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June 30, 2008
Forest Service short on fire engines, Inland staffing
The Press-Enterprise
The U.S. Forest Service did not meet its own deadline to have 252 fully staffed fire engines available statewide by June 22, leaving Inland forests potentially shorthanded going into the summer.
As of Monday, more than a week after that target date, the agency remained 29 engines short of that goal, or almost 12 percent, spokesman John Heil said. He could provide no explanation.
"We're not prepared to get into that now," Heil said, noting that the agency was busy battling hundreds of fires in California.
June 28, 2008
Plan to tax for wildfire protection languishes
Union Tribune
A committee charged with reshaping wildfire protection in San Diego County is trying to agree on a handful of recommendations, but the group is splintering and running out of time.
June 27, 2008
Use Lessons From CA Fires in '08 to Reduce Risk in '09
Earth Times/Wilderness Society
As a staggering number of fires burn through California, many people are already asking the question of what can be done to lessen the impact of these annual outbreaks.
"While for many it's too late to take preventative measures this summer, the truth is that there are short and long-range solutions that communities can start focusing on now," said Rich Fairbanks, a forest and fire specialist for The Wilderness Society - a nonprofit organization that is working in collaboration with local governments, fire departments, land managers and other partners to make sure communities will be safe over the long term. "Homeowners can fortify the defensible space between their homes and forests, and communities can push for better zoning and regulations that protect people and property."
On the fire line, women find tough, rewarding career
Associated Press
Jodi Fowler had a choice to make in 1998. Move to Arizona to try to land a spot on the Phoenix Suns cheerleading squad, or take a job fighting wildland fires for the Bureau of Land Management.
She chose the fires -- ditching the pompons and crowds for a fire-retardant uniform, a hard hat and a half hatchet-half pick took known as a Pulaski.
June 26, 2008
Overwhelmed firefighters ask governor, lawmakers for help
Contra Coasta TImes
A firefighters' blue-ribbon task force created by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 — and revived last year after devastating blazes — pleaded with the governor and lawmakers Thursday to "get real" about the growing wildfire threat facing California.
EROS Helps Fight Wildfires
KELOLAND TV
Some of the country's top wildfire experts are in South Dakota, talking about tactics they need to fight fires that are raging out in California, and an organization here in South Dakota can help.
The EROS Data Center just north of Sioux Falls is part of the Department of the Interior and provides satellite images and aerial maps to the federal government. For the past few days, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council has been meeting there to talk about satellite technology and how it can be used to fight wildfires on the ground.
As more than one thousand fires burn in California, crews are fighting those fires on the ground and from the air, but government officials are also fighting the flames from space.
June 25, 2008
New software gives Payette Rural Fire an edge on fighting wildland fires
Argus Observer
Payette Rural Fire District resident Greg Frates knows how difficult it can be for emergency services to navigate on rural backroads in emergencies. When the Cherry Gulch fire raged in the hills behind his house in rural Washington County last summer, he directed Bureau of Land Management firefighters to a rural road leading to the fire.
In the future, however, finding and gauging the potential impacts of wildland fires in the rural fire district, which services parts of Washington County and over to the Oregon Slope, will be easier because of a new software system Payette Rural Fire is in the process of setting up.
Some property owners hiring private crews, leasing copters
The Press Democrat
An unprecedented onslaught of flames continued Tuesday to scour bone-dry wildlands of Mendocino County, forcing state fire commanders to make cold, hard decisions about which of the 106 fires to fight and which to ignore.
It was a scene being repeated across Northern California as overmatched fire crews were confronted for a second day by more than 800 lightning-caused blazes.
At the state command post in Ukiah, the decisions were straightforward: Attack the fires that threaten people and homes, worry about the others in the coming days -- or weeks.
As a result, some desperate Mendocino County property owners Tuesday turned to hiring private firefighting crews and leasing helicopters to help fight fires on their own land.
June 24, 2008
Montana crews fighting wildfires in California
Associated Press
Nearly all of Montana's wildland fire crews - Hot Shots included - have been sent to California or are in the process of being sent there to fight wildfires.
Cal Fire firefighters work 30 days straight
State's early fire season keeps firefighters hopping
San Jose Mercury News
COUNTY - Three major fires in the past month have left fire resources stretched thin and some firefighters without a day off in the past 30.
