Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

seewood
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by seewood »

Way I see it is there are two components to the wild land fire fighting efforts.
There are the government employees who direct the fire fighting efforts, priorities, action plans, equipment requests and many of the ground crews.

The other is private enterprise that purchase and supply equipment, planes, helicopters, ground equipment and such, and maintain the equipment.
The desire to have more air assets available is commendable, however private companies are in the business of making a profit and will carefully access the ability to carry on financially and with suitable employees a potential prolonged period of no or little income. For example, in 2003 there were many fires , including OK MT. Park, and aircraft came from all over to fight those fires. Companies were pretty flush after that year.
In 2004, it rained and the number of fires was inconsequential compared to fire number averages. No fires, little or no revenue.

Does the Provincial government get involved with owning and operating air assets? Do they really have the expertise to do this cost effectively? Will the government have enough or more assets than what is available now from private enterprises?
What happens to companies that have invested in air assets when the government takes the work away? Go south?

In future, perhaps more structure protection units as the number of interface fires ( wildland fires encroaching on developments) is obviously increasing. One thing I'd like to see is when tanker trucks are used to shuttle water to the fire line, larger water pumps are used to fill the up to 2500 gallon tanks. I watched a little Honda pump take half an hour to fill a truck with two other trucks waiting. I talked to a local fire chief and got a fire truck dedicated to pump water to fill the trucks. Now it took 10 minutes max.( Ok. Mt. park fire)

Regarding ground crews and training, litigation and Worksafe is an issue with any work place today. Worksafe will be all over the government if they went into the bars to get more fire fighters and a worker sustained an injury or death from lack of training. A very basic training program is out there and when people take it, most will be working off the same song sheet, making working together so much easier and safer. From my experience, free-lancers are a hazard to others and themselves.

Fires are ranked based on fire behavior. Some of the fires we have seen, heard about have been rank 5 or 6, a hellish thing to witness. When the wind blows, all the ground pounders or air assets you have on the fire, is not going to do a lick to stop or contain the fire. People on a fire are usually patrolling the fire boundaries, keeping an eye on the guard and any fires starting on the wrong side. When it is windy, it becomes almost impossible to keep fire contained .

Perhaps BC's wildfire officers could go south and work along side other countries wild land fire efforts, maybe they do? during our "off-season" I mentioned previously we had a bean counter in charge of a sector who was way out of his element. Better to take a initial attack person with several years experience in my opinion.
Before the season starts, the local wildfire base will receive and take information down from companies and individuals that can offer equipment or a skill set should a fire break out in the area. These assets do have to show proof of training ( basic FF course) and have a Worksafe account in good standing. Don't have those, you are not called. Locals without those will not be called regardless of the knowledge or equipment available. Worksafe and Litigation are real.

Getting back to aircraft, the older ones are used as they were likely cheap to purchase, parts still available and maintenance is pretty straight forward. The tariff rates were usually based on capital cost, so these older aircraft offered the ministry a lower rate. Get into the super pumas and I bet the rates would be more than the venerable old S-61's with similar lift capacities. Maybe they can do more as they are faster? The ministry does keep track of the cost of aircraft on a per liter of water dropped. I'd love to see the cost per liter delivered of the various aircraft out there. S-64 sky crane, bell 412, KA-32, air tractor/boss, Electra etc.

I'd like to see some more training for fire boss's and the government to continue to stay out of the aircraft business. See more protection units.
See what happens next year, maybe a wet summer.
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by OldIslander »

Drip_Torch wrote: Aug 9th, 2021, 12:43 pm As much as the public has had their expectations raised to the point of believing aerial assets put out fires, the fact is they don't. Never have, never will. The planes make a lot of noise, are very visible and under marginal fire conditions can suppress a fire long enough for crews to get in there and do the work. If the crews aren't there, the weather will eventually look after it.
Reviewing this thread, reread the above statement which I find fascinating.

In 1994, both Martin Mars were hired at considerable expense to fight Penticton's Garnet fire--people still remember and talk about that airshow. Afterward, the Kamloops Fire Center commissioned a study analyzing the Mars' effectiveness. I did not personally read the report but heard about it from a reliable source within the BCMF at the time. This person concluded, they might as well have been dumping dollar bills from the Mars, for all the good the water did. (Or words to that effect.)

They were skimming and dumping lake water at the time with no retardant. The crux of the study -- so much of the water was evaporating before it hit the ground (in the extreme heat at the time...) that it was not penetrating the duff layer deep enough to even slow down the fire.

