I want to hear from professionals on here what you think the solution is to being able to stop fires early. Its apparent that by the time agencies are able to get ample resources on scene the fires have often become too large to stop.
I will use the current Donnell Fire as an example since I have good general knowledge of the incident, a fire which started right next to a body of water, yet has now grown quite large and caused terrible destruction. I realize that there are multiple major incidents competing for resources, but it seems that a water dropping helicopter pulled off of another incident which itself might have multiple helicopters might be a good option as opposed to allowing a new major incident to develop. Or how about a Super Scooper, making round after round with a very short turn around time? What if instead of prioritizing VLAT’s for continuing major incidents they were used to drown new starts with large potential? How much difference will it make if Cal Fire gets the C-130’s, and Blackhawks to replace the Huey’s? I realize Donnell is USFS.
I understand that fuel loads and drought have increased the problem exponentially, but it just seems like we lose too often, and there has to be a better way.
Air tankers and helicopters are diverted off “going” fires all the time. It is already common held belief that they can make the impact you speak of in keeping new ignitions small or putting them out. That is the thought process behind the State’s methodology of keeping a certain number of dozers, aircraft and engines available and ready for initial attack on new fires and putting private contractors to work on fires already established. HOWever, when lives, public safety, or structures are jeopardized, the IC of a fire can request a “no-divert” on the aircraft assigned to their fire. It is not done lightly, and has to be approved through channels. Please be confident that (in California) we have the world’s leading mutual aid emergency incident response system in place, which includes both State and Federal resources alongside local cities and private contractors. There are multiple levels of county and region-wide coordination and cooperation to assure all the firefighting resources in the State are shared and spread around to protect everyone. Obviously, we can’t be everywhere at once, and we don’t have an unlimited budget with unlimited resources, but the mutual aid system in California is absolutely the best there is. Hands down, no contest. There is lots of technology involved and many many workers “behind the scenes” that you never hear about or see on the news or to make it all happen. … I guess what I mean to say it. Yes, that’s a great idea. We already do that. Thanks for your support.
The best way to stop these major fire is better management of the fuel loading, and what I mean by this is allow the logging industry to start logging more areas with the caveat of if you log this area you also need to clean up the forest litter like they do in other states, since the logging industry for the most part was removed from California you have seen the fire grow larger and with higher intensity. As far a brush fires we need to stop letting criminals that do non felony crime just walk, set up programs for them to be part of brush clearing/management crew to pay off there time for doing crimes. Now with this I don’t in any means on either of these accounts want them to go out and clear cut but to thin forest and create fuel break in the brush fields of California foothills would help.
Numerous countries routinely send firefighters to California to train along side our folks. From the rank of IC, down to firefighter. The reason being, California can mobilize more equipment in a short period of time than most military forces in the world.
This comes directly from Australian Fire Chiefs I spoke with two seasons ago. All Fire agencies in CA are to thank for this gold standard service. I have been a Firefighter for two decades, fires are simply growing faster than in years past and more people live in the urban interface. Add several years of drought to that and boom, long tough seasons for all of us.
Not to be a troll here - obviously letting fires burn is still taboo politics in most places, and the issues are different in each landscape, but in NorCal, a century of trying to stop every fire early has given us a landscape primed for megafires, where we need VLATs just to succeed on many of our IAs.
There are a lot of good reasons to hit fires when they are small, but I don’t think initial attack success is the best metric we have for defining an effective fire program. I’d like to see FMOs rewarded for how many fires they can let burn on their district, not how many they can put out.
First of all let me assure you all that I in no way mean any disrespect to any fire fighters or organizations. I am aware of what you do and you have my unwavering support. I was a volunteer for 18 years and wore the red helmet, and our district was dispatched and administered by CDF/Cal Fire and I am someone who had been very interested in all of it even before I was a volunteer and I am keenly aware of mutual aid and Golf, Lima, Charlie and LG and OES strike teams, and South Ops and North Ops, Copter this, Air Attack that, diverts, no diverts, etc., etc.
So my helicopter example was a bad one, sorry about that. And I am the number one advocate of fuel reduction through logging and prescribed burning, and thinning and clearing and grazing and whatever else works. And I understand that we are dealing with unprecedented conditions, in part due to decades if not a century of excellent fire suppression, which in hindsight was probably not a great idea.
All of that being said, what is the solution short term for stopping these fires before they cause a disaster, short term meaning until we can make progress one way or another in fuel load reduction? Bigger budget, more stations, personnel and equipment?
I guess I’m just annoyed because my favorite stomping ground was just destroyed.
My 2 cents. Remember that in Sonoma county the same fire(s) happened back in the 1960s I think, except not so many houses were out in the brush. This has been repeated elsewhere, too.
