California Fire News

Local News: National forests thin on senior staff, especially SB Forest

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 08:07 PM GMT-06:00

Local News: National forests thin on senior staff, especially SB Forest | fire, forest, service:

July 4, 2007 - 2:52PM

National forests thin on senior staff, especially SB Forest

SAN DIEGO — Weeks into a capricious fire season that has already burned parts of Catalina Island, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe, swaths of California's flammable national forests are protected some days by nothing more than luck.

The hardest-hit areas include the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests, where only 60 to 70 percent of engines are being regularly staffed because there are too few qualified supervisors to go around, said Mike Dietrich, acting deputy director of fire and aviation for the Forest Service's Region 5, which encompasses all of California.

Those forests border on heavily populated urban areas, potentially raising the risk to people living nearby.

On any given day, about 40 out of 271 U.S. Forest Service engines in the state remain in firehouses rather than on routine patrol, idled by a shortage of supervisors as the combined effects of sustained drought, last winter's freeze and a searing heat wave send fire danger levels into "extreme" territory.

The cuts are one effect of an exodus of highly trained mid- and upper-level firefighters from the career ranks of the service, leaving 13 percent of the agency's 3,600 full-time positions in the state vacant.

Some firefighters fear those gaps could strain the ability of federal fire crews to respond quickly to fires, leading to more out-of-control blazes in what promises to be a tough fire season.

"When you start leaving holes in your organization so that on a given high-danger day you can't provide coverage you've set yourself up for trouble," said John Marker, a retired former Forest Service district ranger on the Sequoia National Forest.

Nationally, fire planners from all five federal agencies that handle firefighting are dealing with the departure of a generation of top managers hired during a firefighting expansion in the late 1970s, leaving behind too few career firefighters qualified to run engines, oversee forests or command large fire operations.

As forests from the Mexico border to Canada reassign engine crews, top-level teams working for other agencies are simply hiring recent retirees. Of 50 people working on one Nevada-based National Park Service squad, 10 are due to retire in the next two years, and a handful have come out of retirement as emergency hires this season.

California has been hit harder than other states, because the high cost of living has deterred recruits from moving here, while state and local agencies are replacing baby boomers as they hit age 50 and siphoning federal managers with higher pay and better benefits.

Forest Service officials have filled nearly 800 positions since last October, but are still short about 470 people.

"It's going to take them longer to get to these fires," said Doug Campbell, a retired Forest Service fire planner who now trains various agencies on fire behavior.

None of the big fires so far this season has gotten out of hand because of short staffing, and officials say they're confident California has enough resources available to get through the next six months.

With 1,600 seasonal hires, the Forest Service is fielding 5,200 firefighters this year.

The state's robust mutual aid system also activates thousands of engines working for myriad municipal and county departments in large fires.

Firefighting crews and equipment from other parts of the country are also being moved into California and the rest of the West, said Tom Harbour, the national director of fire and aviation for the Forest Service.

Despite the shortages of engine crews, the Forest Service's teams of smokejumpers and hotshots are filled.

Engine crews are being moved around the state as weather-related fire risk levels change. The region has also won an extra complement of 15 federal helicopters to beef up capacity for initial attacks in the first crucial hours of a blaze.

The agency has also won approval to begin a massive hiring push to fill the roughly 470 captain, engineer, dispatcher and other specialist vacancies before the fall.

Those are the critical staff required to manage individual engines and direct the army of entry-level and seasonal "water-squirters" in fire prevention tasks once big fires hit.

In the meantime, retirees are being enlisted as emergency hires to help manage large fires this summer and train their replacements on the job — a tactic in use across the country, according to the National Incident Fire Command in Boise, Idaho. And others are being paid overtime to fill the gaps.
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On the Net:
CAL FIRE NEWS
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection: http://www.fire.ca.gov
U.S. Forest Service, Region 5: http://fs.fed.us/r5

CA-SCU- BRIAR - Vegetation Fire/ Structure involved - Castro Valley

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 06:10 PM GMT-06:00

CA-SCU-BRIER

CA-SCU-BRIAR - Vegetation Fire - Castro Valley

CA-SCU-BRIER IC

Location: Cull Canyon rd, Across from Brier Ridge drive

Size up: From AA Working Vegetation fire with structure involved 5-7 acres into Eucalyptus, Slow to Moderate ROS,
Vegetation fire with structure involved

