WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 101613

Wildfire NOTD subscriber Tom Eversole, Executive Director of the American Helicopter Services & Aerial Firefighting Association, issued a press release in which he stated that federally contracted air-tankers in the US will remain on duty despite the government gridlock in Washington, with comments by Wildfire NOTD subscriber Dan Snyder, Chief Operating Officer at Neptune Aviation (1). In San Diego County, California, CAL FIRE firefighters quickly squelched a quarter-acre wildfire in Bonsall Tuesday night (2); Wildfire NOTD subscriber Scott Stephens, a Fire Ecologist at UC Berkeley, talking about how structure protection in wilderness areas has radically changed the dynamic of wildland firefighting (3); while the Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group discusses the importance of thinning forests as underscored by the recent Rim Fire (4); firefighters reporting a quarter-acre blaze along the Pajaro River outside of Watsonville (5); an intoxicated transient being blamed for a small wildfire in Santa Cruz (6); but an investigation was still under way as to what sparked a half-acre blaze outside of Davenport (7). An Arizona constitutional ban will force legislators to defer to charities to assist the families of 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in June's Yarnell Hill Fire (8); while the former Fire Chief of Babbitt, Minnesota, has been charged by federal prosecutors with setting fires in the Superior National Forest (9). A farm outside of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, saw the second of two wildfires in six months blaze across its property (10). Indonesia is considering a plan in which companies wishing to buy forest concessions will be limited to 40,000 ha per province to make it easier for forest rangers to monitor those concessions for wildfires (11); but slash and burn agricultural fires are being blamed for 90% of the wildfires in East Kalimantan this year (12). As summer nears in the Southern Hemisphere, the next article takes a look at bushfires in Australia (13). With the expansion of Victoria's mobile phone alert system to all major carriers, residents of the Diamond Valley will be able to receive text messages warning of approaching bushfires early on (14); but people outraged by bushfire building bans are considering a class-action lawsuit against the state government (15). Firefighters in Lithgow, New South Wales, evacuated homes as a bushfire blazed across the Marrangaroo Army Range (16); where the fear of exploding ammunition limited attack on the inferno to air assault only (17). In the wake of the Hyde report of Tasmania's Dunalley bushfires, it was revealed that critical communications failures may not be fixed for seven years (18); but the state government is in hot water over ignoring warnings from the Fire Management Council about the need for additional fuel-reduction burns (19); fire leadership disputing some of the findings (20); while the report also recommended better integration of local knowledge into fire operations (21). And finally, a Black Forest Fire survivor who lost her puppy rescue business to the blaze received a special gift from a woman in Texas whose dog came from that business!

(1) Government Shutdown--No Impact Yet On Aerial Firefighters

(2) Cal Fire quickly douses Bonsall brush fire

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