Posts tagged wild
US fire fighting Air Attack fleet terribly inadequate
Jul 7th
In the 1990s and early 2000’s America used old WWII bombers to fight fires. Many of them crashed. In 2012 the US has less than 250 aircraft contracted and some of them sit while fires rage across America. They sit because the US Forest Service refuses to pay them. In other cases Air National guard C-130s now sit because of the poor training given guard pilots to fight forest fires. They have been crashing too.
The US has thousands of big airplanes capable of being retrofitted to carry water and retardants to wild land fires,but the government has completely lost it’s way.
Sitting here typing at a computer in a smoke filled room in Boulder Colorado, this week I have seen first hand the devastation cause by forest fires to Colorado cities. Where was the air attack in the early hours of these fires? Parked in hangers 1000’s of miles away.
The US needs at least 100 air tankers It has 32. They need them on the tarmac in Denver ready to in 10 minutes not two day latter after the fire has destroyed 100’s of homes as happened in Ft Collins Colorado in June. We need another 300 air attack panes of all sizes. We need 400 helicopters ready to go. We need an air fleet of 1500 aircraft capable of carrying water to fight fires. We have 232. Just terrible.
What’s left when the air attack does not come. America is burning and our government has let us down. Shame on them.The Department of the Interior, FEMA USFS, Congress, Senate, Air force, National Guard have all let America down. This is Katrina all over again and it is happening on president Obama’s watch. It is also happening in my state and I am sick of watching it burn. Obama needs to take responsibility and get us the air fleet we need. End all the buck passing.
from fire ravaged Colorado
Jann Scott
Boulder, Colorado
KCOL Fails Fort Collins during High Park Fire
Jun 20th
I expected to hear Ft Collins news talk radio station 600 KCOL to be pumping out information about the High Park Fire: You know the stuff we residents need right now during a raging wild fire. The latest evacuations, escape routes, where is the Red Cross located? Where can I eat? Where can I sleep?. Is there a medical team , my aunt is having a hard time breathing? Where are are some clean clothes? What roads are open.? Is my house still standing.? Little things like that.
Instead I got the idiot team of Al Malmberg and Sue Sutton acting as though they were on vacation in Disneyland. Worse they were having endless banal jokes about duct tape, her husband, their weight as though the city was not on fire at all. Their insensitivity and and complete lack of broadcast news professionalism is the reason for this column.
This radio station failed so completely to be there for Ft Collins in its greatest time of need, the entire morning show should be fired. The GM should be fired. And Clear channel the corporate vampire should absolutely lose it license to operate this radio station.
When I called Sue and Al, they were insulted that I dare question their programming decisions. They absolutely did not understand why they should suspend all programming and help the community while it burned. That is the chief criteria for an FCC license: Be good stewards of the airwaves we entrust in you. They could have taken calls, brought in volunteers, gotten out information, listened to the fire scanners. Did they do any of that? Hell no. They twiddle twaddled each other. These two are the worst kind of incredibly stupid broadcasters. So thoughtless.
Sue Sutton told duct tape jokes instead of Evacuation routesWhen I talked to the Managing director of the FCC in Washington, he launched an immediate investigation of Al, Sue and KCOL. Nicky Shears the special agent in charge of Colorado called me. She was incensed by the morning show. ” I have been listening and they are not doing much on the fire. I understand your concerns and the concerns of the city. Frankly we are concerned. Every 15 minutes they give very brief update” she said. “We are taking the KCOL situation very seriously and it will not end here, I assure you.” she said.
What could the FCC do. ?? Suspend the KCOL license, yank the million dollar investment from Clear Channel and hand it to a real community minded person for $1.00. They could do that.
Since KCOL radio in Fort Collins Colorado has clearly violated the spirit of broadcasting, the FCC will likely enact some law that will force the local radio station to go on the air and help with the disaster.
To make matters even worse KCOL pumped out Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other haters all day and night and never addressed the fire at all.
Jann Scott
Jann Scott’s Journal
Four Mile Fire in Boulder could have ended up like the North Fork fire : loss of life
Apr 29th
I have had some experience covering Forrest fires. They now call them wild land fire, but I prefer forest fires when they are in the trees. In the 80’s I covered the Black Tiger Fire which destroyed over 40 beautiful homes up on sugar loaf. I covered the Yellow Stone park fire and most shockingly the Storm King Fire near Aspen where 13 smoke jumpers lost their lives. So I knew just how rapidly a fast moving forest fire could kill people.
