California Fire News

Riverside city fire department will be accepting applications Posted: 10 Dec 2007 12:55 AM CST Riverside City Fire Department Ca. hiring Firefighters The Riverside city fire dept. will be accepting applications for firefighter and fire medic, starting January of 14th 2008 until January 25th 2008. The written exam will be 2-14-08. Salary is $4547 - $6089 Paramedics receive a 15% pay differential. If you do not have a california state certified fire academy, 1 year of full time experience with a municipal fire department may substitute for the certified fire academy.

Inciweb: Sterling Wildland Fire - < 1 acre - 100% Posted: 09 Dec 2007 08:24 PM CST Sterling Wildland Fire Incident Information Announcements News Photographs Maps INCIDENT UPDATED 4 HRS. AGO This incident is 100% contained. Summary A single pine tree, already dropped to the ground, was the extent of this incident. Smoke was reported by a visitor hiking in the Circle X Ranch portion of the NRA; a Ventura County FD engine crew hiked to the site and called in a hand crew to line the fire. It was declared contained the same afternoon. A thunderstorm moved through the area on the evening of December 7/morning of December 8, and lightning may have struck the tree. If so, it adds to just a handful of naturally caused fires in the history of the Santa Monica Mountains. Thunderstorms are unusual so close to the Pacific Ocean; lightning strikes even more so. Basic Information Incident Type Wildland Fire Cause Lightning Date of Origin 12/08/2007 at 00 hrs. Location West of Malibu, California Incident Commander Not available Current Situation Total Personnel 25 Size 1 acres Percent Contained 100% Estimated Containment Date 12/08/2007 at hrs. Significant Events Not available Outlook Planned Actions The fire was lined by a Ventura County FD hand crew. Growth Potential Low Terrain Difficulty Moderate Remarks Not available Weather Current Wind Conditions Not available Current Temperature Not available Current Humidity Not available

