Deja Vu in Texas

Last year during the middle of October (still extremely hot temperatures, mind you), I recall driving to work in Austin, Texas, and the haze was so dense people began to turn on their emergency flashers. I had absolutely no clue what was going on, or what was burning immensely. I quickly changed the radio to the AM news station to discover that the city of Bastrop which is around 30 miles away had another wildfire. The smoke plume was being pushed into Austin due to a windy cold front that came through the night before. One thing I cannot forget is the fact that I could smell the smoke as if the building adjacent to me was on fire, it was completely surreal. Luckily, after two weeks of battling the Hidden Pines fires and 4,582 acres destroyed, it was contained.

This incident, which was later confirmed as an accident by a tractor spark, was like deja-vu to many people in the local area. Personally, I was not affected by the 2011 Bastrop, Texas Complex Wildfire but I know many friends and families who were. What happened in 2011 made history by becoming the most destructive wildfire in Texas history. The images making headlines were terrifying, it seemed as if they were out of Hollywood’s special effects department. The weather conditions that year were unimaginably hot and everyone down in Texas explicitly remembers how the summer of 2011 was, later termed the 2011 North American heat wave. Records were set for 100 days of 100 degree weather. (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44519017/ns/weather/t/texas-cities-set-records-days-above-f/#.Vv30r_lrjIU ) The Bastrop Complex Fire burned 34,000 acres and lasted 24 days.

Downtown Austin Skyline

Credit: https://kathrynwarmstrong.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/34.jpg

Heading towards Bastrop (2011)

Credit: http://kxan.com/2015/10/15/how-2015-bastrop-county-wildfire-differs-from-2011/

Too Close for Comfort

After reading some of the other blog posts I feel like an outsider as I am not a wildland firefighter, nor have I ever been. However, since I have lived in Oregon for most of my life I have definitely been around wildland fires and some that have been a little too close for comfort. Although I have lived in Oregon for 20 years now, my biggest scare related to fire was during last summer when I was working as an intern with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in John Day.

On August 12th, several of us from the John Day office headed to Burns for a Regional meeting and on our way home we saw two different fires start. During that time the fires were not much concern to us as they were several miles from our office and seemed to be under control. However on Friday August 14th the winds picked up with gusts around 40 mph and the two fires quickly merged and headed down the canyon towards Canyon City and John Day.

At around 12pm on the 14th I headed off to lunch in John Day and when I came out of the restaurant I saw the huge plume of smoke that looked fairly close to the ODFW office. I quickly jumped in my car and headed back to the office in order to see what was going on and where we were needed. As I returned back to the office, we all gathered around the radio to hear the calls and soon after jumped in our trucks to help OSP with evacuation notices. We drove right towards the fire as it was coming down the canyon and when we reached the top of the hill, we watched the fire quickly grow and threaten several houses.When we returned back to the office we all called it a day as the smoke was getting to thick for us to breathe and several co-workers had already left in order to evacuate their houses.

Over the next several weeks the fire continued to grow until it reached over 100,000 acres and destroyed several homes. Luckily everyone from our office was safe and no one lost their house, but seeing the homes that were destroyed in the canyon was tough What still baffles my mind is how one house can burn, while the one standing right next to it doesn't. On several properties I could see that the fire line went right up to the house, but yet the house was still standing.

Also we were not on the front lines fighting the fire, the Canyon Creek Complex Fire still hit home for many people at ODFW and we still had to answer questions about the wildlife in the area. I know my experience is different from those who are wildland firefighters, but as a future wildlife biologist wildland fires will always affects my job and how I manage wildlife in a particular area.

This summer I will be working in the same area, except with the USFS instead of ODFW, and I am excited to see the effects of the fire a year later and how the land/wildlife is recovering,

These photos are some that I took near the ODFW office in John Day on the day the Canyon Creek Fire marched down the canyon. 

