New Firefighting Agency in Interior?

The Hotshot Wakeup and various others have predicted this. From Semafor. Note that this is bipartisan since Sheehy is an R and Padilla is a D.

Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy is teaming up with California Sen. Alex Padilla on a bill to organize wildfire response under a new National Wildland Firefighting Service within the Interior Department, according to details first shared with Semafor.

The bill would require the Agriculture and Interior secretaries to combine their wildfire operations under the new agency, with a specific budget and plans for a Senate-confirmable director.

Sheehy said the current bureaucratic organization under multiple departments had “failed” firefighters and led to towns being engulfed by wildfires: “The time is now to reshape our approach to American wildfire management and start fighting fires better, stronger, and faster.”

The GOP senator, who founded an aerial firefighting operation in Montana, is now on a half-dozen bipartisan fire-related bills — one of which, to improve wildfire forecasts, advanced through committee this week.

Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission Report Missing From USDA Site

Apparently the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission Report was pulled from the USDA website, but not other USG websites.

Here’s the USDA website. With all the other stuff about the Commission but not the report. But the report is still there, but not the link to the other site, apparently.  I found it at the US Fire Administration website.

Intentional? Mistake? Over-reaction to some request?  Does anyone know?

New Admin.. if you are reading, please set up a place to receive info from the public on missing/broken links.

What Can People Do About Wildfires? Many Things. I. Improving Suppression Practices, Coordination and Technology

As promised, this is the first of (at least) two posts on “what people can do about wildfires like those in California?”.    Like many problems, there are many “little” things that can be done by a variety of people in different situations to improve the situation.  In a way, these are our toughest problems, because they require focused attention over time.   People from different disciplines with different interests need to be organized in some fashion to all work together toward the same goal.  You have to get into the weeds to make a difference, and be comfortable listening to people with whom you might not have much in common.

We can divide the different pieces of the problem in this way:

1. Improving what suppression folks do and how they do it.

2. Improving what homeowners do.

3. Improving what wildland vegetation managers do.

4. Improving what communities do, aside from strict suppression, like code requirements and evacuation planning.  Generally I’d call this “things generally found in a CWPP” (Community Wildfire Prevention Program) although CWPPs can be uneven and not updated.  How is wildfire incorporated into community planning and activities?

5. Reducing sources of ignition.

Can you think of others?

On TSW, we spend a great deal of time on 3, and despite the fact that LA fires were in coastal sage-scrub and other brushlands, I think we can skip it.

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So I’ll start with improving suppression.

Turns out that suppression folks have many ideas about this, from the macro to the micro.  I’ll point you first to this excellent interview by the Hotshot Wakeup with new Senator Sheehy of Montana, who founded Bridger Aerospace:

Bridger has become a leader in fighting wildfires, specializing in aerial fire-mapping operations, air attack, aerial fire suppression, and wildland firefighter technologies. We focus on providing the most effective and modern capabilities to fight fires from the air, supported by a world-class team and state-of-the-art facilities.

Our priority is to address the increasing threat of economic and environmental damage caused by wildfires and to provide support for ground-based firefighters.

 

The interview was interesting for a number of reasons. I asked the Sheehy media folks for summaries of his positions, because he is quite articulate on these issues, but I haven’t heard back, so you will get my interpretation (and please listen yourself, it’s not that long). First of all, Sen. Sheehy, having been a Seal and Veteran, brings the idea that “if firefighters are risking their lives, we should pay them decently and give them some of the same benefits we give veterans.” He also said something like “since so much of the FS budget goes to fire, they should have leadership from the fire community,” kind of implying that the new Chief should be from that community. Side note: ensuring casualty assistance for firefighters is included in the current Fix our Forests Act in the House.

This hearkens a bit to the old “should fire folks be put into a separate agency” which has been brewing for decades. Side note: the Fix our Forests Act requires a study by GAO which includes:

SEC. 304. GAO study on Forest Service policies.
Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall—

(1) conduct a study evaluating—

(A) the effectiveness of Forest Service wildland firefighting operations;

(B) transparency and accountability measures in the Forest Service’s budget and accounting process; and

(C) the suitability and feasibility of establishing a new Federal agency with the responsibility of responding and suppressing wildland fires on Federal lands; and

(2) submit to Congress a report that describes the results of the study required under paragraph (1).

Both the interview with Sheehy, and the interview with Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy, had many ideas for improving suppression, including ordering difficulties, lack of communication with the water folks, and other coordination and communication issues. And some of the commenters there thought that those improvements would be good, but wouldn’t help with these kinds of fires. As a non-fire person, what I gleaned from this is that like any human institution, or inter-agency combination of such, there are tedious details about working efficiently and successfully that need to be attended to. Via after-action reviews, fire folks are better than most (I’m still waiting on the Covid response after-action review). But it requires constant attention to keep the wheels greased, the communications happening, and the old ways or systems or regulations updated. The folks who attend to this are the unsung heroes of any organization.

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This LA Times article cites Stephen Pyne and Jack Cohen

When catastrophic fires occur, experts often blame the so-called wildland-urban interface, the vulnerable region on the perimeter of cities and suburbs where an abundance of vegetation in rugged terrain is susceptible to burning.

