Share the Adventure: Exploring Wildland Fire

**A Telecast Originating\
from the**

# BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona

# November 7, 2002

**This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.**

**It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.**

The Bureau of Land Management presents live from the BLM National
Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona: Share the Adventure: Exploring
Wildland Fire.\
\
Secretary Norton: Welcome to our program on fire science. The Department
of the Interior manages much of our country\'s land, water and other
natural resources. More than 20% of America\'s land is under my care. If
you added all of Interior\'s parks, wildlife refuges and other lands
together, they would be larger than the 25 smallest states. With all
this land, wildfire management is very important to us. This past summer
some 70,000 fires burned almost 7 million acres. One of those fires was
the Hayman fire outside of Denver in my home state of Colorado. It was
the largest fire in Colorado\'s history. I visited that fire, talked to
the firefighters at the base camp, breathed its smoke and watched the
flames threaten homes and businesses. Across the country, thousands of
people lost their homes to fire. Fortunately, many more homes were
saved. Today you\'re going to examine the role that fire plays in nature
and explore the complex challenges of managing fire where people have
built houses in the forests. Learning to live with fire goes beyond just
putting out wildfires. Fires are sometimes necessary to sustain balance
in nature. For example, some birds and animals like to move into areas
after forest fires. Deciding when to put a fire out and when to let one
burn naturally is a difficult decision. You\'ll hear more about this
later. Your host for this show is the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM,
as we usually call it. BLM is one of eight agencies of the Department of
the Interior. It manages more land than any other federal agency. BLM\'s
job is to keep your public lands healthy and productive. Another
important part of this is managing fire and ensuring the safety of our
firefighters. BLM works with many other agencies, like the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Forest Service, to make
decisions about managing fire. Most importantly, these agencies work
with local communities. To be successful, all of us: the agencies,
communities, and you, need to work together. Today you will learn how
you can play an important role in helping to protect homes and people
from wildland fires. Don\'t be shy about calling in and talking to our
fire experts. We hope you learn a lot today about fire, its dangers and
its benefits. Thanks for tuning in.\
\
Cody: Hello. Welcome to our adventure as we explore the science of
wildland fire.\
\
C. Calamaio: We would like to welcome all the schools watching from
across North America as well as those of you tuning in at home.\
\
Cody: For teachers the educators guide can be downloaded from our
website at www.blm.gov/education. Then click on the link.\
\
C. Calamaio: What is going to make this an exciting adventure is for
students and schools to participate. You can call us toll-free at
877-862-5346. You can also fax in a question at any time. Our fax number
is 602-906-5701. We\'ll be taking two kinds of calls. First, calls from
those of you who want to play our game; second, calls from those of you
who have a question for our experts.\
\
Cody: We have a number of fun things planned and we need you to call in
and be part of our adventure. You will also have a chance to answer any
questions you have about wildland fire. If you pay close attention,
you\'ll learn what you need to know to participate and win prizes for
your class.\
\
C. Calamaio: We will take calls from students. Our adult viewers can
e-mail us questions about wildland fire to our fire expert John Owens at
this e-mail address. \[john_owens@blm.gov\]\
\
Cody: We\'re especially excited to share this adventure when Mr.
Vacchina\'s class from Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) Middle School
in Glendale, Arizona. Welcome and give yourselves a round of applause.\
\
C. Calamaio: Good looking group over there. Throughout the broadcast we
will be going live to Florida and Idaho where we have student reporters
standing by with some top fire experts.\
\
Cody: Now today\'s three themes. First, wildland fire is a part of
nature. Second, people can make their community safer from wildfire. And
finally, firefighters need your help.\
\
C. Calamaio: Did you know that no matter what time of year it is
somewhere in the United States it is fire season? As we move through the
seasons of the year, fire season also moves around the country.\
\
Cody: When it is fire season, this is what it\'s like.\
\
Hi, I\'m Ashley, a student at Nucla High School in Colorado. I will be
interviewing students who had fire in their backyards.\
\
Well, it kind of looked like a rocket was taking off in my backyard.\
\
The fire would make the trees explode and you would see the fire just
rush across the trees - really fast.\
\
There were big clouds about two miles high up in the air and it was just
black in front and then red behind. It was scary. Trees were blowing up
and it sounded like there was a freight train behind our house.\
\
My mom attempted to watch it from closer and they made her leave.\
\
It was very amazing. You could see it. You can hear how \-- like how
fast it was coming down the mountain.\
\
When the wind picked up it forked into three different locations.\
\
There were days we couldn\'t see at all except for a little bit of a
glow.\
\
Canyon would just be filled with smoke and everything was smoke and a
lot of people were having a hard time breathing.\
\
I thought our house was going to burn down. So we were in a panic and we
were up watching it. 1:30, 2:00 rolls around and the police arrive and
they tell us, you need to pack up your stuff and get out. So they tell
us, take stuff that can\'t be replaced.\
\
I\'m Ashley McClellan. Now, back to you in Phoenix.\
\
C. Calamaio: thank you for that excellent report. So, Cody, exactly what
is fire?\
\
Cody: Fire is a chemical reaction. Three things are needed to produce
fire: fuel, heat and oxygen. These are called the fire triangle.\
\
C. Calamaio: Let\'s look at these one by one. First we\'re going to talk
about fuel. Fuel is anything that will burn. We\'re going to kind of
focus on wildlands. So dried grass like this, leaves, twigs, things that
get dried out on the in the ecosystem, this is fuels. Right now it\'s
the fall and I know in many of your towns and cities, a lot of you that
are watching, your front yard might look something like this. I got this
from a front yard in northern Illinois just this last weekend. The
beautiful fall leaves. They look pretty but definitely a forest fuel. If
you live in the mountains, the forest floor may look something like
this. Forest fuels. Little pieces of park, dried up pine needles, twigs,
old pinecones, little pieces of dried up leaves. These are things that
can all burn. If you\'re in an area that has not had rain or much snow
in many, many months, it can dry out. You could be in a drought cycle.
The trees, the vegetation, the grasses, can become very flammable, fuels
for fire. Also a house or a cabin, that\'s fuel made out of wood, things
that burn. Now the next part of the fire triangle is heat. In wildlands
the most common natural source of heat in wildlands is lightning.\
\
Cody: Lightning strikes from storms create tremendous heat. One summer
storm can generate more than 500 lightning strikes an hour. Fires can
also be started by people and from heat sources such as matches and
lighters used to light campfires and cigarettes.\
\
C. Calamaio: Things like this. We see them around all the time but a
little item like can that burn thousands, and thousands of acres in the
woods if it\'s used carelessly. The heat from the exhaust of off-highway
vehicles, motorcycles, dirt bikes, each your car, can also start a
fire.\
\
Cody: The third part of the fire triangle is oxygen. The air we breathe,
our atmosphere is 21% oxygen and fire needs only 19% oxygen for
ignition.\
\
C. Calamaio: So remember the fire triangle, fuel, heat and oxygen.
Without just one of these components, you can\'t have fire.\
\
Cody: Now let\'s go to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise,
Idaho, to learn more about the role fire plays in nature. Rachel Durland
is standing by. Hi.\
\
Welcome to the National Interagency Fire Center, we call it NIFC for
short. NIFC is home to fire experts from eight different government
agencies. Together they work as partners to understand the management of
wildland fires. Later we will take a closer look at what happens around
here. Right here I am here with fire expert, Pat Durland, who happens to
be my dad. What is so special about wildland fire?\
\
Wildland fire is a natural process just like rain. Nature is constantly
starting wildland fires through lightning strikes or volcanic eruptions.
Just like floods and earthquakes shape our rivers and have made our
mountains and valleys, for thousands of years wildland fires have shaped
our forests and grasslands. Most ecosystems around the world show
evidence of some type of fire cycle. The cycles vary from high intensity
tree top fires every five to six hundred years to low intensity fires
that burn under the treetops every three to five years. Wildland fire is
one of nature\'s ways of re-cycling aging systems. By stimulating new
plant growth, it helps control insects and diseases. It creates and
maintains fresh, new ecosystems for plants and animals.\
\
Thanks, dad. That\'s why fire is important in healthy ecosystems. Now,
back to you, Cody.\
\
Cody: Thanks, Rachel. Now we\'re going to see an example of how fire
plays a very important role in a very special ecosystem.\
\
We\'re going to go live again but this time to central Florida where
Mary Huffman from the Nature Conservancy is joining us. Good morning,
Mary.\
\
Good morning, Chip. The Nature Conservancy works with communities to
save lands and waters around the world. We\'re here in central Florida
the ancient scrubby co-system a place where fire plays an important
role. But first we have a background piece by our student reporter.
