By John Koziol, Union Leader Correspondent

May 6, 2015

[Editor's Note: Despite a long, hard winter in the Northeast, May was a busy month for wildland firefighters.]

Three helicopters, two from JBI Helicopters of Pembroke and a Black Hawk from the New Hampshire Army National Guard, spent hours Wednesday scooping water from Connor Pond in West Ossipee and carrying it up to nearby Bayle Mountain, where a wildfire that began on Tuesday has burned more than 90 acres and, as of yesterday afternoon [May 5], was still not controlled. (Photo: John Koziol)

 

OSSIPEE - Wildfires flared throughout the Lakes Region [of New Hampshire] on Wednesday, with one blaze closing Route 140 in Northfield and another, atop Bayle Mountain in Ossipee, entering its second day despite an aerial assault that Wednesday was joined by a Black Hawk helicopter from the Army National Guard.

In addition to those wildfires, another was also reported in Merrimack, making for what Brad Simpkins, State Forester with the NH Department of Resources and Economic Development, Division of Forests and Lands, said was one of the busiest wildfire seasons in his 17 years on the job.

Read the full Lakes Region wildfire story on the Union Leader Web site.
 

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By Julia Reischel, Watershed Post

May 6, 2015

A view of the Shawangunk brush fire looking south from the Summitville turn on Route 209 outside the Ulster County town of Ellenville at close to midnight on Tuesday, May 5. (Photo: Michael Wentland)

A massive forest fire that began on Sunday, May 3, has burned through over 2,000 acres of forested lands in Sullivan and Ulster [New York] Counties this week, prompting the evacuation of 30 homes and a statewide emergency response.

Forest rangers, firefighters, first responders, police, and State emergency operation officials have fought the blaze, which is concentrated in the Roosa Gap and Shawangunk Ridge State Forests around Route 52 in Ellenville.

Volunteer firefighters from as far away as Broome, Schoharie, Delaware, and Greene Counties have travelled to the area to fight the fire. They are based out of a staging area at the Kimble Hose Company in Ellenville.

 

Read the full Shawangunks forest fire story on the Watershed Post Web site.

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Posted Thursday, May 14, 2015 10:04 a.m.

The Mark Twain National Forest

(Photo courtesy of http://fox2now.com/)

 

It took just over a week, more than 100 firefighters, an air tanker, a heavy helicopter, and about an inch of rain to contain the Carty wildfire near Black, MO. This wildfire burned 2,146 acres of national forest land before firefighter efforts and rain stopped the flames on Saturday.

The Carty Wildfire was discovered on Mark Twain National Forest lands in Reynolds County on May 3. The cause of the wildfire is still under investigation.

Read the full Carty wildfire story on the Salem News Online Web site.

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By Bill Gabbert

Originally published at 5:45 p.m. EDT, May 7, 2015

A large wildfire 7 miles northeast of Hammonton, NJ, forced evacuations at 2 p.m. EDT in the southern part of the State east of Route 206 between Stokes and Atsion Roads. The State Police closed Route 206 for several hours but expected to open it again around 6 p.m. EDT. The evacuations were lifted at about 5:15 p.m. EDT when extensive burnout operations stopped the spread on one side of the 710-acre fire.

Read the full article on the Wildfire Today Web site.

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A U.S. Forest Service Enterprise Team (Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team) produced a series of short videos to help viewers understand the agency's Air Resource Management Program. The video series, Minimizing Smoke Impacts of Prescribed Fire, is available on YouTube. Six videos explain aspects of the program, including how the agency addresses the air quality impacts of smoke, why the U.S. Forest Service uses fire as a land management tool, ways in which the agency leads in smoke management, and basic smoke management practices.

Access the series at the NWCG Fire Planning and Fuels Management Resource Portal.

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By Molly Walsh, Seven Days Vermont

(Photo courtesy of Ethan Ready)

A fire wheezed and radiated heat shimmers the morning of May 5 near the Robert Frost Interpretative Trail in Ripton. One group of U.S. Forest Service firefighters sprayed water at the edge of the angry orange flames while another, wielding a long-nose drip torch dispensing a mix of gas and diesel, deliberately spread the blaze.  

Yes, deliberately. The Forest Service team, outfitted in green and yellow flame-retardant clothing, hard hats, and thick-soled boots, was conducting a prescribed burn on four acres of overgrown wild blueberry bush off Vermont 125 near the Middlebury Gap.

Read the full Vermont prescribed burn article on the Seven Days Web site. 

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By Gail DeBoer, Staff writer, Pilot Independent

The Cass County [Minnesota] Board received and signed the Leech Lake Community Wildfire Protection Plan, presented May 5 by Keith Karnes of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (LLBO), Forestry Division.

The Wildfire Protection Plan covers the entire reservation and was created after discussions between the LLBO and cities, U.S. Forest Service, State agencies, counties, and other entities with an interest in wildfires, Karnes explained.

Read the full Cass County Board article on the WalkerMN.com Web site.

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By Chris Barncard, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

May 26, 2015 

[Editor's Note: The NE RSC is dedicated to helping restore and maintain fire-dependent ecosystems like these in Wisconsin.]

Daijiang Li tracks biodiversity in Central Wisconsin forests. (Photo courtesy of Daijiang Li)

Pine barrens once stretched like a scarf around the State's neck, from the northeast down across central Wisconsin and up again northwest to Lake Superior. As recently as the 1950s, University of Wisconsin-Madison surveys conducted by botany Professor John Curtis and graduate student James Habeck described the sandy, open spaces dotted with pin oak and jack pine and dashed with the lavender of lupine and the purple of blazing star.

"We know that the pine barrens used to be common in Wisconsin before European settlement, but now only about 1 percent of the original area remains," says Daijiang Li, a current University of Wisconsin-Madison botany graduate student. With botany Professor Donald Waller, Li authored a study in the journal Ecology outlining the factors driving a deep shift in the increasingly rare plant communities that once inhabited the central Wisconsin pine barrens.

Or, maybe, inhabited what was once pine barrens.

Read the full Wisconsin pine barrens story in the University of Wisconsin-Madison News.

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By Bill Gabbert, Wildfire Today 

Posted on May 27, 2015 

 
[Editor's Note: This is an excellent publication that explains the value of the Cohesive Strategy in addressing this topic.]

The organizations identified costs as one of the main concerns and pointed out that missing from most accounting of wildfire costs are indirect costs--rehabilitation, real estate devaluation, and emergency services--that can be 2 to 30 times more than the actual expenses to fight the fire.

The paper listed four cost-related issues:

1. Suppression Costs Increasing. The cost of wildfire suppression has continued to increase over the last decade.
2. Fires Are Costing Taxpayers More. Wildfires are costing taxpayers far more than is typically reported by governments and the media.
3. Investments Needed. Investment in wildfire hazard mitigation needs to be increased and maintained.
4. Fuels Treatments Need to be Treated Right. Fuel treatments are supported by current and developing science.

The organizations recommend reforming Federal wildfire funding, reducing impediments to hazardous fuels mitigation, emphasizing prescribed fire and wildfires managed for resource benefits, and tracking long-term and multisector economic losses caused by wildfire.

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