A lot of these it seems there has been a lack of engagement of actually trying to put out the fire…the old days of anchor and flank. A lot of fire “management”
I’m glad some one said it. As someone who is on the ground I can’t stand when we dont reinforce air drop with hose and or hand line. And to be honest it’s not just the big fires where there is a lack of anchor and flank.
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Well, not for nothing but keep in mind that, you’re building line or extending a hose lay down a very steep shale rocky area towards the advancing fire with little to no holding ground on the North and East side of the mountain. Does that sound like a good plan, when your only escape route is back up that very steep, shale rock terrain, if things go South?
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But neither is painting ridgelines and hoping they hold, if they don’t move to the next one and try again. The issue I have seen over the last few years, and progressively getting worse, is lack of engagement on the ground hoping aircraft will stop it…they don’t, ground forces do, they slow them down or keep it in check. Not arguing or offending…just my opinion.
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I understand what you are saying on a broad scale, however, in this specific circumstance, given the extreme high value of the communication equipment and observatory on Mt. Wilson, placing retardant lines are a means to slow and disrupt the energy of the fire coming up the back side. The lack of any real holding ground combined with the very steep rocky composition of the ground makes the risk vs. reward analysis is way off the chart to inserting ground personnel off the top of the mountain down towards the fire. Is it a perfect solution for this specific circumstance? No, however, the options there are very limited.
As a side note, I am going to move all of this discussion into a new topic as we are drifting well away from the actual fire elements.
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There’s no way in hell I would bail off the top of Mt. Wilson to “engage” a fire that is exhibiting extreme fire behavior in that terrain with no anchor point, escape route, or safety zone. Hand line and hoselays won’t buy you a damn thing the way this fire is burning.
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Well stated, as a AD - ATGS it’s become almost the norm to have AC dropping and little or no ground support.
I know that the extreme conditions cause great concern, but direct attack flanking and anchor still work if applied by all resources.
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The discussion of Mt Wilson being threatened started over 8 days ago. That is more than enough time to have an aggressive plan to prevent any damage to the facility. Hardly extreme fire behavior. I agree with comments above, things have become a “let’s scout out and wait and see” approach.
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Motto for some teams for sure!
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Every fire, and even every section thereof, are different. What’s not different in the coorrolation to military ops. People want to know why we don’t just bomb and leave, Well the quote “You don’t own a piece of land until you can stand on it” rings true. I’m not saying that you CAN follow up every drop with hanb crew and/or lilne by any means. Once again, every situation is different. I will say that I have seen the USFS manage the crap out of some fires…
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I spent a lot of time with CDF and the forest service battling fires on a hand to hand basis. We went after it like it was personal. We fought for every acre . Now the methods have changed. More retardant drops ,firing operations and back up and wait. It was much more like a military operation than it is now. Not sure it works any better than what we did back in the day . More tactical now I suppose. I wish we did more about preventing fires , Thinning the forest in the urban interfaces and cutting adequate fire breaks . Places Like Mt Wilson should have already had protection in place > these battles are won and lost before the fire starts. The mountains of cash they spend fighting fires could be better spent trying to prevent or limit them
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@pyrogeography did a radio interview not to long ago. I thought it might be appropriate for this discussion. I found it very insightful and I agree with his comments. Hopefully this is not off topic. But… his part starts about 20:20
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I have been quietly pleased with the lack of line of duty deaths and injuries we have seen with this unprecedented fire season.
Are you observations and my observation related?
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Sure. It is the other side of the coin. We trade first line fire fighting for the safety of those involved . I am not sure it has not gone too far at times. Wild land fire fighting is a dangerous job. It is sort of a catch 22 . do you take the danger away by letting the fire run and hoping for the best
and using less direct methods like Air Drops? Those seem to only work so well. Most fires are put out by boots on the ground when it is all said and done. hard question for a single answer.
