This is a great read describing the situation of indian clearings and cultivations at the time of European contact:
Indian New England Before the Mayflower
The author, Howard Russell, also wrote the authoritative history of agriculture in New England, a book I own and have thoroughly enjoyed reading over the years.
A minor redux of the Dark Day of 1780:
An article in the Cape Cod Times:
By Karen Jeffrey
Cape Cod Times
May 31, 2010That smoke getting in your eyes, your hair and your homes today is coming from Canada, according to the National Weather Service.
Police and fire departments across the Cape are reporting numerous calls from people reporting the smell of smoke, and in some cases, seeing smoke drift across their property this morning.
However, the fires producing the smoke are not local, they are riding air currents down from our neighbor to the north – Canada.
Northwest winds are bringing smoke into Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont from wildfires that are burning in Canada, according to the National Weather Service.
People with respiratory problems were being advised to limit their outdoor activities.
According Canadian press reports there are more than 50 forest fires burning in the in Quebec, including eight that are out of control.
About 1,200 firefighters, including some from Maine, New Brunswick, New Hampshire and western Canada are working to put them out. Canadian newspapers report that Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources reports 73 active forest fires today, mostly north of Toronto. The province rates the forest fire danger “extreme” and has declared a restricted zone in the northeastern part of the province to reduce the danger of human-caused fire.
The weather service says the northwest winds are expected shift to the southwest on this afternoon and end the smoky conditions.
According Canadian press reports there are more than 50 forest fires burning in the in Quebec, including eight that are out of control.
And this was from the National Weather Service:
THE VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN COORDINATION WITH THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY FOR ALL OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN VERMONT. AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY MEANS THAT PARTICULATE CONCENTRATIONS WITHIN THE REGION MAY APPROACH OR EXCEED UNHEALTHY STANDARDS. DENSE SMOKE FROM LARGE WILDLAND FOREST FIRES ACROSS CENTRAL QUEBEC HAS DRIFTED ATOP THE REGION TODAY WITH VISIBILITIES LOCALLY AS LOW AS 1 MILE BEING REPORTED.
It drifted in Brooklyn around 5:30 or so. Kind of funky seeing smoke everywhere you looked!
The Springfield Republican has this nice photo essay up on the ’99 and ’01 Tekoa Mountain fires.
Added to the ’93 and ’10 fires, this mountain sure burns often!
Here’s the photos, from 1999 unless otherwise noted:
Connecticut Army National Guard flying a bambi bucket. I knew New York & Massachusetts Guard units would fly buckets, I hadn’t heard of Connecticut doing so before.
From the funeral of Deputy Chief John Murphy who died at the 1999 Fire.
From the 2001 fire.
From the 2001 fire.
Real nice article I didn’t see last year that popped up in Google when I was searching on the BFFC layoffs. From http://www.wickedlocal.com/falmouth/news/x342383985/Is-Falmouth-prepared-for-a-forest-fire :
By Les Garrick
Falmouth Bulletin
Posted May 09, 2009 @ 09:03 AM
FALMOUTH —Wilfrid Wheeler measured the rain falling at his Ashumet Farm in Hatchville and reported that only 2.3 inches had fallen between the end of July and Oct. 22, 1947, day 39 of an extended dry period. As a stiff wind blew from the southwest, the Falmouth and all New England Fire Departments were on alert.
On the afternoon of Oct. 23 three brush fires were deliberately set along Sippewissett Road across from Gunning Point Road, the western edge of Beebe Woods. By Oct. 24 a raging forest fire had spread over the moraine and menaced the eastern woodland border establishments before it was extinguished. Wind blown embers (firebrands) from this fire that charred 1,150 acres covered an arc from Goodwill Park to East Main Street.
Is there a comparable risk today to institutional and residential abutters of Falmouth’s forests? According to the Cape Cod Extension website, capecodextension.org, “A U.S. Forest Service study found that Barnstable and Plymouth counties, with their sandy soils, drying winds and fuel types (pine and oak) are as wildfire prone as the often fire ravaged regions of southern California.”
Conditions for combustion
Woodland fire risk is a matter of fuel, terrain, heat and the right climatic conditions. Around here, soon after a rain, the sun dries grasses in one hour and wood in 10 hours, creating good fuel. Fire accelerates up a slope. Heat, which can ignite a fuel, comes mainly from controllable human activity, like fireworks and brush burning. Lightning strikes rarely cause forest fires here. And it’s the wind driven fire that often makes it uncontrollable.
A fire that spreads along the ground is more controllable than one that reaches the tops of trees and jumps from tree to tree, which is known as a crown fire. For that reason, wildfire prevention plans stress the thinning and removal of so-called ladder fuels (dry understory, small bushes and trees to 6 feet high and invasive climbers), which permit a ground fire to climb the trees. Damaged and downed trees caused by storms and insects also contribute to the fuel load.
