California Fire News
California Fire News |  |
| LA residents call 911 mistaking meteor shower for fire Posted: 04 Dec 2007 08:16 PM CST Los Angeles residents call 911 mistaking a meteor shower for fire Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey says several calls came in before dawn Tuesday complaining of "fire being seen across the Los Angeles skies." He says the sparks were believed to be remnants of a meteor shower and that no wildfires were burning in L.A.
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| New USGS Webcam Goes Online in Santiago Fire Burn Area Posted: 04 Dec 2007 07:59 PM CST Provides live views of Orange County, Calif., stream at high risk for floods, mudflows
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists today installed a real-time webcam and radar-velocity sensor to provide additional real-time monitoring capabilities for flooding and debris-flow hazards from Modjeska and Williams canyons in the Santiago Fire burn area. The webcam is at USGS' Santiago Creek stream-gaging station, a few miles east of Tustin, Calif., in the foothills of Orange County. Because the October fires left hillsides denuded of vegetation, residents of Modjeska and Williams canyons are at significant risk due to flash flooding and debris flows should moderate to heavy rains fall in the watershed, according to a report by the U.S. Forest Service BAER team (Burned Area Emergency Response). Heavy rains caused moderate mudslides in Modjeska Canyon on Friday, prompting a mandatory evacuation of the area. Post-fire landslide hazards include fast-moving, highly destructive debris flows that can occur in the years immediately after wildfires in response to heavy rains. Post-fire debris flows are particularly hazardous because they can occur with little warning, exert great loads on objects in their paths, strip vegetation, block drainage ways, damage structures and endanger human life. "The addition of the webcam at the Santiago Creek gaging station will provide valuable information to the National Weather Service and emergency managers to evaluate existing conditions in the creek channel during storms," said Michael V. Shulters, director of the USGS California Water Science Center. "The visual record of flooding and potential debris flows will also provide valuable research data for USGS." The webcam installation is part of the USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project. Shulters said USGS plans to install additional webcams at other high-risk sites in Southern California. The webcam images are available to the public, providing live views of the conditions in the canyon to anyone with a web browser. The webcam is accessible at Webcams of the CA Water Science Center Web site. Monitoring and research data are being collected in partnership with the National Weather Service and Orange County Fire Authority and the Orange County Environmental Resources Division (ERD). The National Weather Service uses USGS stream flow and rain data, and County ERD ALERT rain data, in analyzing flood potential and issuing Flood Watches and Warnings. FEMA and the State OES are coordinating recovery and risk assessment efforts in all burn areas in Southern California. This is the second webcam the USGS California Water Science Center has installed at a stream-gage site in California. A webcam at the Truckee River went online in August. The Center operates more than 400 gages throughout California that monitor stream flows, temperature, water levels and other data. All of the information is available to the public. For more information on the Southern California wildfires, please go to USGS Responds to Southern California Fires. |
| News:Very Interesting article Re: Oakland Firefighter recruitment Posted: 04 Dec 2007 07:31 PM CST Oakland mayor intervenes in fire recruitment debacleSource article: SF Gate - Chip JohnsonFirefighters and prospective firefighters from around the Bay Area sounded all alarms Monday over an ill-conceived recruitment effort by the Oakland Fire Department last weekend that was criticized as a disgraceful display of patronage and foul play. Apparently Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums agreed that the recruitment had gone haywire. After meeting with his city's fire chief, Dan Farrell, Dellums announced he would reopen the process to all applicants who were passed over on Saturday, said the mayor's chief of staff, David Chai. About 2,000 applicants came from far and wide for a chance to apply for nearly two dozen jobs in the department, and half of them went away unsatisfied - and angry at the way the picks were made. One of them was Mike Loomis, a firefighter from the Central Valley. He brought a sleeping bag and a folding chair and waited for the chance to be one of the first 1,000 people in line and an opportunity to land one of 23 coveted positions. He showed up Friday morning, a day early, and thought he had a pretty good shot because by his own count, he was No. 173. "It's just like any other test," Loomis, 23, said Monday. "You camp out the night before." Last month, he'd camped out in Stockton for a similar event, he said. But in Oakland, Loomis discovered that being prepared, on time and first in line is no way to get ahead. On Friday, fire officials informed applicants, including some who'd been queueing since Thursday evening, that the line they were standing in - which had stretched to three city blocks long - was not the line from which applicants would be selected. That line would be established Saturday morning at 5 a.m. But hardly anyone left their spots in and around Frank Ogawa Plaza. Saturday morning came, and after some shoving - and fighting - for position, Loomis watched as Farrell and a personnel manager from Oakland City Hall waded through the sea of humanity and started their own kind of search. "They started walking through the crowd and hand-picking people," Loomis said. "There's no way to describe how they were doing it. There were guys who stepped in line at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning who got picked - and it seemed like (city officials) knew who they were looking for. I heard a couple of guys on a cell phone describing where they were, and they got picked. "Had I known it was going to be like this, I never would have bothered," he said. Karen Boyd, a spokeswoman in City Administrator Deborah Edgerly's office, said the process was compromised because people in the front of the line obtained copies of the officials' plan to establish five entry points and moved toward them. One of a half dozen San Francisco firefighters who showed up to support friends from across the bay said they never had a chance. An Oakland firefighter who worked the event said some colleagues standing with police officers at the entry points were visibly upset by what they regarded as an obvious display of patronage and cronyism. "What hurt me the most was seeing black guys, regular ordinary Oakland guys, passed over for other black guys because they were connected," he said, requesting anonymity for fear of job reprisals. And it seems there was at least a little bit of that going on as