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I started in 79 with CDF and retired in 2012(CAL FIRE). A lot has changed in those years and more so since I retired. Some for the better and some for the worse in my view. We could have a whole new post
on the subject of change over the years. The ST I was on did structure protection at MT. Wilson for a week or more from the beginning of the Station Fire in 2009. But the value that sits on top of that mountain is not replaceable. As far as History, Deep Space Exploration, Einstein’s work, books and documents. The 100 & 60 inch Telescopes etc. Then we have the Communication infrastructure(TV, Radio, and Microwave) and it’s monetary value would scare you. Not to mention the loss of revenue if that mountain went off the air and that is not replaceable. IDK what calls were made up on that mountain if they were offensive or defensive. But in my heart I have to think the crews up there knew what was at risk and did their very best to protect it.
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Is there any defensible space up on the mtn. Or did we put all the infrastrucure up there and hope it’s not going to ever burn. If there is little to no defensible space I find it a joke that we enforce defendable space on the pubic on there own private property yet won’t provide such important equipment with it’s own defensive space
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I think we all knew the risks, then and now and are ready to accept them as part of the job. Unfortunately firefighters on the line seldom make the calls on a fire . I wanted to be there giving it my all and now my Son does the same as a fireman now. There is a lot more technology now. Cameras everywhere, cell phones and imagery we never thought possible. You and I went into it fairly blind by today’s standards.
In the Bear fire in NoCal the USFS sat on the fire, it was ugly country to work in and they were trying to control the fire for the first week or so (apologies for talking about another incident) . Then fierce winds came up, fire blew out of the canyons and ran 30 miles. Destroying hundreds of homes and taking lives along with it. Controlling a fire is a calculated risk that sometimes does not play out well. Better to be like the old days and go after every fire like it could be “the big one”. Places like MT Wilson should be very well protected before the fire ever starts. Sort of like Russian Roulette just waiting and hoping the next one does not come your way.
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Copy that, Oldcdfguy and Oh9hundred let my just say yes and no…one word POLICTICS…But if you could pull it off, it would be a great place for crew work. May it be Fuels crews, Hot shots, Fenner or Prado crews.
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I agree totally. It is not politically correct to clean the forest. Some special interests fight it publicly.
just how much global warming do all these fire create. You could put a fair amount of people to work on this in the off seasons. As a survivor of the camp fire I can tell you that being prepared is everything(or nothing if your not).
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What I am about to say will be very controversial, so I apologize on the front end, but it is a risk that I am willing to take.
@Oldcdfguy, I completely agree, I understood the risks and accepted those risks 38 years ago when I first hired on as a Seasonal FF1 in the Santa Clara RU. I would still sign up and accept those risks today, if I had to do it all over again. That being said, there are a lot of changes which have taken place in that 38 years, in WUI encroachment and fuel loadings specifically.
When this discussion first began last night, it was over the need and why ground resources weren’t being inserted into the backside of Mt. Wilson. Some of the discussion is now looking at the potential that ground resources could have been and should have been inserted much earlier. Had they been inserted, good work could have been accomplished there, but inserting them yesterday was going to be a complete disaster with no reward. I watched both the ABC and Channel 5 feeds as the front was building on the backside. By then, the outcome for the mountaintop was already cast.
There absolutely should be ground resource follow-up on air drops, however, and this has been discussed here a little bit, there has to be much better preparation work completed in these critical areas long before there is a fire even on the horizon. Mt. Wilson has billions of dollars of infrastructure. The issue arises when the politics and correspondingly politicians come to believe that firefighters will save the day, which we do very successfully most of the time. Unless that mindset changes, at some point, we are going to either lose high value locations such as Mt. Wilson or lose a lot of firefighters, or even worse, both. None of those outcomes are something that any of us want to see nor does the public. Sooner or later, the mindset has to change and the public has to become invested in the outcomes of the fires. Hopefully, that occurs prior to something like Mt. Wilson being completely overrun and/or firefighters get overrun.
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