Since the fire of 1947 Beebe Woods has shrunk to 400 acres. No internal firebreaks have been added and no fuel removed. The Falmouth Conservation Commission oversees Beebe Woods, which, while still an ecological gem and a recreational treat, contains a majority of fire-prone and fire-dependent trees. As a result, the 2007 Beebe Woods Management Team draft plan (available at www.falmouthmass.us/concom/bwmp.pdf.) concluded that the risk of wildland fire is “unacceptably high”.
If the fuel load in a fire-prone woodland is not removed or burned periodically, the risk of an uncontrollable fire increases. Abutters of fuel-loaded woodlands are most at risk. Today those abutters of Beebe Woods are: the Falmouth Sports Center, Cape Cod Curling Club, Falmouth Academy, Heritage at Falmouth assisted living facility, the Falmouth Hospital complex, Gosnold Treatment Center, JML Care Center, as well as the residential areas north of Woods Hole Road and homes on or near Ter Heun Drive.
Calculating the risks
As with most risk assessments, we’d like to know the worst case scenario. For Beebe Woods and vicinity, based on the results of a computer model supplied by the Commonwealth’s Division of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Bureau of Forest Fire Control, with a strong southwest wind blowing toward the wooded upslope on the moraine, we should expect a hot crown fire with 27- foot high flames spreading northeast at a rate of 600 feet per minute. Such a fire would threaten all the buildings up to and beyond Ter Heun Drive past Palmer Avenue. Embers the size of bricks could shower the residences up wind and could ignite the town forest around Long Pond.
Falmouth Fire and Rescue Chief Paul D. Brodeur has cautioned that these abutters are at risk from a Beebe Woods forest fire. Over the years, to lessen that risk, he has sought a wildfire preparedness plan for the area. He notes too, that even if the worst case wildfire didn’t occur, the smoke from a forest fire moving northeast would tax the air handling capacity of those institutions housing people, necessitating an evacuation plan. And even a small forest fire could threaten abutter’s homes unless the owners clear the area around, on and over their houses of fire fuel, as recommended by the Firewise (Firewise.org) program. A free Firewise home assessment is available to all Upper Cape residents by calling the DCR, Bureau of Forest Fire Control, District 1 Office, 508-888-1149.
Beebe Woods is not the only wildfire concern for Falmouth. Over the last 40 years as the population grew and grew, other homes and businesses encroached on existing woodlands. There’s a tradeoff for living very near the woods. Wooded areas are likely to burn in late spring, before the leaves emerge, and in late summer into early fall, especially during droughts. As the climate becomes more unpredictable, droughts may occur more often and be longer. For instance, the first three months of 2009 in New England were the driest in over a century.
Hatchville concerns
Hatchville is also a vulnerable forest fire area. It has thousands of acres of open space, some of which are large town-owned parcels for which there are no forest management or wildfire preparedness plans. Heavy recreational use of these woodlands and illegal fires increases the wildfire risk. A worst-case scenario for the northeast side of Falmouth would be a wildfire spreading from North Falmouth through Hatchville into East Falmouth, Waquoit and ending at South Cape Beach in Mashpee.
From 1900 through the 1920s, years before Camp Edwards expanded, the oak and pine forest to the north and west of sparsely populated Hatchville burned frequently. By 1930 the fledgling Coonamessett Resort was operating the Coonamessett Inn and an 18-hole golf course. Nearby were several large dairy and truck farms on Coonamessett Pond and smaller farms on adjacent ponds. The summer of 1930 was extremely dry and an early August fire had already consumed 28 square miles of forest in Bourne and Sandwich. The drought continued. At the end of September a fire set in North Falmouth spread eastward and burned 30 square miles of scenic woodland and useful timber and threatened to burn all of Hatchville. A combination of back fires set by professional fire fighters from Falmouth and neighboring towns and hard work by volunteers, which included high school students, saved the Hatchville dwellings, including the Wheeler’s farm, and kept the fire from spreading eastward.
Residential Hatchville has grown since the fire of 1930. Homes were built in the scrub forest west of Sam Turner Road, around Spectacle and Mares Ponds and the west side of Deep Pond. New gated residential and recreation areas were developed at Lochstead on Coonamessett Pond and at Ballymeade near the moraine. And yet Hatchville has no local fire station; it relies on other town stations and mutual aid from nearby towns. But if those Departments are also fighting fires, that aid will be delayed. According to Chief Brodeur, a new fire station along Thomas Landers Road would more effectively serve all of Hatchville as well as West Falmouth.
Crane wildlife area well managed
In contrast to no fire management on town lands in Hatchville, the approximately 400-acre Frances A. Crane Wildlife Management Area between Route 151 and Hayway and Currier Roads is heavily managed. Many pines have been removed and the area mowed and burned in order to reduce fire risk to nearby residences and the spread of fire eastward. Simultaneously they are improving the habitat for hunted quail. Aggressive tree removal, visible from Route 151, sparked sharp comments from the surprised public and from abutters. However, cicadas, in 2008, also led to the tattered state of many trees.