Yet the fire disasters that we’re seeing today are less wildland fires than urban fires, Cohen said. Shifting this understanding could lead to more effective prevention strategies.

I agree that it’s difficult to change the narrative from “people shouldn’t build there” to “how can we make cities and suburbs manage wildfire better?”.

“We’re not recognizing, analyzing, questioning how we’re failing,” Cohen said. “We just think we need more airplanes and more helicopters flying 24 hours a day.”

More CL-415 super-scoopers or Firehawk helicopters will not help when water is being dropped into 60 mph wind gusts.

“We don’t necessarily need a trillion-dollar program and a fire czar to get control of the fire problem,” Pyne said. “What we need are a thousand things that tweak the environment in favorable ways such that we can prevent these eruptions.”

For example, municipal and fire prevention agencies must give property owners advance — and continual — warnings to clear dead vegetation and to wet dry brush within 10 feet of the house with periodic, prolonged sprinklings.

I wish the reporter had asked more questions about this:

And while climate change is increasing their frequency and severity, Pyne argues that a society dependent on fossil fuels plays a significant role as well.

“A fossil-fuel society remakes landscapes as well by affecting how humans organize agriculture, urban development, the placement of roads and power lines,” he said.

I’m not sure that that’s true. Maybe it depends on the part of the country you are from. And it’s kind of hard to imagine a fossil-fuel free society in the past, because coal was important for the development of industry and transportation. I guess another society would have stuck with horses and wood for fuel? I’m sure my ancestors came to the US on fossil-fueled ships, so maybe only immigrants from the age of sail? I’m more with Cohen on this one.

For Cohen, shifting the conversation away from climate change is important because it gives us more control over our fire environment and will ultimately make us less vulnerable to these disasters.

“We don’t have to solve climate change in order to solve our community wildfire risk problem,” he said.

Like almost all complex problems or issues, there are many moving parts that can, and should be, improved at the same time.

In the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 — 17,000 structures destroyed and more than 100,000 residents left homeless — city planners and local governments began to focus on fire protection engineering as a way of keeping cities safe.

“The idea was not to catch the arsonist or the mythical cow that kicked over the lantern in Chicago,” Cohen said. “Experts began to consider the role that our buildings played in creating the problem.”

Yes, but if there was a new pattern of behavior that led to many more ignitions, certainly that would be a piece of the puzzle. Or if certain things, say powerlines, had a pattern of causing ignitions, you would work on reducing the hazard. You certainly would if you were a power company who didn’t want to go bankrupt from litigation.

My Guide to Wildfire News Stories I. The Ideological, Political, and Generalized

It says photo by NASA but I found it at https://www.gallatinscience.org/

 

Well, we’ve all had a chance to read many wildfire news stories.  Reporters of all abilities and proclivities have swarmed upon the tragedy in LA like ravens on a bison carcass.

I’ll attempt to group them here.   It’s interesting to me that the blaming effort tends to be big picture, and the fixing effort tends to be lots of little things.    This is not unlike our NEPA/project planning discussion.  Similarly, the policy discussion tends to take place in “big picture” places, like think tanks, law schools, other academia, and political entities; while practitioners are often not involved in the discussions. We also  need to pay attention for how the specific can lead incorrectly to grandiose prescriptions and vice versa.  For example, these fires are not in forests… so let’s not even introduce our usual forest discussions.  This seems obvious, but folks like to ride any disaster horse toward their preferred destination.  Specific- not forest.

So let’s start with the biggest of big pictures:

(1) They shouldn’t have built there.  In this Leighton Woodhouse piece

Twenty-seven years ago, Mike Davis wrote Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. One of the chapters is titled “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” In it, he argued that the area between the beach and the Santa Monica Mountains simply never should have been developed. No matter what measures we take to prevent it, those hills are going to burn, and the houses we erect upon them are only so much kindling.

OK, as a former resident of a nearby and less well-off area, I would have liked it all turned into a park so I could visit.  And that (Malibu and environs) is a specific area.  But does this apply to Altadena, or other places destroyed in this set of wildfires?  In fact, some people are suggesting this about all of the west, as well as the SE (hurricanes and floods). Then there are earthquakes. 

(2) There’s nothing you can do. High winds, dry veg and houses, and ignitions.

Well, that’s a cheery, and not very helpful, way of looking at things.  And as we shall see, there are plenty of things homeowners, communities, and suppression folks can do.  In fact, other places, like the Front Range of Colorado have similar conditions in the winter (see the Marshall Fire).

(3) Various “it’s all about climate change” narratives

Then there’s “it’s all about climate change and things will get a lot worse!” and/or “it’s all about climate change so we need to change drastically to keep up.”  As you can see, climate change itself can go either way..  giving up and freaking people out, or adding to the impetus for implementing a reset of the whole interlocking systems of development, home hardening, vegetation and suppression.

So many people get stuck here at climate change . but scientists disagree on the proportionate contribution as well as on what we should do about it.  Most of us see some possible climate impact. But why is it so important for some to blame climate? Sure that gets politicians off the hook, but is that a good goal?  And I don’t understand why the details are so important.  Let’s see, what should we do differently if models predict we get these conditions 10 percent to 30 percent more often.  How much would our potential fixes change? The conversation also devolves weirdly.  Like Steve Koonin writes an article saying “not so climate change”; he’s got the political street cred (Undersecretary for Science at DOE under Obama) but is criticized because he’s “not a climate scientist.” So, as we have seen, Jon Keeley who studies wildfires has one view based on historical records and his own research.  But we’ve also seen Dan Swain say (who now works for UC Ag and Natural Resources) quoted.