So in 2021, how important and/or effective are tankers and large-frame helicopters when fighting big aggressive Rank 4-5-6 fires? They are obviously good at attacking new small fires before they have a chance to spread (exponentially, as the guy towards the end of the 60 Minutes vid described...) Are they farting into thunder on the big ones?
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by Catsumi »

Interesting what’s being posted.

The video showed what appeared (to me) to be very effective firefighting using the Coulson.

Who to believe?
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by Drip_Torch »

In my view, the whole thing needs a retool from the top down, but to fully explain I would need to double space, follow an APA format and I would want the opportunity to defend my thesis. Here I’ll try to share some highlights, rationale and avoid the tech talk as much as possible.

First let me say the BCWS is exceptionally good at what they do. I’ve gone over the numbers and was glued to satellite feeds all summer long. In my opinion, considering the situation and the fire weather conditions this summer I have nothing but praise for the men and women in the BCWS. This was an exceptionally difficult summer. (Yes, that’s me sincerely patting you on the back as you hang up your red shirt for the season. You know who you are and thank you for the work you do.)
Yes, we had a couple disasters this summer and narrowly avoided a few others. Experts note that natural disasters, for the most part, are not natural at all. In fact, they are systems failures. In the broadest of views wildfire has been consistently on the land we live on for the last 10,000 years. It’s only been last 130, or so, years that we’ve created vulnerabilities here in BC that lead to disasters.

All aspects of disaster management suffer from the same three issues within the science-policy interface.
The Three Gaps:
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What the table above attempts to show is the fact that while different sectors involved in our wildfire situation are looking at the same problem, they all see different aspects of it and compete for resources, funding and acknowledgment from policy makers that aren’t necessarily equipped to be the best arbiters.

Epistemic – “relating to knowledge or the degree of its validation”. Have we found the right balance between the scientists, the practitioners, and the stakeholders? Do our strategies and practices follow science that is supportable and works?

Institutional – As wildfires grow, both in size and complexity, so to does the number of institutions involved in response to the situation. Each of those institutions (BCWS, EMBC, OFC, Local Government, RCMP…etc) have their own legislation and governance, as well as cultural norms that exist within the institution. A couple of questions we might ponder. Do we have the right balance here? Do our current policies properly equip our institutions for the role they play and are the institutions staying within their own lane? This can and does become a hinderance towards the development and implementation of new strategies, tactics and technological improvements needed in response.

Strategic – There always seems to be some confusion around objectives, strategies, and tactics. Myself, I look at it as strategy happens above the shoulders and tactics happen below the shoulders.

Example:
Objective - suggest how wildfire response might be bettered.
>>>>>>>>Strategy – put ideas out in the public realm for other people to read and comment on.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Tactic – write a long post on Castanet forums – (because that always works)

Basically, strategy becomes a systemic vulnerability to response when there isn’t a common view on how best to approach a problem, or one stakeholder group exists above all other stakeholder groups and the right balance isn’t achieved.

In answering Catsumi’s question;

(“What would your recommendations be, considering what fires cost us vs cost of upgrading, training of personnel, purchasing new(er) equipment, response time and possibly getting locals with equipment to participate in fire fighting?”)

it seems important to me to discuss the systemic framework behind my answer. What we saw this year was very much a man-made disaster that has been incubating for decades and there are no “one more” (airtanker, skimmer, fire truck, IA crew, unit crew….etc,) quick fixes.

That being said – yes, absolutely we’ve hit a point where upgrading, training more personnel, involving the local community, purchasing newer equipment, as well as introducing newer strategies and tactics is essential.

I base that assessment on observing what goes on in the three states immediately south of us. As well as what is happening around the world. The climate is changing. That’s nothing new, it’s been going on for 10,000 years or so, and we can argue the causes and effects to no end, but only the most obstinate turtle with its head in the sand could pretend it isn’t happening. Yes, now that we’ve had our extremely hot and dry year, we’ll likely experience a cooler and wetter year, but that’s not guaranteed and even if it does happen it’s a double edge sword exemplified by the fire season we just went through. Our wet years will allow our fine fuels to take advantage of all the extra “plant food” and cause an abundant green up that will eventually all cure and carry fire.