In the north section of the Frances A. Crane Wildlife Management Area, which burned in 1930, 180 acres of grassland near Route 151 is maintained for the grasshopper sparrow and canine field trails. This grassland will slow and make controllable any fire originating in the mixed oak and explosive pitch pine on the remaining 1,500 acres adjacent to the MMR.
Within Falmouth, the only forest actually managed is the 553 acres around Long Pond, the source of more than half of the town’s potable water. Falmouth DPW, under the direction of Town Forester Brian Dale, maintains the trails for fire equipment access, clears some of the forest, and removes diseased trees. But there is no wildfire preparedness plan for this important forest. “Steep forested terrain around Long Pond and the Waste Water Treatment Plant and from Nobska Point to Surf Drive are difficult places to fight fires”, Chief Brodeur observed.
Learning from the past
Fortunately, because of the long history of bad fires in this region, some of which consumed over 25,000 acres, all levels of government have cooperated to form a fire suppression and fire-fighting network. The Bureau of Forest Fire Control of the Commonwealth’s Division of Conservation and Recreation, the lead agency, detects forest fires by watching the landscape from fire towers (when there is adequate funding) and by patrolling in small trucks. They also open fire roads, remove fuel loads, fight fires, and consult with the town Departments. Their local public face is as educators: They frequently speak to forest abutters about the recommendations of the Firewise program.
The Bureau of Forest Fire Control and each of the Departments on the Cape is equipped with wildfire fighting technology, such as powerful all-wheel drive brush breakers, which were built, starting in 1937, to fight fires in the scrub forests of Cape Cod. The public has helped too: By reporting small fires by cellular phones, such as for some of the 50 brush fires started in Falmouth in 2008, fire fighters’ response times have been shortened and larger fires averted.
Most big forest fires that people remember did not spread beyond the Massachusetts Military Reservation. Shouldn’t we, therefore, feel relatively secure about the threat of forest fires? Maybe not. Both Chief Paul D. Brodeur and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension Director William F. Clark, who manages the Cooperative Extension Wildfire Assessment and Preparedness Program (bclark@barnstablecounty.org) agree with other professionals: “It’s not a question of if but when a serious forest fire will occur”.
Copyright 2009 Falmouth Bulletin. Some rights reserved
I’ll try and follow up in person to see if these layoffs did occur. My understanding is the fire patrolmen all had enough seniority they would be “bumping” — while the Patrolman positions would be eliminated, the actual worker would “bump” someone else and take their job causing junior employees to actually be laid off.
Checking the DCR’s website today, they are hiring seasonal tower operators in at least Carver and Sandwich, and a seasonal “fire laborer” in Leominister.
Mass. fire officials fuming over wildland staffing cuts
October 22nd, 2009BOSTON — Fire officials are fuming that high-paid pals of Gov. Deval Patrick have kept their cushy Department of Conservation posts while the agency is axing more than half of the state’s 30 forest firefighters.
The layoff of 17 forest firefighters will leave just one per county and means the state’s 42 fire towers — perches used to spot flare-ups — will go unmanned, officials said.
“It’s going to be a big hit to public safety,” said Trevor Augustino, vice-president of the American Federation of State, County and Municpal Employees Local 2948, which represents the forest firefighters. “They’re cutting with an ax, not a scalpel.”
The Herald reported yesterday that the DCR terminated 91 workers, but kept Patrick’s campaign manager’s sister, Patty Vantine, and two other managers she hired. The three make a combined $251,000 annually.
DCR spokeswoman Lisa Capone said 57 of the terminations were voluntary while 34 were pinkslipped. Of those 91, seven were managers. “Those percentages reflect the proportion of union vs. management throughout the agency,” she said.
Orange Fire Chief Dennis Annear, president of the Massachusetts Forest Fire Council, said the cuts have “destroyed” an effective service that’s been around for 100 years. Annear said the DCR jakes are crucial in rural western Massachusetts where they often lead under-trained volunteers into dangerous blazes.
“We use these individuals to lead a crew,” Annear said. “Some departments don’t have the right protective gear to go out in the woods and they definitely don’t have that expertise.”
Annear said the cuts are particularly painful since the DCR has been aggressively promoting tourism at state parks.
“Tourism is great but somebody’s got to pay to treat these people or go rescue them in the woods,” he said.
Capone said the DCR is “maintaining our commitment to public safety.”
Copyright 2009 Boston Herald Inc.
By Dave Wedge
The Boston Herald
I also found this in the November 11, 2009 DCR Stewardship Council minutes:
Patti Vantine, Director of Administration and Finance informed the Council on/of the following matters:
The magnitude of the current (2010) operating 9c cut was between 4-8%, however the final
requirement for DCR is 5.2%.
