Can Wildland Conflagrations Be Stopped?

This post is written by Marty Alexander, who is a Senior Fire Behavior Research Officer with the Northern Forestry Centre of the Canadian Forest Service in Edmonton, Alberta, and senior author of the chapter entitled “Wildland Fires: Dangers and Survival” in the 5th edition of the textbook Wilderness Medicine. This post is adapted from an essay he wrote in 2004 - the message still applies.

Can Wildland Conflagrations Be Stopped?

Conflagration – A popular term for a large, fast-moving wildfire exhibiting many or all of the features associated with extreme fire behavior. (Merrill and Alexander 1987)

“Can Southern California Wildland Conflagrations Be Stopped?” (Countryman 1974) is the title of what I feel is one of the more important publications on the subject of fuels management presently available . The publication was written by Clive M. Countryman, a noted wildland fire behavior scientist with the USDA Forest Service based in southern California from 1941 until his retirement in the late 1970s.

Countryman's publication was written following the 1970 fire season in California (and no doubt was prompted by it) in which 16 lives were lost, more than 200,000 hectares of land were burned over, and some 700 homes were destroyed. Countryman’s 11-page publication consists of three major sections involving 17 sub-sections, each of which directly imparts a statement or conclusion worth noting:

The Fire Problem

• Climate, Fuels, Topography, and People Create Fire Problems
• Relatively Few Fires Become Conflagrations
• Conflagrations Are Most Frequent During Santa Ana Winds
• Suppression of Santa Ana Fires is Difficult

Fire Control as a Solution

• Fire Prevention Has Limited Value
• Effect of Organizational Problems on Fire Size is Small
• Firefighting Techniques and Equipment are Not Adequate
• Increased Fire Control Force is Only a Partial Answer

A Solution Through Fuel Modification

• Rotational Burning Creates a Mosaic of Age Classes
• Adverse Effects
• High Costs
• Possible Increased Fire Hazard
• Fuel-Breaks Provide Strips of Modified Fuel
• Fuel-Type Mosaics Can Lower Energy Output
• Fuel-Type Mosaics Can be Created in Many Ways
• Fuel-Type Mosaics Are Not a Quick Cure
• Complete and Coordinated Planning is Essential

The abstract from Countryman’s (1974) publication serves as an excellent summary:

In southern California, many fires start and burn under conditions that permit their control with little burned acreage and fire damage. In contrast, under other conditions of weather and topography, on a small group of fires, control is relatively ineffective; they become large and destructive. A major reason for these "conflagration fires" is the extreme difficulty of stopping the head of a hot, fast-running fire in dry fuels and strong winds. No radically new concept of suppression can be anticipated. The best prospect for alleviation of the problem is modification of the vegetation to reduce fuel energy output. In a fuel-type mosaic containing large areas of light fuels, where conventional suppression will be effective, potential conflagrations could be brought under control while relatively small. Creation of the fuel-type mosaic will require coordinated area-by-area planning and a variety of techniques.

In the concluding section of his publication, entitled “Complete and Coordinated Planning is Essential” Countryman notes:

In essence, the envisioned fuel modification will replace the present wildland vegetation patterns with planned and managed ones. To achieve this, complete and coordinated plans must be developed. As fire does not recognize administrative boundaries, such planning will involve not only fire control agencies, but also local governments, land use planning commissions, and sometimes private interests. Social, economic, land use, and environmental impacts must be determined and evaluated, and the best combinations of fuel modification to achieve adequate fuel-type mosaics for a given area established. Inputs into these plans will be needed from fire control and fire behavior experts, meteorologists, land-use planning specialists, economists, landscape architects, plant ecologists, biologists, recreation planners, and wildland research groups.

Much of the technology needed to create fuel-type mosaics is now available, is being developed, or is susceptible to development through research. Many of the techniques by which type conversion can be done have been demonstrated to be feasible. What is needed now is a comprehensive action plan that will effectively bring this technology to bear on the one factor controlling fire behavior that can successfully be managed and manipulated – the fuel.

To some, the extensive “monkeying with nature” required to replace the present wildland vegetation patterns with planned and managed ones may seen abhorrent. But the impact of man and man-caused fires has already had a massive effect on the natural vegetation, so much so that it is difficult if not impossible to specify what really is a “natural” vegetation pattern in southern California. And this impact will continue as long as conflagrations are a part of the environment. The only alternative to planned and managed vegetation patterns in southern California appears to be acceptance of the great economic damage, threat to human life, and unpleasant aesthetic and environmental effects of unmanageable wildfire.

