July 27, 2008 about 11 am...While in Strike Camp here in Jamesburg, recently, I took note of an ongoing operation in the supplies area.
It's the hose inspection, cleaning and coiling works, that goes on most of the day and night.
The deal is this... the crews bring in used hose (they lay it out about 100 feet at a time, in sequence. At each junction there may be a "Y-valve" - also called a "siamese" - with a smaller diameter hose taken off the one are of the "Y"... there's hella' hose to lay out and then pick up.
After they laid out repeated runs of hose, then they have to collect it and bring the hoses back to camp at the end of the shift. A reel of 1 1/2 inch hose weighs about 15 pounds... some crew grab a few to haul uphill, in addition to their pack and tools.
On top of all this, outgoing crews need hose ready to go - HRG ;-) - to take with them to the fireline.
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LA Times Series on California Wildfires....
Kate, of the Big Sur Kate 'blog, just passed on a link to a 5-part LA Times series on California Wildfires.
The video of the 2700-acre South Lake Tahoe Fire that consumed 176 structures, is stunning... the mandatory evacuation sequences and the backfire attempt to create a firebreak, that failed in the face of an abrupt shift in the weather gives an indication of the bullets we dodged in Carmel Valley.
Thanks for the link, Kate!!!
Click here for an impressive interactive graphic on the cost of fighting wildfires from the LA Times.
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Fabulous and Fascinating Fun Facts for Friends and Family...
A ways back in the 'blog, the term "chain" was used to describe length. Here's the scoop on it, regarding wildfires:
"A chain is a unit of length; it measures 66 feet or 22 yards (20.1168m). There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. An acre is the area of 10 square chains (that is, an area of one chain by one furlong)."The chain was commonly used with the mile to indicate land distances and in particular in surveying land for legal and commercial purposes.
The clergyman Edmund Gunter developed a method of surveying land accurately with low technology equipment, using what became known as Gunter's chain; this was 66 feet long and from the practice of using his chain, the word transferred to the actual measured unit. His chain had 100 links, and the link is used as a subdivision of the chain as a unit of length.
In countries influenced by English practice, land plans prepared before about 1960 associated with the sale of land usually have lengths marked in chains and links, and the areas of land parcels is indicated in acres.
A rectangle of land one furlong in length and one chain in width has an area of one acre.
In United States the chain is normally used as the measure of the rate of spread of wildfires (chains per hour), both in the predictive National Fire Danger Rating Systems as well as in after-action reports."
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5 comments:
Hi Kelly- I've left comments before. Below are two headlines from today's news about CA fires:
1.Wildfire threatens about 2000 homes near Yosemite National Park
2. California wildfires nearly fully contained
I've been reading your Blog. I live in Malibu and spend a lot of time analyzing and writing (fiction) about wildland fires. Along with everything else that must be done - people on the interface need to learn to defend their homes. When I read the report last week that indicated +/- 100 homes were lost because the owners didn't know embers could lodge in the eaves, I just have to wonder what people living in fire areas are thinking.
Keep up the good work and keep One Foot in the Black.
Kurt Kamm
http://www.kurtkamm.com
Just a note: "Chain" comes from an old surveying unit of measure in which an actual 66' metal chain was used to reliably measure distances in the field, day in and day out. This unit of measure was adopted into the forestry practice as a standard unit and has also come to use in wildland fire as a measure of distance. Computer fire models (FARSITE) often give rate-of-spread in terms of chains per unit time. Enjoying the great posts!
Kurt,
Thanks for this information! I was just over at Spike Camp talking to firefighters from various part of the country and California about homeowner preparedness and prevention.
The clear lesson that comes out for me is that people have no idea of how fire behaves. And THAT would go a long way toward helping people prepare for wildfire.
Thanks, again!!! One Foot in the Black!
Best,
Kelly
David,
Thanks for your comment! It's funny, we seem to have dug up that piece of information concurrently!
I was at the Jamesburg Spike Camp and we were chatting. "Chains" came up, and we just had to pursue it further!
Best,
Kelly
Hah! Great timing indeed. Personally as someone involved with fire both in terms of research and practice, the use of the unit 'chain' is frustrating when the majority of your data are recorded in metric! -David
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