Wildland Firefighting in the USA
Meeting Friends: Memories, Operations and Pictures
Picture Archive 2
 

Picture Archive 1 Travelling the US Western States Informations and Thanks

Picture Archive 3 Pictures of Airtankers, Helicopters and Wildland Fire Apparatus

Picture Archive 4 Special Publications about "Wildland Firefighting" in the USA

Special Pages "Forest Fire" Forest- and Wildland Firefighting in Germany and Europe

Current Wildfire Situation in the Western States of the USA The FirePublications/Feuerwehrpresse Wolfgang Jendsch is always in contact with US forest and fire agencies, fire departments and fire managers within the scope of their topic "Wildland Firefighting" during the anual fire season to get current informations and datas for the documentation of the wildfire situation in the western US states. In this context below we make a list of all forest- and wildfires in the western US states available, which are more than 1000 acres in size.

Travelling to Look and Learn!
Memories of Visiting the Western States of the USA
The last six years several four to eight weeks trips took me to the western states of the USA: California (CA), Nevada (NV), Arizona (AZ), New Mexico (NM), Wyoming (WY), Colorado (CO), Utah (UT), Oregon (OR), Washington (W), Montana (MT) and Idaho (ID). Great countries all over, with great people and with a lot of new things to see and to experience.
The western US states are especially fire endangered because of their dry vegetation in spring and summer as well as because of their large forests, brush- und wildlands. So during the annual fire season thousends of firemanagers and firefighters are available to prevent wildfires, to control forests and wildlands and - if nessessary - to battle flames in protecting people and nature.

"National Interagency Fire Center" (NIFC) in Boise/Idaho.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise/Idaho is the nation's management and logistical support center for wildland firefighting. NIFC coordinates and supports operations for managing wildland fire and other natural disasters throughout the United States (USA).
The fire center is located on a 55-acre site administered by the Bureau of Landmanagement (BLM). Operating costs and responsibilities are shared by the principal cooperating land agencies.

The NIFC partners are:
Bureau of Landmanagement (BLM) - U.S. Department of the Interior - responsible for public lands;
U.S. Forest Service (USFS) - U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - responsible for national forests and grasslands;
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) - U.S. Department of the Interior - responsible for national wildlife refuges and wetland areas;
National Park Service (NPS) - U.S. Department of the Interior - responsible e.g. for national parks, monuments, natural areas;
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) - U.S. Department of the Interior - responsible for Indian reservations and other trust lands;
National Weather Service (NWS) - U.S. Department of Commerce - responsible e.g. for weather analysis and forecasts;
Office of Aircraft Service (OAS) - U.S. Department of the Interior - responsible for aircraft, technical and administrative aviation.

Dispatch- and command centers are responsible for all fire and emergency operations in cities, counties, federal states as well as for international areas. The centers work with modern radio communication and electronic data processing (EDP). Available are local dispatch- and command centers, centers of the fire agencies, interagency centers and special operation coordination centers (GACC) for larger incidents.
Picture 1: BLM Interagency Dispatch Center in Boise/Idaho;
Picture 2: Operations Coordination Center (California South GACC), Los Angeles/California;
Picture 3: Emergency Command Center (ECC) of CDF and USFS in Fresno/California.
 

Fire trucks, fire equipment and firefighters are available in thousands of wildland fire stations all over the country.
I got the chance to visit a lot of different stations - and it was a great experience to talk, to work and to live with the american comrades and to learn about their job and their know-how.
Picture 1: Forest Fire Station, Charleston/Nevada (Nevada Division of Forestry/NDF);
Picture 2: Wildland trucks of the Moab City Fire Department, Utah;
Picture 3: Wildland Fire Station 3, Animas Fire District, Colorado. In front of the station a 1 1/2 tons Kayser brush truck (Colorado State Fire Service, 1977) with 1000 gal watertank and 300 gpm Darley pump and (on the right) a Jeep brush truck (Colorado State Fire Service, 1967) with a 200 gal watertank.
 

Meeting Friends
One of the greatest experiences during all the trips arround were the meetings with firefighters, firemanagers, hotshots and smokejumpers. All of them were very friendly, hospitable and gave me a lot of informations - and many of the became friends to me after hours and days of talking, laughing and working. I am happy for that!