It’s worth noting Countryman’s emphasis on the importance of “human factors” in reaching solutions to the conflagration management problem. Thirty years later, fire historian Dr. Stephen Pyne (2004) has advocated that “science-based-only solutions” are not enough and that effective wildland fire policy must integrate ethics, economics, aesthetics, and values. Accomplishing this will require consensus among many people; this undoubtedly represents the greatest challenge for wildland fire management in the future.

As Countryman points out in the introduction of his publication, “California does not have an exclusive corner on the large-scale, high-intensity fires often called conflagrations or conflagration fires...Other regions also have large wildland fires from time to time.” In my view, many of the fundamental principles stressed by Countryman can be considered quite applicable to regions of Canada.

The original printed copies of Countryman’s (1974) seminal publication were exhausted many years ago. Fortunately it has recently been made more readily available (at the request of the USDA Forest Service by the author) as a PDF that can be downloaded from:

http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/viewpub.jsp?index=7573

To answer the question posed at the start of this essay: Can Wildland Conflagrations be Stopped? No, not entirely, given the magnitude of the task at the landscape-scale (Amiro et al. 2001; Alexander 2002). One would be a fool to think otherwise. However, there is every reason to believe that through strategic fuel management planning, we could influence the total number and size of the occurrences as well as their geographic distribution and thereby mitigate the impacts of too much of the “wrong kind of fire” (Pyne 2004).

We should take advantage of the lessons of the past (and lessons relearned), like those in southern California, so we don’t have to learn them first hand the hard way. Surely, we have moved on from “it can’t happen here” to the questions of when and where will it happen.

References used in the preparation of this essay:

Alexander, M.E. 2002. An emerging fire management issue in Canada: Forest-fire fuels. Canadian Silviculture 2002(Fall): 14-15.
Alexander, M.E. 2003. Understanding fire behavior -- the key to effective fuels management. Invited Keynote Address at the FERIC Sponsored Fuels Management Workshop, October 6-8, 2003, Hinton, Alberta. 14 pp.
Amiro, B.D.; Stocks, B.J.; Alexander, M.E.; Flannigan, M.D.; Wotton, B.M. 2001. Fire, climate change, carbon and fuel management in the Canadian boreal forest. International Journal of Wildland Fire 10: 405-413.
Bentley, J.R. 1967. Conversion of chaparral areas to grassland: Techniques used in California. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, D.C. Agriculture Handbook No. 328. 35 pp.
Chase, R.A. 1980. FIRESCOPE: A new concept in multiagency fire suppression coordination. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-40. 17 pp.
Countryman, C.M. 1974. Can southern California wildland conflagrations be stopped? U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-7. 11 pp.
Green, L.R. 1977. Fuelbreaks and other fuel modification for wildland fire control. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, D.C. Agriculture Handbook No. 499. 79 pp.
Green, L.R. 1981. Burning by prescription in chaparral. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-51. 36 pp.
Green, L.R.; Newell, L.A. 1982. Using goats to control brush regrowth on fuelbreaks. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-59. 13 pp.
Merrill, D.F.; Alexander, M.E. (editors). 1987. Glossary of forest fire management terms. Fourth edition. National Research Council of Canada, Canadian Committee on Forest Fire Management, Ottawa, Ontario. Publication 26516. 91 pp.
Moore, H.E. 1981. Protecting residences from wildfires: A guide for homeowners, lawmakers, and planners. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-50. 44 pp.
Radtke, K.W.H. 1981 Living more safely in the chaparral-urban interface. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California. General Technical Report PSW-67. 51 pp.
Pyne, S.J. 2004. Tending fire: Coping with America’s wildland fires. Island Press/Shearwater Books, Washington, D.C. 238 pp.
Roby, G.A.; Green, L.R. 1976. Mechanical method of chaparral modification. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, D.C. Agriculture Handbook No. 487. 46 pp.
Rogers, D.H. 1942. Measuring the efficiency of fire control in California chaparral. Journal of Forestry 40: 697-703.
Salazar, L.A.; Gonzalez-Caban, A. 1987. Spatial relationship of a wildfire, fuelbreaks, and recently burned areas. Western Journal of Applied Forestry 2: 55-58.

photo of Marty Alexander

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A Man to Admire

Because of the recent wildfires in southern California, I wrote a post recently with fire survival advice, based upon the excellent recommendations of my friend Marty Alexander.

I just received a poignant and inspirational reminder from my good friend J.T. Geehr about the human impact of such a cataclysmic event. It is about her father, Bob Hayes, who was forced to evacuate his home just before it burned to the ground. The message is very clear that because of the difficult circumstances we sometimes face in life, there is always need for love and the human spirit. We should never forget the human impact – that wilderness medicine is first and foremost about people - and that each and every person has an important story. Here goes:

“I owe all of you a huge thank you for your touching expressions of sympathy last month after my mother died. I am lucky to have such kind and caring friends. My father misses her very much, and still muses about her great beauty. He recalls the way she looked when she was a 21 year-old bride, and still swoons. We should all be so lucky!

