New fire-fighting technology could help put them out. Why isn’t it being used?
Guest post by Paul Driessen
Millions of Americans watched their evening news in horrified fascination.
The Colorado Springs wildfire had doubled in size overnight, to 24 square miles – half the size of San Francisco – as 50-mph gusts carried fiery branches from exploding treetops across fire breaks, down Waldo Canyon and into fresh stands of drought-dried timber. Flames crested the ridge above the beautiful Air Force Academy campus, 346 houses burned, hundreds more faced immolation, and 32,000 people were evacuated, through smoke and ash that turned daytime into a choking night sky.
130 miles north, another monster fire west of Fort Collins consumed 136 square miles of forest and torched 259 homes. By July 4, this year’s Colorado forest fires had devoured 170,000 acres – 265 square miles, nearly five times the size of Washington, DC. Across eleven western states, nearly 2,000,000 acres have already burned this year; imagine all of Delaware and Rhode Island ablaze.
People died. Many homes are now nothing but ashes, chimneys and memories. In the forests, the infernos exterminated wildlife habitats, roasted eagle and spotted owl fledglings alive in their nests, boiled away trout and trout streams, left surviving birds and mammals to starve for lack of food, and incinerated every living organism in the thin soils, presaging massive erosion that will clog streambeds during downpours and snowmelts. Many areas will not recover their foliage or biodiversity for decades.
Having hiked in many of these areas, I’ve been truly depressed by these infernos. Why were they allowed to happen? “We are doing everything possible to control these blazes,” officials insist. One has to wonder.
Put aside the insanity of letting horse-blindered environmentalists, bureaucrats and judges obstruct even selective cutting to thin dense stands of timber or remove trees killed by beetles, after decades of Smoky the Bear management. Forget for a moment that these policies turn forests into closely bunched matchsticks, waiting for lightning bolts, sparks, untended campfires or arsonists to start conflagrations.
Ignore the guideline that say fires in these areas can be extinguished if they are of human origin (if making that distinction is even possible in the midst of an inferno) – but must be allowed to burn if they are “natural” (caused by lightning, for example), even amid droughts, in the hope that they won’t become raging infernos that threaten homes. Disregard the crazy jurisdictional disputes that prevent aircraft from dropping water on a fire, because the crew cannot tell whether the blaze is on Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service land.
Pay no mind to the fact that these fires emit prodigious amounts of carbon dioxide – along with large quantities of mercury, particulates and other pollutants. (Many rock formations contain mercury; trees absorb it through their roots, and release it into the atmosphere when they burn.)
Once a fire erupts, there is no reason it should devastate homes, suburban developments or vast forest areas. The technology exists to stop these fires, long before they reach such intensities and proportions.
Two days before Waldo Canyon burst into flames, a revolutionary fire suppressant stopped a 300-acre fire north of Albuquerque, New Mexico almost in its tracks. Just nine single-engine planeloads of FireIce (about 7,200 gallons) were needed to douse the flames, prevent nearby trees and homes from igniting, and insure that the fire remained permanently extinguished.
Dutch Snyder, the independent 27-year veteran fire-fighting pilot whose airplane handled this successful mission, remarked afterward that he had “never seen a retardant hold a fire line” so well, or “any product knock down a fire so quickly.”
According to its inventor, GelTech Solutions chief technology officer Peter Cordani, FireIce smothers fires, by taking heat and oxygen away from combustible materials. It can be dropped directly onto a fire, penetrating through to burning trees and brush – rather than just being dropped far from flames, in often futile efforts to create fire breaks that hold.
As many news outlets, like Fox 21 KXRM-TV in Colorado Springs, have documented in recent years (visit the GelTech website for video clips), this product can be dropped by plane to suppress wildfire intensity, or sprayed by homeowners on houses and landscaping to protect them from heat and flames. Even a 2,000-degree F blowtorch cannot ignite a wood board (or burn a human hand) coated in FireIce.
The product is non-toxic, non-corrosive and environment-friendly, Cordani says in the news stories. It’s been tested, certified and approved by the US Forest Service, which has FireIce and GelTech on its “qualified products list” of fire-battling chemicals and professionals. The company maintains its own state-of-the-art mixing equipment and is ready at a moment’s notice to assist aerial and ground fire-fighting operations anywhere in the USA. It can fill trucks and airplanes of any size, including 3,000-gallon Air Force C-130s and even 10,000-gallon DC-10 supertankers.
Duly impressed, I called the company to ask what role it was playing in fighting the Colorado blazes and why its technology apparently was not working. The answer shocked me. It had not been asked to help!
Despite all the news stories about FireIce, its certification by the USFS, and frequent communications between GelTech and federal, state and local officials – no one had contacted the company.