I think it was only 25, maybe 30 years ago that the Australian’s not only didn’t have airtankers, but they weren’t even interested in considering them. Now they are moving fast to adapt and were early adopters of the New Gen/Next Gen Large Air Tankers (LAT’s). Cal Fire (California State lands) has responded to over 7,738 incidents this season – they have 18 wildfires of note. Yes, they have large fires and losses, but they also have 8 times the population (WUI exposure), 7 times the fire starts, a much longer season and fire weather/fuel conditions that are far more extreme than those found in BC.
The resourcing on fires is remarkably different in the three states to the south of us and the results speak for themselves. (IMHO)

All the work, thought and intention going into the prevention side of the equation is great and it all helps, but we’re always going to have fire starts. We’re always going to need to respond. After a fire starts there is an exponential relationship between time, risk, and cost. Perhaps the most overlooked aspect in the “prevention” discussions that follow a bad fire season is the fact that adequate response is a disaster prevention measure.

The prescription will always be - hit them fast and hit them hard.

Beyond our immediate needs for public health, safety and security reasons, there’s also economic interests and opportunities to consider. This is where I see those “institutional” and “strategic” knowledge gaps playing out the hardest. While we were having troubles drawing in resources from other jurisdictions this summer, so were the other jurisdictions and they likely would have taken any spare resources under-utilized here. Every problem presents challenges and opportunities.

We have newer airtankers coming. That’s great, but airtankers are only part of it. They’re great for initial attack and can be used to slow the advance of a fire. They do provide a degree of safety for the ground crews. Regardless, it’s the ground game that ultimately contains a fire, or at least holds it until the weather changes. Airtankers don’t put out a fire, fly at night or in extreme smoke conditions and, contrary to popular belief, they don’t have an unlimited range of effectiveness.
Here’s the Skaha Creek fire and as I hope you can see there were several attempts to slow the growth of the fire with retardant over three days. There was a skimmer group of 6 planes working for two days as well as helicopters. Ultimately, it was the ground crews and weather that did the job.
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Yes, I like the QRT program in the USA, but I’m aware of the fact that it wouldn’t be happening without a huge investment ($18 million) from the power company and a commitment from Cal Fire. The capacity to maintain an aerial assault on a fire at night, when the fire behaviour is diminished, makes sense, and offers a further degree of protection for ground crews working at night and the communities that might be impinged by fire. However, a higher priority, IMHO, is shoring up our ground game.

Myself, I believe BC has more than enough “Structure Protection Units” sprinkler systems and I don’t see them having any real purpose as they are currently being marketed and deployed. The premise behind them – “a humidity bubble”, is absolute garbage, nonsense, laughable. Whoever came up with that line must have been in marketing because science was obviously a hard fail for them. I don’t have a problem with sprinkler systems being used to wet fuels – I owned a fairly big one when I was contract burning, but I don’t believe in the magic, and I don’t believe BCWS or the Fire Service should be asking you to believe in it either.

The fuel they are attempting to wet, your house, more than likely has a waterproof roof preventing it from doing any good.
Beyond being;
- extremely labour intensive,
- almost impossible to deploy with any certainty,
- extremely wasteful of valuable resources such as firefighters, fire hose and water, and
- prone to blocking or interfering with road access when it’s needed the most;
they also offer a counter-productive false narrative and act as a disincentive to property owners from taking any meaningful actions that might increase the likelihood of a positive outcome. I’ll say it one more time – there is no such thing as a humidity bubble and unless your roof is constructed of wood shingles it is one of the lesser vulnerable spots on your house.

This is perhaps one of the larger epistemic issues. People that don’t have any idea what they are talking about see fires in roofing systems and assume that’s where the fire started when in fact that’s simply where the fire first showed because heat rises. The sprinkler system on the roof isn’t going to put that fire out, because roofs are waterproof. Even if you have the worst roof imaginable and it isn’t waterproof those sprinklers are not going to dampen down the fire burning and during the most extreme fire behaviour none of that water is going to be anywhere near your roof anyways. Worse, the fire department isn’t going to put the fire out either because they’re wasting all their time, water and resources putting up sprinkler systems. That, and they’ve all been led to believe a modern myth of WUI fires and think there’s no good reason to put out a roof showing fire. (There is, it prevents the home next to it from burning too.)

My advice, clear out the non-combustible zone next to your house and hope like heck the Fire Services in BC picks up a mitt and gets in the game before our next bad fire season. Most people that live in a “Classic WUI setting” have no hope of following Firesmart guidelines because within Zone’s 1, 2 and 3 there are other houses.