Last Sunday, October 21, I went with my father to mass, and then shared lunch. We talked about a lot of things, in particular his home. I spoke with him about the option of moving to a senior facility, so that if he needed help, it would be available. But he told me he prized his independence and loved his house, and wanted to stay there until it was no longer physically possible to do so. So we began to plan a decorating scheme - he asked me to help make his decor a bit more current. As I left at 3 PM, the smell of smoke permeated the air. I checked on the radio, and discovered that there was a fire in the mountains - Dad said it was far away. The relocation center for the evacuees from that fire was in Poway, close to Dad's house. We didn't feel he was threatened, so I returned home. All evening I checked online for the status of that fire, but all of the coverage that I could find was about Malibu, where another fire raged.

My father was awakened by a phone call at 4:30 AM Monday. One of his friends asked him if he was awake. In typical “Dad” fashion, he answered "Hell, no!" His friend then told him to look outside, because the news was reporting fire in Rancho Bernardo. He looked out his back window and saw that his trees were ablaze, with the wind whipping them wildly. He put on pants, shoes and a shirt, grabbed 2 photo albums and a portrait of my mother, and ran to the garage. When he opened the garage door to leave, he saw flames racing across his driveway. He took off as quickly as his car would allow him, through the flames, in the dark. Confused, he drove to the Rancho Bernardo Inn, parked, and went to the bar. Not surprisingly, there were no other patrons in the bar at 5 AM, so he played a game of pool by himself! A hotel employee came in and told him that they had evacuated a couple of hours ago, and he'd better get out of there ASAP. He went back to his car and tried to drive back home to check on the house. Not an option. He tried to drive to my sister’s house. Not an option – her neighborhood was being evacuated. He then began his drive to my house - ordinarily about an 80 minute drive. He called me at noon from the Border Patrol office on Highway 5; he had stopped there to nap in the car, and when he awoke and tried to drive, his parking brake was stuck. He was there another hour, waiting for assistance from AAA. During that hour, he enjoyed the hospitality of the Border Patrol, while he held them spellbound with his tale of escape. He finally arrived at my house at 2:30 PM, looking like he'd been through hell. But that was just the beginning.

We were unable to get any current information about the status of his neighborhood that entire evening. Every Internet news source sent us to the Google Earth link, which had a lovely aerial picture of my dad's house in perfect condition. For a while, we believed it might possibly have been spared. But it didn't make sense. I checked the posted list of destroyed homes, and looked at the Google image for a "destroyed" neighborhood; it, too, looked perfect. His city councilman's website promised to have an official list of destroyed homes up by 2 PM on Tuesday. We couldn't get through to it until 4 PM, but then it was official - Dad's home was destroyed.

It is hard to understand where this man is getting his strength. He battled cancer two years ago, and buried his wife less than two months ago, but his spirit is truly inspirational. He has shed some tears - mostly from being touched by the kindness he has received. A barber gave him a free haircut, and it brought tears to his eyes. When we went to Nordstrom to get him some clothes, they gave us a free lunch. That brought more tears. When the insurance company told him they were sending him $5,000 to get him through the immediate expenses, he choked up and told the agent, "You people are so wonderful." But other than a few times that he has let down and wept, he has been making the most of what anyone would agree is a devastating circumstance. He says that now he gets to start over, at 87 years old! He has found a residence and will move in next month. He is going to visit my sister in Hawaii in two weeks - we got him new clothes for that journey, and he's so excited about the new sandals.

Rather than dwell on the difficulties ahead, he has been giving thanks for his safety, for his kids, his friends, his relatives, and yes - the kindness of strangers. All of my life, people have told me what a great guy my dad is, and of course, I agreed. But I didn't really understand why he was so great - he was just great. He was 'The Tiger.' This episode has illuminated for me what makes my father the recipient of so much love and admiration. He is upbeat and grateful. Every act of kindness to him is unexpected and appreciated. He has lost every single possession he had, every piece of memorabilia that he has collected over 87 years, and yet, he is trying to make the best of each day. Having tuned 50 last month, I sort of thought that I had life all figured out, that I'd learned all there was to learn. Living through this ordeal with my dad has taught me that I'm just beginning to get the picture.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Your good thoughts and prayers are appreciated. This is far from over.”

Tags: fire, wildfire, Geehr, Bob Hayes, wilderness medicine, outdoor medicine, healthline

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Surviving A Wildfire

There is a wildfire disaster occurring now in southern California, ranging from Solvang to the north to the Mexican border to the south, with at least 1,000 homes destroyed and hundreds of thousands of acres burning in and around San Diego alone. With the strong winds and dry weather, these fires may continue to rage for many days.