How is that possible? What will it take to persuade officials to break from traditional (and obviously inadequate) wildfire tactics and retardants, and use FireIce to combat what Colorado Springs Fire Chief Rich Brown called fires of “epic proportions” – to protect homes, habitats, wildlife and human lives?
New Mexico has now used FireIce with great success against several forest fires. With a long fire season still ahead, perhaps US Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Dan Jiron, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs Mayors Karen Weithunat and Steve Bach will now follow the example set by Governor Susana Martinez and her colleagues in the Land of Enchantment.
If they do not, responsible legislators and environmentalists should find out why – so that tragedies like these Colorado fires never happen again.
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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, a ten-year Colorado resident, legislative aide for former US Senator Bill Armstrong of Colorado, former policy analyst for the US Department of the Interior, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
Related articles
- The Great Fire Of 1910 Places The Current 2012 Fire Season In Perspective (pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com)
- Western U.S. Will Keep Burning Unless Fire Policy Changes – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- In Colorado wildfires, ‘worst in state history’, why won’t the Forest Service use the biggest firefighting tool available? (wattsupwiththat.com)
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“New fire-fighting technology could help put them out. Why isn’t it being used?”
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Only reason I can think of is that the powers-that-be don’t want the fires stopped. Not too soon, anyway. The lefts motto is ‘never let a crisis go to waste.’ They don’t want this crisis stopped too soon.
@Pamela Gray: You would have my vote in an instant, dear Lady! I would add two tasks to your to do list: drain the swamp, sending the snakes a packin’, then turn out the lights in that monstrosity a few blocks away which has the gun statue with the barrel tied in a knot, known as the UN. Then we could ALL rest on the Sabbath!
Yeah… $20M or so in firefighting costs plus probably $200M in property losses, not to mention the damage to the economy from so many displaced residents, lost wages from layoffs, and other miscellaneous costs. Certainly FireIce is too expensive.
Mark
Wildfire has been in existence since there were plants on the planet. So nothing new then so what is the problem?
Well people like living in remote areas surrounded by trees but forget the basics of prevention like clearing the underbrush anywhere closer than 50 yards from their properties, maintain a cleared band down to bare earth level. These will prevent ground fires spreading to the buildings. Wind blows fire is a problem and people do not want to clear trees up to 100 yards to the properties which I can understand.
As populations ruralize then wildfires will become more costly per fire due to damaged property numbers increasing.
Actually, Pamela, they are boys. Sissy boys. It is amazing to me that a carbon & healthcare tax scheming president with 3 1/2 years of 8%+ unemployment still leads his *uhumm* conservative rival by a full percentage point, according to latest Gallup, this far into it. The bum should be almost totally out of office already!
Faux Science Slayer – I responded as a volunteer to the ~18,000 acre,…
Would it be ok if I share that story?
Yes, that was an important part of my point. It would be a decision which will haunt someone for life. However, we do pay someone, to make exactly these types of decisions. Not a lot different than letting a fire grow, to access federal disaster funds. GK
Didn’t check ‘notify’
When I was a young man (long time ago), when a dangerous fire was about – the authorities would send police around to all the bars in the area, to round up (conscript) young men to fight fires. The pay was ok and the food was great, but everyone was wary of being in a bar when a large fire was raging.
There was no choice, so today, everything being politically correct, I guess such measures are not necessary. Thanks for volunteering (heartfelt) and keeping the press gangs away from our youth drinking in bars, in the middle of the afternoon (sarc). GK
@ur momisugly Faux Science Slayer
That jives with what happened at my mom’s hometown. It was taken out by a large tornado. The community pretty much rallied, had the place well on its way to being cleaned up by the time FEMA showed up. The official sort of looked bemused when he saw everyone in town and the surrounding area pitched in and cleaning up (the town was more or less cleared and the debris was organized). He complimented them on their efforts, but still made them shift several debris piles around so he could measure them for his reporting. Thankfully, they were spared the full force of government “help” because they had managed to get most of the town cleaned up by the time the government arrived to “help.” They were also lucky that it wasn’t anyone’s election year, so no one felt any special impetus to hurry.
I live in Cedar Heights, near the edge of Waldo Canyon, & Stanley/Williams Canyons, Pikes Peak national forest land. I drove up to the top of Cedar Heights to get an overview of the smoke/fire that started early Sat. morning, June 23, 2012. Hindsight being 20/20 of course, if there had been an immediate aerial response with helicopter bucket drops this Waldo Canyon fire might have been knocked down before it got out of control, saving countless $$$. With all the arson attempts in Teller County forests, the previous two weeks, one would have thought that proactive precaution would be in order. This was most likely the work of an arsonist since weather and lightning were non-factors, and this was essentially an inaccessible area. Going forward, a simple contract to engage helicopter services for fighting fires in forest areas that are inaccessible but abutting city/county residential areas would seem to me to be a very practical solution. How about some federal stimulus money being allocated for proactive mitigation of potential forest fires near city/county areas.