Let\'s take a look.\
\
Hi, my name is Kaiden Spurlock. I live about an hour south of Orlando.
Right where I\'m standing is Florida scrub. This habitat supports many
plants and animals that live nowhere else in the world. That\'s because
this actually used to be beachfront property.\
\
Florida is a peninsula, and if you go back tens of thousands of years at
various times, it was a peninsula or it was a series of islands like the
Bahamas, as sea level and fallen and when a sea level persisted as a
particular time, it deposited sand dunes and beaches and then sea level
declined again and the dunes were left. If you look at the peninsula of
Florida, there are a series ridges all up and down the peninsula. So the
plants that live in this habitat have had thousands of years to develop
characteristics that suit them to this very rigorous environment. So
many of them are unique to the Florida scrub and not found anywhere else
in the world. The Florida scrub Jay is the only species of bird that
occurs only in Florida, nowhere else. They are very specific in that
they prefer a single kind of habitat in Florida, oak scrub that is
maintained by periodic fire. Without that fire and that habitat, Jays
don\'t persist.\
\
The Florida scrub Jay is a fire dependent species because as fire rolled
through it would lower oaks and pines and keep the weedy, as we say, the
weedy, woody species out and without fire the oaks will grow up to a
certain high. Like over my head. It would be unacceptable because other
predators can come in such as the hawk and food burning knocks the oaks
back down so they\'re most acorn productive. Also, nesting is the
biggest thing. They are specialized and that thicket of oak about the 3
meter height, if they don\'t have that, they will refuse to nest, they
won\'t be as successful because that nest to be an area that\'s open so
they can see the snakes and predators.\
\
Because scrubs have become so fragmented now because most has been lost,
it\'s been turned into citrus groves or homes or things like that, these
individual patches of scrub become smaller targets for lightning and so
it\'s much less likely that lightning is going to strike and it will
burn naturally. Also, fires can\'t spread naturally. They will burn five
acres and then hit a road or another barrier to natural fire. So because
the natural fire process has been disrupted, we have to introduce fire
as prescribed burns. So our most effective management tool for
maintaining the habitat in a condition that\'s good for Florida Scrub
Jays is to burn it ourselves every 10 to 12 years.\
\
We have seen burns where the fire will go right through and it becomes
black immediately afterwards and we have seen a coral snake come in
after it looking for frogs or something left over. It\'s great. It opens
it up for the animals, especially species that have a harder time
getting around when it\'s thick. They can move around and see what
they\'re after. So the fire is great for these species that are adapted
to this area.\
\
Really, the Scrub Jay is just an emblem, a symbol for this broad
community that we call scrub, and by saving the Florida Scrub Jay, we
save an entire community of plants and animals that are unique to
Florida and provide us with a sense of heritage of what Florida was like
before people came here, and maintaining the kind of natural values that
Florida should be very proud of. Kids are going to be the future
generations, and whether or not they get to enjoy Florida and have that
sense of pride in their natural heritage depends on their approach to
the conservation of not only Florida Scrub Jays, but of scrub itself.

As you can see, many plants and animals have come to thrive on fire. The
Florida Scrub Jay is a great example of a fire dependent species. And
like other scrub species, without fire, they will eventually become
extinct.\
\
Now joining us live is our student reporter, welcome, Kaiden and thanks
for that report.\
\
Thank you, Mary. Where we are standing is an area of scrub that is about
three years old. It burned. Could you show us what has happened since
then?\
\
Absolutely. In order to really understand how scrub responds to fire, I
have to let you in on two little secrets about the scrub. First is, you
can see it\'s not a forest, it\'s not a grassland. It\'s a shrub
ecosystem. That means it\'s a mix of shrubs and open patchy places that
are these open, white sandy spaces. When we first burned this site, it
was pretty black. And if you came out that day, you\'d think, wow,
what\'s going to happen next? But three years later you can see it\'s
enjoyed a lush and vigorous recovery. Let\'s look at one of the open
sandy spaces and see some of the rare and important species that live
there. We can see this species right here. Looks sort of like a palm,
called a scrub Palmetto. It likes these open sunny places and there\'s
something else special about this plant.\
\
That\'s right, Mary. These finers are used by the Florida Scrub Jay to
line its nest, and without these the Florida Scrub Jay cannot nest. If
that can\'t happen, then we will not have any Florida Scrub Jays.\
\
You can see these things are connected. No fire, no palmettos, no
strands, no nests, no birds. Let\'s look at this plant next to you. This
is one of the very rare plants that only lives on the lake wails ridge,
nowhere else in the world. It\'s called the Florida short-leaved
Rosemary. You know, sometimes we\'re not sure what plants and animals
have to offer to our future, but in this case, this rare plant has some
kind of medicinal qualities or some special chemicals it\'s making using
the Florida sun. I think it smells kind of medicinal, do you?\
\
I do, too.\
\
I think we should keep all of the pieces of nature around and fire is
important for that process.\
\
Thank you, Mary. That\'s it from Florida. Back to you, Chip.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you, Kaiden.\
\
Cody: Thanks, Kaiden, great job.\
\
C. Calamaio: Now we\'re joined by BLM\'s Dena Sprandel who came from
Miles City, Montana, to be with us in Phoenix. Welcome.\
\
Thank you Chip.\
\
C. Calamaio: We just saw in that piece from Florida how that ecosystem,
how the Florida Scrub Jay, that type of a species really needs fire.
Fire is a very important part of the mix there. We have students
watching from all across North America that live in lots of different
ecosystems. There are some other species that \-- where fire is very
important to their survival.\
\
Yes Chip, there are many ecosystems that are dependent on fire. Most
ecosystems have some kind of fire cycle. An example is the Jack Pine
Forest in the Great Lakes states. The endangered Kirtland\'s Warbler
only nests in Jack Pine Forests. Wildland fires remove the older trees
and republic the forest floor for the new pine seedlings. Without a
series of young forests to nest in, this warbler would have a hard time
surviving. A similar situation occurs in the Ponderosa pine forest of
the western mountains. The pine needles on the forest floor help carry
low intensity wildland fires through the forest. This leaves open spaces
that attract wildlife. And although small trees and shrubs are burned,
the larger pine trees with their fire resistant bark survive the fire.
These remaining trees are healthy and grow faster. This is because there
is less competition for nutrients and water.\
\
Thanks, Dena. That\'s fascinating. Ok, everybody, now it\'s time to play
our first round of the wildfire challenge. Here we go. Cody, perhaps you
could tell everybody a little bit about our game.\
\
Cody: Today\'s game, we have a lot of great prizes. The more points you
score, the better the prize. We have fire book covers, T-shirts, NIFC
baseball caps as well as fanny packs with water bottles.\
\
C. Calamaio: You could win some burning issues fire education CDs or
even a huge fire educational package for your class if you can score 500
points.\
\
Cody: Even if you miss a question, we\'ll have a fire\'s role in nature
poster.\
\
C. Calamaio: We will give you a question; you will give us an answer.
You will pick out the number of points in each category that you want to
try to win. When you call in with your attempt to play our game, please
afterwards stay on the line so our operators can get your name, your
address, and so we can send your prize to you. We first have a caller on
the line and who is calling us? Sara?\
\
Caller: Hi.\
\
C. Calamaio: Sara, you\'re on television. Where are you calling from?\
\
Caller: Portland, New York.\
\
C. Calamaio: We are in the fire ecology category and please pick out the
number of points you would like to compete for.\
\
Caller: How about 300.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. We\'re going to give you \-- fire ecology for 400.
