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Fire deaths underscore issues with fire suppression
Submitted by Rocky Barker on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 9:52am.
Only hours after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne toured the Wildland Firefighter Mounment at the National Interagency Fire Center Wednesday, nine more firefighters died in a helicopter crash . Now these brave firefighters will join those who are honored at the monument in Boise.
The nine firefighters were part of a team of 13 who were riding in the helicopter back to a staging area after they had worked on a fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. It’s the highest number of fatalities in a firefighting incident since 14 firefighters died on Storm King Mountain in 1994.
What makes this accident even more tragic is that two other firefighters died only two weeks ago, and one Andy Palmer was fighting the same fire. A week ago fire officials held a “stand down,” to make fire bosses talk to their crews about safety.
Just two days ago, National Park Service Director Mary Bomar toured the monument herself. She pointed out the inherent dangers in firefighting and expressed the grieving of an entire organization for the loss of one of their ranks. When she was done she met with Park Service fire officials who briefed her on how they were fighting the LeHardy fire in Yellowstone National Park.
Now if you read the fire series that Heath Druzin and I wrote last month you know that the more we suppress fires the larger they get. You also know that our policy of putting out 98 percent of the fires when we know fires actually reduce the fire threat is a disturbing paradox that only puts lives at risk and costs billions of dollars. It’s also a poor way to protect homes, fire scientists agree.
The Park Service fire managers are showing that they get it. They first aggressively fought the LeHardy fire after it was started by a power line arc. But once it was clearly out of control but also no longer a danger to park resources they initiated a strategy of steering the fire into the backcountry, using past Yellowstone fires as a buffer. This dramatically reduces both the costs and the chances of accidents, for which Bomar praised her managers.
I acknowledge I don’t know all the details about the fire that the nine dead firefighters were fighting. It is a part of a complex of fires in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest started by lightning June 21. So far 86,000 acres has burned. But a lot of these fires were burning in wilderness, much in rough terrain.
I expect there are going to be a lot of questions about whether these men should have been fighting these fires aggressively at all.
Kempthorne apparently did not read our series or, as we explained is a part of the political consensus that supports more fire suppression not less despite the clear science. He told Heath Druzin Wednesday that while he urged homeowners to take more responsibility for protecting their property and acknowledged that fire suppression had made forests more vulnerable to large fires, he is proud the federal government puts out 98 percent of wildfires and encouraged more suppression efforts.
Significantly scaling back suppression efforts is unrealistic when so many homes are now in fire-prone areas, he said. “You can have a theory but you’re dealing with Mother Nature,” he said.
After the deaths on the Shasta Trinity National Forest, Kempthorne and other political leaders may want to reconsider their views. The National Park Service’s Bomar demonstrated the day before that she gets it.
Donations to help the grieving families can made to the Wildland Firefighters Foundation here in Boise.
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Rocky the fire bug
I don't think you will be satisfied until the whole west burns up and you can write another book about it.
With the unnatural build up of fuels, letting mega fire burn is criminal. These fires are NOT natural. Prescribed burning, thinning and some logging are important in restoring forest health, THEN we can look at letting it burn.
Push for fuels reduction and firewise if you want to do something good for the West.
PS - they would still be flying around in helicopters to "manage" WFUs.
Not enough money in the treasury
Thinning logging and prescribed burning are all part of the picture. But putting out 98 percent of the fires only makes the problem worse. Should they try to out the Cabin Creek fire?
Is putting out fire in wilderness worth young folk's lives?
Logic error
There's a common Latin phrase, that describes an error in logic and completely captures Rocky Barker's fire story. It is: Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Basically means "after this, therefore because of this." Rocky has decided that fire suppression is responsible for big fires, because big fires have followed fire suppression. So Rocky has attributed a result to something that may or may not logically be responsible. He could as easily attributed global warming to the rise of the internet, after all I didn't hear anything about global warming until I read about it on the 'net, therefore, global warming is caused by the Internet. And high gas prices are the result of, oh, say, Britney Spears' breakdown, because one followed the other. See my point?