State fire officials say a boost in early season manpower and equipment has helped them battle a fit of blazes across Central and Northern California.
But the early siege, including fires in areas that rarely see them - like Santa Cruz County - is straining state and local firefighting resources and spurring concern about how firefighters and their gear will hold up during a drawn-out fire season.
June 21, 2008
Forest Service to beef up firefighting ranks
San Francisco Chronicle
The fast-spreading fire that broke out Friday in Santa Cruz County has put state and federal fire officials on edge as scorching temperatures throughout California threaten to make an already-bad fire season worse.
Firefighters had barely dusted off the soot from last week's onslaught of fires when this latest blaze raced through bone-dry grassland near Watsonville, quickly burning 500 acres and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents.
It is the latest in a series of large, destructive fires to break out in Northern California this year, prompting fears that the amount of firefighting equipment and personnel available in the state might be inadequate.
The U.S. Forest Service announced plans Friday to hire additional firefighters to deal with the dangerously incendiary conditions in California.
June 19, 2008
County Considering Fighting Fire with Fire
Voice of San Diego
County Supervisor Bill Horn envisions a new paradigm for land management in unincorporated areas of San Diego County. He has asked the county to study the feasibility of using "controlled" fire burns in vast swathes of the county to better protect residents from periodic devastating wildfires.
Commissioners say nay to rural development: With fires raging and energy costs soaring, they say yea to compact, centralized urban growth
The News Review (Chico, CA)
Wildfires carry strong messages. So does $4-a-gallon gas.
One of those messages, apparently, is that building houses in the unincorporated areas of Butte County, far from urban services and jobs, has got to stop.
Anxiety Grows in West Over Firefighting Efforts
The New York Times
As fire season arrives in the West, there are growing doubts about the region’s ability to attack the kind of sweeping blazes that devastated parts of California last year.
Tracy Jarman, right, the San Diego fire chief, said residents would have to face the reality that some homes built on the fringes of wild lands could not be saved in a big fire.
The cost of fuel in fire trucks, a scramble to hire new firefighters and new budget constraints have sowed anxiety as a persistent drought worsens in California and elsewhere, even as heavy rains cause flooding in other parts of the country.
June 18, 2008
More firefighters injured this season
San Jose Mercury News
Late one afternoon a week ago, four firefighters battling the Indians Fire in Los Padres National Forest became trapped in a burnover - a sudden, swirling blowup of flame that officials likened to a cyclone.
The force of the fire storm snapped the limbs from oak trees and threw up rocks the size of golf balls, an internal report on the incident said.
The crew of Forest Service Engine 71 saw no way out, even though firefighters typically keep two escape routes in mind when working near fire lines.
But sudden winds in dry weather can change all that in an instant.
When the nightmare ended, one crew member was flown to a hospital burn unit in Santa Clara County. The others were treated locally before they were sent to a burn center in Fresno. They're all expected to recover from their injuries.
June 16, 2008
Wildfires not unusual in South
Pocosin fire's size makes it notable
The News and Observer
The size of the wildfire burning in and around the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge may be atypical, but statistics show that its occurrence is anything but.
There were 7,000 wildfires in North Carolina in 2007, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, and they burned more than 54,000 acres.
As of Sunday, the wildfire in eastern North Carolina had burned more than 41,000 acres, with costs to fight it soaring past $2.6 million. Also known as the Evans Road wildfire, it is about 40 percent contained, but thick smoke is still causing visibility problems near the blaze, causing the National Weather Service to post an advisory cautioning people with respiratory ailments to stay indoors.
June 14, 2008
Burn Policy: Flathead National Forest May Use “Let it Burn” Policy
Beacon
Managers of the Flathead National Forest are considering allowing lightning-caused fires to burn this summer if the conditions are right.
While many wildfires will be fought, others can provide "a valuable tool for land managers," said Steve Brady, Swan Lake district ranger for the Flathead National Forest. "Decisions to use naturally ignited fire as a tool for resource management objectives are made incident by incident, and only in certain conditions," he said.
June 10, 2008
Foresters may extend 'let it burn' policy beyond wilderness areas
The Missoulian
Foresters looking to fight fire with fire have started looking beyond the boundaries of designated wilderness areas, and this summer will apply a sort of “let it burn” policy to public lands throughout northwest Montana.
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