Let\'s see if you can answer this question. Give one example of how an
ecosystem can benefit from fire. We can hear her \--\
\
Caller: New animals can come in.\
\
C. Calamaio: Let\'s see the answer. Nutrients are returned to the soil.
Habitats are opened up. Pests and diseases are controlled. Seeds are
released. Next we have Ashley on the phone. Hello. Where are you calling
from?\
\
Caller: Elk city, Idaho.\
\
C. Calamaio: We\'re in fire ecology. You can pick 100, 200 or 500. How
many points, Ashley?\
\
Caller: Fuels for thought for 300 \--\
\
C. Calamaio: Do you want to pick 200 or 500?\
\
Caller: 200.\
\
C. Calamaio: Here is the question. What are fire-dependent species? Do
you have an answer for us? Fire dependent species.\
\
Caller: They depend on fire to regrow.\
\
C. Calamaio: Yes, you\'ve got it right. Plants or animals that need fire
for survival, such as the Florida Scrub Jay, Jack Pine or Kirtland\'s
Warbler. We have one more caller. Who is on the line?\
\
Caller: Elija.\
\
C. Calamaio: Where are you calling in from?\
\
Caller: Oregon.\
\
C. Calamaio: Would you like to pick fire ecology for 100 or 500 points.\
\
Caller: 100. What makes up the fire triangle? Or, what are the three
necessary ingredients for fire to occur, Elisha?\
\
Caller: Fuel, heat and oxygen.\
\
C. Calamaio: We have got some prizes heading up to Oregon. Let's give a
big round of applause to our winners. Ok. That was great. That concludes
this first episode of the wildfire challenge, and there\'s more coming
up. Joining us now from right here in Arizona is BLM wildland fire
specialist Thomas Lund. Thomas is here with Cody and he is going to talk
to us about our next subject on wildland fire. Ok, Cody and Thomas.\
\
Thanks Chip.\
\
Cody: We have been learning that wildland fire is natural and important
to ecosystems. Yet we see in the news how big fires have damaged
people\'s homes. It\'s kind of confusing.\
\
Cody, you\'re right, it is confusing. We now know that fire is a natural
part of the earth\'s natural processes. Let me start with a little
history. Early humans first used fire as a tool about 500,000 years ago.
Native Americans used fire to improve hunting and to clear land for
farming. European settlers followed their example. As communities began
to grow, people began to see fire as a threat. In the 1800s, wildfires
burned large areas of the country and hundreds of people were killed. As
a result, all wildfires would be fought aggressively. And for more than
100 years now, that\'s what we\'ve been doing. You know, without natural
fires, great quantities of fuel have built up. These heavy fuels,
combined with drought and weather cycles, all contribute to severe fires
that pose risks to firefighters, homes and natural resources.\
\
Cody: So how do we balance fire\'s role in nature while minimizing the
danger to people and property?\
\
We come to realize that many ecosystems need periodic fire to remain
healthy. So now we allow fires to burn where it can and where fuel
builds up and posed a threat we strive to reduce fuel loads and prevent
catastrophic fires.\
\
Cody: There are many fire experts looking into these issues, so let\'s
go back to NIFC with Rachel.\
\
Cody, here at NIFC, there are hundreds every jobs related to wildland
fire management and support and you don\'t have to be on the fire line
to be a part of the wildfire team. So come with me as we check out what
some these people do. This is NICC, the national interagency
coordination center. When local resources are exhausted, the people at
NICC gather and send emergency assistance and supplies and aircraft to
the areas that need them the most. NICC gets the right mix of people and
equipment on the ground fast to help any fire or emergency. During an
emergency, people need to get a hold of each other. On wildland fire
cell phones just don\'t cut it. Right now I am surrounded by more than
7,000 hand-held radios, the largest cache of radios in the world. A
cache is just like basically a place to store goods or supplies. Radios
are a major safety tool. When working a fire, if you don\'t have
communications, you just don\'t go out, period. You need to what\'s
going on other and firefighters need to know where you are. So when a
large fire, hundreds of radios are necessary. To keep them working, NIFC
goes through more than a million dollars of batteries a year. And you
thought your CD player ate your batteries? Speaking of caches, just
about anything you would need you can find here at one of 11 equipment
warehouses. For example, a fireproof shirt. What about something to eat?
We have thousands of MREs, or meals ready to eat for when you can\'t get
fast-food. A place to stay. Well, we have enough equipment and supplies
to create a city for 10,000 overnight. How big is your backyard? After
the fire, most of the items get shipped back to the returns warehouse.
Just think of it as a giant recycling center. Technicians here inspect,
clean and repair everything from hard hats to chainsaws, getting them
ready for the next big event. No, they aren\'t your latest Mars landers
but go to places almost as severe. These RAWS stations are high-tech
safety tools. It stands for remote automatic weather station. It\'s
critical to know what the weather is doing in emergency situations,
especially wildland fire. These guys collect real time weather data,
like temperature and wind speed and report their conditions during a
fire or other event. They can even tell you weather information over the
radio so you\'re not clueless.\
\
Station 1, warning, warning, warning \-- relative humidity is 24%.\
\
NIFC coordinates the movement of all sorts of fire equipment like
helicopters, wildland fire engines and other tools. Firefighters have
been using some of these same tools for decades, like pumps, saws,
shovels and my dad\'s personal favorite the Pulaski, but don\'t tell him
I found this in our garden shed. In some cases these tools don\'t make
it to the fire. This jet carries a special infrared scanner. Flying at
night from a mile-and-a-half above the fire it finds hot spots in a fire
area. Once created infrared images of the fire are then dropped to the
ground using a special delivery tube. It\'s the quickest way to get new
information to the fire team on the ground. Smokejumpers are wildland
firefighters who get to work in a different way. Their commute is like
out in. They jump out of the airplane and parachute to the job. Ready to
go, Scott? They are usually the first on the scene of new small
wildfires that aren\'t easy to get to and they carry practically
everything with them. Smokejumpers also train with parachute simulators
time prove their skills. Wildland firefighting is one of the most
challenging jobs. Jumpers are required to be in top physical shape and
have many skills. Not the least which is sewing. Smokejumpers sew and
repair their own equipment and custom gear is made for new recruits.
Relying on parachutes is a serious safety concern. Smokejumpers depend
on their equipment working properly in dangerous conditions. I mean, you
wouldn\'t want to have someone else doing your sewing for you, right?
Besides, smokejumpers make great tailors, Matt is making my prom dress
for me, right, Mat?\
\
Yeah, right.\
\
So, you see, NIFC is a lot of people coming together with different
skills to create a huge wildland fire team.\
\
That was a great tour. Looks like you had a lot of fun. When I was a
smokejumper we didn\'t have computer simulators to tell us whether we
hit tree or not. Back then it was more like this. Safety equipment on!
And adjusted. Oh, no no no no (speaker strikes self with tree branch).\
\
Dad! Ok. Anyways. We met a lot of cool people. NIFC supports
firefighting. What else do they do?\
\
Well, that\'s a good question. Because a lot goes on before the fire
season starts. Fire experts in NIFC and everywhere else around the
country start working with communities to develop wildland fire plans.
This becomes our road map to how we prepare and respond to fires after
they start. This way we don\'t have to wait until the fire starts. We
can start taking action before it starts. So we start with preventative
actions to prevent fires that we don\'t want to start. In the wildlands,
fuels start getting dry and fire conditions get dangerous, we ask people
to be careful with all fire so they don\'t start fires accidentally. We
treat the fuels by thinning overgrown stands of trees, making them
healthier and reducing these fuels and the risk of wildfires to
communities and natural resources like we\'re going to see in Arizona.
We use prescribed fire projects to keep fire dependent ecosystems
healthy. Like your doctor would prescribe medicine when you\'re sick.
