Maybe a Break in the Weather

The last week of extraordinarily high temperatures, complete with no rain since early June, may be coming to an end.

Yesterday was a 108-year record breaker, and with temperatures today cresting at 102.5 degF where I am, today will be too.

However, good news in the forecast from the National Weather Service. Not only are we expecting 50% chance of rain through Monday, but much lower temperatures as well - mid 80s. I can deal with right now for that little gift. Watch out for lightning though, in the early stages.

Update...
the next few days are going to prove to be very active across Georgia.
Weak front and upper trough approaching from the north which will
stall over the region Sat-Mon...then finally get pushed out early
Tuesday as upper trough strengthens and pushes further east.
Meanwhile...a weak tropical low will approach the area from the
southeast late in the weekend. With all of these systems stalling
over the area Sat-Mon...it appears that it will be a very wet
period. All areas should receive substantial rainfall...at least 1-2
inches in most areas by Monday...locally even more. Given the dry
conditions in place...this should not be a problem...at least in the
short term...but by sun will need to monitor for possible Flood
Watch as tropical system works into the area...

Saved by another tropical depression!

Just to celebrate our misery and impending redemption, here's what June has looked like so far for the Athens area. Green line is 2006, red line is 2005. The 108-year historical high is in blue. The black dots are the high temperatures for each June day since 1990.

Burning During a Drought - Don't Do It!

It seems to fall to me to be the Wolfskin Scold. So be it.

In the past week Wolfskin has been called out for wildland fires four times. In three of these cases the problem has been homeowners doing a "controlled burn". As far as I know, in none of these cases did the homeowners call Georgia Forestry Commission for a permit. Folks - you must call for a permit. At the very least you get good advice and it helps to protect you if the fire gets out of control. We can imagine the worst-case scenario.

Look - in the past 13 days here in the Wolfskin area we have had exactly 0.05" of rain. In March, April, and May we had 3.0", 1.55", and 1.4" of rain. So far in June we've had 0.45". Alberto didn't help us much at all, except to cool things down a bit and produce some gusty winds. We normally get 4.5" per month. This is WAY below what we should be getting.

The ground is dry, the vegetation is dry, the temperatures are way higher than normal, and we've been at least a Class 3+ day (high fire danger) for the last two weeks (a few days ago we were at the highest, Class 5 - extreme fire danger). It's not rocket science to know that if you're burning stumps, say, which you should not be doing in this kind of weather, and you go off to work the next day and the smouldering stumps light your yard on fire that this is a problem. Armed with this scenario, you certainly shouldn't be relighting the stumps the next night. If you are a neighbor watching this, you have a right to complain. I shudder thinking about the 50-acre pasture of dry grass across the road, and the dozen or so houses that sit right on that pasture.

Be aware that GFC does not like to see fires going on into the late afternoon. In the evening and night the smoke stays low to the ground and annoys people. 911 gets calls about smoke smells and that annoys them.

Go to the right sidebar - the Georgia Forestry Commission phone number is there. The website is there, and you can apply for a permit on that website. The Georgia map of fire danger is there too. Don't burn if it's a Class 3 day or above.

Here's another convenient GFC page - Forecast Conditions. Don't let your eyes cross too much. Here's the way you interpret the numbers, but I'll give you a little crash course on what to look for right here.

Believe it or not I look at this every day. On Tuesday night, when I saw the stump fires burning I predicted we'd be called out and the next day at 1pm we were.

For our area I scroll down and look at the Watkinsville entry, and maybe the Washington, GA entry. If you're elsewhere, look for the entry closest to you. If you're outside of Georgia, you might find a link to your area here.

Look at the maximum temperature, wind conditions, and relative humidity. Afternoons are going to be the worst conditions. Here is danger, Will Robinson. Max temps, 90 degrees or higher. Wind conditions, greater than 10 mph. Relative humidity during the afternoon, 40% or lower. Bad, no, don't do it! These are at *least* the conditions we're in right now at this moment.