     

Lack of Experience from New England

I was born and raised in New Hampshire, specifically the central region surrounded by lakes, rivers, streams and mountains. Wildland fire has never been a prominent focus in my life simply because we do not experience many fires here at all. Our climate typically keeps things pretty wet, and I rarely see our Smokey the Bear fire danger signs even reach "moderate".

My first interest in wildland fire stemmed from working for the USFS within White Mountain National Forest here in New Hampshire last summer season. Many of my coworkers had been trained in wildland firefighting as it is provided for free by the USFS if you are an employee. I began my training online, learning about the different types of fires and methods to suppress them. I received my sawyer certification which was necessary to move ahead in wildland fire training, but unfortunately missed the cut off date to take the field test. I plan on completing it next summer after returning from a hike on the Long Trail.

While wildland fires have not personally affected my home region, they have affected a place I love, and tend to do so rather frequently. I visit Arizona at least twice a year in order to hike the landscapes that I have fallen in love with over the past 10 years. In a climate as arid as found there, it is no surprise that wildland fires are a very likely possibility. The fire that affected Sedona, Arizona in 2014 is not an isolated event, but did do some rather substantial damage to the area. Given the necessary elements for fire: heat, oxygen and fuel, the slide fire ripped though 21,000 acres before it was able to be put out, and much of Oak Creek Canyon, a huge tourist destination and riparian zone, was up in smoke. However, only about 5,000 acres were deemed affected by moderate to high intensity fire, and even just a few months after the event there were signs of growth around blackened trees.

 

(Source: http://hikearizona.com/dex2/viewtopic.php?t=8298&start=20)

 

(Source: http://myprostand.com/sedona-az/forest-fire-sedona-az/) 

(Source: http://myprostand.com/sedona-az/forest-fire-sedona-az/)

While wildland fires may not shape or influence my current living situation, I do plan to live out west some day, and I know my knowledge of them will help not only in my career path but also in my preparation and actions when and if they occur near my future place of living. Understanding both the negative and positive impacts of wildland fires will help me find a balance and hopefully steer away from the fear that is associated with fires in this country. It's important to remember many Native Americans used fire as a way to treat the land, and some growth is not possible without it.

Fire at Camp

My first experience with wildland fire was last summer working as an assistant medic at Camp Pioneer. During the third week of camp we had a massive lightning storm come through. The storm was so severe that we decided to gather all 200+ campers and wait it out in the dinning hall. Some of the campers used their sleeping bags as umbrellas while relocating to the dinning hall and learned some tough lessons that day. Luckily for them we had extra sleeping bags and a dryer. The lightning storms continued to occur over the next few days giving some of the campers a pretty miserable experience. The storms caused us to cancel some of our most popular activities such as hatchet throwing, kayaking, and hiking.  By the end of the week the campers were more than ready to go home.

The following week, Monday through Saturday the average temperature was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The drastic increase in temperature made it the worst week for the first aid office. The hot dry weather lowered the relative humidity and caused an epidemic of nosebleeds. In one day we had over 40 patients (not all because of nosebleeds). At the end of the week the campers had gone home and the staff were performing their normal rounds to prepare for the next set of campers. One of the staff members had smelt smoke and went to go investigate. About 150 yards from camp they found a small area of land was emitting smoke with one or two very small flames. The staff member radioed it in and we grabbed some firefighting equipment to try to contain it. After a few hours of digging up the ground and applying water we had the fire under control and contacted professionals to assess the fire

The fire was caused after a tree was struck by lightning in the previous week. The strike had caused a root fire, which remained smoldering. The ground fire had clearly spread in all directions around the tree. The fire had damaged root system allowing us simply push a few trees down with our bare hands. The drastic increase in temperatures and lack of precipitation is what allowed the smoldering roots to heat up the surrounding fuel particles through and spread through the ground.  In order to stop the ground from smoldering we dug up the soil and applied water in order to control the heat/ignition side of the combustion triangle. 