News: Wildfire protection becomes growing business Posted: 09 Dec 2007 12:58 PM CST Retardant spray system among the efforts in use By Bruce V. Bigelow UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER Whether San Diego's recurring pattern of firestorm devastation has resulted from underfunded firefighters, inept air support or a backcountry housing boom, one thing is becoming clear. Homeowners are turning to private enterprise for protection. Earlier this year, for example, Solana Beach resident John Page paid $16,000 to have a fire-retardant spray system installed in the backyard of his four-bedroom home, which backs up against a canyon in the San Elijo preserve. "I'm not thrilled about the expense," Page says. "I wouldn't recommend this for every house." Yet, just weeks after the installation was completed, Page said his family got a Reverse 911 telephone call advising them to evacuate from the rampaging Witch Creek fire, then roaring through Rancho Bernardo. It was Oct. 22. Page turned on his new system and watched as three big-gun nozzles sprang to life, spraying a translucent fire retardant over much of his house and about 65 feet into the canyon below. The 315-gallon tank emptied in about 10 minutes. Then he evacuated with his wife and daughter and the family's two dogs. As it turned out, the fire never reached their home. But as he drove away that morning, Page said, "we felt confident that we had done everything we could to protect our house." Page, who has owned the 3,000-square-foot home since 1995, had also replaced his shake cedar roof and removed pine trees, huge climbing vines and other plants that were deemed too incendiary by a local fire official. Such installations have become a booming new business in recent years for companies like privately held Firebreak Spray Systems of Hood River, Ore. "As the wildfire threat grows, there will be niche markets for companies who can provide added protection for homeowners," said Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. "I think some people are saying, 'If I have the money to do it, why shouldn't I take matters into my own hands?' " Firebreak Spray Systems attracted a flurry of media coverage during the wildfires in October because the company also provides wealthy homeowners with "concierge-level" fire protection services. Under a contract with the AIG insurance company, Firebreak Spray Systems dispatched heavy-duty trucks to spray fire retardant around the endangered estates of AIG's wealthiest clients. The rapid response service has been included since 2005 to homeowners in 150 exclusive ZIP codes who are insured through AIG's Private Client Group. "It's about preventing loss for our policyholders," said Stan Rivera, director of wildfire protection for AIG's Private Client Group. The fire retardant is "very effective and very efficient," said Firebreak founder Jim Aamodt by telephone from his office in Oregon. The company provides its services throughout the Western United States, but Aamodt said Southern California is emerging as his biggest market. In San Diego County, Aamodt said his crews visited the homes of 90 AIG clients whose multimillion-dollar homes were threatened by the Witch fire. They sprayed 40, including a few that were just beginning to burn. No sprayed homes were lost, and 15 were saved from immolation, Aamodt said. His count included a four-bedroom ranch-style home that David and Kerry Roland built on Zumaque Street in Rancho Santa Fe about four years ago. Kerry Roland said she fully expected to lose their home while they were evacuating before the advancing firestorm. Afterward, she said a Firebreak crew returned to show her that the fire had halted exactly where they had sprayed fire retardant around the property. Even so, Roland said their house probably survived due to a combination of factors, including the fact that it was built just four years ago and had to meet more stringent fire code requirements. But such pre-emptive treatment, as Aamodt puts it, accounts for a relatively small portion of Firebreak's business. He is focused mostly on installing spray systems that range from rooftop sprinklers to big-gun sprayers to protect individual homes, community developments, ranches and farms. The fire retardant used is called Phos-Chek, the same slurry dropped by helicopters and air tankers, but without the red dye added to help pilots target their drops. The main ingredients of the milky-white retardant are ammonium phosphate and diammonium sulfate, both forms of fertilizer that form a no-burn zone until washed off by a strong rain. A typical home installation uses compressed gas to force the fire retardant slurry from a holding tank, which ranges from 120 gallons to 315 gallons, through a network of PVC piping much like an irrigation system. Beyond individual homes, Aamodt said his company has been designing "miles-long" systems capable of spraying fire retardant 100 feet or more around the boundary of housing tracts or community developments. It also sells 25-gallon portable fire retardant sprayers for do-it-yourselfers. Another entrepreneurial venture was started in San Diego by Dan Hirning following the 2003 Cedar fire, which charred some 273,000 acres. Hirning's company, Firezat, sells rolls of laminated fire-resistant foil to protect homes from wildfires. "I was looking for something that everybody can deploy," Hirning said. "The advantage with our fire wrap is that it's reusable." Hirning wrapped his Escondido home in foil during the October fires, making the ranch-style structure look like a giant baked potato. But the fires did not burn into his neighborhood. Hirning said he has been supplying foil mostly to the U.S. Forest Service, delivering roughly 400,000 square feet that crews used to wrap historic school houses, lodges and other remote buildings. Hirning said that so far he has not sold the tarpaulin-sized foil directly to homeowners out of liability concerns. But he anticipates conducting field tests of homes in Malibu and Santa Barbara over the next year. Another local business, Ambient Control Systems of El Cajon, has developed solar-powered "fire alert" sensors to be deployed as backcountry sentries. Each sensor can monitor roughly 100 acres and is capable of transmitting a warning signal before a small fire explodes into a runaway inferno. The warning can be transmitted by satellite or via an emergency radio frequency to a customer's computer or by text message to firefighters' cell phones, said Glenn Cunningham, a strategic consultant for Ambient Control Systems. "In as little as four minutes, you can have the fire alert information on an incident commander's computer screen," Cunningham said. "That includes where the fire is and its approximate direction." The privately held company began developing the sensors in 2002, after selling its irrigation control system technology the previous year, said Jonathan Luck, Ambient's founding chief executive. The company, which has six employees, recently completed its first sale of 500 sensors to a fire safe council that oversees the coastal watershed communities of Half Moon Bay and San Mateo. "What we're seeing is that it would be better to work with municipal, county and state governments," Cunningham said. Source: Article

