California Fire News - Updates in your mail box
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| Earthquake - Magnitude 3.8 - Eureka CA Posted: 03 May 2009 01:43 PM PDT
 Earthquake Details
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| Ukiah: Wildfire Preparedness Expo May 16 at fairgrounds Posted: 03 May 2009 10:55 AM PDT
This year the Expo, at the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds in Ukiah, will cover important topics like defensible space clearing around your home, water supplies for fire protection, protecting your home from burning embers, and how to decide whether to evacuate or stay and defend your home. Starting at 10 a.m. Saturday May 16, this free event will feature vendors who sell firefighting and water supply equipment. Live fire demonstrations start after lunch, which will be provided for a $7 donation. The first speaker at 10:15 a.m. will be a Cal Fire chief on "Are You Prepared? Clearing around your home," about the "defensible space" inspections Cal Fire performs to determine whether or not firefighters will be able to defend your home from a wildfire. The 10:45 a.m. topic will be "Lessons We Learned about Protecting Our Homes," led by Stephen Smith, District Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service, with input from Mendocino County residents who experienced the 2008 lightning fires "up close and personal." Chief Colin Wilson of the Anderson Valley Fire Department will speak at 11:20 a.m.on water supplies for fire protection, with a slide show and demonstration of how to make home water supply systems available for firefighting. At 1 p.m., Dr. Steve Quarles of the UC Berkeley Center for Fire Research and Outreach will discuss "Protecting your home from burning embers." He will describe building materials, methods and maintenance to keep your home safe. At 1:45 p.m. Dr. Quarles will give live fire demonstrations of how burning embers ignite various decking and siding materials that we may have in our own homes. At 2:45 p.m., Dr. Max Moritz of the UC Berkeley Fire Center will discuss the February 2009 Australian fires and the Australian policy called "Leave Early, or Prepare, Stay & Defend." In that country, able-bodied citizens are trained on how to defend their own homes in situations where fire engines are not available. Finally, at 3:30 p.m. Sheriff Tom Allman will lead a discussion of evacuation and communications issues in the 2008 Lightning Fires, along with Cal Fire Battalion Chief Norm Brown, Anderson Valley Fire Chief Colin Wilson, KZYX Radio staff, and citizens who participated in informing the public about the fires. The event will end at around 4 p.m.  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Volunteers at one time played role in fighting wildfires Posted: 03 May 2009 10:45 AM PDT
Larry Woodfill remembers when fighting the north state's fires was just about everybody's job. Woodfill's dad first put him on a fire line when he was 13, telling the other men his boy was 16. Back then, Woodfill recalls, fire agencies would take all the volunteers they could get. "In those days they would stop cars on the highway and pull people off and have them fight fire," said Woodfill, 72, who lives on South Fork Mountain with a view of Redding. "It worked well." Fire officials say when wildfires are raging they often hear from people hoping to help out as they did in the old days. But unless people are working on their own property and there hasn't been a call for evacuation, the fight is left to trained firefighters. What is now the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection started as the state's Board of Forestry in 1885. As it evolved into a firefighting agency, it relied on volunteer efforts like those Woodfill remembers. In the early 1900s, the agency had only one ranger for each county or two, said Andy McMurry, Cal Fire's assistant deputy director for fire protection. The ranger would round up able bodied laborers to fight fires when they erupted. "Basically that was their job," he said. For decades fighting fire where homes and wildland meet was a neighborhood effort, he said. In the early 1970s Cal Fire started adding more professional firefighters to its ranks, lessening the use of volunteers, McMurry said. In the 1980s legislative tightening of worker safety and liability laws lessened their use even more. Eventually, they were eliminated. "It's just kind of a change in our culture," he said. There still are numerous volunteer fire departments that help Cal Fire throughout the north state, but McMurry said today's volunteers go through months of training before fighting a fire. While grateful to the firefighters who helped protect his home last summer, Woodfill said the focus of the fire fight seems to have changed. In the days of drafting almost anyone, he said, the aim was to put out the flames, and quickly. Woodfill, who evacuated from his home last July, forced out by the Motion Fire, said he thinks the fire could have been stopped when it was smaller. The Motion fire was sparked during an unusual storm on June 20 and 21 that brought about 8,000 lightning strikes to Northern California. What would become a raging wildfire started with a cluster of smoldering small fires. Because fire crews were stretched thin around the north state, they focused their efforts first on fires threatening homes and other property, so more remote fires were left to burn. "It was in those first two or three days that the battle was lost," Woodfill said. He said he thinks fire agencies should return to recruiting volunteers as fires burn. The crews could be as small as two people in a pickup with shovels. "If you have a fire, put it out," he said. Doing so isn't as simple as it sounds, McMurry said. Now any volunteer recruited by Cal Fire would become an employee of the state and need to undergo the months of training to be a certified firefighter. "Because of that it's not easy to get someone off the street, give them a shovel and tell them to go dig a fire line," he said. By Dylan Darling (Contact)  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Winton-Schaads Prescribed Burn project - 6,342 acres Posted: 03 May 2009 08:11 AM PDT
CAL FIRE will be conducting a prescribed burn in Calaveras county Location: San Andreas, the Lily Valley area east of West Point. What: 6,342 acre Winton-Schaads Prescribed Burn project will be divided up into 10-40 acre areas Resources: One to two CAL FIRE engines along with personnel from Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) will conduct the burn When: May 4, 2009 with burns possible through mid June 2009, if the fuel moisture, temperatures, humidity and winds are favorable, the burn will proceed as scheduled. Why: This under story burn will treat bear clover, small conifers, brush and grass and will help protect the communities of West Point, Wilseyville, and Lily Valley as well as protect timber resources and the Mokelumne watershed. The prescribed burn project will start with a small "test burn", as a final check to ensure that conditions are within "prescription". If conditions are favorable, then the firefighters will begin ignition around the perimeter of the project allowing a low intensity slow burn to consume fuels within the project.  |
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