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Freelancers. Freelancers are showing initiative, perhaps acting out of empathy, they have a sense of community and courage in the face of more adversity than just a wildfire. They need to be reigned in at the first available opportunity, for certain, but they don’t necessarily need to be demeaned and dismissed. The most controversial and notorious freelancer on the OMP fire was put to work as a statutory hire and later became an instructor teaching BCWS courses. Give them a hard hat, gloves, Nomex and guidance when things are as bad as they were this summer. What I saw on the Paxton valley videos was less than ideal, but far from reckless. I’ve spent most of my life in supervisory positions and I’m aware of both the legislation and regulation. “The Westray Story – A Predictable Path to Disaster”

I am fully and completely aware of the fact that exactly 8 years to the day before Lytton burned to the ground 19 members of a fully trained and accredited Type 1 Hotshot crew were burned over and killed by a blow-up of this fire.

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The Superintendent of Motor Vehicles doesn’t get sued when an untrained driver crashes and the Minister of Forests isn’t going to get sued because a landowner stayed behind and put out the spot fires around their ranch. If the Incident Commander sent a crew into a dangerous situation because those people were there, then that’s on the IC and the BCWS for not making it perfectly clear that can’t happen.

Some more standards and legislation:

NFPA 1143 Standard for Wildland Fire Management – Chapter 5 – Preparedness
5.1 Wildland Fire Response Planning.
5.1.1 The (Authority Having Jurisdiction) AHJ shall evaluate the capabilities and limitation of existing fire-fighting resources.
5.1.2 When the situation indicates that additional resources are needed, consideration shall be given to the following:
1 Mutual Aid and Cooperative Fire Protection agreements
2 Budget adjustments for additional personnel, apparatus, or other equipment
3 Government and private sector grants
4 Volunteer recruitment
5 Additional training
6 Improved tactics
7 Use of improved and innovative techniques

The Emergency Program Act

Local authority emergency organization
6 (1)Subject to sections 8 (2), 13 (2) and 14 (3), a local authority is at all times responsible for the direction and control of the local authority's emergency response.

(2) Subject to subsection (2.1), a local authority must prepare or cause to be prepared local emergency plans respecting preparation for, response to and recovery from emergencies and disasters.

That answers any question around which organization is statutorily meant to be the “Authority having Jurisdiction”. We continue to ignore those standards and that legislation at our own peril.

We have 6 BCWS regions in British Columbia and each of those regions has 4 to 7 zones. Greater community involvement at the zone level is an absolute must if the BCWS is going to maintain trust. Right now, we get talked at from the glossy communications machine in Kamloops and occasionally scolded from a Minister in Victoria. Meanwhile we watch as the incident command managers come in from Australia and manage the Mexican’s working on the fire burning in and around our community. Good grief, I’ve been involved in this since I was 19 years old, but if I hadn’t, I’d be concerned BCWS is trying to hide something and not simply an organization that is going slightly off the rails due to the weight of its own bureaucracy.

My final recommendation on how to avoid another bad fire season is as follows. Everyone, from Ministers Farnsworth and Conroy, right down to the new hires in boot camp next spring, needs to attend a course focused entirely on the history and development of the wheel. They need to know why it is round and how to make it roll.

Seriously, the ground game in British Columbia is shameful and it makes me want to scream out loud. We need to get on with developing a program in private enterprise, (or social enterprise) that sees us exceed the standards for wildland fire engines in the NFPA 1906 and up our game with tenders. I’m not kidding you, these bush trucks and our current practices with water tenders are embarrassing and I can’t imagine what is being said when visiting firefighters return home. Wildfire is dynamic and at times fast moving, our current ground game is static and sluggish at best. Surely, the Kamloops region has hit the population levels to support some type 3’s, type 6’s and at least a couple tactical tenders that can be organized into a task force.

Without the tech talk, I’m saying not all fire trucks are created equal and for reasons I won’t elaborate on, BC is not following standards and best practices. To be perfectly clear, BC is the only jurisdiction on the planet that believes in a “humidity bubble” and one of a small few that doesn’t see the utility in wildland engines.

Lytton’s wildfire reanimated on June 29th with 3 firefighters, and a helicopter that couldn’t do anything (literally) in the heat, assigned to the incident. On June 30th the town was almost completely destroyed. I don’t know what caused the fire in Lytton, but I do know the wildfire situation around Lytton turned dire on the 29th and all the signs were there showing the situation was about to take a dramatic and sudden turn from really bad to much worse. If the Office of the Fire Commissioner and Emergency Management BC don’t exist to coordinate response support for a town and community in that situation – what do they do?