Massive fuel management programs only work where there is massive ownership. When they are small home parcels the owners will have to buck up and clear their brush or suffer the consequences.
Lots of different fuel models and ownership models at work here and no one size fits all. Although they all compete for the same firefighting resources.
This is a very interesting discussion!
I live on edge of ENF in Amador. 30 years ago this time of year the highway was clogged with logging trucks, and there were multiple lumber mills in this and surrounding counties. Now there are none. My kids worked for ENF in summers on timber crews marking trees for timber sales, and helping survey for fall and spring Rx burns for “shaded fire breaks” and the like. That all stopped as well, like about mid to late 1990’s I’d estimate. There’s a lot of growth that’s happened in the last 25 years, with very little of the same harvest plans or treatments. So I agree with PRE-RESMD about the management of fuel loading.
Of course, my rant above relates to forests/timber lands. The management of fuels in foothills with grass, oakwoodlands, and all manner of scrub and heavy brush is also a huge challenge, esp around WUI. Some of that had been “managed” by grazing back in the day, but also with smaller WUI they just burned off with little impact. But there’s a lot of grass-lands and scrubby foothills in CA. What to do about that? (aka Lake, Napa, Mariposa counties, for example)?
I worked for Sierra national forest on a type II crew. From my experience retardant did very little to stop the progress of the fires I fought. Water does the trick as long as the turn around time is short. On So. Cal. Fires the 2 Super Scoopers stationed in contract at Van Nuys airport were deal savers that kept small to moderate sized fires in check for ground crews to line out and suppress. Tactically I think retardant is overrated and reaching out to USFS for scientific documentation of the effectiveness of retardant has still gone unanswered. Why do most other countries rely more on water than retardant? Because it works better in most situations. I’m open to push back on this but outside of light fuels I haven’t seen retardant work.
I also echo the sentiment to allow more logging. I live right outside Stanislaus National Forest and they have been aggressive at fuel mitigation but there is still so much forest that is chock-a-block full of timber that much of the terrain stands no chance against a big crown fueled fired, especially after the drought and beetle killed trees are factored in. Let private business work with a public agency like Stanislaus to mitigate what is simple a ticking catastrophic time bomb. It’s time to let Smokey the Bear take a break and let Paul Bunyan take the lead for a season! I’ve worked fires that burned right up to privately managed forests where the fire managers used the private land as tie ins because the fuel loads at ground level were sparse. This is no coincidence. Wyherauser knows the cost of fire to its bottom line and they do a good job mitigating the risk. The result is healthy park like forest that is significantly more fire resistant than much of our public land.
I dont usually respond to these topics as opinions are like… well heres mine. You have to burn more period, if you dont have enough good fires you will have more bad ones. There are more good fires in America than just disastrous ones. Last year, 202,250 prescribed fires burned approximately 12 million acres; 160,000 of those burns (8 million acres’ worth) were in the South East. Something to be said that the same size area in the south burns more than the same size area in california EVERY YEAR, but ours are mostly good. Florida has more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the US, and we burn more than anyone, ours dont make the news most of the time because we are burning all the time even in the rain, smoke is nearly always on the horizon year around, many days I point out multiple fires to my kids, so much so they get bored of it, and if a fire starts its not all hands on deck to completely extinguish unless there is life safety, and although not taken lightly it is understood almost any fire now-a-days can be justified as such if you want to pull that trigger thats where experience and leadership pay off. Have to prescribe fire in cali probably on the scale of 2-6 million acres a year for a decade or so to start getting that place back on track. Or these wildfires will do it themselves, as they are despite all the air support and big iron stopping fire will never be the answer, although I love being a part of the out west fire show and have for nearly decade now. Yes Im still young in this so I cant throw the in my 20 years stuff around which honestly you dont need to understand this issue. Logging and mechanical treatment have their place as well however at the costs associated and vasts tracts involved, fire generally does a better (and natural) more cost effective means than other options if actually USED. Always a time and a place for a quick stop, but theres more need for prescribe fire around your endless WUI and high value assests. You guys focus is in the wrong place in my opinion if you are really concerned with fixing the destructive wildfire situation in cali, and its NOT global warming, and its not building an army that can be moved faster than anywhere else. My opinion and $.02
Also if private land owners cant keep it up, they have to pay the state to come in and do it, simple and done. We burn private lands all the time here as well. Our area growth rate is insanely faster than yours, most of our country needs to be on a 1-3 year burn cycle or devestating wildfires are significant possibilities, where yours are much slower, but when you keep fire out of your forests for decades, thats the mistake and your paying for it now. Need to get it back on track, or devestating fire, drought, bug kills etc will.