Swain is big on the “whiplash” of wet springs and dry winters (this is similar to the Marshall Fire). I thought that this was an interesting take by ABC news.
“As Daniel Swain, the lead author of the research and a climate scientists with UCLA explains, “This whiplash sequence in California has increased fire risk twofold: first, by greatly increasing the growth of flammable grass and brush in the months leading up to fire season, and then by drying it out to exceptionally high levels with the extreme dryness and warmth that followed.”

Less than a year ago, Los Angeles had historic flooding and is now facing severe drought conditions. That literally adds fuel to the fire.

Finally, it’s important to reiterate that California has and will always be particularly vulnerable to wildfires simply due to its natural climate. The state historically experiences highly variable weather and climate conditions, typically shifting from periods of very dry to very wet weather.

Across the continental U.S., California has the most year-to-year variability between wet and dry conditions. As you move down into Southern California, that variability increases even more, according to Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist and deputy director of operations at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Conceivably, wet winters in and of themselves, are not a problem for urban areas. The LA area has a sophisticated system of flood control. An example is the watershed management plan of my home watershed of La Ballona Creek. The urban area is already managed for whiplash, so it seems to me that increased whiplashiness would mostly affect the dry wildland veg getting drier. But how much drier can they get? It seems like too much of this climate discussion gets stuck at the “it’s bad and the reason sounds vaguely plausible” rather than going deeper, into the vegetation or fuels characteristics, and how they are managed today and how that might be expected to change. Because atmospheric scientists aren’t experts on those topics. So when folks say “Koonin isn’t a climate scientist”, I’d say “impacts of climate change are mediated through vegetation, hydrology, suppression and other areas of scientific expertise. It’s the scientific equivalent of “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

(4) Then there’s the political view.. articulated by Sammy Roth, who has changed from being a reporter to a columnist.

For many Angelenos, this is our most jarring confrontation yet with global warming. But hundreds of millions of Americans have faced fossil-fueled disasters, and the politics of climate obstruction have hardly budged……………

None of those climate disasters changed the fact that the Republican Party is almost totally beholden to the fossil fuel industry. None of them changed the fact that the Democratic Party, although largely committed to climate action — see President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — still hasn’t done nearly enough to phase out fossil fuels.

But what was running the cars that folks evacuated in? Water pumps? Fire trucks? Aviation resources? Could it be that our current physical reality needs to be dealt with alongside climate aspirations?  It makes me wonder a bit about whether there is an element in the climate change advocacy movement that was never really about rational approaches to decarbonization, but about sticking it to the the industries- who have traditionally donated and voted for the wrong people in the eyes of some. Will we see big “thank you” banners hanging out for the people who supplied the energy to fight the fires?

And just like the Marshall Fire, we seldom hear  “maybe houses shouldn’t be so close together”; “without cars, could people have evacuated safely?” “does it make sense to electrify everything if you have to turn electricity off in high winds?” “could intentional densification have downsides with regard to wildfire resilience?” or other questions that question currently dominant planning paradigms.

On the other side, it’s the “poor management by D Administrations” political view.   The political view, in either direction, doesn’t help us at all. Like the framings above, it’s too far away from the real problems and the idea that “if you vote for us everything will be fine” doesn’t seem to be working for either party, and especially not for citizens in general.

**************
Maybe, just maybe, if we paid more attention to how to fix things, we would involve more people and scientists who understand the problems, practitioners and actually, mutually, improve. With less blame and more creativity; after all that’s the culture of wildfire. Learning organizations, after action reviews, and all that.
As for me, it’s the next layer down that’s interesting.  What could communities, homeowners, fire suppression and allied folks, and planners do better? We’ll try to round up those news stories in the next installment.

If you have any other stories you’d like to draw attention to, of the generic persuasion, please post below and add the specific quotes, or describe what about it you think adds value or is off base.

 

Interview with Jon Keeley on LA Wildfires

 short-wave infrared satellite image captured by Maxar Technologies on Wednesday of burning buildings in Altadena, Calif.Maxar Technologies / DigitalGlobe / Getty Images

 

Examining media coverage of the California wildfires has been interesting.

My favorite is The Hotshot Wakeup, (might be paywalled) who wisely asks us to hold our opinions until we get the results of investigations and reviews.

I think it’s illuminating to look at what AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science, sort of a professional society for scientists with a definite political veneer) tells journalists via Sciline.  It’s interesting to think you can cover wildfires in the LA metro area (a fairly unique place in terms of wildfire) and spice it up with quotes from people who are not talking about the LA Metro area.

Check out the AAAS recommendations below the asterisks.  Meanwhile, Michael Shellenberger interviewed Jon Keeley of the USGS, someone whose work we are familiar with, talking real time about these specific wildfires.

Two people are dead, and 80,000 have been forced to evacuate neighborhoods in Los Angeles thanks to fires raging out of control. According to the media and some scientists, climate change is causing the fires. “Researchers believe that a warming world is increasing the conditions that are conducive to wildland fire, including low relative humidity,” reported the BBC.