There's two other indices to look at:

The BI - the burn index. Divide it by 10. That's the height of the flames you might see, in feet. Of course it depends on what kind of land is burning and it isn't the best index, but if it's greater than 100, DON'T BURN. Do you think you can deal with 10-foot flames? I don't.

The KBDI number. It ranges from 0 (wet) to 800(extremely dry) and tells you how dry the soil is. The top part of the soil does burn. Right now we are at a KBDI of 550. These are very dry soil conditions.

Here's the GFC forecast for today:

Max temps: 93 degrees F (hot)
Wind: 3mph (calm, not bad, but in view of everything else, bad)
Relative Humidity: 33% this afternoon (very dry)
Burn Index: 15 (expect 1.5-foot flames, depending on fuel)
KBDI: 550 (very dry).

All this adds up to a high hazard Class 3-plus day, and for the next five days it's just going to get worse. And yet the folks burning the stumps are doing it again, and again they're going to go off to work leaving them burning. I predict we're going to get another call today.

-Wayne

Very Early Morning Call

No pics here: 4:30am Monday morning - Wolfskin gets a live test of taking care of a woodland fire. The pager goes off, car on fire somewhere on Double Bridges Road, Wolfskin called out. We were already up, the nocturnal animals (during the summer) that we are, but by the time we were dressed and at the station at 4:45 the pumper was already gone. Maybe Mike and Frankie are nocturnal animals too, but they were still ahead of us! So we proceeded on down Double Bridges Road and found the situation close to Highway 78. Someone had apparently torched a car on the side of road and the fire had spread to a quarter acre or so of woods.

A phenomenal ten folks showed up from Wolfskin by 5am and two Athens-Clarke County trucks and an Arnoldsville truck. I'd name us all but some folks don't want to be named so take my word for it.

Athens-Clarke County took care of the car; we patrolled the woods putting out the fire, avoiding the festoons of poison ivy, and then wet mopped for an hour or so. It was actually kind of invigorating, in an early early morning sort of way, and it was real nice to see our partners all there. Later A-CC came back and drenched the woods to be sure.

Our PPE pants, gloves, and shirt are finally broken in, smudged, and hanging out to dry. I have no intention of washing them until that dirt and smut becomes ingrained - it’s a kind of record of activity that we don’t want to erase away.

-Wayne

The End!

We completed our Wildland Fire Training today and took our exam, all 36 of us that started out including the ten of us from Wolfskin VFD. I expect we'll all pass and then Oglethorpe County and its various districts will have acquired FFT2 graduates. That's what you get, and it's a deal because now your volunteer fire fighters are qualified to work alongside the Georgia Forestry Commission.

Here's the folks who graduated and got the great trinket below, the nicest cap I have: (I'd be glad to name some of these folks but there are some of our firefighters who are otherwise tigers prefer to be unnamed and that is perfectly understandable and so this is what you get - the great VFDs in the area:

Devil's Pond VFD

Wolfskin VFD

Beaverdam VFD

Glade VFD

Maxeys VFD (hi Tim!)

and

Winterville (Athens-Clarke County)

We were also very pleased that Glenn Reynolds and Sharon Dow from the Appalachian Trail Club joined us for the course.

Here's part of what we got. Forty hours of training, and this:


And that's not a complaint. We were delighted to receive these caps color-coordinated with our nice kevlar shirts and pants and I intend to wear mine (but not bill backwards, never fear).

Yesterday was especially gruelling and, in the end interesting. Grueling because it was all classroom work, and interesting because an hour before the end our own Wolfskin and Beaverdam got called out for a "controlled burn" that had gotten out of control. To our relief we got out early; to our chagrin, the instructors ended the day's session at the same time and everyone one else was waving cheerily to us as they took off for home.