After the OMP fire of 2003 I wrote of Turner’s disaster incubation model:

Much of Turner’s work centered on the cultural dynamics of an organization as being a significant factor towards the organization’s propensity towards failure, specifically, his work researched culture, communications, and accountability. While the breakdown of communications is often seen as a significant factor in crisis generation, the process of accountability has not been so obvious. Somehow within the process of accountability, after a near miss or an event, organizations continually miss opportunities to learn by assessing blame and scapegoating. In essence the very search for culpability implies the fallibility of human operators and distances the critical systems from any further analysis.

Conventional managerial wisdom dictates when a system fails, it’s either a technological failure or an identifiable human error in the application of that system. Turner challenged that mindset and observed the managerial, administrative, and political dimensions in the incubation process that leads to potential failure. The quality and speed of decision-making; the extent and reliability of information flows; and the extent to which all levels of the organization are involved in the decision-making process are areas of particular concern in Turner’s incubation period for disaster.

Since Turner, several other scholars have made significant contributions that I’ll take a moment and run through. Roberts and Gargano, point out that to deal with the task requirements of co-ordination, organizations need slack resources to ensure reliability. However, high-risk organizations are invariably resource-lean and working to, or near, full capacity and in many cases, organizations deal with the requirement to be resource-lean by replacing human operators with greater automation within the system, thereby creating “technological slack” that management can utilize. Perrow, comments that many of the more catastrophic failures “are alarmingly banal examples of organizational elites not trying very hard at all.” And, finally Smith noted, scapegoating, and the tendency to re-write history within the whole process of post-crisis legitimization tends to inhibit the learning process.

The controls within any organization are put in place and monitored by experts, however it can be observed that the culture plays a significant role in the observation of those controls. In defining culture, Schein observes;
“...a pattern of basic assumptions - invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration - that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”

Turner questioned whether the use of expertise could be responsible for the incubation of disaster and Scarbrough and Corbett observed that, “intra-management politics encouraged competition between different specialisms to secure control of the most important decision-making functions”. They also noted that beyond codifying and transmitting knowledge through the development of procedures, expert groups also seek to secure control over the knowledge domains as a means of promoting the interests of the expert group. This leads to the observation that technical expertise is sometimes used to support pre-determined policy objectives, which facilitate the continuance of the organizations activities. Unfortunately, to an extent, the use of expertise can be an inhibiting factor in the flow of information as the organization shows reluctance to bring non-expert opinion into the decision-making and challenge processes.


I thought it important to revisit that post after this fire season.

May the bridges I just burned light the way to better outcomes in the future.

:130:
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Catsumi
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by Catsumi »

Seewood and Drip-Torch….thank you both for setting aside industry jargon and speaking plainly to the public concerning where the flaws are in effective firefighting. I would wish that the powers that be would pay attention and read closely what you have written.

However, as you stated so clearly, there are many empire builders protecting their turf from pertinent questions and possible improvements that might be implemented, to the detriment of all BC people.

The chart listing the main woes [Epistomological gap] says it all in brief form, with your following statements explaining in full what that chart entails is an eye opener. Why are we not marching in the streets demanding change?
Yes, I like the QRT program in the USA, but I’m aware of the fact that it wouldn’t be happening without a huge investment ($18 million) from the power company and a commitment from Cal Fire. The capacity to maintain an aerial assault on a fire at night, when the fire behaviour is diminished, makes sense, and offers a further degree of protection for ground crews working at night and the communities that might be impinged by fire. However, a higher priority, IMHO, is shoring up our ground game.
That huge 18 Million seems cheap compared to three years of firefighting with a bill of 1.3 Billion dollars which comprises government expenditures and more than likely not the loss to individuals included. Agreed, a full yes to fire fighting at night.
The fuel they are attempting to wet, your house, more than likely has a waterproof roof preventing it from doing any good.
Beyond being;
- extremely labour intensive,
- almost impossible to deploy with any certainty,
- extremely wasteful of valuable resources such as firefighters, fire hose and water, and
- prone to blocking or interfering with road access when it’s needed the most;
they also offer a counter-productive false narrative and act as a disincentive to property owners from taking any meaningful actions that might increase the likelihood of a positive outcome. I’ll say it one more time – there is no such thing as a humidity bubble and unless your roof is constructed of wood shingles it is one of the lesser vulnerable spots on your house.
Once again, after your explanation of the foolishness of wetting roofs (laughable when read with your perceptions mirrored against it] I fully agree. As would anyone else reading it.
We have 6 BCWS regions in British Columbia and each of those regions has 4 to 7 zones. Greater community involvement at the zone level is an absolute must if the BCWS is going to maintain trust. Right now, we get talked at from the glossy communications machine in Kamloops and occasionally scolded from a Minister in Victoria. Meanwhile we watch as the incident command managers come in from Australia and manage the Mexican’s working on the fire burning in and around our community. Good grief, I’ve been involved in this since I was 19 years old, but if I hadn’t, I’d be concerned BCWS is trying to hide something and not simply an organization that is going slightly off the rails due to the weight of its own bureaucracy.
Kamloops Fire Protection District lost all respect years ago. They sit on a tinderbox timebomb, twiddle their thumbs and wait too long before declaring fire bans. It is almost as if they WANT the Okanagan to burn. Useless twits!

