Harsh news.
Downed tree. And her crew providing first aid. Most IA crew are considered ‘young workers’ under 25. Heart goes out her family and crew.
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Harsh news.
Downed tree. And her crew providing first aid. Most IA crew are considered ‘young workers’ under 25. Heart goes out her family and crew.
Gutted for her family and her crew. She looks sooo much like someone from my Unit Crew back in the day.
No words
Yikes. Another fatality, this one in NWT. Just got back from there couple weeks ago. Fire in Glacier NP (Rogers pass) visible from Golden. See what tomorrows potential thunderstorms bring to the Rockies.
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I thot I seen that ^^ story and its dissappeared
its started raining which really cleared up the bad air today
at one point I almost couldn't see the top on HBM
Hey Canada, I hope y'all are staying safe up there.
Favor to ask: can you please take your smoke back, or at least pull it up to say, New England?
I was driving back west from the beach yesterday evening, right towards the sunset and thought to myself, man that's a crazy red hazy sky; never seen it like that. Arrived after dark so didn't notice so much but woke up this morning to what looks like pictures from some Chinese city covered in thick summertime pollution, or Cleveland in the early 70s. Can't see shit out there. Anyway, thanks in advance.
Yep, it’s back. Current AQI is 154. Let’s go Canaduh, get it sorted for fucks sake.
The smoke isn’t going away until it snows up there. They aren’t putting those fires out
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19 yr old girl dies fighting these fires in CA and this is what you post?Quote:
Originally Posted by buttahflake
Flat Fire here in SW Oregon. 8000 acres and growing. Red flag conditions expected tomorrow. Might get on this one.
https://www.ijpr.org/wildfire/2023-0...y-in-sw-oregon:FIREdevil
Be safe, looks like things are starting to get hot.
Somehow a bunch of incidents came up in my you-tube feed, documentary about South Canyon, the Yarnell fire and several others including the Cramer Creek burn over. I did IA with that forest for 3 years prior to that incident and I wasn't very comfortable with the lack of emphasis on crew safety. Got to fly to some very cool places.
To repeat an observation you hear a lot, it was a wet & long spring and we now have a lot of grasses and fine fuels and they are drying out fast. Thank you FFs.
And to think this is burning in the Biscuit Fire’s burn scar :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by donutlynx
And yes, be safe firefighters
another death this time a chopper pilot which makes 3 deaths fire fighting
We're all going to burn obviously. Everything's fucked why are you fuckers even worrying about it anymore we're all going to die. Get fucked. Everything's fucked. Fuck off.
Saw two engines and a crew bus belonging to Little Tujunga Hotshots headed north on highway 97. No big fires this far north. Headed to Canukistania?
My crystal ball says they are headed to the Gorge for IA.
For what fire? I thought tunnel five was under control
IA - initial attack
https://youtu.be/-gjMVjlbG3g?t=123
AKA Prepositioning.Quote:
Originally Posted by oldnew_guy
Not to belabor this, but pre-positioning a crew from LA County on the OR/WA border when there’s little activity? And when there’s already a bunch of fires in CA and a big one in SW OR in the scar of Biscuit Fire?
Educate me
TIA
Just speculatin’ cause I’m not in the info stream, but that big one on the RRNF in OR (and a couple more big ones in OR/WA) may have sucked an awful lot of the available PNW resources in and the Little T crew may be coming in to stand by for IA.
Or they’re on their way to the big one(s) in PNW or Canada. Or PNW crews have been busy for a while and are getting rotated out for R&R.
Things like that*. Noodle around here, especially in the Predictive Services section. :
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/
Check this out. Hotshot crews are drawn down.
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/content/p...ence/crews.pdf
* or someone stole their rigs and are heading to PDX to trade for drugs.
Yup, LT has been sitting in Redmond for a few days now. R5 and R3 crews often get per-emptively staged at Redmond for further distribution when fire danger in R6 gets elevated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper
If LT was heading north on 97 out of Redmond they are probably getting sent somewhere. If they were headed to Redmond, they might be still staged.
Flat Fire is getting a Type 1 team as I don't think they have a good way to keep that thing out of the Kalmiopsis without a big commitment of resources into remote terrain.
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/content/p...-12%2018:25:24
Ok thanks for that. I wonder if interagency logistics teams use some bastardized form of airline scheduling software to deploy assets.
I’ll let you know when I emerge from these rabbit holes of info. I like the formats better than wading thru Inciweb, but figuring out all the acronyms is making this COF irritable.
I saw the LT vehicles in Bend, so they didn’t go much farther north.
I retired over 16 years ago so I’m a little rusty, but software called ROSS and (I think) IROC are used to track resources as to availability, assignments, status, and so forth. The priorities are set by MAC (multi-agency coordination) groups at the national, geographic area, and local level.
Dispatch and coordination centers take resource requests make the assignments and request (or make available) resources from outside their bailiwick according to the priorities set by MAC groups.
I could go on but if you’re interested, noodle around on that NWCC website and you can probably pick up a lot of how things are organized. Also go to the top to get an idea of the national picture.
https://gacc.nifc.gov/
FWIW, whenever I worked with the military they were impressed by the organization.
