How a Firefighter Fed Two Overhead
Petro and Lithe awoke to find themselves on the actual fireline. How they got there remained a mystery. Because they were overhead, they rarely left their fire camp wall tent…
The Fire Permeable WUI #2: The WUI must SEE the CHARR
Accelerating Global Warming increases the frequency, intensity, distribution, abundance, duration, and severity of wildfire. Already destructive windstorms have created great landscapes of forest debris providing abundant fuel for wildfire. As heat-waves decrease fuel moisture, we expect more lightning storms. We have reaped these firewhirls and the WUI cannot shelter.
Make America Rake Again
Approaching the holidays, phantoms of fairy tales danced through my head in my dreams at night. Though sometimes those dreams turned to horror with the faces of Sonny Purdue and Ryan Zinke attached to crazy meth-addicted hillbilly caricatures, sort of like the characters of Squidbillies. And of course, they were just part of the zany Trump clown car teetering from one crisis to another, spilling blood, hydraulic fluid, and incompetent agency heads all the way down the hill behind the wreckage. I reflected back on the 2018 fire season, still ongoing back in California…
CWCG Shuffles Federal Incident Management Teams (IMTs) for 2019
The California Wildland Fire Coordinating Group (CWCG) is the interagency body in California that helps arrange and manage agreements, develop standards and stand-up eleven IMTs each fire season to manage increasingly deadly and destructive wildfires.
THE SKY’S THE LIMIT: THE SOBERANES FIRE SUPPRESSION SIEGE OF 2016
The Soberanes Fire Suppression Siege offers an extreme example of excessive, unaccountable, budget-busting suppression spending that is causing a fiscal crisis in the U.S. Forest Service. It demonstrates the absolute necessity for Congress to perform critical oversight of wildfire suppression spending by federal agencies.
The Fire Permeable WUI #1: Introduction
In this series, we will outline threats beyond the immediate menace of high-intensity Global Warming enhanced wildfires. Climate change piles up axillary problems such as credit crunches created from the loss of insurance, unsustainable mortgages, and the migration of WUI investments into high-risk environments. Also, we will take a cursory look at the duende of WUI dwellers and how some of their motivations can inevitably lead to their own demise and how we can conjure resilient solutions.
Stephen Pyne on Recent California Wildfires
Stephen Pyne, a FUSEE collaborator and ally, as well as distinguished fire historian, was joined last Friday by Alexandra von Meier, and urban electrical grid specialist, to discuss the devastation witnessed during the past two seasons of California wildfires and how this might be avoided in the future. Their discussion was moderated by Ira Flatow, on Science Friday, a radio show heard on public radio stations across the country and distributed by WNYC Studios.
Fire as Medicine: Fire-Dependent Cultures and Re-Empowering American Indians Tribes
Across North America, many communities seek to live more safely with wildland fire; some call that working to become a fire adapted community. Many American Indian tribes were historically able to live within fire-prone ecosystems, but rather than just being fire adapted, they were and still are fire dependent cultures.
Fire, Smoke and Inversions Explained
Video recorded on the Hirz Fire, FUSEE Board Member, Mike Beasley, along with the Incident Meteorologist and Air Resource Advisor describe the nature and importance of inversions.
Firefighter Safety Begins at Home
After a long shift on the line, coming back to basecamp exhausted and needing to take care of one’s basic needs of food and hygiene before catching a few hours of precious sleep—who would even be thinking about potential threats to one’s personal safety inside firecamp!
Cat Scratch Fever
The Mendocino Complex has taken its place in the record books–but probably not for long–as the largest wildfire in California state history. While the River Fire is 100% contained at this time, it is possible that the Ranch Fire may eventually burn over a majority of entire Mendocino National Forest before it stops its advance.
One thing that leaps out with a casual glance at the current fire map is the extensive use of dozers in primary and contingency firelines. Several of these dozerlines a.k.a. “catlines” come right up to and possibly encroach into the Snow Mountain Wilderness. In fact, the California Regional Forester gave permission for dozers to enter the wilderness with the blessing of the Mendocino Forest Supervisor.
Other Than Full Suppression
This essay was written in response to a recent post at Wildfire Today: Wildfire News and Opinion, titled, “Are we experiencing a “new normal” of wildland fire behavior?”
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.