The ONLY way to stop fires early is aggressive initial attack, period. It takes ground resources on the fire that are going to take direct full suppression action. Aviation resources will keep the fire in check but ground resources going direct put fires out. There is a reason the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection designates in the State Fire Plan that CAL FIRE will strive to contain 95% of all unwanted fires at 10 acres or less. At no time should an unwanted fire ever be treated like it is a VMP burn, there is a time and place for VMP burning and the summer months is not that time. The use of fire as a land management tactic needs to be a planned and coordinated process not something that is done on the fly at an unwanted fire.
I will give you an example of aggressive initial attack. Three days after the Donnell fire began the Parrotts fire started just one river drainage over from the Donnell in SRA. The Parrotts fire had large potential to become major incident, the last large fire that began in that same area was the 2001 Darby fire. The state committed IA resources including numerous engine and crew strike teams along with aviation resources and hit it hard with direct attack and the fire was suppressed at 135 acres with no loss of private property. That is a successful aggressive initial attack.
I agree with what aggressive initial attack is and its benefits, and absolutely there is a time and place for everything, and no- summer months in an extended drought with your fuels current weather and fire history should a fire be allowed to burn. But you ARE in that position because you dont burn enough in cali and havent let fires burn especially when conditions warrant. Perfect example is yours… the darby fire in 2001 was last large incident, there should be proactive fire on the ground sometime in last decade in that area not sure if there was, but guessing if there was this wouldnt be nearly even an issue, unacceptable that these fuels are allowed to get to this state, droughts will always come, WUI will never get better, and when not managed your only choice is the losing battle and only option of aggressive initial attack, and quite frankly is costing more than it would to manage the land with prescribed fire, which would give year around jobs that were probably alot safer.
But yes unwanted fire should absolutely be an option for land management tactic provided it is approached with common sense, perfect example is the mud lake complex in south florida which occured in unprecedented drought in favorable weather conditions and was allowed to grow to over 35k acres as we burned around residences and camps, saw fire whirls, running crown fires, long range spotting etc, but was short lived due to a local daily monsoonal event we happened to get that two weeks nothing lost and that area is protected on the next drought when weather isnt so nice, it would be a horrible fire if it wasnt burned and started on a bad weather day, now even in a bad weather event it will be just another fire that we will probably again let burn bc it was managed prior.
Once or if cali ever gets its land on a prescribe fire cycle summer burns may be a viable option but as it stands now your burn window gets shorter and shorter every year as this kind of problem compounds itself until you have fires like the ones we are seeing more and more frequent and on larger scales. This didnt happen over night, it took decades, and probably will take at least a decade of aggressive attack and losing 5% of intial attacks to major fires that will finally start to clear the fuel, or aggressive prescribe fire on your watch with your weather, choice is always ours
Politic, Politics, Politics. Plenty of technical solutions exist.
Until editorials like this are not necessary nothing is going to change.
No, this is an example of aggressive IA -
next thing would be agent orange. not a good direction. maybe better thinking of retro-fits like the maffs for more types of aircraft.?
why don’t we fire out the living room to put out the kitchen fire???
We do allow some fires to burn in cali. The Sequoia National Forest has a great track record managing fires in the wilderness and around communities like ponderosa. The very late season hidden and meadow fires in 2016 totalled 10,000 acres in unofficial rx burning. Last summer was over 20,000 wuf acres helping clean up big parts of the 02 mcnally fire scar. I’ll have look up the total acres burned since 05 but a big part is from managed burns.
This thread isn’t about letting fires burn, the OP was asking about “stopping fires early” so we don’t end up with a situation like the Donnell, where inadequate initial attack led to the destruction of a historic resort and cabins that have been in families for generations. This isn’t Florida it’s California, you can’t burn here without impacting homes or cabins.
The initial post stated there has to be a better way, absolutely cali does manage some, but not on a scale large enough to make a dent in the overall current situation, I was on happy camp when they let it burn. Florida isnt cali but absolutely it can be managed with fire and ultimately will be with good ones and bad ones the ratio again is up to us. Just simply looking at your issue and how its mitigated elsewhere. This is all opinion and politics and no one answer will solve all of it. I think however your minds would change if you witnessed a couple of years of 8 million acres a year of good fire in and around your historic resorts cabins and WUI subdivisions in your state, and I truly believe with that kind of fire these initial attacks would be faster better safer and overall more of a success story when aggressive initial attack is the only answer due to all the worst conditions aligning. enough said, thank you all for discussing this openly without taking it personal.
Again, I am all about fuel reduction by one means or another as the ultimate and only real solution to our wild land fire crisis. However, there are many hurdles between here and there.
So the question remains. Until we are able to reduce fuel to manageable levels, what can be done differently in IA to stop fires before they become catastrophic and a drain on resources which consequently may result in subsequent catastrophic fires.