Hotshot crews and smokejumpers are the "specialists" of wildland fire fighting. They are well trained young women and men, most of them with long experiences in wildland fire fighting. It was good and helpful to meet some of that crews - to hear their stories and to learn from their experiences.
Picture 1: Rio Bravo Hotshots, Lake Isabella, Kern County/California;
Picture 2: The Prescott Hotshots in front of their crew carrier, Prescott Fire Cache/Arizona;
Picture 3: Members of the Heber Hotshots from the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, Heber-Overgaard/Arizona.
 

Many of them became friends to me - the firefighters all over in the western US states!
Picture 1: Kern County F.D. Battalion Chief Geoff Wilford (left) presents a new special fire book from Wolfgang Jendsch to the firefighters of USFS Democrate Fire Station, California (on the right USFS Division Chief Dan Kleinman). My impression was, that American firefighters are allmost very interesting in the books as well in further informations to learn more about German and worldwide firefighting and fire equipment.
Picture 2: An engine crew with their brush truck from the BLM Fire District Grand Junction, Colorado. I remember the great tour with that patrol throught the dry grasslands in the Grand Junction area. And I remember that we saw a lot of wild horses during that trip.
Picture 3: Talking with Albert Lementino and Michael Wolf of the Zuni Indian Fire Department, New Mexico, was one of the most interesting experiences of the last US trip.
 

Picture 1: The crew of Minden Airtanker Base, Nevada, presented their helicopter equipment. South of Carson City, on the east of the Sierra Nevada and the Lake Tahoe, the Nevada Division of Forestry (NDF) has deployed some fire helicopters and airtankers.
Picture 2: Thanks to the smokejumpers of Cedar City Fire Airbase. When I arrivied on the base only a short time before they finished their work for the day, they came together again an let me take this photo in front of their jump plane.
Picture 3: Bill Parks (+) is the base manager of the Libby Air Tanker Base in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Thanks Bill for all your great informations and for the great hospitality.
And it was the Libby Air Tanker Base where I met the T-130 crew for three days in June 2001. Some weeks later the plane crashed during a fire operation - its crew died. I will never forget First Officer Craig Labare (see: T-130 crash).
 

Firefighters togehter - to work, to learn, to eat and drink!
Picture 1: With a ground crew in the brush lands - the Animas F.D. crew from Durango/Colorado let me know how to use hand tools (e.g. Pulaski, McLeod) to build a fire line.
Picture 2: In the Wasatch Range, at the border between Utah and Wyoming, I met the Logan Hotshots during a "picknic" in the forest.
Picture 3: Waiting for a new fire operation - the Helitak 555 BLM crew from Kern County, California. Their camp is located near the highway 178 between Bakersfield and the Lake Isabella.
 

Learning to battle fires, to use the fire equipment and to protect myself was one of the most important things on my US trips.
Picture 1: The fire shelter is the most important personal equipment of wildland fire fighters. To protect themselfes with that shelter it is nessecary to learn and to train how to use it.
Picture 2: The "Back Fire" is one of the famous tactics of US wildland firefighters. A member of the Grand County Fire District, Washington, told me how to light the fire with a fire stick.
Picture 3: CDF fire captain Jennifer from the Colfax Fire Station, California, explained me the hose back packs.
 

Fires in the Western States
"Be extra careful with Fire" - thousands of warning plates in the forests and wildlands of the western US states explain the large danger during the annual fire season. Nevertheless every year more than 84.000 wildfires (NIFC-statistics 2001: 84.079) destroyed more than 3,570,911 acres of forests, wildlands and public lands as well as about 700 structures (2001: 731).

Picture 1: Posters are hanging around in the large forests and grasslands, remembering people to be careful with fire.
Picture 2: Beside the posters special plates are warning for fire danger in the area.
 

During my trips I got the chance to see numerous wildfires - fires in timber and forests, brush fires, fires in grasslands, urban interface fires as well as prescript fires. It was really interesting for me to see the different techniques and tactics "live".

Picture 1: Some brush and grass is burning near the City of Bishop, California. City F.D. crews with a brush truck and a type-1 (ICS) fire engine battled the flames soon.
Picture 2: Grass fire in the Frenchman Hills southwest of Moses Lake, Washington. Some brush trucks and a water tender of the Grant County Fire District were on scene.
Picture 3: A timber and brush area is burning near the Kern Canyon in California. The incident was called the "Democrate Fire", several agencies (BLM, USFS, KCFD) with wildland engines and helicopters battled the flames during two days.
 