Prescribed fires are started by highly trained burn bosses. After
careful planning and when the conditions are just right and we will see
how they do that in Florida. Another important part of the plans is
wildland fire use. When lightning starts fires where it is needed and
where it\'s not likely to do damage, we watch and guide to it improve
the ecosystem. That\'s what we call wildland fire use. We suppress and
fight fires when they threaten to damage an ecosystem by burning too
intensely or when they threaten communities. When it gets to this point
we use all our firefighting teams and their tools to suppress it or put
it out.\
\
So the role of NIFC is more than just fighting or reacting to fires,
right. Exactly, many of the folks at NIFC are experts at developing
wildland fire plans to keep fire and ecosystems when it\'s safe and
needed and to respond and prepare when we need to do that to keep them
from damaging the ecosystems. As a matter of fact, right now we have
smokejumpers in Oregon and Idaho helping with prescribed fires and Grant
is going to hang around later and answer questions for us, right,
Grant?\
\
There\'s a lot more we could cover at the NIFC fire center but I
understand we have more \-- other places to go so we\'ll turn it over to
you in Phoenix.\
\
Cody: Thanks, again, Rachel. Before we go on, we would like to see if
any of you have questions for our fire experts.\
\
C. Calamaio: We have Thomas and Dena in the studio along with fire
specialists at NIFC in Boise, Idaho, as well as our fire specialist
standing by with the Nature Conservancy in Florida. Now, remember what
Secretary Norton said at the beginning of the show\... don\'t be shy
about calling in. First, Cody, do you have someone from our studio class
that has question for us?\
\
Cody: Yes, this is?\
\
Irvin. What is \-- what is the stuff coming out of like the airplanes
and stuff, what is it made of?\
\
C. Calamaio: Good question. What is that stuff \-- that red colored
stuff, coming out of the airplanes flying over the fires? What is it
made of and what does it do? Let\'s go to Boise, Idaho, to the National
Interagency Fire Center. Pat Durland, you want to answer that question
for us?\
\
Sure, that stuff looks like ketchup, and it\'s actually phosphate, or a
chemical and what phosphate does is it prevents the fuels from burning
when it coats them, it prevents the fire triangle from taking place and
breaks that fire triangle. We color it red so the absolutes can see and
it and know where to drop it next.\
\
C. Calamaio: Very good. Thank you, pat. I believe we have Luke on the
line. Hello, Luke.\
\
Caller: Hi.\
\
C. Calamaio: How are you? Where are you calling from?\
\
Caller: Grand Canyon.\
\
C. Calamaio: From the Grand Canyon. That\'s neat. Do you have a question
for our fire experts?\
\
Caller: Yes, how often does a natural fire get started?\
\
C. Calamaio: How often does a natural fire get started. Let\'s go to
Florida to Mary Huffman. Mary, how often does a natural fire get
started?\
\
Well, that\'s a good question because every ecosystem has its own
characteristics. In some places in Florida fires will start every year,
two years, three years, our ecosystems are designed that way. In some
places we have forests that burn only every hundred years. It depends on
the ecosystem.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thomas or Dena, you want to jump in on that one?\
\
I think she explained it well.\
\
C. Calamaio: Next we have someone in Oregon on the phone. Who is
calling?\
\
Caller: Elija.\
\
C. Calamaio: Your question is?\
\
Caller: I want to know how you guys keep fires from going into the
roads?\
\
C. Calamaio: Thomas, you\'re on the hook for this one now.\
\
Good question. Sometimes we actually use roads for like a natural
firebreak. We use those to help us stop a fire. A lot of times we can\'t
stop them and they\'ll actually jump the roads and continue to burn.
Depending on the conditioned of that ecosystem.\
\
C. Calamaio: So the roads can actually work in our favor.\
\
Yes, they can.\
\
C. Calamio: And who is our next caller, please? Ok. And Cody, I believe
you have someone in the audience?\
\
Cody: Yes, I do. I am standing with \--\
\
Caller: How often do firefighters get killed in fires?\
\
C. Calamaio: A serious question. This is very serious business, wildland
fires. Let\'s go to the fire center for that. Pat?\
\
That is a very serious question, and it\'s one we think a lot about. We
do everything we can to make sure all our firefighters are well trained,
have the right equipment and stay out of those situations that are going
to threaten life, and that\'s our number one priority, is safety, and
preventing the loss of life. So that\'s our first priority. We do
everything we can.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you, Pat. Ok. Cody, we have one more question from
our audience.\
\
Cody: I would personally like to ask a question. What kinds of special
training do wildland firefighters need over that of an average city
firefighter?\
\
C. Calamaio: Cody has a question for us. Thomas?\
\
Well, I\'m not sure \-- I know the city fire departments go through
quite a bit of training. To become a wildland firefighter, they actually
go through a lot of training to learn weather patterns and to learn some
of the things we\'ve been learning here today about fire and about the
fire \-- about fire science, about the fire triangle. So \-- and once
you become a wildland firefighter, you get a lot of on-the-job training,
and as you do it over the years, you begin to learn more about
wildfire.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. Thank you, Thomas and thanks to all our experts and all
of those of you out there for those great questions. Now at this point,
we\'re going to go into a little more detail about fuels and go back to
Dena.\
\
Thanks Chip. We saw earlier fire suppression allowed a lot of plant
growth that made many forests and plant areas dense. Remember, fuel is
any material that will burn. This could be dead or life plant or
structures like houses. But we\'re talking here about plant materials in
natural areas - if fire is allowed to burn periodically, vegetation is
reduced, see low intensity fire will burn. In fire-adapted ecosystems,
this will be beneficial. The problem arises when fuels are allowed to
build up. Here\'s a forest that has become too dense because fire has
been excluded. Here\'s a look at a more open forest. When you get dense
buildup of shrubs and small trees within this forest over time, then a
ground fire can climb the fuels to reach the tops of trees. These fuels
are called ladder fuels. These are fuels that a ground fire uses to
climb into the treetops. A fire that reaches the treetops is called a
crown fire. It can be very devastating to a forest. To see some examples
of how fire behaved differently with different fuel treatments let\'s go
to central Arizona. We\'re going to the location of the Rodeo-Chedeski
fire. You may remember this fire from the news. What you\'ll see from
this tape is an example of how prescribed fire was used to reduce fuels
buildup. But keep in mind, prescribed fire may not be appropriate in all
situations. There are other methods to reduce fuels, which you\'ll learn
about later. Some may even surprise you. Now, let's go to our Arizona
reporter, Andrew Crandall.\
\
Hi, I\'m Andrew Crandall from Mogollon High School and we\'re here on
the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. Today we will be talking to Robert
about fuels reduction.\
\
Andrew, fuel reduction is where we go into an area that has a lot of
fuel on the ground. When I say fuel, I\'m talking about natural slash,
logging slash, grass and brush and that kind of stuff. We go in there
and when we say fuel reduction, we go in there and eliminate lot of that
fuel.\
\
What do you think is the most important way of reducing fuel?\
\
Going into an area doing prescribed burns. Under the right conditions,
we would intentionally light off an area using fire to eliminate and a
lot of those grass and brush and needles on the floor.\
\
I can see the fire came through here but it\'s not as bad as some of the
other areas I\'ve seen. Tell us why.\
\
Well, Andrew, around here \-- in this area here, we did the prescribed
burn here within the last two to three years. It eliminated a lot of
flash fuel, what we call one hour fuel, which is the grassy fuel and the
pine litter. Then also it eliminated what we call the ladder fuel, which
is small little trees and small little brush, so when the fire came
through here, it didn\'t have that much fuel to burn. You are going to
see a difference between where we\'re standing and what I will be
showing you down the road about three to four miles away.\
\
Wow, Robert, we can really see a difference. Can you tell us what you
did differently?\
\
The area we were looking at earlier is an area that we had treated here.
This area that we\'re at currently has never been treated. The fire
would have more fuel to burn up. Therefore, the fire will be very
unpredictable. It will be growing a lot faster and it will be moving a
lot quicker, whereas in an area that\'s been treated, less fuel, so the
fire will have a tendency to slow down as soon as it gets in an area
like that. If there is ever a major fire in there, we have found out,
like the Rodeo-Chedeski fire, it will come up to where we did some fuel
reduction, the and the fire will are lay down.\
\
As you learned today, fuels reduction is really important in controlling
wildfires. I\'m Andrew Crandall. Now back to you.\
\
C. Calamaio: Good job, Andrew. Now, everyone, please meet today\'s very
special guest.\
\
This is Mandy the goat with her owner Brodi.\
\
C. Calamaio: Cody, talk to us about why Brodi and Mandy are here.

Cody: They\'re here to demonstrate something. We have a question for
someone in the audience. What does Mandy and a chainsaw have in common?\
\
C. Calamaio: You are?\
\
Anthony: Anthony.\
\
C. Calamaio: This is Anthony from the OLPH school in Arizona and the
question is, what does that chainsaw and that goat have in common? What
does the chainsaw and Mandy the goat have in common as we\'re talking
about wildland fire and forest fuels?\
\
Anthony: They can both be dangerous objects in a certain way.\
\
C. Calamaio: They can both be dangerous objects in a certain way. Close
but not quite the correct answer. Somebody else want to jump in on that
one? Come on, yes, please. Your name is.\
\
Eric: Eric Chavez.\
\
C. Calamaio: What do the goat and chainsaw have in common?\
\
They can both eat the underbrush.\
\
C. Calamaio: Exactly. That will work. Very good Dena.\
\
That\'s a great answer. Chainsaws are used to thin fuels and in some
areas goats and other grazing animals are used to eat fuels. As you saw
in that Arizona tape, it is quite clear that reducing fuels can affect
fire behavior and lessen the impact of a fire. Fire behavior is
determined by three things: weather, topography and fuels. We can\'t
really change the first two, but we can change the amount of fuels on
the ground.\
\
And how do we do this?\
\
There are several methods to reduce fuels. Using animals such as sheep
and goats to eat fuels is a biological approach. Mechanical treatments
involve physically removing the fuel. This includes thinning as well as
removing debris. In forests where there are a lot of small trees and
brush, sometimes the best approach is to go in and remove them with a
chainsaw or other machinery. Remember, the appropriate method will vary
from situation to situation. Decisions on what methods to use are made
with many factors in mind. For example, as you will see in Florida, many
factors were considered. Prescribed fire was determined to be the best
approach in that particular situation. And remember, lighting a fire is
serious business and should only be done by professionals.\
\
Cody: Let\'s go live back to Kaiden in Florida and take a look at just
how they do that. Hi, Kaiden.\
\
Thanks, Cody. Prescribed fires are just one of the many things that the
Nature Conservancy does in Florida. A month ago I helped the prescribed
fire team conduct a prescribed burn here on this property.\
\
The fire can do good things for the environment. For instance, like
these sand pines out here, they\'re not supposed to be out here.
