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1st On Scene - Slope Driven Wildfire - How Would You Handle This?
Imagine if you will that you are a new company officer, first day on the job and you get a report of a small fire going uphill to a houses located on top of a hillside. Prior to your arrival in the first due engine, a handcrew just so happened to be in the area and was able to anchor at the area of origin and start a flank attack.
What are your tactics? objectives? concerns?
Happy Halloween!
SB Mike : )
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Tony,
In the U.S., an engine strike team is only 6 units - 5 engines and a battalion chief. They don't have to be pre-assembled. You can dispatch them to the scene and assemble the team there, or you can commit the engines as single resources as they arrive.
Ben
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In most places in the U.S. even a "mandatory" evacuation isn't really mandatory. The "mandatory" evacuationj called for Galveston Island for Hurricane Ike resulted in a lot of people staying behind despite the emergency management proclamation that a failure to evacuate was "certain death". Amazingly, most of the occupants that stayed survived that "certain death" event.
Emergency management credibility was seriously weakened by the way the evacuation order was handled. Whether it was smart for the occupants to attempt to shelter in place is another issue. Obviously, it wasn't too smart.
In the fire situation, the homeowners may attempt to pre-wet their houses with small garden hoses. In SoCal, everyone has a swimming pool, and some homeowners are starting to use them as a water source for short-term firefighting for this type of canyon fire.
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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Michael:
Though we are not wildland FFs, we have had several "vegetation" fires; mostly agricultural field fires, but some natural habitat fires.
With my limited knowledge, we won't risk a whole lot unless there are structures, especially homes, that are at risk.
So, we would immediately deploy our entire asset to the top, near the homes, and prepare for a defense. We might set a backfire, depending on weather information. But we would not do anything fancy. We would have law enforcement recommending to homeowners that they be prepared to leave the area.
Mutual aid would be called to catch the hotspots on the hill side.
It looks like a hydranted area, but just in case, we would have a tanker shuttle operation in play.
I don't know that calling in an air drop would be appropriate, unless the decision is made based upon "potential" loss.
Great picture.
When you going to let us know how it actually turned out?
TCSS.
Art
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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This is my understanding of 'mandatory evacuations.' You can not be forced to leave your home. But once you leave the evac area, you will not be allowed back in. During the last fires, a friend of mine stayed at his house but evacuated his family. he had a generator but only limited gas for the it. His wife could hand hi, gas over the line, but if he had stepped over to get it, he would not have been allowed back over.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Montgomery on
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Like you guys we cannot by law force an evacuation, although there are many officers who do not understand this and will try anyway.
The problem we have in New Zealand is that unlike what is in place in places like Victoria and New South Wales (Australia) and some area of wildland interface in the USA we have not prepared our populations to shelter in place or defend their properties, hence my recommendation that we consider an immediate evacuation all be it voluntary.
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Permalink Reply by Heather on
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If i were to go with what you are saying and from the looks of the pic. I would start on urban interface and call in a dozer. I would then start calling in local strike teams. Their eta would be about 4 hrs at the most. I would start digging and setting up defensible grounds from the sides and hopefully the bottom part of the is accesible by road. so that way we can get an engine down there and make sure that it aint jumpin.
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Time is of the essence here.
You must consider frontal attack if at all possible with the resources at hand.
How long will it take to deploy the dozer? You suggest about 4 hours, this fire, at this location, will over and done with by then.
Can the dozer safely work that slope (I don't think so but am happy to to debate further)?
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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on
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It is interesting to read all the different answers. In my area, we don't have strike teams. For DNR to be called for equipment like bull dozers & air drops, the fire has to be a BIG ONE. We wouldn't have time to get them in before the fire in the pic would crest. There are several ways of attacking the fire. You have to know what your resources & capabilities are.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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Acknowledged Mark. But with the fire that close, one of the reasons we don't like evacuation is that the safest place for people is inside their houses. Rushing into their cars and trying to drive away, with BRT's trying to get in is a recipe we don't like.
As I said earlier though, it's fascinating to see the different experience showing in different plans of action. We all have our own ways, taking into account resources, fire conditions etc. As Gelorup has said about his part of Western Australia, we also have spotter planes up through the bad days. These are often the first to sight smoke, along with the fire towers. The trouble we have with water bombing is access to a suitable supply of the H2O in many areas. And that the number of choppers is limited.
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Thanks Ben - I always thought that mandatory meant exactly that! Just the usage of the word then. We love people having swimming pools - if the hydrant system isn't up to it (or simply isn't) then we take water from wherever we find it. Pools are a great source!
Jay? Although we never tell people to leave (against the law to even try that line!) once someone leaves an area we can and do stop them from going back in.
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A little ad on. Having had another look at the photo, I don't think I'd be attempting to get a 3000 litre tanker up that hill. Looks just a little too steep to me! Trucks to the top and take the water down would be easier I think. Gelorup, you have said in the past that you don't have much in the way of hills in your area I think?
And Randall? I'm with you. In summer we'd rarely have a fire like that without wind - wind and summer fires seem to go well together! And I know what the hills are like around Halls Gap... That fire would be likely to go. If the call was made quickly by some observant person, we could hope to have at least three trucks in in pretty quick time in my area - we have a lot of Stations fairly close to each other in and around the Dandenongs.
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