All the incident command systems I’ve been involved with for BC wildfire or BC SAR originated from California wildfire learnings. Scalable, flexible, and accountable. Surprised military has invested more in the system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper
Warm Springs.Quote:
Originally Posted by TBS
Yup, just saw report of Simnasho fire. Growing fast, but it usually does on that part of rez.
This is just stupid, what is the environmental group’s agenda here?Quote:
Originally Posted by bodywhomper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MagnificentUnicorn
- If you start letting the FS use a CE to cut large commercially viable trees, you aren't far away from them using it as an excuse to cut old growth or cut in sensitive areas or increase logging to an unsustainable level under the guise of "fire mitigation" without any public input and short cutting a bunch of environmental review. (I tend to agree that a 29,000 acre project would seem to be challenging to fit into a CE.)
- Outside groups play a big role in checking if the agencies are following NEPA. This is a outside group making the agency go through the legal motions to justify their actions.
- Tying the agencies in regulatory knots so they can't accomplish anything that goes against the goals of the litigant.
- The last admin was trying to push using regulatory mechanisms to get around NEPA and ESA reviews because they have an ideological position that is opposite the goals of those two pieces of legislation and would be happy to see them dumped in the trash can.
I'm guessing that a much smaller project, say something with a small footprint around a particular resource (campground, ranger station, etc) would fit the intent of the CE much better versus this large project (29,000 acres is 45 square miles) and would not have generated this lawsuit.
Here is Oregon Wilds press release:
https://www.oregonwild.org/about/press/conservation-groups-challenge-fremont-winema-logging-project
Commercial thinning needs to happen. There’s really not much if any old growth left outside national parks or wilderness.
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Yeah, there isn't much old growth left because they went and cut it all down without thinking about the consequences. If you cut down the big trees in the name of "mitigation" you aren't going to get back to a fire resistant ecosystem or get old growth ecosystems back on the landscape. (Yes, I know its more complicated...species, stocking levels, slope orientation, etc)Quote:
Originally Posted by MagnificentUnicorn
No disagreement here that we need commercial thinning back in the mix.
I have not looked at the CE language. USFS still must comply with ESA and NHPA. My experience is that USFS still has some public input in their application of CEs through their postings in their SOPA.
here's a wild one: https://www.nrdc.org/bio/rita-frost/...ass-boondoggle
Briefly skimming online, this project has been in the works for several years and CEQA review had been completed for a few years. My gut thought is that NRDC is making shit up about this project.
An interesting article about one place’s approach to growing fire danger.
This southern Oregon town is buying the forest around it to confront wildfires
Thanks for sharing that. Well written. In 2020, I remember hearing the head of parks for Paradise describing their similar concept.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper
^^^Interesting piece for sure. Butte Falls is way out in the sticks and isn’t in a position to defend against large wildfire.
That said, I’m not sure 400 acres will provide much buffer. But I applaud their efforts.
Speaking of not letting perfection be the enemy of progress, USFS has proposed treating 20,000 acres of previously logged and burned over land about 10 miles west of me. The plan is to restore the land to conditions before intensive logging and lack of fuels treatment.
It’s been in the works for six years, but there’s PAVErs (People Against Virtually Everything) who get apoplectic if any merchantable trees are cut. It’s great to hear them call 21” Douglas fir and larch “old growth”. Especially when it’s natural regen from previous logging.
So the area will likely turn into a giant fire scar before all the objections are dealt with. But no trees will be cut!
That DBH is the Chad Hanson thresholdQuote:
Originally Posted by TBS
I hear $2-5k per acre for initial entry treatment of overgrown conifer or mixed conifer forest. A lot of $$$ for those 400 ac at Butte Falls.
Paradise was planning a maintained perimeter lawn with a clear break in canopy surrounding the town. I’m not sure of their current plan.
^^^OK that sorta makes sense. The loudest PAVEr in this issue (Green Ridge Landscape Restoration project) is a recent transplant from upstate NY. Gotta see if there’s a connection between him (https://westernwatersheds.org/about/ ) and Earth Island. Funny thing is, there’s not a lot of watershed there. Just a bunch of intermittent creeks. No appreciable snowmelt. Could be that he’s gotta protect something and all the watersheds around here are already well cared for…
Sitting outside smelling smoke from (based on wind direction) the Simnasho fire. AQI of 70. There’s a front coming in - temps to drop 10*, but winds are picking up. Supposedly 25% of perimeter contained.
‘PAVErs’. I hadn’t heard that before. Good one, handy phrase.
21" DBH on the eastside is called the "Eastside Screen" and has been around since '94 as part of the Northwest Forest Plan. It was modified in 2021: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/la...d=fseprd710229
PAVER's aside....if your goal is to create a fire resilient forest that mimics old growth conditions of the past, it's pretty hard to get there if you cut down the big trees. Personally don't think it matters what the prior disturbance was (fire, bugs, logging,etc) as saying it can't be old growth because it's in an area that was previously cut automatically excludes a huge area from ever being considered again.
The stupidity comes in when these groups don't want 21" trees cut that are over represented (firs) or are overstocked.
If they did their homework, the CE will hold up. My guess is that applying a CE to 45 square miles isn't going to fly.Quote:
Originally Posted by bodywhomper
Realistically if you want to accelerate forest management you need to declare an emergency which allows you to get around NEPA or rewrite NEPA and ESA.