Furthermore, today Rocky blames fire policy for big fires. Not long ago, he blamed global warming. And not long before that, big fires were blamed on government timber harvest policies. Maybe it's all of the above. Maybe it's none of the above. The point is, the Idaho Statesman has found a new "cause" not unlike other causes it supports, only this one is clearly based on nothing it's almost a joke. This is just the latest incarnation of bias in the media.
Greek likely started this?
The Greek on a cigarrette pack.
Human and Fire Suppression History: Logic 101
Rocky:
MediaTruth is making a very important point here. Please pay attention. It is time the media -- including members such as yourself -- begin to look at your claims in a more common sense and logical light.
In Oregon we had the famous "6-Year Jinx" in 1933, 1939, 1945, and 1951, during which hundreds of thousands of acres of Tillamook County forestlands burned repeatedly, creating the infamous "Tillamook Burn." In the late 1940s the Oregon legislature began funding snag management, road building, and tree planting in the Burn. The 1951 Fire, as a result, was readily contained, and there hasn't been a major fire there since.
From 1945 until 1987, during the height of "fire suppression" (and, not coincidentally, road building, tree planting, and logging to construct our nation's post-WW II home-building boom), there were NO catastrophic wildfires in western Oregon. None. Active management and skilled forest fire suppression kept them from taking place.
In the late 1960s the nation began abandoning active management of forestlands by labeling them "Wilderness," and within 20 years these so-called "un-touched by man" areas began bursting into catastrophic-scale wildfires. The "Silver Complex" of 1987 and the Biscuit Fire of 2002 both burned nearly the entire 180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness, where Chetco and Gusladada people used to live until 1852. The 2004 "B&B Complex" burned through Mount Jefferson and Three Sisters Wildernesses that had formerly been occupied by Santiam Molalla and Paiute people until the same time. Those are the largest wildfires ever in western Cascades and SW Oregon history, and all too place in the past 20 years, and all took place In Wilderness areas created after 1965.
Do you notice a pattern here, Rocky? A logical pattern that has nothing to do with "fire suppression" and everything to do with "Let It Burn" passively-managed Wilderness? The problem has to do with forest fuel management, NOT Global Warming, and certainly NOT federal "fire suppression" policies.
These wildfires have been consistently predicted, were preventable, and should not have been permitted to take place. The logical thing to do next is to remove all of the dead wood ("fuel") ASAP, perhaps turning it into sources of energy to address the recurring national "fuel crisis," and return these lands to the safe, beautiful, productive, actively-managed forests they have been for most of the past 10,000 years. Or is that too much to ask or expect? Walking away with a handful of illogical, easy to make, "scientific" excuses probably is easier.
Did they ever catch that arsonist?
Dude...
WFUs still have over flights
I never advocate risking lives. I do advocate accurate reporting.
The Real Killer
For the record, the Buckhorn Fire is one of the Iron Complex fires that have been burning since June 20. The Shasta-Trinity NF decided to “use” those fires to “treat” the forest. Long after other CA lightning fires ignited June 20-21 have been contained and controlled, the Iron Complex burns merrily along. Yesterday it was reported to be 87,306 acres total and 79% contained. There are 1,217 personnel on the Iron Complex today. $50 million has been spent to date.
Instead of suppressing, the USFS did Let It Burn for "forest health" just as you and Heath recommended. Perhaps they did read your series and take it to heart.
Anytime so many people are committed to a dangerous undertaking that is extended and extended, the chance of accidents grows larger and larger. Initial direct attack is also dangerous, but turning fires into summer-long projects increases the probability of Murphy’s Law events.
Andrew Palmer, 18, a firefighter with the Olympic National Park headquartered in Port Angeles, was killed on the Iron Complex last month. The latest incident brings the total to 10 fatalities on this one fire alone.
Let It Burn does not mean all the firefighters go home. It means project fires that last all summer long. It means rural communities in evacuation or threat of evacuation for months at a time. It means smoke that billows across airsheds for weeks and weeks.
And it means the chance for fatal accidents increases.