I would hope that your detailed explanations reached a wider audience than just Castanet. Perhaps a link to this forum might be sent to the Powers that Be?

Thank you both for sharing your knowledge with us. It is much appreciated

Wish I could buy you both a beer or two. :130:

To those who lost their homes, livestock, livelihoods and future well being, …well, there is just nothing to be said that can aid you now, just sympathy and that is hollow as always. Wish we could turn back the clock.
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by Drip_Torch »

seewood wrote: Oct 1st, 2021, 10:42 am One thing I'd like to see is when tanker trucks are used to shuttle water to the fire line, larger water pumps are used to fill the up to 2500 gallon tanks. I watched a little Honda pump take half an hour to fill a truck with two other trucks waiting. I talked to a local fire chief and got a fire truck dedicated to pump water to fill the trucks. Now it took 10 minutes max.( Ok. Mt. park fire)
Interesting. May as well toss a match on another bridge here.

In the days leading up to the OMP fire I was quite convinced I knew where that fire was going and how it was going to get there. I drove up from Vancouver a few times to assess my suspicions and to see if my observations matched what I was seeing with remote detection tools.

At the time I had access to and the trust of a supplier with a total of 11 - Type 1 fire engines - none of them were ULC compliant and they were not at all suitable for fire suppression operations. However I did an assessment and determined that 5 of them were ready to go (turn key) for water supply operations and I made that offer to Victoria, once I knew I could find operators and be on the road within a couple hours. 4 more of them could have been brought online within a couple of days and the supplier was prepared to make that happen.

There was some interest and I eventually received a phone call back from someone (I'll avoid the details) that could have pulled the trigger and made it happen. They (probably not the persons preferred pronoun *wink*) were not at all happy with the offer and told me that if I wanted to supply something "useful" I should come up with Mark 3 pump kits. Of course by that time in my life, I had sold my Mark 3's to go carts builders - cause who else was going to buy them, really.

I don't know why, or how, anyone could think, in 2003, a Mark 3 has any purpose on a WUI fire, but here we are in 2021 and apparently that hasn't changed.

Typically, WUI fires lead to the collapse of the local fire protection systems. Fire Hydrants work great 99.99999% of the time and really the only time they fail is when everyone is opening them up at the same time and houses start blowing the supply lines into the air. I knew this and wanted to offer an alternative to help speed up tender operations and get the water supply operations inline with existing standards.

Apparently the powers that be needed to learn that lesson for themselves.

Quite agree with you on this point. Then, after spending half an hour, or more, filling up - the truck drives for 15 to 30 minutes and spends another half hour, or more, tied to a pump, or pumping off it's load - when it should be dumping and rolling.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Re: Coulson Aviation Released by BC MOF

Post by Catsumi »

Not only are fire fighting techniques under scrutiny, but so is salvage logging and replanting.

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/347570 ... ay-experts

According to this article it seems that the methods used for log salvaging are setting us up for more misery, perhaps even worse than this past summer.

If you have read Dr. Suzanne Simard’s book Finding the Mother Tree you will note that many of her findings that she struggled to get Forestry Departments to pay attention to (ignored for so long) are now pertinent and being discussed. Hooray!

If governments insist on banging the drum of climate change endlessly, their Forestry departments practices must also change.
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