But one of the country’s top fire experts disagrees. “I don’t think these fires are the result of climate change,” Jon Keeley, a US Geological Survey scientist, told Public. “You certainly could get these events without climate change.”

Keeley has researched the topic for 40 years. In 2017, Keeley and a team of scientists modeled thirty-seven different regions across the United States and found that “humans may not only influence fire regimes but their presence can actually override, or swamp out, the effects of climate.”

Keeley’s team found that the only statistically significant factors for the frequency and severity of fires on an annual basis were population and proximity to development. “We’ve looked at the history of climate and fire throughout the whole state,” said Keeley, “and through much of the state, particularly the western half of the state, we don’t see any relationship between past climates and the amount of area burned in any given year.”

What about scientists who claim that the dry conditions are unusual? “If you look at the past 100 years of climates in Southern California,” said Keeley, “you will find there have been Januaries that have been very dry. And there’s been autumns that have been very dry. There have been Santa Ana winds in January. So these sorts of conditions are what contribute to a fire being particularly destructive at this time of the year. But it’s not the result of climate change.”

It’s true that “We are seeing changes in Santa Ana winds,” said Keeley. “For example, we’ve looked at fire history going back to the middle of the 20th century. For the first half of that record, Santa Ana winds were more common in September than they are today. They were less common in the winter than they are today. It appears that we are seeing a shift in the distribution of Santa Ana winds.

“But we have no basis for saying that’s due to global warming,” Keeley said. “There’s no evidence that climate change has impacted Santa Ana winds.”

And the fires appear to have started in the residential areas, not in the wildland vegetation known as chaparral. “It doesn’t appear that the wildland vegetation had a lot to do with the fire because the fire didn’t start in the wild land areas. That started within the urban environment. And whether these are unique? I would say, definitely not unique. Fires in Southern California are not an abnormal event. We get them all the time throughout the year. The fact that we have a high-intensity fire in Southern California, that’s a normal event.”

The issue is, overwhelmingly, more people in harm’s way. “If you look at fire history in the San Gabriel Valley, which is where the Eaton fire occurred 50 years ago, we didn’t have events where fires burned into communities. In part that was due because the urban environment was surrounded by citrus orchards. And that’s what buffered the communities from the wildland areas. And if fires started within those citrus orchards or burned into them, they generally burned out. Today, we don’t have citrus orchards. We just have more homes.”

This seems like a bit of a theme.. agriculture manages vegetation, until they move away, and then vegetation grows up and dries out (like Lahaina).

Why, then, does so much of the media coverage focus on climate change? “It all depends on who the journalist interviews,” said Keeley. “If they interview a climatologist who really doesn’t know very much about wildland vegetation and also has an agenda of demonstrating climate change, they’re going to see climate as a major driver.”

It all depends on whom the journalist interviews, so see the AAAS list below.

Are such forest preventable? Said Keeley, “I don’t think these fires are 100 percent preventable. We can reduce the probability of a fire. You can reduce the probability that they’ll be destructive. There are things you can do. But, these fires are a normal part of the environment. Chaparral fires have been around for at least 20 million years. So we have a greater probability of a fire during a Santa Ana wind event. And we have a greater probability that people are going to be affected by that fire because there’s more people out there on the landscape.”

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Here are the sources AAAS recommends.  Remember, this part of Calif is chaparral or brush, not forest.

Wildfire Resources

Covering the Southern California wildfires? Need expert quotes and science resources for your news stories? SciLine has several FREE resources available for local reporters to use.

Wldfire prevention

Potential causes of wildfires

Possible after effects of wildfires
Impacts on communities
Recursos en español

**************”Want to speak to an expert directly? Our expert matching team (M-F, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. EDT) can rapidly connect you to articulate, knowledgeable experts – for free!

SciLine is a free service for journalists and scientists based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society. Editorially independent, nonpartisan, and funded by philanthropies, SciLine has the singular mission of enhancing the amount and quality of scientific evidence in news stories.”

Financial support for SciLine is provided by the Quadrivium Foundation, with additional funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Heinz Endowments, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation. AAAS provides in-kind support. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.359.6383.1479-a

And yet, philanthropies have their own philosophies and interests.  We expect that this does not influence the scientists selected or not selected, or the outlets supported or not supported.

SciLine reserves the right to deny service to any reporter or news outlet that, in its judgment, fails to adhere to widely accepted journalistic practices, including editorial independence from advertisers and donors and clear distinction between news and opinion.

NY Times: Interesting Map of Insurance Non-Renewals Across the Country; Thought by Them to be Due to Climate Change

I’m beginning to think the greater the graphics and maps, the more likely the story has some degree of bamboozlery involved. If you’re interested in looking at the maps by county, I think they’re behind a paywall.  However I can get the NYT digitally from one of our county libraries, so you probably can.

The story starts with an interview with a sympathetic individual from Silver City NM.

Mr. Zimmel, who lives in the increasingly fire-prone hills outside Silver City, N.M., had done everything right. He trimmed the trees away from his house, and covered his yard in gravel to stop flames rushing in from the forest near his property. In case that buffer zone failed, he sheathed his house in fire-resistant stucco, and topped it with a noncombustible steel roof.