well. In some cases, Oakland firefighters wearing department-issued caps and jackets stood next to their own kids, looking to catch a glance of recognition from the chief - and ready to lobby on their behalf. The Oakland firefighter said that at least four of the candidates selected are sons of Fire Department employees. Officials had hoped that more locals would get in line first because of the early opening for Saturday's event. But even if they had, how do you identify an Oakland resident by appearance alone? More importantly, being in the front of the line meant nothing. And everybody in charge should know that hiring based on physical appearance is illegal. Oakland officials know that ... don't they? Said one city official: "I cannot imagine a worse system that these morons could have come up with." What's most worrisome about this situation is that the Fire Department's top brass, who distributed more than 7,000 flyers announcing the event, didn't have the gumption to stand by their word. The application form clearly spelled out that "the FIRST 1,000 applicants will be received," would-be firefighter Filip Bednarz wrote in an e-mail to dozens of city officials. "I arrived at the location stated at 3:30 a.m., anticipating a long line at the door. I was shocked and disgusted when I was informed that it didn't matter how early I'd gotten there or how much effort I'd put in." That information was pretty disgusting and shocking to the rest of us as well, including Oakland's mayor, who intervened on behalf of fairness and did the right thing in turning this gravy train right back around. The good news: Would-be Oakland firefighters who were issued applications but were turned away Saturday will get their chance Jan. 12, when a new recruitment event is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the city's fire training center, 250 Victory Court, Oakland. Source article: SF Gate - Chip Johnson |
| Very dry fall means long fire season Posted: 04 Dec 2007 12:48 PM CST Editor note: Seasonal Staffing extended to Dec 10th in TCU probably longest season in history... By SAN ANDREAS - Fire season was supposed to have ended Monday. It didn't. Instead, the Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention extended the season until further notice. Blame an extremely dry fall. The hills here are still brown with last winter's grass, some fire stations will remain open with seasonal crews, and residents still must obtain permits before burning piles of brush and must use extreme caution when burning them. "Most of the fires in Northern California that we respond to are escaped debris burns," said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for Cal Fire's state headquarters in Sacramento. This is the latest in the year that fire season has lasted in the Mother Lode in a more than a decade. Still, conditions aren't as severe as in Southern California. There, fire season never ends in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, where fire stations that used to be seasonal have been staffed year round since 2005. The days when California's official fire season routinely began in early June with thousands of seasonal firefighters reporting for duty and ended in October with them heading home are long gone. "The weather conditions really dictate our staffing now," Berlant said. "We are really never out of fire season. It is just our summer preparedness and our winter preparedness levels." State fire officials will see whether rain forecast the next few days materializes before deciding what to do next. "It's not summer," Berlant said, "but it's still not winter." Source: Article |
| CA-SLU-Grade IC - 90 Acres - 100% - Final Posted: 04 Dec 2007 12:38 PM CST CA-SLU-Grade IC - Final Started yesterday afternoon Location: Wildland Fire on the Cuesta Grade - US 101 North of San Luis Obispo. Sparks from a passing vehicle ignites 90 acre San Luis Obispo brush fire Source: KSBY News article - Tuesday, December 4, 2007 SAN LUIS OBISPO Firefighters are working this morning, monitoring a line they formed around a large brush fire sparked in the hills above Highway 101. Firefighters say sparks from a car caused three fires to break out near the northbound lanes of Highway 101 on the Cuesta Grade. Soon after, three brush fires became one and spread over 90 acres of brush and into the Los Padres National Forest. "It threatened the Los Padres National Forest. There's also some cabins up on top that were briefly threatened," said Robert Lewin of Cal Fire. Crews quickly dug a line around the fire and with the help of 150 firefighters, 10 trucks, water tankers and an air attack. They contained the fire within the first few hours. "It's a combined effort between air and ground resources. One can't operate without the other," explained Lewin. "There's real steep terrain and it's difficult to get across up there," said Laura Brown of Cal Fire. Crews started to thin out later in the evening, but about half of the manpower stayed behind. "We'll have about 60 firefighters on the fire throughout the day," said Lewin. As the last of the hot spots cool, firefighters keep an eye on the dry land nearby, and their minds on getting help from mother nature. "I think we're starting to think like surfers. It's the endless summer for us here. We need some rain badly," said Lewin. Fire crews estimate losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but say it could have been worse if it had traveled further into the Los Padres National Forest. If you have any information for about this incident, please call authorities. Traffic was not greatly affected, one lane of northbound traffic on Highway 101 was closed for about an hour and a half because of the fire. Firefighters worry that increasing off-shore winds could spark further blazes. They expect to have full control tonight. Firefighters say they're used to fighting fires on the Cuesta Grade. Most recently, and in a case investigators say is simlar to this one, fires raged from Atascadero to the base of the Cuesta Grade. That fire was started by started by sparks flying from a car dragging a chain. |
| EDIS: So Cal Red Flags continue Posted: 04 Dec 2007 11:40 AM CST |
| Trial in fire-related CAL FIRE murder case postponed Posted: 04 Dec 2007 11:18 AM CST The trial of a man accused of setting a series of fires in Mountain Home State Park — fires that lead to the deaths of two people aboard a CAL FIRE plane — has been delayed. Patrick Courtney, charged with two second-degree counts of murder and four counts of setting forest fires, was to have had his trial date set today. But his attorney, John Jackson, said he needs more time to prepare his case, said Tim Ward, a supervising deputy district attorney for Tulare County. The trial will be rescheduled Dec. 19. Courtney is accused of setting four small fires in Bear Creek drainage between Sept. 3 and 6, 2006. CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Rob Stone of Exeter and George "Sandy" Willett of Hanford, a contract pilot for CAL FIRE, died Sept. 6 when their spotter plane crashed as they surveyed the fire area. Source: VTD |
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