If you are going to leap to blame someone for those deaths, Rocky, you should take a look in the mirror. It is you and Heath that desire endless fires burning all summer long. That is what killed those firefighters. You are to blame. You are the murderer, not Kempthorne, who by the way is Sec Interior and has nothing whatsoever to with the USFS.
You used this tragedy to make political attacks against people who had nothing to do with it. But the sad fact is that you are the killer, and nothing will wipe the blood off your hands.
Disgusting
The Cabin Creek non-suppression "suppression" fire is 5,500 acres and 30 miles from any town. That's far different than 87,000 acres and adjacent to numerous towns in Northern California. Do you wish the Castle Rock Fire of last summer had been "allowed to burn" and destroyed Ketchum and all of Sun Valley? Would you blithely incinerate Idaho towns as you would California towns?
I cannot believe that you used this tragedy to make political points against your political enemies. That just proves that your stance is political, and darkly so. Your concern for forests is faux. Your "ecology" is tainted by extreme political leanings. How despicable is that?
It was a helicopter accident
"I expect there are going to be a lot of questions about whether these men should have been fighting these fires aggressively at all."
Before you jump to your conclusion you might want to look into what the fire-fighing strategy was and see if it was "aggressive" or not. Perhaps they were fighting the fire on it's leading edge. I bet not. More likely they were involved in back burns on the trailing ends of the perimeter, or cold trailing, or mop up. Or maybe even doing protection around some structures.
Helicopter accidents are going to happen notwithstanding the fire fighting strategy. Or perhaps you assume wildfires should not be staffed at all?
These fires and fatalities
These fires and fatalities are not related to "fire suppression" at all. They are related to wildfire management, pure and simple. "Letting it burn" just prolongs the opportunity for accidents; it doesn't eliminate it.
If these areas had continued to be actively managed as they had been during the past 10,000 years they would not be so frequent or so devastating as they have been the past 20 years.
Passive management of forests results in dangerous, unprecedented fuel build-ups that result in catastrophic wildfires. "Fire suppression" and Global Warming (!) are just feeble excuses invented by failed "ecologists" who see their "science" discredited and disproved with each new wildfire and each new fatality.
It is time to return experienced resource managers and applied scientists to our forests. Fatalities will always occur, but they won't be in the name of failed policies and junk science.
Bomar no angel
By the way, Bomar's National Park Service killed a firefighter in a helicopter crash earlier this year. Grand Canyon National Park fire management officials began the Walla Valley Prescribed Burn on Saturday, June 21, at 6:21 p.m. They intended to burn over 6,000 acres in a set fire that “mimicked” a lightning fire. After a few test starts, they backed off that plan and determined not to set any more fires. They then called in firefighters from the GCNP, Kaibab National Forest, Summit Fire District, Flagstaff Fire Department, Zion National Park, Carson National Forest, Holbrook, Montana, and Saguaro National Park to contain the test starts.
Firefighter Michael MacDonald was tragically killed in a private medical helicopter collision while being transported from the Walla Valley Prescribed Burn to a northern Arizona hospital on Sunday, June 29th. Six people, including MacDonald, were killed in the collision of two medical helicopters near Flagstaff Medical Center.
MacDonald, 26, was a member of the Chief Mountain Hot Shots, an elite Bureau of Indian Affairs-funded Native American firefighting crew based on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Montana. The crew was assigned to the Walla Valley Fire on the North Rim. The Chief Mountain Hot Shot crew was released from the incident the next day.
Bomar's Let It Burn policy morphed into a Burn It On Purpose policy and six people died as a result. But I guess the Idaho Statesman didn't bother to cover that accident, or try to make political hay out of it.
You even try putting out hay?
Hay fires suck
Yup
Good Comments
Factual and eloquent.
I would like to add that each fire team rotates out every two weeks. This means that several days are lost in transition between teams. It takes a while for crews to become accustomed to higher altitudes, to learn the terrain, fuels and local fire behavior (not to mention the routes and landmarks.)
Each crew that leaves a fire, has time off and is assigned to a new fire instead of going back to the fire they are familiar with. I've seen the same crew rotate back in, yet be assigned to a different fire complex. I've yet to see this serious safety issue be discussed.