There\'s not supposed to be that many, and by presenting fire like
reintroducing it back into the system will lessen the pine trees and
bring back the Scrub Jay, because right now they\'re being crowded out
by overgrown scrub.\
\
We get everybody who is participating in the burn familiar with the
area. We do a drive around or a walk around and get everybody familiar
with the site and we mark all corners that match with a map that we
have, and so that people are not only familiar with it, they can look on
a map and we can talk about it during the burn.\
\
We can expect intense fire behavior\...\
\
We have our unit set aside as control lines. Those control lines are
sandy roads or sandy breaks on all sides. We go to the point on a
downwind and light a test fire and then go down the side and light a
flanking fire. I will be in charge of the ignition today and I will have
two crewmembers and they will take turns lighting while I supervise for
technique and safety.\
\
This is not a democracy. We have to have a chain-of-command so that it
is safe when we burn. So there is one person who is in charge, and down
below that person there are other people who work for that person, and
they have people that work under them, and it\'s a structure for
communication to work back and forth.\
\
Good communication is really crucial. We don\'t want anybody hurt. Not
just the people that are participating in the burn, but also anybody
around us who might be affected by our burning. We do quite a bit of
neighborhood relations with the neighbors before the burns - making sure
that people not only are safe but they understand what we\'re doing and
why we\'re doing it. We burn primarily to maintain this habitat the way
it has been maintained for thousands of years. We\'re trying to recreate
what nature did on its own in this habitat because of all the people
that live around our natural areas, it\'s become necessary for us to do
the burning ourselves when it\'s safe and when those fires will not
affect the surrounding neighborhoods.\
\
Now that this is all black, the fire won\'t re-burn in here again for
another few years.\
\
Mop-up is the final process we do when we\'re on the burn site. We want
everything to be out, all the smoldering logs and anything burning out
from a specified distance from the perimeter of the burn. We don\'t
leave the burn until the burn boss is fully satisfied that the perimeter
of the unit is secure. Prescribed burning is inherently dangerous, and
we take our work very seriously, and it\'s a great challenge for me to
organize my crews and get this work done safely. So it\'s nothing to
play around with.\
\
Fire is a very serious business. Right, Mary?\
\
Oh, absolutely, Kaiden. Safety is the most important thing on any
prescribed burn or any fire operation. Safety comes from careful
planning, rigorous training, specialized fire protective clothing and
equipment and expert analysis of the weather. You\'ve been on the fire
line. Tell us what it\'s like.\
\
Well, it\'s very hot, smoky, and long and tiring.\
\
It is tiring and a firefighter has to have excellent physical fitness to
hold up to that kind of challenge.\
\
What is your role in the Nature Conservancy?\
\
Well, I\'m part of an expert prescribed burning team called the Florida
Scrub Jay fire strike team. Twelve organizations got together to form
this team because we knew we had a very serious need to do more
prescribed burning in a difficulty co-system. This year we\'ve
accomplished 35 safe and effective prescribed burns, but there\'s much
more to be done.\
\
I helped the Nature Conservancy conduct a burn on this property. Let\'s
take a look and see what has grown since then.\
\
It\'s only been a month since this fire took place but I think we\'re
already seeing evidence of the scrub rejuvenating and sprouting.

This is an oak tree after one month. It\'s already starting to grow.\
\
You bet. And if you look to the other side, this is a palmetto. You can
already see that the fire singed off this leaf when it was next to the
base. This was probably an old dead leaf. You can see evidence of the
fire, but look how vigorously it\'s sprouting in such a short time. I
think this program is really working.\
\
I have to agree. That\'s it from Florida. Now back to you, Cody.\
\
Cody: Thanks, Kaiden. Now we\'re going to go back to NIFC and talk about
communities and wildfire. Hello again, Rachel.\
\
Hi, Cody. Because of threats to life property and resources we may have
serious problems in places where homes and towns have been built near
wild areas.\
\
That\'s right, these places are called the wildland urban interface and
they\'re a top priority for home owners and fire managers, too. We
learned that the wildlands have to burn when conditions allow but homes
don\'t have to and shouldn\'t. People like you can help make a
difference by keeping communities safe. Our firefighters can\'t do it
alone. There will never be enough fire engines or firefighters to
protect both communities and the wildlands. So it helps for the
communities to work with wildland firefighters wherever you are. There
are some simple things you can do that are going to make a big
difference. We are going to go over those now. It\'s a matter of
creating a firewise area around your house. By treating your house and
the area around it, reducing the fuels like we\'ve talked about already.
A nonflammable roof won\'t let hot embers start your roof on fire.
Keeping your roof and gutters free of leaves and debris will also keep
those embers from finding something to ignite and burn. Keep your grass
watered and mowed, it will reduce the fuel fire needs to reach your
house. By trimming the lower branches or ladder fuels from your trees,
ground files won\'t b able to reach them. Where is your woodpile? Keep
fuels like wood piles and dry bushes away from your house. And there\'s
some cool stuff on the firewise website. So be sure and check it out.\
\
Speaking of firewise, let\'s go back to the firewise challenge.\
\
Cody: Thanks, Rachel. Up next in the firewise challenge, if you want to
join in, call now. You need to pay close attention and see what our
students are during. For participating, you will receive a burning
issues fire education CD. With us again is Thomas Lund to lead us
through the activity.\
\
Yes, we call this the firewise challenge and here I have Kevin and Jamie
from our studio classroom, who are going to help us participate in this
activity. Let me set the stage for you, guys. What we have here \--
let\'s pretend like this is your new home and it\'s in the forest. Ok?
As you can see, it has a few problems as far as some of the vegetation
around it. If we were to have a wildfire move through this yard, I think
this home might have a problem. So it\'s your task to help us make this
home firewise. Now, over here we have some of the things that you can
use or replace with some of the plants or materials around the home. We
have different roof systems here. We have some plants that are more fire
resistant than maybe some of these up close to the house. So with that,
you\'ve got about 45 seconds to do this. Are you up for the challenge?\
\
Sure.\
\
Yeah? Do you have any questions?\
\
No.\
\
All right.\
\
C. Calamaio: If you guys could get in position in front of the house,
our contestants are going to get into position for this episode of the
firewise challenge and we\'re getting ready to start the clock and
you\'ll have 45 seconds. Ok, here we go. Are you ready? And start the
clock. Ok. The first thing that\'s happening is major reconstruction on
this house. We have the roof coming off. Lots of activity in the front
yard. I see some trees are being moved around, some action with the
sidewalk. And little things happening around the mailbox. We\'ve got
some brush being removed. Chimney being replaced. All right. More action
in the front yard. Still moving around items. We see trees being
transplanted and moving out of the way. Ok. 10 seconds left, everybody.