The "controlled burn" was way down Wolfskin Road and then off onto a itty bitty dirt road that went for miles and then we discovered that the owner had decided he didn't need us and please go away. Oh well. When an owner says no and there's no clear danger, that's it. To be frank, it *appears* that the owner had not submitted a burn permit in the first place, thought his fire was getting out of control, called *after* the fact to submit a controlled burn permit and then, probably seconds later, called 911 for help. Well, this is how things work sometimes. Please just make sure that the above is not how you organize it.

The course was excellent - well organized over three 12-hour days plus four more hours today, with wonderful instructors, and if I started out knowing 10% of what we eventually covered, in the end I knew 95%. And we got to know some of our fellow firefighters around the county that we never see, because after all they are in different districts, and that's of considerable value too.

Yesterday on Saturday, to our surprise, we found we'd had a catered lunch delivered by Countryside Catering. (If you have a link to this I'll be glad to insert it - Jerry Warren and the other guys worked hard to put this together.) Wolfskin VFD Chief Phyllis Jackson and Treasurer Cary Fordyce had worked behind the scenes to pull together a number of sponsers to treat us all after two weekends' and 40 hours of hard work. It made us sleepy in the afternoon but that's ok.

So we particularly thank the caterers and our sponsers:

Countryside Catering sponsered by

Bill Cabaniss of Commercial Bank
Anita Turenne of Pinnacle Bank
Roger Tench of Georgia Power
and
Jeff Paul of Rayle Electric

We had a strong ovation for all these sponsers at the end of our training. And had an especially strong ovation for our great instructors from the GFC:

Tracy Graham, Chief Ranger in Crawford who along with Phyllis Jackson and Steve Gray, helped to make this happen.

Steve Gray who conducted most of the sessions, and believe me I've seen plenty of instructors but never someone quite so good at motivating his students.

Mark Millirons, who was great at peppering his lectures with an astonishing array of stories and accounts.

Denise Croker , who as Glenn said, comes with a competent and knowledgeable exterior, and a no-nonsense no-b.s. inside.

and

Mike Lee, who was my own Squad 4 Boss, and a very patient one indeed, and gave a great talk on hazardous materials.

You'll probably agree that we hope never to see you, but thanks to all the folks above, you can be grateful if it turns out that way.

And now, to end with, here's the Georgia Forestry Commission Forecast for today. 33% relative humidity, a burn index of 25, a KBDI of 510, which is not just high, but extremely high. With 15 mph winds and 93 degrees (I'm looking at 98 degrees right now) we are in a Class 5 day, the highest fire danger: Extremely High Fire Danger. Expect more of it if we don't get rain tomorrow, and take a look around your place. Do you think you could withstand a wildfire out of control with 50 foot flame length in 20 mph winds? If you're at the top of a ridge it will be as if your house is sitting in front of a blowtorch.

So *please* don't light fires without calling for a permit - there's nothing you have to burn today that couldn't be burned in better conditions next week, and the consequences are that you could destroy your own home and those of your neighbors! If you'd seen the videos we'd seen you'd be scared to death.

Sorry, folks, but that's what we've been learning. Please don't start any "controlled burns" without contacting the Georgia Forestry Commission, which you can do with a single simple phonecall to 706-638-5556. You might want to look take a squint at your neighbors if they are burning under these conditions and maybe give them a little call.

-Wayne

Wildland Firefighting Training

This was the first of two weekends for this course hosted by Wolfskin VFD.

On Saturday the 40 of us from at least seven Oglethorpe County VFDs met for a more-than-full day of indoor classtime. The five instructors are Georgia Forestry Commission firefighters. There are eleven of us from Wolfskin, a great showing but we miss all the folks who weren't able to make it.

Saturday we got there at 8am, and at noon broke for a short lunch. Someone asked the instructor when the day would be over and he said “8pm”. HUH??? We had all been assuming we’d be out at 5pm and thought it was a joke. Well, it turned out it wasn’t a joke, and it won’t be a joke tomorrow or next Saturday either!