None of it mattered. His insurance company, Homesite Insurance, dumped him. “Property is located in a brushfire or wildfire area that no longer meets Homesite’s minimum standard for wildfire risk,” the letter read. (Homesite did not respond to a request for comment.)

Mr. Zimmel has company. Since 2018, more than 1.9 million home insurance contracts nationwide have been dropped — “nonrenewed,” in the parlance of the industry. In more than 200 counties, the nonrenewal rate has tripled or more, according to the findings of a congressional investigation released Wednesday.

As a warming planet delivers more wildfires, hurricanes and other threats, America’s once reliably boring home insurance market has become the place where climate shocks collide with everyday life.

Now if you follow climate, you might think that climate is only a part of wildfires (and suppression could improve with new technologies and fuel treatments that we taxpayers are paying for- otherwise why are we paying for them? )  Data suggests there are not more hurricanes, and that hail has not been associated with climate change.

For example, a doubling of hail reports across the United States since the 1980s is likely a product of more people, greater interest in storms, and more ways to file reports, according to a 2021 overview paper on hailstorms and climate change published in Nature Reviews.

Anyway, there are a few interviews with various individuals in Silver City; I think we have a TSW-ite who lives there so perhaps we can learn more from him.

My favorite part was the map, though, that shows non-renewal rates.  If non-renewal patterns were based on climate change factors, we might expect to see areas of similar threats (say next to each other) have similar non-renewal rates. Hmm. but that’s not exactly the pattern that emerges. The source of the data is from the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.

For example, I live in El Paso County, Colorado.  We have an interesting mix of forest, both national and private, and grasslands.  Our data show that 1 in 113 policies were not renewed in 2023, a 40% decrease from 2018.  We have both forest fires and grass fires.  Let’s go to the counties affected by the Marshall Fire, Jefferson and Boulder County.  Jeffco had a 38.6% decrease, and Boulder a 6.1% decrease.  Meanwhile,  San Miguel County had a 391.9% increase.  Clearly, something is going on here beyond climate change.  But what exactly?

I think the colors are a little confusing as the colors show the nonrenewal rates for one year (2023) while you have to zoom in to look at the changes in non-renewal rates since 2018.

Similarly, Teton County is unique on the map, and more generally in Wyoming due to having many super-rich people.  Note that it is next to other counties that don’t have high non-renewal rates.  Hypothesis: they can afford it.  However, that is definitely not true for San Miguel and Huerfano counties in Colorado. There goes another hypothesis.  I think to really  understand what’s going on, we’d have to take a more site specific approach, say compare the non-renewals (individual homes) in say San Miguel and neighboring counties in Colorado, or in Kansas, neighboring Gray and Ford Counties- since 2018, Gray had a 152.5% increase in non-renewals while Ford had a 27.5% decrease.

As we’ve seen in past posts, the map shows that California is unique,  and that  there are other issues than climate change at play.

Curiosity meets Climate Narrative at the NYT… and I guess curiosity loses.  But to be fair, curiosity can be expensive and takes time.

There is also a nice video of dead trees from the air here near Pinos Altos, NM.  Hopefully you can see that without the paywall.

 

Op-ed By Incoming Senator Sheehy on Wildfire and DOGE

Thanks to the Hotshot Wakeup!. THW made a case in his update today for not putting all one’s political eggs in one basket.  According to THW, Sheehy is supportive of firefighter pay.

Op-ed by new Montana Senator Tim Sheehy on DOGE and wildfire ideas.

In November, Americans made clear they want political outsiders to come in and put a stop to status quo politics in D.C. The people want change, and now is the time to bring it by reining in our runaway federal bureaucracy, cutting waste, restoring common sense, and building a transparent government that is actually accountable to everyday Americans.

With President Trump leading the charge, and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at the helm of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), we have a historic opportunity to radically disrupt business as usual, fundamentally reform the federal government, and reorient the mission back to serving the taxpayer.

One area DOGE should focus on: wildfire. Wildfires cost us hundreds of billions in economic impact, harming millions of Americans each year, yet our government response hasn’t changed in decades.

As an aerial firefighter myself, I know firsthand the devastation wildfires cause and have a unique perspective on how the federal government has failed on this issue.

Wildfire management system consists of a plethora of overlapping government agencies and private commercial ventures working within a splintered infrastructure that leads to delayed responses and devastating results – too many acres burned, critical infrastructure and structures destroyed, negative health impacts, lives lost, and communities devastated.

There are dozens of state and federal agencies responsible for wildfire suppression, yet there is no clear accountability nor a national wildfire suppression standard. To put that into perspective, the National Fire Protection Association sets the standard for structure fire response at five minutes and 20 seconds, which reduced civilian deaths by 70%. There is no similar standard for wildfire suppression.

We have brave, selfless public servants who put their lives on the line to fight these fires. I was water-bombing fires and protecting our communities as recently as August alongside these heroes. They are not the problem. The problem lies with bureaucratic leadership and layers of red tape failing the folks on the ground, meaning an overhaul of the federal wildfire system is a great place for DOGE to start.

Adopting a more proactive, aggressive initial attack policy across agencies would dramatically reduce costs and damages. Aggressive initial attack relies on utilizing private resources, which are usually the quickest, most effective response option if we want to limit the size and scope of wildfire damage.

