WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 110813

US Forest Service Deputy Chief Jim Hubbard announced that seven next-generation air-tankers would be ready for operations in 2014 (1). Los Angeles County’s Del Valle Regional Training Center hosted a four-day training session for Southern California firefighters learning the finer points of wildland firefighting (2); US Geological Survey issuing a press release discussing the continuing work of their scientists in the Rim Fire burn area (3); CAL FIRE reporting that a four-acre wildfire was burning along Highway 41 outside of Atascadero (4). Portland, Oregon-based Erickson Air-Crane Incorporated posted a 58% revenue increase for the third quarter of 2013 (5); while a two-week course offered by the University of Washington aims to educate students about the challenges of managing dry, fire-prone forests of the Pacific Northwest (6). In an article from Colorado, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack discusses wildfires and the depleted air-tanker fleet with which to fight them (7); this at a time when winds clocked at 60 mph were driving a wildfire outside of Monument (8). Wildfire NOTD subscriber Emily Callahan, Public Information Officer with the Idaho Department of Lands, cautioned visitors to areas ravaged by this summer's wildfires about the dangers they could face (9); while a target shooter who ignited a 440-acre wildfire will have to pay $168,500 towards suppression costs (10). As bushfire season heats up in Australia, cuts to CSIRO could impact up to 1,400 researchers and scientists, some of whom are involved in bushfire-related research (11); a 300-hectare bushfire forcing evacuations in Ningi and Beachmere, Queensland, yesterday (12). Bushfires on the outskirts of Sydney, New South Wales, have polluted the skies (13); keeping homeowners uncertain as to whether they would have to evacuate (14); the New South Wales Bushfires Info Centre providing useful information during the current bushfire crisis (15); but Rural Fire Service is investigating a pair of bushfires deemed to be suspicious in origin (16); and also cautioned that three national parks had been closed by the 11,000-hectare Brushy Mountain Complex Fire (17); while Warrumbungle National Park bushfire survivors reflected on this year's Crooked Mountain concert (18). Campers were forced to evacuate Western Australia's Karijini National Park with the approach of a bushfire (19); while a couple from Worcester, UK, recounts the terror of escaping a WA bushfire in the next article (20). Minimum-security prisoners helped fix fences in Dunalley, Tasmania, that were destroyed by bushfires in January (21). And finally, firefighters in Flint, Michigan, are doing their part to help provide holiday donations to troops overseas!

(1) Next-generation fire suppression airtankers expected to be ready for 2014

(2) Firefighters 'Fighting Fire With Fire' For Training In Castaic

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