoky all around us, but the fire was actually several hundred yards from the road, so we scrambled down the hill covering the area in a search pattern.

As we located the fire and arrived at the spot, there were flames smoldering in the light debris on the ground, and one single old juniper, trunk about 18" in diameter, was actively burning along the trunk and several major limbs. It was clear that lightning had struck the old tree near the top, some 15 feet up. A big stripe of bark was peeled away and blown to oblivion, and a deep scar marked the burning trail running down the trunk. One of the large limbs on the side of the tree had been nearly detached by the blow, and as it burned it was spreading burning twigs into the ground fuel. The ground fire involved a circle at the base of the tree about ten feet across.

We scattered the burning fuels on the ground with our shovels, and smothered the flames with dirt. But much of the fire involved the burning tree, higher than we could reach. So we fetched down the chainsaw and proceeded to fell the tree.

The saw had been pretty well used for last years firewood season, so the chain wasn't in very good shape. Juniper wood is very dense and hard, so we made a long job of it.

I discovered that the chainsaw exhaust port very thoughtfully directs the exhaust stream away from the operator. Which in our case, by coincidence, also happened to be in the general direction of a big tree trunk that was currently on fire. We'd smother the flames down and saw a bit, then the exhaust stream would fan up the flames again. Made it pretty interesting for a while.

While we were gnawing away at the tree, one of the neighbors showed up on his 4-wheeler. He had a better chain on his saw, so we turned it over to him, and finally got the tree tipped over. Naturally it hung up six different ways, so it still took a bit more work to finally put the trunk onto the ground, but we eventually prevailed.

In the mean time, our local fire department team had started up the big tanker truck and were lumbering up the hill. Two local firefighters brought backpack sprayers down to mop up the fuels that were still hot and smoking.

It looks to be a lively fire season shaping up in the area.