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!
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| (Tree that was struck by lightning) |
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