RESOURCES CAL FIRE:

BATTALION 1614
BATTALION 1613
TRAINING 1606
COPTER 106
REGIONAL PARKS COPTER EAGLE 6

DOZER TRANSPORT 1641
DOZER TRANSPORT 1741

ENGINE 1672
ENGINE 1673
ENGINE 1676
ENGINE 1762
ENGINE 1771
ENGINE 2774
ENGINE 1684

BC - 1614, 1613

COMMAND SCU LOCAL - 151.445
WHITE 2 TACTICAL - 154.265

CA-BTU-HERITAGE - STRUCTURE FIRE W/ VEGETATION FIRE

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 04:28 PM GMT-06:00

CA-BTU-HERITAGE

STRUCTURE FIRE W/ VEGETATION FIRE

Size Up: Ten acres, moderate to rapid rate of spread, multiple structure threat in
wildland urban interface.

Requesting additional 5 engines and crew strike team, information officer
and law enforcement for potential evacuations.

Butte Fire 151.400
Air tac 151.275

Area threatened: The Oaks, near Kelly Ridge and Olive Highway.

UPDATE 1500 hrs:
Releasing tankers and training platform as of 1450.
One structure fully
involved, another partial.

EDIS] Red flag warning in effect until 9 pm pdt thursday -Tulare and Kern county mountains

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 04:00 PM GMT-06:00

[EDIS] red flag warning in effect until 9 pm pdt thursday for the tulare and kern county mountains due to very low relative humidity

KERN COUNTY MOUNTAINS-TULARE COUNTY MOUNTAINS-

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN HANFORD HAS ISSUED A RED FLAG WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM PDT THURSDAY...FOR THE TULARE AND KERN COUNTY MOUNTAINS DUE TO AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF VERY LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITIES. AREAS IN THIS WARNING INCLUDE SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST... SEQUOIA/KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK AND THE KERN COUNTY MOUNTAINS MAINLY EAST OF TEHACHAPI. STRONG HIGH PRESSURE OVER THE REGION IS BRINGING HOT TEMPERATURES AND VERY LOW HUMIDITIES OVER THE SOUTHERN SIERRA NEVADA AND KERN COUNTY MOUNTAINS. RELATIVE HUMIDITIES IN THESE AREAS HAVE DROPPED INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS THIS AFTERNOON. HUMIDITIES ARE EXPECTED TO REMAIN 10 PERCENT OR LESS FOR PERIODS OF 10 HOURS OR LONGER ACROSS MUCH OF THE WARNING AREA THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. IN ADDITION ...OVERNIGHT HUMIDITY RECOVERY WILL BE POOR WITH SOME AREAS REMAINING LESS THAN 20 PERCENT. THESE LOW HUMIDITIES WILL CONTINUE THURSDAY.

Instruction:
A RED FLAG WARNING MEANS THAT CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EITHER OCCURRING NOW... OR WILL SHORTLY. THESE VERY LOW HUMIDITIES WILL CREATE EXPLOSIVE FIRE GROWTH POTENTIAL. PLEASE ADVISE THE APPROPRIATE OFFICIALS OR FIRE CREWS IN THE FIELD OF THIS RED FLAG WARNING.

Area: KERN COUNTY MOUNTAINS-TULARE COUNTY MOUNTAINS-

Affected Counties or parts of: Mono, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Tulare, Inyo, Mariposa, Monterey, Merced, Kings, Fresno, Kern, San Bernardino, San Benito, Santa Clara, Los Angeles,

Sent: 2007-07-04T14:46:10-07:00

EDIS - Fire weather watch in effect for friday afternoon and evening for dry lightning Northern Sierra

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:53 PM GMT-06:00

[EDIS] Fire weather watch in effect for friday afternoon and evening for dry lightning potential for the northern sierra and the southeastern cascades

BURNEY BASIN AND NORTHEAST PLATEAU IN SHASTA COUNTY INCLUDING NORTHWEST LASSEN NF NORTH OF LASSEN NP-STANISLAUS NF WEST OF THE SIERRA CREST-NORTHERN SIERRA INCLUDING LASSEN NP AND PLUMAS AND LASSEN NF/S WEST OF THE SIERRA CREST (WEST OF EVANS PEAK-GRIZZLY PEAK-BECKWORTH PEAK)-NORTHERN SIERRA INCLUDING THE TAHOE AND EL DORADO NF/S WEST OF THE SIERRA CREST-