When the ferociousness flames of the Four Mile Fire hit on Sunday morning Labor Day weekend 2010, I new we were in big trouble. I was up on flagstaff Mountain when it started, talking with a city of boulder Parks open space officer. I could hear all the radio traffic coming in to his truck radio. He had about 7 channels going. The most frightening ones were all of the fire crew channels.
It was bad. People were running for their lives. Fire crews were running for their lives. And the fire was running right up the mountain buring everything in its path. The fire had started at about 10:30am, but by noon I knew we had lost over 100 homes and the winds were still blowing. I got out my laptop and started to write.
The fire had crested Sunshine Canyon road and was on the move down the other side. As a reporter I started reporting what I heard and saw from Flagstaff. Boulder OEM hadn’t opened yet, and I could not get any assistance or information officially on the fire. I decided, to hell with it and not wait. First why wait? Secondly this fire was a potential killer.
I sat in the Boulder Channel 1 TV production truck and then did our first video from Flagstaff with the fire as a back drop at 11:30. Donna Marek, one of our reporters wrote the first story at 11:10. She was talking with fire crews from Downtown Boulder. Ron Baird our news editor called me on my cell and had the first report from the city at 11:40 . He filed the second story.
Ron Donna and I talked about how serious this was. It was decided that I should post the life threatening stories based on what I heard on the radio and let resident know this was a fire storm and get the hell off the mountain. Before I did, I talked with Patrick Vonkeyserling, the city PIO. He told me he couldn’t confirm anything, but it was really really bad and that if i could use social Media: ie Twitter and our on line news paper, it would help get the word out to people up on sunshine.
With that I started posting stories and updates: “People are running for their lives” “We are going to burn to death” “3 feared missing dead” “possible corpses found near burned out Car” Over 30 updates in the first 3 hours.
The idea was to shock people into leaving their homes and not wait. People from Sunshine and the surrounding area started to tweet and call me. “should we leave?” were the questions. “Yes I replied , get out now”. People on twitter said don’t listen to us, that we were fear mongering. To witch I replied get out now or burn to death in your homes. Ron Baird called me and said.
“fuck the people on twitter just keep reporting what is going on.”
In the aftermath of Four Mile Fire , the Four Mile fire chief thanked me for our aggressive coverage early on. You helped us evacuate people he told me one day over coffee at Great Harvest Bread.
But I had taken a lot of flack from the Twitter community following the fire. At the time I was really upset by their reaction, but now I realize they were just upset viewers and readers who had no idea or access to what was really happening up in Fourmile. I did. I had a direct line to dispatch, OEM, Sheriffs, the Forrest service and I was sitting in a city open space truck taking it all in from a vantage point. I never should have paid any attention to twitter.
During the days of the fire, Boulder chief, Larry Donner told me that the fire was moving up to 40 miles per hour early on and was spreading embers the size of house shingles 1 mile in front of the flames. He said most people go into denial and under react and that’s when they get killed. He also told me it was good that I scared the hell out of everybody and made them move during the early stages.
He said, as did the Sunshine chief , the people on twitter were wrong to criticize you. “You did the right thing even though there were no deaths. “You scared people into action and that is what’s needed in a fast moving wild land fire. But criticism comes with the territory.” he said.
The sheriff was criticized for cutting the power all over the mountain area. He wanted people uncomfortable and he wanted them to get out! The truth is it is a damn wonder people didn’t lose their lives in that fire. Yep, we caused fear and shock in our reporting. We intended to. Hopefully, we helped save some lives. The alternaticve to agressive evacuations is what happened at the North Fork Fire. In hind sight we’d report it the same all over again.
I had apologized to the twitter people for a week. But it did no good. They had their minds made up. We did our jobs at Boulder channel 1. Thanks from the fire departments was icing on the cake.
Interesting Ron Baird who is a seasoned editor and Donna Marek a seasoned reporter, kept telling me. “Don’t listen to Twitter, they don’t know what you know. Just keep telling the story as it unfolds.”
Jann Scott’s Journal
from Boulder Colorado