Here we go. Still action in the front yard, removing fuels very quickly
now. 3, 2, 1, and time\'s up. Ok. Thomas?\
\
Good job. I believe we have a caller on the phone. Do we have a caller
to help us critique this?\
\
Caller: Hello? Hi.\
\
C. Calamaio: Who is on the phone?\
\
Caller: This is Kathy.\
\
C. Calamaio: In looking at this house - what you can see on TV, how do
you think the students from our class here did.\
\
Caller: I think they did ok.\
\
C. Calamaio: Do you see anything you would do different?\
\
Caller: I would take more of the trees out.\
\
Caller: Cody going to do anything that you would like her to do on your
behalf, taking some trees out. Unblock the mailbox. Remove some of the
logs.\
\
C. Calamaio: The wood pile.\
\
Cody: Nice job.\
\
Caller: Unblock the mailbox. Ok. We did that.\
\
Caller: Get rid of the wood fences attached to the house. And play with
the chimney. Put a screen on the chimney, I\'m sorry.\
\
C. Calamaio: I think she has some people in her class helping talk her
through this.\
\
Caller: Yes.\
\
C. Calamaio: One last look at the front yard before your time is up.\
\
Caller: Get some bushes away from the house.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok, Cody.\
\
Caller: The dead ones.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you very much. Thomas, how did our caller and
students do?\
\
They did an excellent job! Some of the lessons we\'ve learned here is we
need to remove, of course, the wood pile away from the home, the dead
trees and debris in the front yard needs to be removed, all ladder fuels
that can carry flame up towards the house need to be removed. They
replaced the roof system. They took away the shake shingle, which is a
wood system and they replaced it with a tile roof, which is good. They
made the mailbox visible. They actually replaced the wooden walkway that
came right up to the home, which was great. They also took the wooden
fences away, where it hit the side of the home. So, other than that, I
think they did a great job. Of course, it could use a little more work.
But \-- maybe removing some of the fuels from the front part of the
yard. But just taking a few simple actions like these before a wildfire
starts can greatly enhance your home\'s survivability if there is a
wildfire.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you, Thomas and thanks to everyone for playing the
firewise challenge. Ok. It\'s time again for questions. What we\'ve got
are some callers on the phone to start our question-and-answer segment.
Ok, again, you can ask questions of Thomas and Dena here in Phoenix as
well as Mary with the Nature Conservancy in Florida and with Pat and
Rachel and we have Grant the smokejumper in Boise, Idaho. Our first
caller \--\
\
C. Calamaio: Where are you calling from?\
\
Caller: I\'m calling from Hershey, Pennsylvania.\
\
C. Calamaio: Hershey, Pennsylvania. What is your question?\
\
Caller: How hard is it to get legislation passed to be able to let
wildfires burn? Is there some already in the United States?\
\
C. Calamaio: The question is how hard is it to get legislation passed to
let wildfires burn, and let\'s go to the fire center in Boise. Pat?\
\
That\'s a political question. It\'s a great time of year for that. But
we\'re actually trying to do some of that now. It\'s hard to get
legislation passed. That\'s a slow process, but we have legislation now
and direction to do thinning around communities, which will protect the
communities and resources and we will be able to do more wildland fire
use. So it takes a long time, but it\'s working and we\'re getting
there.\
\
C. Calamaio: Also, there is a national fire plan that\'s already on the
books that allows agencies through NIFC to do a lot of these types of
things. Now, Cody, I believe you have someone with our studio class.\
\
Cody: I\'m standing next to?\
\
James. What\'s the main thing you use to keep fires in control?\
\
C. Calamaio: The main thing we use to keep fires in control. Thomas?\
\
That\'s a good question, and it depends \-- if you\'re talking about
prescribed fire, a lot of times we\'ll go in beforehand and we\'ll dig
fire line around the areas where we\'re going to do prescribed fire.
It\'s a little if you ever if it\'s a wildfire \-- it\'s a little
tougher if it\'s a wildfire.\
\
C. Calamaio: This concludes this short question-and-answer segment. We
want to thank all of those of you who have questions. We can tell you
have been thinking about this and listening. This concludes the first
hour of our program on wildland fire. We know a lot of classes have to
leave us right now and we\'re sorry to see you go, but if you can stay
we have a 30-minute bonus segment coming up. Remember our main themes,
though, first, wildland fire is part of nature. Second, people can make
their communities safer from wildfire. And finally, firefighters need
your help. Cody?\
\
Cody: We would like to remind teachers to use the activities in the
handbook provided for you and please complete the program evaluation in
that guide or on our website.\
\
C. Calamaio: If you can get us your website, we will send you and your
class a burning issues fire CD.\
\
Cody: Also, if you are staying with us, there\'s a lot more coming up in
the half hour bonus segment.\
\
C. Calamaio: We will learn more about protecting homes, another round of
wildfire challenge, we\'re going to have a demonstration for you about
heat in the forests, and you\'ll have more chances to ask questions of
our fire experts. So, if you\'re leaving us, remember, all to Share the
Adventure when you\'re exploring science of all kinds. So long and
thanks for watching and participating.\
\
Cody: Next we will look at how kids like us can make a difference.
Remember earlier we said firefighters cannot do it alone. Let\'s saw how
students in Colorado are helping their community.\
\
I\'m Anthony Evans. This is Jimmy. We\'re from Centennial Junior High
School in Montrose, Colorado.\
\
Wildfires happen a lot around here.

That\'s why kids from our school come out and do something we like to
call learn -- don't burn.\
\
We go around local neighborhoods and help people learn how to make their
homes safer from wildfires.\
\
How do we do it? Check it out. First we pair up and ring doorbells.\
\
Hi.\
\
We let homeowners know who we are and what we\'re about.\
\
Then we go into our mitigation plan.\
\
One of the most important things is to check around the house.\
\
We look for things like dry brush, high grass and firewood too close to
the house.\
\
You know, anything that catches fire and burns easily.\
\
Hi.\
\
Hi.\
\
Next we let them know what we found out.\
\
So they can put our suggestions into action and cut the risk of getting
hurt.\
\
It\'s a pretty cool thing for everybody.\
\
We help people have safer homes.\
\
And that\'s what we\'re all about.\
\
Besides how many times, do you get a chance to tell grownups what to
do.\
\
That\'s it from Colorado.\
\
I\'m Anthony.\
\
I\'m Jimmy.\
\
Back to you, Phoenix.\
\
Cody: Now let\'s go to our student reporter Jessica Tenney who talked to
an Arizona homeowner about how her house survived the Rodeo-Chedeski
fire this summer. This was the largest fire in Arizona\'s history.
Although some houses burned, many didn\'t.\
\
C. Calamaio: You will hear her use the term laddering up. What she is
referring to is the removal of ladder fuels from her trees by cutting
away lower branches. Let\'s take a look.\
\
Hi, I\'m Jessica Tenney from Mogollon High School. We\'re here today in
Overgaard, Arizona, where we will be showing you a home that survived
the Rodeo-Chedeski fire. Homeowner Pam will be talking to us about what
she did to make her home more fire safe.\
\
Our experiences with the Rodeo-Chedeski fire were one of surprise that
it actually did happen. We realized that it is a possibility because of
the way the growth in our forest is right now. We had no damage to our
lot. And some of our neighbors were not so fortunate.\
\
Why do you think your house survived the fire?\
\
I credit it all to the landscape class I took, because I came from
Phoenix and didn\'t really know anything about the native surroundings
up here and how to deal with it, and because we took the effort of about
three months to clear up our lot before we started building our home, I
think it really saved our home. When we were evacuated, we were pretty
confident in the fact that we had taken all the steps to prevent our
home from becoming a tragedy in this fire.\
\
What are some of the things that you learned in your class?\
\
Well, Jessica, we learned how to fireproof our lots as best you can when
you live in a pine forest. Cleaning up the debris off the ground, pine
needles, fallen branches, pine cones, laddering your trees up, getting
the branches off the ground to a height of four to five feet, and
thinning Ponderosa. Our front yard is all granite. Our trees have been
laddered up well above, you know, fire danger levels. We have a gravel
drive way. And we\'ve cut out basically all of the junipers out of this
yard and maintained them into small bushes because they\'re combustible
material.\
\
Since the fire, what have young people done to help restore the area?\
\
Jessica, we had a hundred varsity football players up here. They helped
us clear debris. They filled in numerous root holes from the fire. And
they helped us spread about 100 pounds of wild flower and grass seed on
our damaged areas in the airpark and the surrounding areas.\
\
For homeowners that live in forested areas, what advice would you give
to protect the home.\
\
Having trees is very nice and you can still have a lot of trees
surrounding your home and if they\'re taken care of properly, you should
be as fire safe as you can.\
\
Before wildfires threaten your home, it is important to think about
wildfire prevention. I\'m Jessica Tenney. Now back to you, Phoenix.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok, thank you, Jessica. That was an excellent report. Looks
like those students during a lot of good work up there. As you\'ve seen
in both Colorado and Arizona, students can, and they are, making a
difference. Hey, it\'s that time again. Time to go with another round of
the wildfire challenge. This one is called fuels for thought. Remember,
if you participate, stay on the line so we can get your name and address
and send you any prizes you might win. First we have for this episode of
wildfire challenge in our fuels for thought category Ryan from Idaho.