.A WEAK LOW PRESSURE AREA WILL MOVE NORTHWARD THROUGH THE REGION ON FRIDAY BRINGING SUFFICIENT MOISTURE AND INSTABILITY FOR AFTERNOON AND EVENING THUNDERSTORMS TO DEVELOP OVER THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA AND THE SOUTHEASTERN CASCADES. EXPECT THESE THUNDERSTORMS TO BE HIGH BASED WITH LITTLE OR NO PRECIPITATION...AT LEAST INITIALLY. MOST OF THESE STORMS WILL FORM OVER THE CREST OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. IN ADDITION TO LIGHTNING... LOCALLY GUSTY WINDS ARE POSSIBLE WITH ANY STORMS THAT DEVELOP. ...FIRE WEATHER WATCH IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SACRAMENTO HAS ISSUED A FIRE WEATHER WATCH FOR DRY LIGHTNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING. THUNDERSTORMS MAY DEVELOP EARLY FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND EXTEND INTO THE EARLY EVENING HOURS OVER THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA AND THE SOUTHEASTERN CASCADES. MOST OF THESE STORMS ARE EXPECTED TO BE DRY AT THE ONSET... GRADUALLY BECOMING WETTER AS ADDITIONAL SUB-TROPICAL MOISTURE COMES INTO THE AREA. AFTERNOON AND EVENING THUNDERSTORMS OVER THE SIERRA AND SOUTHERN CASCADES ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH THE WEEKEND INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK. THE PROGRESSIVELY MOISTER AIR SHOULD ALLOW THESE STORMS TO BE OF THE WETTER VARIETY.

Instruction:
PLEASE ADVISE THE APPROPRIATE OFFICIALS OR FIRE CREWS IN THE FIELD OF THIS FIRE WEATHER WATCH.

Area: BURNEY BASIN AND NORTHEAST PLATEAU IN SHASTA COUNTY INCLUDING NORTHWEST LASSEN NF NORTH OF LASSEN NP-STANISLAUS NF WEST OF THE SIERRA CREST-NORTHERN SIERRA INCLUDING LASSEN NP AND PLUMAS AND LASSEN NF/S WEST OF THE SIERRA CREST (WEST OF EVANS PEAK-GRIZZLY PEAK-BECKWORTH PEAK)-NORTHERN SIERRA INCLUDING THE TAHOE AND EL DORADO NF/S WEST OF THE SIERRA CREST-

Affected Counties or parts of: Modoc, Yuba, Plumas, Yolo, Trinity, Mendocino, Mono, Napa, Calaveras, Amador, Sonoma, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sacramento, Mariposa, Solano, Butte, Merced, Colusa, Sutter, Lake, Tehama, Alameda, Santa Clara, Nevada, Contra Costa, Lassen, El Dorado, Alpine, Sierra, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Placer, Siskiyou, Glenn,

Sent: 2007-07-04T14:26:27-07:00

CA-SCU-FLYNN - Vegetation Fire Old Alltamont

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:25 PM GMT-06:00

CA-SCU-FLYNN - Vegetation Fire Old Altamont

location: Between I-580, Flynn Rd. and North Side of Old Altamont Road
Size up: 20 to 30 acres, Surrounded by roads
E-1660
Air Attack
Tankers 81 and 83
Helicopter - H-106
Delta Crew 5
Dozer Transport 1642
BC - 1614

CMD -1 Tone 1
TAC - WHITE 2

UPDATE: 1500 hrs - Tankers released T-81 300 gals aboard T-83 Full
1530 hrs - Dozer Transport 1642 released

CA-INF-Big - Big Wildland fire

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:03 PM GMT-06:00

CA-INF-Big - Wildland fire

CA-INF-Big - Vegetation Fire

Big Fire!
10:06
Location: Upper Owens River drainage near Big Springs CG.
Northeast of Mammoth Lakes and north of Crowley Lake on the Inyo NF.

Size up: Reported as several acres at first report.

Evacuations of the campground in progress.

Grass Valley sent T-89 @1120hrs."