The timber company’s are the best managers of woodlands around – not the evil monsters the treehuggers want people to believe they are. The understand that the forests are their only asset – if they do not properly manage those assets all their money “in the bank” burns or blows away. They do not treat these forests as a one time asset – they know, with proper care and management they will produce nearly forever.
They know that logging properly done IMPROVES the forest and overall improves the habitat.
Ask one of the idiots involved in Spotted Owl or similar activism what the Spotted Owls did when forest fires burned large areas of their habitats before we were around? Its simple – some perished, but most simply flew to another section. And when the fire was over their habitat was greatly improved – more forage for the little beasties that are their food and nice open flight areas for them to see and fly to catch them.
Indeed, A. Scott.
When Mt. St. Helens was considered heading toward eruption Weyerhauser was logging near it, with helicopters in the air ready to evacuate workers. After the eruption they logged what they could and replanted. Years later their land had a growing forest, whereas nearby land in the park was only beginning to have vegetation emerge.
(An amusing sidelight was that a little observation bridge over a creek or pond was underwater because an enterprising beaver or two had made a dam – several miles inside the park. Not necessarily a wise move but they were active.)
Yes, “aharris”, after a forest fire burned large parts of the town of Barriere BC (north of Kamloops), a local charity pointed the media to the many private organizations and individuals who had provided charity and explicitly noted the absence of government. (Granted, the province fought the fires and the federal government provided soldiers to help.)
The geltech product fireice was featured on John Stossel’s show on Fox Business tonight 7/26. Nice to see that our friends here on WUWT are ahead of the curve. Not surprising, but it would be nice if the governments responsible for fighting all of these fires would actually put this information to work and save some people from unnecessary heartache and tragedy…I know asking government to actually perform above an abysmal level of competence is a lot. But here it is.
Firefighting must become managed by private industries. The reward for putting fires out fast must be high, and the pay should be low for extended fires and the managers should be fired. It needs to be handled in a way that only business can revive.
As it is now, good firefighting is punished by retraction of funds as poor firefighting decisions are rewarded by increase of funding. We need to shut down the monopolist government and get free enterprise more involved.
Government monopolies are, foremost, self-motivated.
Many of the residents fought tooth-and-nail to prevent the removal of the pine trees killed by the pine-bark beetle. There were many acres of land covered by these dead trees and they burnt like gasoline – flames going hundreds of feet into the air and spreading as fast as the wind blew it. Perhaps they should reconsider their stand on the removal of dead trees.
This story really pisses me off. It is correct in the thought about government bloat and wastes…
However, that chemical retardant is not available in the quantities needed everywhere in the country. For instance, during one 6 hour period in SD last week I personally watched between 150-200 airdrops within 1/4 mile of where I was actively working. It was 109 degrees outside and the fire was rocking The tanks and buckets from helicopters (Sky Cranes and Bells) were filled from a nearby lake. The turn around time between a dump and a refill was about 8 minutes for the Bells (300 gallons) and 15 minutes for the Sky Cranes.
In the sales ad of a story they miss the key point that to use that material, you would first need to purchase 200 loads of material ($200 for five gallons) – one sky crane holds 2000 gallons! Then you need mass (and mobile) filling stations. The cost of setting this up would be unreasonable and ridiculous. Then the set up time would not even be possible.
This article tells me that people are pissed about “the government” and wastes, but choose to attack using the recent wildfires. That material retardant works and is actually used by communities, independent residents and insurance companies on a point protection basis. This appears to be a dick story.
I am a firefighter and was at the Waldo Fire in Colorado Springs as well. Complete crap of a story.
Dear Firefighter Chad,
The actual costs (damages, losses) due to wildfires are 10 to 50 times the suppression costs. That is why fires are fought — to minimize the damages inflicted. That is the reason society funds fire suppression. It is not to provide make-work jobs to the otherwise unemployable.
You may not be aware (Driessen doesn’t seem to be) of the recent (last March) decision by a Federal judge (Molloy) to limit the use of fire retardants — not for reasons of cost but for alleged harm to fish. The irony (if you want to call it that) is that fires do far more damage to fish than retardant. Wildfires can boil streams. Ash runoff changes the pH. Erosion due to denudation can alter the biological dissolved oxygen and cover spawning beds.
Retardant can also save lives, including the lives of firefighters. But now, thanks to the Federal judiciary, your job is all that more dangerous. Alleged (and false) harm to fish trumped public safety. Your personal safety didn’t factor in.
That is what you should be concerned with, not “saving money” (also false) by not fighting fires with all available technologies.