California Fire News
California Fire News |  |
| EDIS: RED FLAG WARNINGS - SO CAL Posted: 03 Dec 2007 09:26 PM CST | |||||||||
| News: Fighting Wildlandfire with water ballons Posted: 03 Dec 2007 12:07 PM CST Engineers' dream to fight wildfires with giant water balloons takes shape A plane was loaded with boxed-up balloons for a test in Kingman, Ariz. The idea of using water balloons came from William Cleary, who was inspired after his son drenched him with one. (Boeing via Associated Press) Source: Article SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - William Cleary believes aerial firefighting could become child's play. Five years ago, his son drenched him with a water balloon - and got him to thinking. "He was three stories up and I was walking, and he still managed to hit me square in the head," said Cleary, a So he started working on a system to use giant water balloons to put out wildfires. Now, Cleary has a shared patent, the support of two Fortune 500 companies, and a small team of designers and engineers at his disposal on a project that could change the way fires are fought from the air. The basic concept is simple: Biodegradable plastic balloons 4 feet in diameter hold 240 gallons of water; they are enclosed in cardboard boxes that are torn open by the wind when pushed out the back of a cargo plane; the balloons burst in midair, making it rain in the desert. With the use of GPS coordinates and wind-speed calculations, the balloons could be dropped with precision from a safe altitude high above the flames, the developers say. The balloons - which have yet to be tested on a real wildfire - would be used in addition to the usual aerial firefighting equipment: helicopters with water buckets, and air tankers. After the inspiration from his son, Cleary started tossing water balloons off a parking garage to study their fall. But his project took off when a paper he wrote about his concept won a Boeing innovation contest and $100,000 in research and development funding that went with it. Paper products giant The system has evolved over five years from hard plastic beachball-size balloons to the enormous water bladders made by Flexible Alternatives, a Simi Valley plastics company. The water balloons could make any plane with a ramp, a cargo bay, and a specialized GPS system into a firefighter. A C-130 cargo plane, which the Air National Guard uses to drop supplies, could fit 16 water balloons, or more than 3,800 gallons of water or fire retardant per trip. An ordinary firefighting helicopter can hold more than 2,000 gallons of water or fire retardant, while the Forest Service's air tankers can hold 2,700 gallons of liquid in a tank permanently installed on each aircraft. The Forest Service has not yet run the numbers to see whether buying thousands of disposable box-and-balloon kits at an initial price of $300 each can save enough money on equipment, manpower, and other costs to make the technology worthwhile. "It costs several millions of dollars to install a tank on an aircraft, and that lasts at least 15 years," said Carl Bambarger, a specialist in aerial firefighting with the Forest Service's Technology and Development Center in San Dimas. Bambarger said Cleary is not the first to come to him with the idea of packaging fire retardant in containers to drop from planes, but he's "the only one who's gotten this far." | |||||||||
| Posted: 03 Dec 2007 12:00 PM CST
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| SV Fire District signs deal for Santa Cruz ladder truck Posted: 03 Dec 2007 11:48 AM CST  Firefighter-Paramedics Luke Duncan (in cab) and Carl Steinmetz inspect the Scotts Valley Fire Protection District's new wildland fire engine. Credit: Lucjan Szewczyk/Press-Banner Expecting construction of more multistory buildings, the Scotts Valley Fire Protection District has worked out a deal to bring an aerial ladder truck from Santa Cruz on initial fire response when needed. The Scotts Valley district's 27-year-old Van Pelt Telesquirt has only a 55-foot ladder, too short for use above three stories. It would cost more than $600,000 to replace it with a 100-foot-ladder truck, fire Chief Mike McMurry reported to district directors, and the truck wouldn't be needed very often. As an alternative, directors agreed on an arrangement under, which Santa Cruz will provide a ladder truck in exchange for Scotts Valley responding to Santa Cruz wildland fires with a wildland engine and water tender. Santa Cruz Fire Chief Ron Oliver had already agreed to the swap. Santa Cruz would dispatch its 1994 Sutphen with a 104-foot ladder to calls — or a reserve 75-foot ladder truck if the Sutphen is in the shop. | |||||||||
| Firefighters asked to report people who express discontent with the government Posted: 03 Dec 2007 10:36 AM CST
It was revealed last week that firefighters are being trained to not only keep an eye out for illegal materials in the course of their duties, but even to report back any expression of discontent with the government. A year ago, Homeland Security gave security clearances to nine New York City fire chiefs and began sharing intelligence with them. Even before that, fire department personnel were being taught "to identify material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities" and were also "told to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States." Unlike law enforcement officials, firemen can go onto private property without a warrant, not only while fighting fires but also for inspections. "It's the evolution of the fire service," said a Phoenix, AZ fire chief of his information-sharing arrangement with law enforcement. Keith Olbermann raised the alarm about the program on his show Wednesday, noting that "if the information-sharing program works in New York, the department says it will extend it to other major metropolitan areas, unless we stop them." He then asked Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now with the ACLU, "This program seems to be turning [firefighters], essentially, into legally protected domestic spies, does it not?" "That's the entire intent," German replied, noting the serious legal issues involved. "There is actually still a fourth amendment," he pointed out, "and what makes a firefighter's search reasonable is that it's done to prevent a fire. If now firefighters are going in with this secondary purpose, that end run around the fourth amendment won't work, and it's likely that they will find themselves in legal trouble." Olbermann, however, was most strongly concerned about the implications for civil liberties. "Is what disturbs you and the ACLU the same thing that just jumped off the page for me?" he asked. "That one phrase, 'look for people who are expressing hatred of or discontent with the United States?' Discontent?" German agreed that there are serious first amendment issues raised by the focus of the program on constitutionally-protected literature, such as books that might be considered "terrorist propaganda." Olbermann asked in conclusion whether firefighters could be used under this program to plant evidence. German agreed that the way it is defined "really plays to people's prejudices and gives them the opportunity to do damage to someone..Source: Raw Story | |||||||||
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