CA-LPF-ZACA - Wildland fire

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 03:01 PM GMT-06:00

CA-LPF-ZACA

CA-LPF-ZACA - Vegetation fire

11:39
Location: Bell Canyon near Zaca Lake area.
Size up: AA 07 reports approx 180 acres. Difficult access
This a Santa Barbara County incident.

UPDATE 15:45 : 500 acres, 5 Air Tankers, 6 Rotary enroute.
Numerous Los Padres resources assigned to the fire
Another board says IMT ordered for the Zaca

LAFD News - Boy Loses 4 Fingers To Fireworks

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 12:59 PM GMT-06:00

LAFD News & Information:

Los Angeles Boy Loses four Fingers To Fireworks

On Tuesday, July 3, 2007 at 9:08 PM, 1 Company of Los Angeles Firefighters and 2 LAFD Rescue Ambulances responded to a Fireworks Injury at 6914 1/2 South Main Street in South Los Angeles.

Firefighters arrived quickly to encounter a 13 year-old male with blast injury and traumatic finger amputation.

The teenager told Firefighters he had seen an adult in his household place a cylindrical firework in a closet and then depart the scene. Mistaking the device as a 'Roman Candle' limited to producing sparks, the boy took the firework outside and lit the fuse.

The high-powered explosion that occurred in the boy's left hand destroyed four of his fingers beyond recovery, but spared him other obvious physical impairment.

Firefighter/Paramedics cleaned and dressed the boy's painful wounds while their colleagues fruitlessly searched the vicinity for remnants of his fingers.

The boy's mother then accompanied him for the fourteen minute ambulance ride to the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Carson, where medical staff awaited his arrival.

It should be noted that all fireworks, even the so-called 'safe and sane' variety are outlawed in the City of Los Angeles. The use, sale or mere possession of any firework within our City has been strictly prohibited since World War II.

Circumstances surrounding the injury and presence of fireworks is being investigated by Los Angeles Police officials.

Submitted by Brian Humphrey, Spokesman
Los Angeles Fire Department

Out of State: Utah wildfire might burn all summer

Posted: 04 Jul 2007 10:24 AM GMT-06:00

CAL FIRE NEWS - Neola North Fire - Utah forest fire, spreading in national park, might burn all summer, incident commander says :

"We might have fire out there on that mountain this whole summer"

NEOLA, Utah — CAL FIRE NEWS -
Speaking about the suspected arson fire 'We might have fire out there on that mountain this whole summer,' said Kim Martin, incident commander.
Fire authorities want to use a wildfire that has killed three people and charred 62 square miles for wildland benefit use and allow it to continue burning to clear out dead and dying trees, brush, hardwood slash, and undergrowth in the national forest.

One official said Tuesday that it might continue for the rest of the season.
'We might have fire out there on that mountain this whole summer,' said Kim Martin, incident commander.

The fire exploded Friday, with extreme fire behavior with crowning and spotting throughout the burning period. The Fire became plume dominated yesterday afternoon.

The Neola North fire has significant potential for continued growth "Extreme fire behavior with crowning and spotting" is how the National Interagency Fire Center report from Monday, July 2, 2007, described the Neola North Fire in eastern Utah.

Crowning means the fire has moved from the surface into the tops of the trees and may be spreading through the forest canopy independently of the surface fire. Spotting means that burning embers, branches, or leaves are being carried by the wind and setting off fires at a distance from the main blaze.
The fire only began on Friday, June 29, but had grown to more than 35,000 acres as of Monday and three people were killed fighting the fire while defending their property, Since then the fire has burned nearly 35,000 acres, about one-third in the Ashley National Forest and the rest on private and public land and the Uintah and Ouray Indian reservations.

The fire is burning about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City, and that it was about 10 percent contained.
It grew by nearly 8 square miles overnight, but most of the expansion was away from communities, officials said.

The Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman toured the fire Tuesday and deployed 100 National Guard troops Monday to enforce road blocks and assist local law enforcement.
Some communities in the area of northeastern Utah still were still under a mandatory evacuation.

Parts of the forest and several roads leading to the fire were closed to the public. It's still uncertain how many homes, out buildings and other structures have burned, and the cause of the fire was still under investigation.

Low humidity and temperatures in the 90s helped the fire grow. Those conditions were expected to remain throughout the week.