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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you nailed it. Couldn’t say it any better or different. Firemen save the day every time. But there is a greater cost and risk to being reactive rather than proactive. I was a seasonal hire in 77 out of Redding. 5 years of drought and a wicked fire season… It was the best training you could have. You will never stop them all but you can protect better if you have some protection to start with
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Well what’s done is done now. Hopefully the Powers To Be can get together and manage the Fuels on that mountain top. There is some very steep ground they have to deal with. That being said get the experts in there and see what can be done.
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I agree what you said. I have been on a lot of fires there and I can only imagine the numer of fires that have been in that area over the past 100 years and yet, as seen by Alert cams and TV air views, there has been no fuel reduction…zip…zero. as you stated, hopefully someone will do the right thing. Had there been a NE wind pushing the fire…who knows???
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And 2 weeks to get a whole lot done
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with fire departments. Cal Fire and the USFS woefully underfunded you wonder what it will take for a change in the mindset. who knows and what if’s are dangerous things… 100 years of fires do not seemed to have changed a lot in regards to prevention. with people pushing farther out into the foothills and beyond we need to do something more
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Spot on…the fire has not changed but the dynamic with in them have. Like I tell people if we are not laying hose then no perimeter control is going on. You get my drift!
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