Academy teaches use of prescribed fires Posted: 09 Dec 2007 12:16 PM CST CERRO GRANDE PEAK, N.M. --Wildland firefighters come here to the Southwest Fire Use Training Academy to learn not how to stop fires but how to start them, using prescribed burns to clean out overgrown forests and reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires. The academy gets its students at a time when the wildfire season is winding down in late autumn, when many firefighters are heading home after grueling weeks on the fire lines. "We get folks coming in that are tired from fire season," said Duane Tewa, a Bureau of Indian Affairs training specialist assigned to the academy. "But they still have the attitude and the mentality ... 'This is what I want to do, this is my job, this is what fascinates me.'" A couple dozen firefighters take courses at the academy to become certified burn bosses, qualified to help with prescribed fires and other fuel management projects around the country. The Albuquerque-based academy usually has a waiting list of wildland firefighters from across the nation. A similar program at the Prescribed Fire Training Center in Florida focuses on managing fire in the South. The program is funded by the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies. The seven-week New Mexico program, which graduated its most recent class two weeks ago, has courses on fire behavior, along with the use of GPS units and portable weather stations to plan prescribed burns. "There's all kinds of things going on in fire. Everybody's moving toward fire use and allowing fire to return to its natural role," said Jerome Macdonald, the academy's creator and program manager. "But you have to have that skill - and even experience - to be able to accomplish that," he said. Students also get an arduous hike to 10,199 feet for a lesson on what can happen when a prescribed fire goes bad. From atop Cerro Grande Peak, they can see how a prescribed burn set by Bandelier National Park officials in May 2000 raced out of control, burning thousands of acres of forest and more than 200 homes. "This is an excellent opportunity for us to learn from mistakes or things that went bad and try not to make those mistakes again," said student Mike Watson, a squad boss with the Pleasant Valley Hot Shots of Arizona. To become a master of using fire, Macdonald said, one must have a deeper understanding of fire and nature - and be prepared for teaching the public that fire is not always bad. Emily Irwin, a U.S. Forest Service regional fuels specialist, said the academy's lessons today are important because overgrown forests, unhealthy ecosystems and urban sprawl will continue to be issues. "All the values that go with land management are really riding on their shoulders," she said. The academy's courses give students a foundation so they don't have to make decisions from the hip, said Julian Affuso, the assistant fire management officer for the Smokey Bear Ranger District in southern New Mexico. "That's what it's all about, it's about preparation," he told the students during their hike at Cerro Grande. "Luck is for the unprepared." Since 2000, the acreage treated with prescribed fires has more than doubled from just over 1 million to more than 2.7 million in 2006, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. At the same time, more natural wildfires have been allowed to burn in order to clear away dead, dry brush before it can fuel an out-of-control blaze. There is a time and place for both suppression and fire use, said David Mueller, a Bureau of Land Management fuels specialist assigned to the Boise center. "Now, it seems like using fire for certain benefits is becoming one of the top dogs in land management," Mueller said. Academy Interagency Fire Center By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN - Associated Press Writer source: SoSD- San Diego

News: Salaries prompt USFS exodus Posted: 09 Dec 2007 12:49 PM CST Salaries prompt USFS exodus Firefighters flee to other agencies The U.S. Forest Service might be facing a crisis, with firefighters leaving in droves for state and local firefighting jobs that offer higher salaries. USFS officials, while accustomed to losing people to other jobs in California, are alarmed at the increasing numbers of those jumping ship. "It's been going on for a large number of years, however, not at ... this rate," said Mike Dietrich, fire chief for the San Bernardino National Forest. In 2006, the 671,700-acre national forest lost 60 firefighters to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and local fire agencies, Dietrich said. The forest has about 210 permanent firefighting positions. The federal government's Forest Service leads the front-line response to fires in the San Bernardino Mountains and other national forests. The base salary for a Forest Service firefighter is about $32,000, according to the Forest Service. The CDF pays the same person almost $50,000. Minimum pay for a San Bernardino firefighter is about $60,000. The loss of federal firefighters to state and local agencies has always been a fact of life for the USFS. But the pace of departures has picked up, said Dietrich and others familiar with the situation. "It means that you will not have the federal fire-service protection you assume you have," said Casey Judd, business manager for the Federal Wildland Fire Service Association, which lobbies for federal wildland firefighters. What might the loss of federal firefighters mean in the mountains? Fires might cost more to extinguish, Judd said. Fire trucks and other firefighting equipment might have to be moved over longer distances to attack fires, meaning conflagrations could grow more quickly and pose greater dangers. Another problem for the USFS is the loss of midlevel and younger-generation firefighters who would otherwise get promoted from within, agency officials have admitted. The trend has created a kind of leadership vacuum, Dietrich said. "You may end up putting people into positions who may not have all the experience that's ideal for the situation," he said. He said last year was a "tough" one to handle as the loss of high-ranking firefighters translated into less-experienced ones fighting major fires for the Forest Service. Some firefighters interviewed even believe the Forest Service might begin shuttering stations next year in the San Bernardino National Forest, a troubling trend given recent concerns over drought conditions and huge fires that wreaked havoc throughout the region in October. Prospects for keeping firefighters don't look good. One Forest Service firefighter in the national forest who applied to work at the CDF said he is in a two-week CDF basic-training academy so he can make the jump. He estimated that 26 out of the approximately 32 people in the class are Forest Service firefighters there for the same reason. After the first of the year, Judd plans to push federal lawmakers to take up legislation to improve federal firefighters' hazard pay and provide benefits to temporary firefighters. Dietrich said other Southern California forest supervisors on the ground are aware of the retention problems and have brought them to the attention of regional and national officials. "We listen to our firefighters and we hope that we can make a difference this next year," he said. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she is worried about the Forest Service job losses. "I have directed my staff to work with the Forest Service on a long-term solution to this problem, and to make this a top priority," she said in a statement. Feinstein might find it tough to find help. The Forest Service is seeing a decline of $64.25 million in next fiscal year's budget request from the Bush administration. Source: Article

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