The private sector always has and always will produce new innovations and better results faster and cheaper than the government. The same holds true in wildfire response. We must embrace this truth. Fostering stronger public-private partnerships with the wildland fire industry is essential.

DOGE can help the federal government embrace private partnerships to leverage investment in innovative technologies like advanced aircraft, wildfire intelligence systems, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and even thermally equipped satellites to better accomplish the mission: protecting people, property, public lands and communities from wildfires.

Together we can incorporate the most innovative technologies and strategies, establish clear roles and missions for federal agencies serving alongside private entities, and build an inclusive national wildfire strategy that best leverages all available resources.

As the only aerial firefighter in the Senate, I look forward to working with DOGE to lead the charge on reshaping our approach to wildfire management in America.

We can streamline wildland firefighting efforts, remove outdated bureaucratic obstacles to getting the job done and cut government waste. We can fight fires better, stronger and faster. And we can do more for our communities threatened by wildfires at a lower cost for American taxpayers.

This is an area that is ripe for collaboration between folks on both sides of the aisle. It doesn’t matter what party you’re from; it’s clear that the federal government must do a better job protecting our communities and public lands from wildfires.

I will work with Republicans and Democrats to deliver commonsense solutions to more effectively fight the devastating threat of wildfires. Americans nationwide made it clear they expect more out of their government, and it’s time we seize the moment and deliver on the mandate voters gave us.

The Calf Canyon Fire Review: An Indictment of the Forest Service Land Management Strategy-Guest Post by Sarah Hyden

Thanks to Sarah Hyden for this piece!

Burning piles in the Gallinas Canyon Piles Prescribed Burn 2022 unit on January 12, 2022, Santa Fe National Forest.
Photo: USDA Forest Service

The Calf Canyon Fire Review: An Indictment of the Forest Service Land Management Strategy

In April of 2022, three wildfires were ignited in the Santa Fe National Forest by three separate US Forest Service escaped prescribed burns. 378,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest, Carson National Forest and private lands were burned. As a result of the two larger of these fires, the Calf Canyon Fire and the Hermits Peak Fire, entire communities were catastrophically impacted – 900 structures including 340 homes were burned down, thousands of people were displaced, and a traditional way of life was forever altered. Three people died in the aftermath of the fire from post-fire flooding. The cost of recovery efforts will be well over $5 billion. It is unknown how much conifer regeneration will occur on the approximately 82,000 acres that burned at high severity.

Although a review of the causes of Hermits Peak Fire was released in June of 2022, I had been waiting for two and a half years for the analysis of the more impactful Calf Canyon Fire to be released. It was strangely delayed.

As most know, the Forest Service prescribed burn that ignited the Hermits Peak Fire was a broadcast burn, set during a New Mexico spring high wind pattern with red flag warnings in effect in nearby areas. This prescribed fire escaped due to winds and dry vegetation, and it was declared a wildfire on April 6. The Calf Canyon Fire was ignited by piles of thinning debris that had been burned during the winter and had not been fully extinguished. Some of the smoldering piles flared up months later in the spring winds. By the time the Calf Canyon Fire was declared a wildfire on April 19, the Hermits Peak Fire had been considered to be contained. However, the winds also fanned up the Hermits Peak Fire again.

The two fires proceeded to burn side-by-side to the northeast with the prevailing winds, and then merged during another major wind event on April 23. The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire continued until late June, at which point it had burned over 533 square miles within three counties.

Map showing the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon Fire perimeters on April 23, when they were starting to merge. USDA Forest Service

Recently, the Forest Service quietly released its review of the Calf Canyon Fire. The implications are stunning and yet unsurprising to conservationists who have been critical of the forest management strategy of aggressive cutting and over-burning for years. There was clearly human error involved, but what is most apparent is that the basic paradigm the Forest Service is currently employing to “manage” forests is highly flawed and backfiring – and in the case of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, it backfired spectacularly.

The Forest Service implemented the prescribed burns that ignited the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire largely out of concern for the City of Las Vegas’ water system and water quality. The Calf Canyon fire review states “In May of 2000, the Viveash Fire highlighted the vulnerability of the city’s water system when a small portion of the wildfire burning in the Cow Creek drainage burned into the Gallinas Canyon Watershed. This high-severity wildfire resulted in dramatic impacts to the Las Vegas, New Mexico city water quality.” In 2006, in order to protect the Las Vegas water system from further impacts, the agency proposed and then later proceeded with implementation of the Gallinas Municipal Watershed Wildland Urban Interface Project. The primary purpose of the Project was to reduce the severity of future wildland fires by aggressively cutting mixed conifer and applying prescribed fire. The Project Decision states that the potential for an escaped prescribed burn was one of three key issues.

*The ranger who signed the project decision told me that he did not want broadcast prescribed burns included in the project plan because he believed it was too risky. He said that he wanted the post-cutting debris management to include only pile burns and chipping. However, he was under pressure from Forest Service higher ups to include broadcast burns in the project plan, to the extent that he believed his career was on the line if he did not. He had a family to support, and so he complied.

The Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire occurred due to escaped prescribed burns resulting from the implementation of this project, and it ultimately caused much more destruction to Las Vegas water quality than did the Viveash Fire. The fire burned extensive areas of the Gallinas watershed, the primary source for the city’s water, and contaminated it with ash and sediment. The contamination is still ongoing and very expensive to contend with.

A primary “lesson learned” provided by the Calf Canyon Fire review team was that the aggressive mechanical thinning opened up the tree canopy, exposing the forest floor to more solar radiation. This resulted in an increased rate of snowpack evaporation and snowmelt – thereby drying out the treated landscapes. Additionally, the review states that the open canopy may have increased “windthrow,” which means that trees which were formerly structurally supported by nearby trees were blown over in strong winds. The downed trees provided more fuel on the ground that spread fire from the burning piles.

A 2018, and subsequent 2021, wind event resulted in additional downed timber in the Gallinas Pile Burn Unit. Note the broken stems; these were broken off in the wind events. This picture does not depict the snow conditions the day of ignition. Photo: USDA Forest Service

Such unintended consequences are what conservation organizations and scientists had been warning of. Further drying out forests while the climate is becoming both hotter and drier is not a sound approach. Aggressively dismantling existing forest structures in an effort to create “healthy” and fire-resistant forest has serious side effects, and the Calf Canyon Fire review demonstrates that it’s not necessarily possible to compensate for such effects.

The review states that the Forest Service followed “lessons learned” from a prior pile burn escape in the same area in 2018 by carrying out the pile burns in January, and making sure there was a continuous snowpack around the burn piles. Burning piles under such conditions was much better than burning when conditions were dry, but was not sufficient to prevent a wildfire in 2022 that was exponentially larger and hotter than the 2018 pile burn escape.

The Hermits Peak Fire review states that the Forest Service felt compelled to complete the prescribed burn that ignited that fire after numerous delays, despite clearly marginal burn conditions. The delays included government shutdowns, the global pandemic, and a court injunction due to the Forest Service’s non-compliance with Mexican Spotted Owl regulations. The Calf Canyon Fire review states that a primary factor in the Forest Service’s inability to contain the spreading fire from the burn piles early on was a lack of resources both for monitoring burn piles for escaping fire, and for fire suppression. This incapacity was largely due to the already limited resources having been taken up by the Hermits Peak Fire.

In the Forest Service’s January 2022 publication, “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests,” the agency made its case for the strategy of greatly increasing logging and burning forests, up to four times the current levels in some areas. This mandate was fiscally supported by Congress through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with 3.5 billion dollars allocated for “forest management.” Yet somehow the Forest Service continues to be understaffed and under equipped. It’s simple math – the agency can’t safely expand the amount and frequency of forest cutting and burning treatments without a corresponding increase in personnel and equipment.

During the two weeks prior to the declaration of the Calf Canyon Fire, the escaping burn piles were being monitored by aerial overflights, utilizing infrared heat-detecting technology. The data obtained from these overflights was not enough to prevent the Calf Canyon Fire from breaking out in the New Mexico spring high winds. The Calf Canyon Fire Review contains the recommendation that “Where feasible, investigate and utilize new remote sensing technologies (remote cameras and software) for monitoring pile burning.” Currently there are very few monitoring overflights per year in the Santa Fe National Forest due to the lack of personnel and equipment, and infrared heat-detecting technology is limited and cannot identify heat deep under piles or down in the ground where smoldering can persist for months.

While I was waiting for the Calf Canyon Fire review to be released, I mused about why the Forest Service did not completely extinguish all the burn piles in early April, when some of the piles were known to be spreading fire – knowing that in this region high winds are the norm in April. The review provided some insight into my question.

The review describes the intense winds during the incident. “April 9th was the beginning of a very windy and dry period with Red Flag Warnings issued almost every day through April 22nd.” The Calf Canyon Incident Commander described the circumstances under which they were attempting to extinguish the burning piles:

“We found two to three smoldering stump holes burning that were interior. We opened them up and worked on them and cold trailed the area (feeling for heat with hands and digging out any live spots) to be sure they were completely dead out.” The IC observed that there was “smoke below the soil”, from underground roots and stumps. Resources gridded up and back on hands and knees through the fire area making six passes. Ash pelted their faces each time they would turn to look back…. “Every time I turned my head to talk to those behind me, a cloud of ash would hit me in the face because the wind was blowing so hard”….“I still have what I call Calf Canyon cough from that day.”

Conditions during the incident were such that the situation quickly became unmanageable, despite the intensive efforts of those on the ground. Fire was spreading underground along tree roots and surfacing as the winds fanned the flames. This points to the inherent risks of implementing pile burns in this dry and windy region.

The Calf Canyon Fire review makes it clear that treating dry forests in this region with aggressive cutting and burning may have many more adverse consequences than benefits. In the past 25 years, the majority of wildfire acres burned in the Santa Fe National Forest were ignited by either Forest Service or National Park Service escaped prescribed burns.