And would you like to play our game?\
\
Caller: Yeah.\
\
C. Calamaio: We\'re up for fuels for thought. Pick your points.\
\
Caller: Pick them?\
\
Caller: How many points would you like?\
\
Caller: 200.\
\
C. Calamaio: Fuels for thought for 200, please. Our question is, name
one method of reducing fuels in wildlands.\
\
Caller: Controlled burns.\
\
C. Calamaio: Controlled burn. Is that a correct answer? Ok. We have some
prizes on our way. Thank you. We have a correct answer. Ok. Now we\'re
going to go all the way up to Alaska where we have Sasha.\
\
Caller: Hi.\
\
C. Calamaio: Where are you calling from in Alaska?\
\
Caller: Glenallen.\
\
C. Calamaio: How many points would you like to pick for in the fuels for
thought category?\
\
Caller: I\'ll pick 400.\
\
C. Calamaio: We have fuels for thought for 400, please. There we go.
Okay. Here is your question. What was the result of suppressing wildland
fires for many years? What was the result?\
\
Caller: If there\'s too much fuel the wildfires get too big.\
\
C. Calamaio: Very good. Very good. Fuels building up. Ok. Prizes on the
way to Alaska. Ok. We have another caller in New Mexico. Who is calling,
please?\
\
Caller: \--\
\
C. Calamaio: How many points would you like to pick?\
\
Caller: 100.\
\
C. Calamaio: Fuels for thought for 100, please. What are two examples of
wildland fuels?\
\
Caller: Natural oils.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. That\'s one, in the vegetation. What is another
example?\
\
Caller: Let\'s see.\
\
C. Calamaio: Examples of wildland fuels, those things we showed you
earlier when we were looking at the fire triangle.\
\
Caller: There\'s the natural gas.\
\
C. Calamaio: There\'s natural gas. Ok. That\'s underneath the earth.
What are some of the other things on top of the ground can that
contribute to wildland fuels?\
\
Caller: Well, vegetation.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. Could we see the answer, please? Wooden structures,
vegetation, dry brush, trees, bushes. Ok. Cody, you have someone from
our studio class?\
\
Cody: Yes, die. This is.\
\
Ashley.\
\
Cody: Would you like 300 or 500?\
\
300.\
\
C. Calamaio: Fuels for thought for 300. Ashley, the question is what is
a crown fire? Any thoughts.\
\
Cody: Where does a crown go?\
\
C. Calamaio: Cody is trying to help her out with hand gestures here.
Fire on top of trees?\
\
C. Calamaio: That\'s correct. Fire. Very hot fire. Travels across the
tops of the trees like the crown on a queen. Ok. Good job. Ok. That\'s
it for this episode of the wildfire challenge. We would like thank all
of our participants who called in and Ashley here with our studio class
and at this point we\'re going to move into another general
question-and-answer segment and I think I would like to start this out
with a fax that we got, and this one is very specific. This goes up to
Pat at the fire center in Boise. This came from Stockton High School in
Stockton, Kansas, and the question, Pat is \-- How did the Pulaski get
its name? Rachel showed us a Pulaski.\
\
Sure. That\'s my favorite tool. Remember? It is. It\'s a great tool.
That\'s a good history question. The Pulaski actually got its name from
a man named Ed Pulaski. Ed Pulaski was credited back in the early 1900s
of saving firefighters by keeping them in a cave as the fire ran over
them, and he was a great firefighter, and he did a great job keeping
everybody safe.\
\
C. Calamaio: Little bit of fire history trivia for you. Cody, You have
someone with the studio class with a question.\
\
Cody: Yes.\
\
Alexis Martinez.\
\
Cody: What is your question?\
\
What\'s the average time to put a fire out.\
\
C. Calamaio: Average time to put out a fire. Ok. Let\'s go to Dena for
this one. You\'ve got some fire background.\
\
Sure, I can answer that one. It usually varies. It depends on what type
of vegetation is burning, and that will determine how long it takes to
put your fire out. If you have a grass fire and you have a lot of
weather involved, it might take longer if the weather pushes it. So it
involves a variation of factors, including weather, topography and the
vegetation.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you, Dena. Thanks for that question. Cody, you have
someone else from our studio class?\
\
My name is Kaitlin and my question is, why do you use fire to like put
out the fire, like go around it, why?\
\
C. Calamaio: The whole concept of using fire to put out a fire. Let\'s
go up to the fire center in Boise on this. This gets into issues like
backfires and things. Pat or Grant the smokejumper is with us now.\
\
I might take that one. One of the reasons we do that is \-- one of the
methods we use is to actually go out in front of a fire that\'s hard to
control, find a natural barrier or a road or a stream, something like
that and then we set a backfire out in front of the fire and burn from
that natural barrier back towards the main fire. Now, the reason we do
that is most likely that the fire is large, it\'s hard to control any
other way. We can\'t get in there with hand tools or hoses to control
it, so we look at the big picture and back off and try to use fire to
get in advance of the big fire.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. That\'s the end of this little question-and-answer
segment. What we\'re going to do now is we\'re going to be setting up a
demonstration for you in a second. We would also like to mention that
there\'s a lot involved with wildland fire. As you can see there\'s a
lot of serious science involved with this. We have weather. We have
fuels. We have moisture, all these conditions coming together related to
wildland fire. At this point we\'re going to go to Dena and Cody in our
demonstration area where they have something neat that they\'re going to
demonstrate.\
\
Thanks, Chip. The first thing I\'m going to show you is a serotinous
cone. Serotinous cones are special pinecones covered with resin. To
demonstrate how these cones open and release their seeds, we are going
to place a cone in a plastic bag and heat it in a microwave oven for 90
seconds and Cody is going to do this for us right now. The plastic bag
helps put moisture in it to help make it explode. Ok. If you look
closely at this cone and I\'m going to pass some around, can you guys
catch them if I throw them over there? I\'ll pass out some of these
serotinous cones. And if you look closely at them, you can see that the
scales are tightly crowded. The resin must be softened by high heat
before the cone scales open to release the seeds. Pine trees such as
lodgepole pine or pitch pine have this type of cone. Cones remain
dormant for many seasons attached to the trees. High heat from forest
fires causes the seeds to be released from the cones after a fire.\
\
Cody: What are some other types of trees and cones that have the same
method?\
\
There are many different types of trees. We already talked about the
jack pine trees. They do that. So do pitch pine. Sequoia trees also do
that. Along with lodgepole, which is what these cones are. How are we
doing on the microwave?\
\
Cody: It\'s not quite done yet. Can you tell us anything else about this
type of reproduction?\
\
I can, Cody. First, there are three different methods they use to help
out this but this process to have a healthy ecosystem. One of the
processes is they basically prepare the forest floor as a seed bed so
when the seeds fall, they will germinate and grow into trees. Another
thing it helps do is clear out the forest floor with small trees and
brush. That way when the trees do grow, they won\'t be competing for
nutrients or sunshine. And obvious \-- the obvious one, when the pine
cone d when the heat passes, the seeds release onto the forest floor. It
sounds like it\'s done, Cody.\
\
Cody: Yes, let\'s look at what happened. As you can see, it\'s exploded
little bit.\
\
Didn\'t do as much as the other one.\
\
What you do, when it does explode, it\'s kind of a fun activity for
teachers to do, what you would do is tap it on the thing and seeds fall
out. I know that\'s hard to see. I will try to pick some up. Seeds did
fall out. I will put some in here and you can see the seeds. Can they
fit in there? Could we go to the Elmo. There we go. You can see the
seeds on there. So, Chip, what\'s next?\
\
C. Calamaio: Next is another question-and-answer segment. Thank you for
that demonstration on how the heat from fire helps some of these
species' reproduce. Ok. And what I would like to do now is we have got a
fax that came in and the last thing \-- in our last segment we had Grant
up at the fire center talking to us. I would like to go back to Grant.