The following information was prepared by my friend Marty Alexander, who is a Senior Fire Behavior Research Officer with the Northern Forestry Centre of the Canadian Forest Service in Edmonton, Alberta, and senior author of the chapter entitled “Wildland Fires: Dangers and Survival” in the 5th edition of the textbook Wilderness Medicine. What follows is adapted from the citation, “Alexander ME, Surviving a wildfire entrapment or burnover. Canadian Silviculture August 2007:23.”

Would you know what to do if you were caught in a forest or grass fire? As we are all aware by the wildfires that are raging in California, the danger of being entrapped or burned over by a wildfire is a very real threat for people living, working, or visiting in rural areas and wildlands, as well as in the urban areas adjacent to wildlands. There are many actions that can be taken to protect a home against an approaching wildfire, but these powerful fires can rapidly overwhelm the best preventive efforts.

There are four main survival options if you ever become trapped by a wildfire:

• Retreat from the fire and reach a safe haven,
• Burn out a safety area,
• Hunker in place, or
• Pass through the fire edge into the burned-out area.

In considering these options, remember that the temperature of an approaching fire is sufficiently high to ignite a dwelling, so synthetic clothing (including undergarments) can readily melt and ignite.

A person’s initial reaction when faced with being entrapped or overrun by a wildland fire is to run, which is one of the available survival options - to retreat from the fire and reach a safe haven. A safe area is an area with light or
no fuels, such as a rocky surface, marshy area, large area of pavement, center of a sufficiently large body of water, or recently burnt area. This option only works if the distance between the fire and entry into the safety area
is short, the fire is advancing slowly, and it is easy to reach the safe area (e.g., there are no obstacles that would impede foot travel).

Fire travels more quickly than most people realize and can reach rates of 650 feet (approximately 200 meters) a minute (7 miles per hour, or approximately 12 kilometers per hour) in forests, and nearly twice this rate in grasslands. Even the fittest person cannot outrun a fire for long.

If there isn’t a safe area close by, another option is to burn out a safety area. Carrying wind-resistant matches is a good safety precaution when visiting, or if living in an area adjacent to, rural or wildland areas. This option only works well in a grassy area and when there is sufficient time to burn out a safety area. Burning away light fuels, such as grass, will provide a safe area for surviving being overrun by a wildfire. However, this option does not work well in forested locations because of the generally heavier fuel conditions, which in turn lead to prolonged smoldering combustion. This technique is not recommended to be used near a dwelling, because if the grassy area intentionally ignited is close to the dwelling (e.g., there is not a sufficient non-flammable safe zone around the dwelling), a wind shift can direct the flames onto the dwelling, and have precisely the opposite intended effect.

If you are caught in the open and about to be entrapped or burned over by a wildfire you may have no choice but to “hunker in place”. This involves trying to find an area that has little or no fuel - the bigger the better. It is important to lie completely flat, with your nose to the ground, while the fire is burning over and around you. Lying flat will minimize body exposure to radiant heat. If available, a fire-retardant blanket or shield is desirable.

Radiant heat is the “invisible heat” emitted from the flames of a fire. It will usually kill you long before flames directly reach you. When a fire passes over and around you, heating of body tissues from thermal radiation can be unbearable. Staying calm and not getting up until the fire has substantially dissipated is critical.

During the burnover, remember the following:

• Protect yourself from radiant heat at all costs
• Protect your airways from heat and minimize smoke exposure
• Try to stay as calm as possible

Although one will likely receive serious burns, many people have survived using this technique even under extremely arduous conditions. The alternative is almost certain death. People commonly use their hands to protect parts of the body from radiant heat - especially the face, neck, and ears. Thus, wearing leather gloves will decrease the severity of the burns suffered by the hands and in turn lessen the tendency to get up and aimlessly run about. Survivors of entrapments and burnovers have commonly concentrated on thinking about their family in order to get through the ordeal.

The fourth option to escape an entrapment or burnover by a wildland fire is to pass through the fire edge into the burned-out area. Generally, this technique should not be attempted if the flames are more than about 5 feet (approximately 1.5 meters) in height or depth. While running through the flame front of a fire is considered dangerous, people have survived by picking their spots and avoiding areas of intense or confluent flame development.

The survival options as outlined here are not presented in any particular order. Circumstances may dictate that you try more than one or all of them. Wildland fires are precarious phenomena and each situation is different. Use the best option that will, ultimately, get you out alive. Don’t ignore the obvious - safety could be nearby.

photo from the Los Angeles Times

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