Fatal Boise fire prompts changes in fire standards

Wildfire Today covered this fire in August. Now, from the Idaho Statesman:

Fireproof roofs, siding and decks, sprinkler systems and an aggressive public education program are among the recommendations in a 22-page draft report spurred by the Aug. 25 Oregon Trail Fire in Boise that killed one woman, destroyed 10 homes and heavily damaged nine others.

Just days after the fire, Mayor Dave Bieter and the City Council asked for a report about how the city could avoid a similar disaster in the future.

The report, presented to Bieter and the council at a work session Tuesday, is the first step in looking at city rules and how they should be changed.

Many of the building- and fire-code recommendations are standard in urban areas that have grown near wildland areas, not only in the West but in other areas around the world.

"The mayor and council think it's very important that we look at the tragedy of the Oregon Trail Fire and try to take the lessons to be learned from that experience," said Boise spokesman Adam Park.

Tina Hunt on firefighter liability

Wildland firefighters, and perhaps structural firefighters, will be living with the specter of the Thirtymile Fire prosecution for a long time.

This was the case, as you probably know, where a wildland firefighter, Ellreese Daniels, was charged with seven felony counts after his crew was overrun on a fire and four of them were killed. Eventually Ellreese pleaded guilty to some misdemeanor counts and was sentenced to 90 days of jail time in a work-release facility and 3 years of probation by judge Fred Van Sickle of the U. S. District Court in Spokane, Washington.

There are many problems with the concept of sending firefighters to prison for mistakes made on the fire ground--we have covered them extensively on this blog, for example HERE and HERE. But we can't afford to turn our head and let this threat fester, and then erupt later when the next firefighter is threatened with prison. We need to fix it so that it can't happen again.

The following was written yesterday, December 2, by Tina Hunt, the attorney who represented Ellreese. It is reprinted here with her permission.

"I feel that firefighters should still remain concerned that criminal charges could be brought based upon statements they make during investigations of burnover and fatality investigations. Felony false statement charges can be very difficult to win, and that was certainly my concern in the Thirty Mile case.

While there were others who gave statements which may have been construed as false, only Ellreese was charged, and I felt as if they charged him only because they could hold the hammer of the manslaughter charges over him.

The prosecution in the 30 Mile case was ridiculous; I will always feel that way, and I would NEVER EVER EVER allow a firefighter to make statements during any investigation if I represented them.

Because there is no check on the power of the government to bring these kinds of charges, I believe that the agencies should get together, along with the AG (Attorney General), to ensure that the goals of a burnover/fatality investigation are not chilled by the threat of prosecution."

The sad truth is, if a firefighter is involved in a serious accident, they need to Lawyer Up, and keep their mouths shut.

UPDATE @ 1:53 MT Dec. 3:

Tina has some additional news about Ellreese. The judge modified his sentence from 90 days in a work release center to 90 days of house arrest so that he can maintain his employment. He is allowed to leave the house for work and other pre-approved activities.

Wildland fire retirements

Many federal employees who retire do it in January due to the way the annuity is calculated. We just heard about two well-known National Park Service folks who are retiring from the federal government in the near future: Paul Broyles, National Fire Operations and Training Program Leader, and Al King, National Safety and Prevention Program Manager.

Their retirement "roast and toast" will be January 9 in Boise. For more information, contact Rick Schwab at e-mail: AlandPaulParty@gmail.com

(That's an interesting idea, setting up a disposable gmail account for organizing a party.)

Congratulations, Paul and Al.

Everyone, let us know if you are aware of any other looming wildland fire retirements.

Thanks, Dick, for the tip.

New FEMA wildland fire grant options

In September FEMA modified their wildfire grant program to include three new project types that can now be funded:

1. Defensible space.
2. Structural protection through the application of ignition-resistant construction, and
3. Hazardous fuels reduction to protect life and property.

The details can be downloaded HERE (2.0 MB).

This must be how Cook County, Minn. received $3 million for wildfire sprinklers.

We keep hearing about how the government should pump billions of dollars into the economy to resuscitate it out of a deepening recession. The pundits and officials talk about building roads, bridges, dams, and other infrastructure improvements. Or even mailing more checks to all taxpayers.

Well, putting a LOT more money into this FEMA wildfire mitigation process will distribute dollars into the economy while ensuring that the funds will actually be spent, and not end up in savings accounts, which does little to stimulate the economy.


Thanks, Dick, for the tip.

Wildfire news aggregators

This year we have become aware of four new web sites that compile or aggregate information about wildland fires. Some are better than others, but it is very interesting that there is suddenly an interest in private companies providing this information.

Most of these sites collect information at a minimum from the National Interagency Fire Center's daily Situation Report or InciWeb, and they display fire names, acres, and containment percentage. They may also have maps showing data from the MODIS satellite and in some cases fire perimeters.

One major limiting factor in all of these services is that the thermal fire and perimeter data is never "real time"--it is always 2 to 30 hours out of date. A goal for the fire management agencies should be to provide real-time imagery downlinking from aerial platforms in such a manner that it can be immediately distributed by aggregators such as these listed below. This data could not only be used by residents immediately affected by the fires, but also, and more importantly, by the incident management teams actually suppressing the fires.