Saturday's sessions covered wildland fire characteristics and, of some interest the ICS, the Incident Command System. This is a kind of a unique system of dynamic organization in which strategy and tactics are communicated through a hierarchy from the Incident Commander to the lowest of the lows, the grunts on the ground (us).

The Incident Command System is being used universally (meaning all US States use the same system), apparently because it works so well. You can have volunteers sent in to a situation from Maine, Alaska, Florida, and Ohio, and they can all work together because they all speak this language. In developing situations, which need not be firefighting but could be hurricane relief, as in Katrina, or any other situation, as in giving a party, you often have a few individuals arriving first at the scene followed by many more over the next time periods. That is what this system is designed to accomodate. This is my understanding, at least.

So we are squad members, and there will be four squads. There are 40 firefighters from at least seven Oglethorpe County volunteer fire departments, and of course when we walked into class today each department sat together. So it was rather clever that one of the first things they did was to have us count off 1-4 to assign us to the four different squads of ten each. That mixes us together.

Sunday was another 12-hour day. We spent the first couple of hours in-class on safety zones (marked places you can retreat to through an escape route should a wildland fire suddenly change behavior) and entrapment (what happens if your escape route gets cut off and you can't get to the safety zone). And then we went outside and practiced on getting into our fire shelters. All wildland firefighters have to carry these things now. The bottom right photo in the above link shows what these things look like.

They're tightly packaged and are basically aluminum coated bodybags with a slit down the length. You shake them out, step into them, then get down on the ground with the shelter covering you. The aluminum reflects 95% of heat radiation and allows you to breathe cool air from the ground until the fire has passed over. You might emerge with third degree burns but in many cases emerge alive.

So we had to shake out the things and get into them and covered over properly in 25 seconds to pass this exercise. Glenn had a bit of trouble because of the MS, but his squad leader worked diligently and they found a way he could get into the thing without relying too much on the legs, and he passed the exercise too.

Then we had lunch and proceeded to the burn sites on Blacksnake Road that runs above Goulding Creek on the other side of the Sparkle. Here we were going to spend an hour as squads making a scratch line, a cleared 3-foot path surrounding the burn site, and then start fires. Here we are receiving instructions (and by the way, the the blue boxes you see hanging from the belts of everyone in the photo Glenn took are the fire shelters).

Note the pretty yellow shirts and green pants. Although many of the Oglethorpe County ffs are experienced in structure fires (for which you wear a completely different outfit) and have fought wildland fires, many had not been really trained or prepared for that. Everyone who took the course had to buy the clothing and a few other items, so that's why we all look the same.

Even though the temperature was 85 deg, direct sun, 24% humidity they were extremely comfortable. I'd like a wardrobe of them, frankly.


We all got our tools and keeping proper ten foot distance advanced in four lines of ten folks each in cleverly arranged formats to get the scratch line completed in short order.

Then we set the fires using the clever drip torch you see in the photo below.


Unfortunately this area was still too moist and did not burn well. After an hour or so of effort we had a discussion about how everything worked and did not work and then voted on trying a burn at a second site. The vote was 20:19 in favor (a lot of people really wanted to go home early), so the instructors proceeded up the hill and began spotting fires in a preplanned area. Then we were called up one squad at a time to put it out.

This fire burned MUCH more successfully, and our approach was to contain it by quickly clearing a fire line around it, concentrating particularly on zones where the fire was headed most rapidly. Things went very well indeed and within three hours we had the fire completely contained and let it burn itself out.

That practice burn and fire line creation was extremely grueling. Neither of us are going to have a treadmill cardiac exam for awhile. I have to say the five instructors, who double as squad leaders and Incident Commander, are fantastic. They're enthusiastic about what they're doing, extremely patient with us, make sure everyone is doing everything right, and clearly love what they're doing.

We finished up at 8pm, and as we were going over the second burn the folks from Beaverdam VFD got a dispatch for a fire in their area and off they went, running for their trucks.

And that's half the course - we'll complete the remainder next weekend.