An additional consequence of the Forest Service continuing to go forward with widespread and aggressive fuels treatments is the increasing mistrust and hostility from the public. During the past two falls, the agency had intended to implement a prescribed burn in the North Aztec Springs area, just outside of Santa Fe. This burn would take place near a development of homes. Local residents went to meetings with the Forest Service about the potential burn, expressing high levels of fear and anger. During the fall of 2023, conditions were very wrong for such a burn, with strong winds, legacy slash piles remaining unburned in the area, and the only egress in case of a prescribed burn escape partially blocked by utility work. Residents were appalled that after the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, the Forest Service would even consider implementing a burn under such risky conditions. This past fall, conditions seemed much better, but this year’s meeting about the burn was just as contentious, if not more so, than last year’s. The burn was again postponed.

At this point it appears that the Forest Service intends to go forward with largely the same forest management strategies as before the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire impacted forest and residents so severely. However, a lesson learned from the Calf Canyon Fire review team was, “As landscapes, or stands, become further removed from their normal range of historical variability (RHV), incrementally changing the stand structure, albeit more expensive, is more prudent than dramatic shifts. Several entries may be required to achieve the desired result.” This recommendation indicates that the Forest Service is at least beginning to understand that the sheer amount and intensity of treatments they have been implementing are a serious risk to both forests and local communities. Aggressive treatments are a “shock to the system” that undermines forest heath.

Since the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire, there are new procedures in place and generally more caution being applied to planning of treatments, but the fundamental strategy of aggressively removing large amounts of biomass from dry forests, and then burning at overly-frequent intervals, has not been substantially re-examined. This strategy must be reconsidered from the roots up – the warming climate requires this. If cutting and burning treatments are found to be genuinely indicated in some situations, such treatments must be done with an understanding of the impacts and risks to the specific ecosystem being considered for treatment. It’s critical that sufficient canopy cover and natural understory be left remaining, so that the treated forest ecosystems will retain moisture instead of drying out and becoming even more flammable. Conservation strategies should be utilized to assist forest ecosystems in retaining moisture.

It is incumbent upon the Forest Service to work together with conservation organizations and conservation scientists to develop a holistic land management strategy that truly protects both forests and communities. The stakes are too high to do less.

Burned Area Emergency Response specialist assessing soil burn severity in Tecolote Creek Headwaters, within the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burn area. Photo: Inciweb

 

 

What’s Going on With 2025 Fire Positions?: Hotshot Wakeup Reporting

The Hotshot Wakeup (again, I encourage you to subscribe) has news on his Substack about fire hiring and staff changes.

Now, regions are looking to implement new hiring policies to reduce the workforce, reduce staffing time, and turn some permanent firefighters back into seasonals for Fiscal Year 2025.

The resources that will be the most affected will be Type 2IA crews, Engines, and Wildfire Modules. However, it seems all resources will be directed to return to the old regional hiring standards and away from the “new modernization.” It is also being floated that engines will return to 5-day effective staffing.

This is basically a complete 180 from what folks were told when hiring season kicked off. These changes have not been fully disseminated, but a briefing paper is expected soon with more direction to follow.

I have talked to folks in Region 6, where this is being discussed, and folks in Region 1, who said many fire positions that were left vacant this year will not be hired for in FY25. Folks are also saying some of the positions being flown are now “ghost jobs.”

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I was told these moves are being made due to continued budgetary issues.

I have spoken to firefighters who were converted into permanent positions and actually welcome this change. They want their winters back and are going crazy sitting in an office with nothing to do.

That said, supervisors worry about the total staff reduction and the implementation of these changes late in the hiring season. Also, overall wildfire staffing across forests may take a 15-20% cut in the total workforce in FY25. One person familiar with the situation said, “It looks like we are going to fight fire with aviation, not people.”

Some firefighters even changed their lifestyles to accommodate these new permanent positions. Many moved permanently to their duty station, bought homes, and accepted positions for health and retirement benefits.

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His view is:

It’s clear the budget issues have not subsided, and instead of cutting many unnecessary and arguably useless new programs, the workforce is taking the hit: both non-fire and fire.

I’m sure there is a rationale laid out for these changes in some document somewhere.. if anyone has access to that, I would like to post it.  Or even, from current employees, what you think is going on and what it means to you and your unit.  I’m not criticizing because I know there is a rationale, and we just haven’t seen it, even if it’s “no money so Fire has to be impacted as well.” Maybe that’s in the forthcoming briefing paper.

Frank Carroll: The Profound Issues With Wildfire Policy And Leadership: THW Interview

I thought that this was a great interview by The Hotshot Wakeup with Frank Carroll, also the discussion following, which features some TSW regulars.

FWIW, I don’t agree with Frank about: Loper-Bright, and the idea that we can return to the old days of forest management, though I’d like to see more utilization of material from fuel treatments than burning in piles with the attendant carbon and particulates.

I thought his impassioned defense of forest planning for this was worth listening to, so I thought we might have a good discussion here.  There was some new news for me, as I didn’t know that more retardant is (sometimes) used when “large scale agency ignitions” are a tool.  If I understood that correctly.

I do think that some folks’ views in this discussion have been mischaracterized.  Saying “it’s going to burn one way or another” is probably true, but hopefully agencies interacting with the public can decide that some ways are better than others. Or “these are old folks wanting to return to the old ways” or  “a national 10AM policy is bad”; I see the views of these folks as much more nuanced than some give them credit for.

Anyway, here is a link, it should be open to all, so let me know if it doesn’t work for you.  I subscribe to the Hotshot Wakeup, so I can’t tell.