Learning what's going on after a fire - what is happening with the landscape, the environment and the nature? Several times I was on scene after a fire to see the damages as well as the tactical operations like fire lines. Sometimes the US Forest Service provided public information plates in large wildfire areas to show, what happened during and after the incident.
Picture 1: After a timber fire standing on a fire line in the Spokane County area, Washington. Here I could see the tactical success of fire fighting with a fire line. The fire came from the left site and stopped at the line. Some small spot fires could be attacked soon.
Picture 2: On public information plates the USFS in the Boise National Forest, Idaho, explaines excellent the development of landscape and nature after the 1989 Lowman Fire (highway 21, northeast of Boise).
 

The Tragidy on Storm King Mountain
Mourning for the 14 sisters and brothers who died in a disastrous incident on July 6, 1994. The Storm King Mountain Incident was one of the badest events in the history of wildland firefighting.
For me it was really tragic to stand in front of the 14 memorial plates and thinking about what happened in 1994. On a two-mile-long small hiking trail I went up to the site were the firefighters fell - it was a bad feeling for me to understand, that 14 young sisters and brothers had to close their lifes because of their engagement to help others.

Picture 1: The massive mountain in the background is Storm King Mountain, where 14 members of hotshot-, smokejumper- and helitack crews were killed by a large fire that got out of control.
Picture 2: A monument and memorial plates were put in place in the Glenwood Springs/Colorado Two-River Park to honor all Storm King firefighters as well as all other wildland firefighters.
Picture 3: Tamera Jean Bickett - one of the 14 dead firefighters - was a Squad Boss with the Prineville Hotshots, Oregon. She was 25 years old, when she died on Storm King Mountain.
 

The Wildland Equipment - Engines, Airplanes, Helicopter
In comparison with the fire equipment in Germany and Europe the wildland fire fighting equipment in the USA seems unequal larger, more extensive - marvellous! Most of the German and European fire departments don't have any special equipment for wildland fire fighting. Most time its too "wet, cold and green" in these areas here. So it was one of the numerous "highlights" of my trips to look for and to learn about the use and operation of special US wildfire equipment.
During all my trips and in all of the eleven western US states I got the chance to see special wildland fire engines, brush trucks, water tender, heavy equipment like dozers and graders, airtankers, jump planes, command planes, lead planes and helicopters. Fire managers, engineers and firefighters told me how to work with that equipment, hours to hours we talked about tactics and technique. And most times I was allowed to take a tour with engines or helicopters. But best of all were flights around with several fire helicopters, command planes and airtankers - for example above the 1997 Williams Fire (Yuba County, California), the 2001 Democrate Fire (Kern County, California) or the 2000 Manter Fire (Sequoia National Forest, Sierra Nevada), as well as an airtanker trip on the Cedar City Fire Airbase, Utah.

With the fire helicopter over the Williams Fire area (1997, Yuba County/California): It was really interesting and worried as well to see the damaged forests and structures, but also to see how firefighters did all their best to save houses, nature and people. The Williams Incident destroyed about 5800 acres and 150 structures. More than 2500 firefighters with 800 fire trucks were on scene, among them about 500 inmates.
Picture 1: The flames took their way up to the top of the hill and jumped over to the other site of the canyon behind.
Picture 2: A CDF inmate crew is working around a destroid house near Browns Valley.
Picture 3: "Thanks CDF!" - a well-deserved thank you to all firefighters who helped the victims of the Williams Incident.
 

Several trips with air attack - they were the "highlights" of the visits on fire airbases and helispots. I say "Thank you very much!" again to all the fire managers, base managers and pilots for their great informations and for their hospitality.
Picture 1: A flight around the Lake Isabella area and the Manter Fire area with helicopter 408. On the right Helitak 408 captain Kevin V. Loomis, Kern County F.D., Keene/California.
Picture 2: With Air Attack Supervisor Fred Roach (right) from Kern County F.D., California, during an operation flight on the Democrate Fire.
Picture 3: "Ready for take off!" with airtanker 99 on Cedar City Fire Airbase, Utah.
 

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