Over a major fire in southern california you will see four to eight TV station helicopters providing real time video to their stations.

The technology is not the problem. Someone just needs to "make it so".

We're not sure what the motivation is for providing these aggregation services. None of them have advertising (yet), but they may have long-range plans to monetize the sites.

Wildfire by Fetch Technologies

This site has a U.S. map, based on Google Maps, showing all current fires; a clickable list of fires with start date, size and containment percentage; maps showing red flag areas and fire danger; and something unique to these sites, an assortment of YouTube videos about recent fires.

From their web site:

Fetch Technologies provides innovative solutions for extracting, integrating, and accessing Web data. Our flagship product, the Fetch Agent Platform, makes it easy to collect data for intelligence applications, market research, and more. The Fetch approach relies on Artificial Intelligence, rather than programmer brain power, to handle many of the complex issues that arise when gathering information from disparate sources, including web sites, web services, and remote databases.

We clicked on the Tea fire in their list of fires and it brought up a map. The fire's location was pinpointed... out in the Pacific Ocean about 40 miles away from the actual location.

This site does not have fire perimeters or MODIS satellite data.


Pitney Bowes Fire Locator

This site is very new and is still in the beta development stage. They seem to be improving it on a daily basis, in part thanks suggestions left on their Feedback page.

In order to use the site you have to download and install Microsoft's Silverlight browser plugin, which is Microsoft's alternative to Adobe Systems' Flash. NBC used it during the recent Olympics for streaming video with some success.

The site only has a map, based on Microsoft's Virtual Earth. It has icons for active fires and clickable layers for MODIS thermal data, California Wildfire Risk Zones, Aerial Thermal Images, Fire Boundaries, InciWeb information, Local News, and photos from Flickr.

As we said in a comment on an earlier post, this site is a work in progress. It is cumbersome to move around or zoom in and out on the map. Double-clicking on a fire icon moves the center of the map to a completely different area, thousands of miles away from the fire.


Crisis Wire

We visited this site several weeks ago and they had some basic information about some ongoing fires, but today it has nothing, saying:

Thankfully, there are no major disasters or emergencies that we are aware of at the moment.

CrisisWire's true power will be displayed as soon as a crisis occurs, so please bookmark this page. We'll be adding more options for subscription and notification (like Twitter) of new crises and emergencies soon.

Apparently they intend to provide information about:

emergencies, disaster, and crisis infomation in real time

Enplan Wildfire Viewer

This site provides data only about California, and it's only feature is a map, based on Google Maps. We accessed the site during the Siege of '08, the huge lightning bust in northern California this year, and it usually showed the fire perimeters when they were available, which is very useful if you need to know where a fire is.

Still another bizarre cause for a wildfire

Recently we've reported on some unique causes for wildfire--here is another one to add to the list.

Robert Mariner of the U.S. Geological Survey thinks a chemical reaction in a landslide can start a fire.

According to a report in New Scientist, in August 2004, fire crews attending a wildfire near Santa Barbara, California, traced the source of the blaze to a recent landslide, but they had no idea how the fire got started.

A few weeks later, Robert Mariner of the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, and his colleagues visited the site.

They found that the temperature of the rocks in the landslide must have reached just over 300 degrees Celsius, which was hot enough to start a fire.

By measuring the temperature and composition of the air from boreholes, they were able to rule out the possibility of a geological ignition from volcanic activity or seepage of flammable natural gas.

So, it appears that a chemical reaction in the rocks must have been responsible for the sharp rise in the temperature.

The researchers believe that the landslide exposed a mineral called pyrite to the air, causing an oxidation reaction that heated a nearby seam of low-grade coal to the temperatures they inferred.

According to Ian West at the University of Southampton, UK, landslide fires may be more common than we realise.

There have been a few along the UKs Dorset coast in the last few hundred years, and there are records of a huge fire in the Dead Sea area, dating from King Solomons time, which may have started this way, he said.

8 California residents banned from National Forests

Eight residents of the Santa Barbara, California area have been banned from all National Forests for one year after they pleaded guilty to violating fire restrictions last month.

They received fines ranging from $200 to $300 for the violations in the Los Padres National Forest. Five of them pleaded guilty to building a campfire near Upper Oso and Cachuma campgrounds, while three pleaded guilty to illegal target shooting at the Arroyo Burro shooting area.

Couple burned in Tea fire improving at burn center

A man and wife who were burned while evacuating from their home during the Tea fire near Montecito, California are improving at an Orange County burn center.

The condition of Lance and Carla Hoffman, both 29 years old, have been upgraded from critical. They have been hospitalized at the University of California, Irvine, Regional Burn Center since the Nov. 13 Santa Barbara County blaze.

Hospital spokesman John Murray says the couple, who suffered second- and third-degree burns while fleeing their rented home, are still sedated.

Carla Hoffman was taken off a ventilator Monday night and she's listed in fair condition. Lance Hoffman remains serious and on a ventilator.

In Santa Barbara, a movie fundraiser for the couple will be held Dec. 15 at the Arlington Theater.

This unfortunate event is one of the reasons many agencies are considering a "leave early or shelter in place" policy.