FUSEE Releases New Instructional Guide for Citizens to Access Wildfire Information Online
Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) released their new report, FireWatch: A Citizen's Guide to Wildfire Suppression Monitoring, that provides easy step-by-step instructions for accessing a number of different internet sites that track wildfires.
Ferguson Fire: Hoping for Yosemite's Road Less Trammeled
There are real concerns for the safety of the community of Yosemite West located just outside the Park, but that is where efforts to prepare structures for fire’s arrival should be focused. As to the ranger compound in Wawona, the Park’s fire staff have been preparing that community for a wildfire like the Ferguson Fire for many years, using a combination of prescribed burning and wildland fire use. The same goes for the giant Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, trees that were in decline due to past fire exclusion but are now reviving with new generations of sequoias thanks to the Park Service reintroducing fire in the groves.
The IC’s decision to stop the Ferguson Fire along the Wawona Road is not about fear or hatred of fire–that is a media generated meme constructed for public consumption. Rather, it is about hubris, the need control Wild Nature, to show her who is the real (fire) boss.
Nation Moves to Wildfire Planning Level 5 while Cohen & Russiagate Dominate Headlines
The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC) moved National Planning Level to 5 today, while the Nation’s capitol and the mainstream media continue focus on the Game of Thrones atmosphere surrounding the Trump administration.
Carr Fire Takes Aim at Redding
Climate chaos strikes, again, this time deep into the heart of Redding, California, the regional hub and commercial center for Northern California. The Carr Fire started near the cross of Hwy. 299 and the Carr Powerhouse Road on Monday, July 23rd.
Your guy-on-the-street, HunterX, is here with exclusive photos and sources from the firefight going on now in Shasta County. The fire was very active the first couple of days, but was restricted to the mountains west of Whiskeytown Lake.
Ferguson Fire: Yosemite's Proving Ground for Ecological Fire Use
The Ferguson Fire has been burning for nearly two weeks and has captured most of the attention of the national news media. Tragically, one firefighter was killed on the second day of the fire when the bulldozer he was operating rolled down a steep slope. Miraculously, no homes have been lost as of July 25th. The Ferguson is going to burn a large area over a long time.
History never repeats itself but it rhymes: Rim Fire redux
The year was 1961. President Robert F. Kennedy was President of the United States. The Central Valley Project had been built and the growing San Joaquin Valley agribusiness gave way to traditional ranchland in the oak savanna of the Sierra foothills southwest of Yosemite National Park. The Harlow Fire started on July 10th. The following day it exploded, burning over 20,000 acres in two hours, vaporizing the communities of Ahwahnee and Nipinnawasee, and killing an elderly couple. Supposedly, that run on the Harlow Fire was one of the fastest ever recorded. The communities would never recover.
A New Hotlist, A New Fire, and a Tragedy
Tragically, a CalFire dozer operator was killed this morning in a rollover accident on the new emergent Ferguson Fire on the Sierra National Forest. The Ferguson Fire started yesterday evening near the bottom of the Merced River Canyon near the junction with the South Fork of the Merced River, and is forcing evacuations throughout the river canyon.
Drop the Rhetoric, Work Together
Originally posted in the Curry Coastal Pilot, Richard Fairbanks presents a brief summary of published findings on wildfire management.
Managing Wildfire: What Works and What Doesn't
We now have solid science and decades of experience managing western wildfires. But in our hyper-partisan age, the issue of fire management is becoming as politicized as timber management was in the 80’s and 90’s. In an attempt to contribute to a fact based debate, I present a brief summary of respected, published findings on wildfire management.
Science Continues at the Continuum
Hunter X.Mason’s experience at the Fire Continuum Conference on the beautiful University of Montana campus in Missoula.
2018 California Incident Management Team (IMT) Workshop Notes
Notes from the 2018 California Incident Management Team (IMT) Workshop.
Hype Conversion Burn
The conversion of the Sims Prescribed Fire to the Grape (Wild)Fire brings up a scary ghost from the past.
Prescribed Fire Escape - Six Rivers National Forest
Wildfires are already a hot button in California, following on the heels of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in the State’s history just last year. Governor Brown holds up the wildfire impact as a certain indicator of climate change in the State’s suit against the U.S. Government headed by climate denier-in chief, President Trump. Local governments are joining in the fray. 2018 looks to be no different.
Flying Blind: Federal Misuse of Airtankers Adds to Skyrocketing Fire Suppression Costs Accountability and Reform Needed
Wildfire suppression expenditures have averaged over $1 billion per year since 2000, but with a 71 percent increase in spending in the last five years the annual average is now $2.9 billion.. Firefighting now accounts for 61 percent of the Forest Service’s total discretionary budget.8 While suppression cost-containment has been a stated goal within the agency and a keen interest among Members of Congress for the last 15 years, there are no legal or policy mandates requiring Forest Service line officers or incident commanders to limit costs, and they have tremendous discretion in suppression expenditures.11 Recent research challenging the costs and effectiveness of different suppression strategies, tactics, and resources all beg the question—what are taxpayers getting from the billions of dollars spent fighting fires?
Whither the paradigm shift? Large wildland fires and thewildfire paradox offer opportunities for a new paradigm ofecological fire management
The growing frequency of large wildland fires has raised awareness of the ‘wildfire paradox’ and the ‘firefighting trap’ that are both rooted in the fire exclusion paradigm. However, a paradigm shift has been unfolding in the wildland fire community that seeks to restore fire ecology processes across broad landscapes. This would involve managing rather than aggressively suppressing large fires. Examples of recent fire science publications demonstrating ‘new paradigm’ thinking or critical questioning of ‘old paradigm’ assumptions are offered as evidence of this shift in thinking.
Field Guide for Archaeologists Assigned to Wildfires (BLM)
The main objective of this volume is to define cultural resources, provide information about the mechanisms that affect cultural resources, and identify management alternatives to prevent (or limit) adverse impacts within the proper legal framework.
Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals: The Need for Public Tolerance and Regulatory Relief for Wildland Smoke Emissions
1. Why forest and rangeland fires and the smoke they emit are inevitable, and how the historic deficit of fire on public land, in addition to climate change, will lead to more fire in the coming decades; 2. How fire management has changed as scientists have come to understand the vital, essential role of fire in restoring and maintaining the ecological health of wildlands; 3. How Clean Air Act regulation of wildland fire smoke is forcing land managers to institute regressive, expensive, and counterproductive fire suppression policies that go against the best science and merely defer smoke emissions into the future; and 4. How land managers can apply fire management strategies and techniques to lessen smoke emissions while allowing more fires to burn.
Wildland Fire Use
Fire is an essential, natural process on much public land, where natural ignition sources, like lightning, are abundant. Over the past century, fire suppression has altered historic fire cycles, leading to a dangerous build-up of vegetation in our wildlands. · One way for land management agencies to restore healthy conditions and protect communities is to take advantage of some natural fires. Wildland fire use projects are lightning-caused fires that are allowed to burn and spread naturally when they do not threaten people or property.
Getting Burned: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Wildfire Suppression Costs
Wildfire suppression costs are soaring to over one billion tax dollars per year. This is causing a fiscal crisis in the Forest Service which has exceeded its suppression budget almost every year for the last 20 years. The agency now spends nearly half of its total appropriated budget on firefighting, and has been forced to transfer billions of dollars away from several non-fire land management programs to pay for suppression. Recent legislative changes to suppression funding (e.g. the FLAME fund) may provide better accounting for suppression costs, but do not impose firm budgetary limits on suppression spending, nor absolutely prevent continued transfers of funds from other management programs to pay for firefighting.