Grant, we have a faxed question that came in from Roseburg, Oregon, and
this is kind of a really a neat question. You are the perfect guy to
answer it. What the writer wants to know is what\'s going through the
smokejumper\'s head on the way to a fire? What are you thinking about
between that moment when you jump out of the airplane and you hit the
ground when you\'re parachuting into a wildfire.\
\
That\'s a real good question. It kind of depends on who the smokejumper
is. Some us are just scared, and the rest of us are thinking about other
things. But most of us when we\'re jumping we think about the jump and
when we hit the ground we think about the fire. We have about two
minutes where we\'re in the air flying around and during those two
minutes we\'re concentrating on hitting sometimes a real small spot on
the ground that\'s safe to jump into in between rocks and trees and
cactus. Usually we\'re just thinking about hitting the ground safely and
once we hit the ground, we drop our jump gear and start fighting the
fire.\
\
C. Calamaio: In your head you go from being \-- there is the parachute
portion and then the firefighter portion.\
\
Absolutely.\
\
C. Calamaio: We have a call or the line from the Grand Canyon. Hello?\
\
Caller: Hello?\
\
C. Calamaio: You have a question for us, Casey?\
\
Caller: Yeah, my question is, how come the wildland firefighters have
planes hold the slurry and not helicopters.\
\
C. Calamaio: Using planes for the slurry. Let\'s go to Pat in Boise. The
question he asked is why do firefighters use planes instead of
helicopters for dropping slurry?\
\
That\'s an intelligent question because you evidently know we\'re using
planes and helicopters. We actually do use helicopters for a lot of
things, and we do what we call bucket drops with helicopters. So we
sling a bucket underneath the helicopter, and that\'s a great way to hit
small spots and help the firefighters on the ground, when they have a
real hot spot we can drop some water or retardant with a bucket. Enough
to fill up a hot tub, and just enough to help them get those hot spots
out. So we use all kinds of aircraft and helicopters are real important
as well as air tankers.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you NIFC. Now we have Jonathan on the phone. do you
have a question for us?\
\
Caller: Yeah.\
\
C. Calamaio: Your question is?\
\
Caller: How often do you guys fight fires?\
\
C. Calamaio: How often do they fight fires?\
\
C. Calamaio: Let\'s go to Mary in Florida and Kaiden for that. The
question is how often do firefighters fight fires? You\'re doing a
prescribed burn. Could you give us some insight?\
\
In a prescribed environment, we study the ecosystem to understand how
often fire is a healthful process. Some of our ecosystems require fire
every one to three years. Other ecosystems require fire every 50 to 100
years. It depends on the ecosystem. Wildfires a whole different matter
because you have to react when the fire comes.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you, Mary. Now we\'re going to go to Amanda.\
\
Caller: Hello.\
\
C. Calamaio: Where are you calling from?\
\
Caller: Oregon.\
\
C. Calamaio: You have a question for one of the fire experts.\
\
Caller: I wanted to know if you had to have a special permit for a
controlled fire for just like anybody in the town?\
\
C. Calamaio: Do we need a special permit for a controlled burn?\
\
Absolutely. Working with the property authorities is crucial to safe and
effective prescribed burning. Here in Florida we work with the Florida
Division of Forestry, who authorizes our prescribed burning exercises.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. Thank you. Cody, you have someone in our studio class
with a question?\
\
Cody: Yes, this is?\
\
I\'m Jessica.\
\
Cody: What\'s your question?\
\
How many firefighters does it take to put out a wildfire?\
\
C. Calamaio: Thomas, some thoughts on that?\
\
That\'s a good question. Yes, I have a few thoughts. It depends on the
size of the fire. What we try to do is we try to get in during initial
attack we call it and get in there as fast as we can and put it out as
quickly as possible if it is a wildfire. That\'s where we do our best
work, is stopping \-- stopping them before they get big. Once they get
bigger, it takes a lot of people. If it\'s prescribed fire, it depends
on how big of a fire you are trying to burn, and that can vary also.\
\
C. Calamaio: Very good. Thank you. We have a fax. This is a general
question, and maybe several of you may want to jump in on this one and
this came from \-- again from the Grand Canyon. How many firefighters
are there? How big is the wildland firefighting force? Pat in Boise?\
\
Well, that \-- I\'m told that figure is about 18,000 firefighters across
the United States. Now, keep in mind other countries have firefighters,
too. You know, there\'s a lot in Russia and other countries, but in the
United States, about 18,000 firefighters. We use the military sometimes
when we get everybody busy, we\'ll go to the military and use them as
well.\
\
C. Calamaio: Ok. Thank you, Pat. Now we\'re going to go to Brandon in
Pennsylvania. Brandon, do you have a question for one of the fire
experts?\
\
Caller: Yes, how often should we burn warm season grass fuels.\
\
Dean saw our fuels person.\
\
I can try to answer that question for you. Again, it\'s going to vary.
Each ecosystem is going to be different. Where I\'m from in Eastern
Montana, it\'s sometimes good to burn the grass, the prairie, every
three to five years. That will help bring back native plants and also
eliminate the threat of invasive weeds, weeds that come in. We do that
about every three to five years.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you. We have a fax from Roseburg, Oregon, and the
question is, what would happen without fire? I think what we\'ll do is
go back to Dena because you talked about in your demonstration what
happens with fire. What would happen without fire?\
\
I can answer that, Chip. Basically, when Tom was talking earlier about
our fire history, about 100 years ago we started suppressing fires, and
what happened was a very dense fuel buildup and you saw that, I believe,
in some of the pictures earlier in the program. You get a lot of fuel
buildup and we have more devastating fires. So what we like to do is go
in and thin the forests or thin areas, and that way when a fire burns up
to it, it won\'t have as much fuel to burn and it might just have a
ground earth surface fire instead of a devastating forest fire like
we\'ve seen the last few years.\
\
C. Calamaio: Let\'s bounce back to Mary in Florida on that question. You
told us about your ecosystem. What would happen without fire in that
ecosystem? Mary?\
\
I didn\'t hear the question.\
\
C. Calamaio: The question is what would happen in your ecosystem there
without fire?\
\
Well, that\'s a very important question for us because our ecosystem are
so tied to fire here, in large part because we get so much lightning in
our state. In Florida we have Scrub Jays that really depend on fire,
both for places to hide their acorns when the land is opened up, the
brush is opened up. We have plants that won\'t sprout, won\'t flower,
won\'t produce seeds without fire. As the forest this scrub were not
burned, would it \-- it would turn into a forest eventually and that
would create so much shade many of our plants would just shut down and
we would be facing extinction of rare species.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thank you, Mary. We have a caller from Oregon on the phone.
Hello.\
\
Caller: This is Siar.\
\
C. Calamaio: Do you ever a question?\
\
Caller: What would happen when the fire got out of control? What would
the firefighters do?\
\
C. Calamaio: What would the firefighters do when the fire gets out of
their control? Let\'s go to the fire center. Grant? Pat?\
\
You know, if a fire starts showing signs that we\'re out of control, the
firefighters immediately will get out of the way. So firefighters will
back off, make sure that they\'re safe and make sure that they have all
their forces in a good spot and then only when the fire calms down will
they reengage and go back in and try to start fighting the fire. We\'re
always thinking about safety and ready to back off if the fire jumps up
and starts shooting.\
\
C. Calamaio: At this point I want to thank Grant and Rachel and Pat in
Boise, Kaiden and Mary in Florida, along with Thomas and Dena for
providing your expertise in our program. I want to thank all of you for
those great questions. Give yourselves a round of applause. Ok. Now that
we\'re near the end of our big adventure, let\'s look again at our main
themes. First, wildland fire is part of nature. Second, people can make
their communities safer from wildfire. And finally, firefighters need
your help. Remember, you can help do things in your own communities to
help the fire program. You can look at your own house or apartment to
see if it\'s firewise.\
\
Cody: You can also volunteer in your town and help others examine their
buildings for fire risks.\
\
C. Calamaio: That\'s right. There\'s still a lot for all of us to learn.
So please check out the many websites listed in your educators guide as
well as the website for this program. And teachers, try some of the
science activities with your class. They\'re really neat.\
\
Cody: Remember, all teachers complete the program evaluation receive a
free copy of the burning issues fire education CD.\
\
C. Calamaio: Thanks again to the studio class from the OLPH Glendale
school here in Phoenix for sharing our adventure with us. Give
yourselves a round of applause. Great job.\
\
Cody: Thanks to all of you for watching and so long from Phoenix.\
\
C. Calamaio: So long, everybody.\
\
Announcer: This Share the Adventure presentation has been brought to you
by the BLM Office of Environmental Education and Volunteers and the
National Interagency Fire Center. This broadcast has been a production
of the BLM National Training Center.