Wildfire News, July 24

FSPro

A fairly new wildland fire modeling program, FSPro, is being used on most of the large fires these days. HERE is an article about it in New West.

Firefighter arson

On July 19 we wrote about the recently fired firefighter in Hawaii that was suspected of starting several wildland fires in Hawaii. Kenton Leong was fired in March after trying to get fellow firefighters to provide a urine sample for the fire department’s random drug tests. While his test came out clean, sources tell KITV that Leong was fired for trying to get others to take the test for him. He has now confessed to starting at least two fires.

Aerial firefighting from National Guard helicopter pilot point of view

There is an article on a National Guard web site about what it is like to be a National Guard helicopter pilot from Alabama and suddenly find yourself hauling buckets of water over fires in steep, mountainous terrain... very different from flying passengers at near sea level in Alabama.

“We’ve had to push the envelope with our aircraft due to the altitudes, temperatures and weight we’re dealing with here,” he said. “We don’t normally have to push this hard when we’re supporting missions [in Alabama], which mostly consist of passenger transport. The training we got when we arrived at Mather Field prepared us for this mission, and we’ve done it safely every time.”

Limited blogging this week.

On a side note..... we're on the road for several days, and blog posting will be a little less intensive than usual.

Thanks, Dick, for the tip about FSPro.