About five hours after the incident we were evacuated from camp due to another fire that appeared about 12 miles from camp. Both of these fires were caused by lightning strikes followed by hot, dry weather. Weather was an important factor in predicting fires in that area. The lightning acted as an initial ignition source and the hot temperatures provided dry conditions for the 1 hour-100 hour fuels. 

Thanks to that fire, camp was canceled for the week and I left the next day to go on a 5 day white water rafting trip with my family and friends in hell's canyon!

           

                                                                                                                

(Tree that was struck by lightning) 

 

 

 

 

 

I get paid to do this?

My experience in fire has been about as broad as it can get.  I started almost 17 years ago working for a municipal department her is Southern California and continued that for a while moving to a couple different departments along the way.  The whole time I was having fun and enjoyed my job, but I had become really interested in the wildland aspect of firefighting.  The more I went on wildland incidents, the more I became aware that I really wanted to pursue it as a full time career and not a collateral side of an all-risk department that I was currently in.

I had made up my mind, I needed to make a turn at the fork in the road, and so I did.  I applied to the San Bernardino National Forest and began my career in the Land Management agencies.  My first crew I worked with taught me a lot about myself and my new choice.

These folks were great, we spent more time together than we did with our own families.  I began to really have an appreciation for wildland fire and what it was capable of doing to the resources it impacted.  One thing that really started to hit me was the beauty and destruction that could happen at the same time.  On October 26, 2006 it hit home.  We suffered a traumatic loss on our forest.  The entire crew of Engine 57 had been burned over during the Esperanza fire.  One of the members were a close family friend of mine.

This will forever be a defining moment in my career.  It was at this point that I decided I needed to become a student of fire so that I could help myself and my co-workers avoid another tragedy like this again if at all possible.  In the years following that day I started paying particular attention to how and why things were happening during a wildland fire.  Studying fuels, weather, topography and environmental impacts, I started to gain a better understanding of the effects of wildland fires on our environment.

I began to look at how we could use fire in a productive way that would benefit the environment.  This lead me to the National Park Service.  My research of the agency showed that they were on the forefront of fire management in regards to using fire for resource benefit.  I decided to apply for a position in the National Park Service and made the jump to that agency.  Since then I have become more involved in prescribed fire and during the last two seasons I have had the opportunity to travel to parks and be part of larger scale resource benefit fire like the one pictured below.

These experiences have once again peaked my interest in the use of wildland fire for the benefit of the environment.  That is what has lead me here.  I am hoping to gain additional knowledge that I can incorporate into my career that will allow me to better manage the land that I have been entrusted to care for.

Big Hearts in a Small Town

I was raised in a small town in Northwest Washington. San Juan Island has a population of about 6000 people and located in North Puget Sound. Located on this island is an amazing group of volunteer firefighters. As a high school student I was trained in wildland firefighting. I worked with some of the best people that I have ever met I learned to love them as if they were family. It is not every job that you get to work side by side with some of your best friends. 

I have never been called out on any large wild land call, San Juan Island is only 14 miles long and 7 miles long, but we did stay busy with small brush fires, out of control bonfires, beach fires, ect. Working with San Juan Fire District 3 I learned a lot about myself, I have huge respect for anyone who makes firefighting a living and I am honored to call some of those very fine men and woman friends that I know I will have for life. 

One call that really stood out above the rest was on a Sunday morning, it really stood out to me because it was an older couple still dressed from church. A bonfire had grown out of control and was spreading towards there house. The husband who must have been at least 75 was out in his back yard with the garden hose when we got there. It was a easy containment and we had it under control in less then 20 minutes, it would have been a very average call but I have never experience such gratitude form a stranger. For months after once a week the sweet old lady brought homemade cookies to the firehouse. Although this is partly a small town way of of life it is also shows that sometimes it is the little things that you can do in your life that will leave others forever grateful.