Cuts have been saved by mandatory management furlough up to nine days, an unspecific cut,
and an earmark that was removed.
Voluntary layoff and retirements are being wrapped up, and involuntary layoffs are nearing the
end of the bumping process.
A final projection number will be tallied once the full bumping/retirement process is complete.
Our state revenue has slightly increased for October.
o DCR was able to maintain six firefighters, one Warden in each district.
o The overall budget for DCR is $78,348,984 after the 9c budget cuts.
o Environmental Police has taken a $1.5m cut.
(DCR also transferred many of their parkway and bridge assets from the “Emerald Necklace” system around Boston to the newly formed MassDOT … I wonder how that factored into budget cuts if at all? Later on in the minutes it reported 55 DCR employees transferred to MassDOT, but that DCR would still provide snow control for the current budget year.)
A January, 2010 presentation noted that the DCR had seen it’s operating budget cut by 23% from FY2009 to mid-year FY2010. In 18 months it had lost 171 full time positions, including 54 to voluntary layoff / retirements, 37 unfilled positions eliminated, and 29 layoffs.
Some interesting video came out of the Halifax fire last week of a news crew that was almost over run by the rapidly moving fire. Rapid fire development in wildland terms is usually called a “blow up” — when a fire goes from burning surface fuels and brush to suddenly involving all fuels. It is a phenomena similar to a flashover in structural firefighting when a critical combination of oxygen, heat, and fuel is reached and all surfaces suddenly ignite.
At the 8 second mark events occur quickly — you hear a comment about “getting dark,” then the camera has a partial white out (I assume from rapid fire growth), then the still photographer observes they have fire to their left. Press reports have stated, per Nova Scotia Forestry, the fire spread hit speeds of 36 meters per minute. That’s 107 chains per hour, 1.3 miles per hour, or 118′ per minute. In Connecticut spread rates over 30 chains per hour are considered Very High fire danger days, and over 40 are Extreme.
The above video is reminiscent to me of this video taken in the New Jersey pine barrens on 16 May 2007 when several New Jersey Forest Fire Service vehicles were involved in a near miss:
I have the above videos archived in case they disappear from YouTube, under videos.
Those videos help fill in the mental picture when you see photos like this one from Cape Cod, which has forests like the pine barrens of New Jersey:
Forest fire on Cape Cod, from Capecodfd.com
Or this AP photograph of an October, 1947 fire crossing Route 1 in Arundel, Maine:
October, 1947 Arundel, ME
When the fire is in the crown like this they can not be fought. In general the tactic is to leave these to burn and concentrate on handling the fire later when it has left the crown and is just burning the surface and brush, as these boys from Bates College are headed to do in ’47:
Boys from Bates headed to fight fire
At Bates, nearly 300 male students, volunteered for firefighting duty. A state disaster committee dispatched the volunteers to help fight the fires in towns like Bowdoinham, Kennebunk, Cornish and Richmond. Meanwhile, female students conducted watches on campus and at Thorncrag, raked leaves away from residence halls, and collected clothing donations for the Red Cross.
Clicking on the Bates photo will bring you to a page which recounts the tale. In case it disappears I’ve archived off a couple of the tales here.
Even the brush breakers of southeastern Massachusetts aren’t intended to attack these crown fires directly, but instead to allow them to rapidly access deep into the woods to control the fire while it’s still in the brush and not a crown fire.
Fire storms like those pictured above are not survivable to those caught in the open. In parts of the U.S. the “fire shelter,” an aluminized tent carried on your belt is common. Australians tend to use their fire apparatus as shelters, specially equipping them with blinds to keep out the radiant heat from the cab and misting systems to wet the outside of the truck. A flame front like that is also survivable in a properly prepared home, which it doesn’t look like the Halifax homes were, when the occupants are prepared after the flame front has passed to come out and extinguish spot fires around their property.
Red Flags are up for much of interior southern New England for this afternoon.
There was some moderately active fires in the region yesterday.
East Putnam, CT went mutual aid to West Glocester, RI for a brush fire, and later East Putnam fought a brush fire around dusk off of I-395 that required mutual aid from Putnam, Community, and Thompson Hill.
Oxford, MA had a fire on a trail behind the Orchard Hill apartments that used mutual aid from Leicester as well as Massachusett’s Bureau of Forest Fire Control. I’ve driven that trail before…I was truly dumbfounded when this trail brought me to the rear of this affordable housing complex!
Milford, MA returned to the area that burned Tuesday, this time only 1-1/2 acres burnt. This video from the Milford Daily News is interesting for showing the steep, stone strewn hillside. This is worth it’s own post in the future, because I can’t imagine any effective tactic other then using hoselines. Using hand tools to construct a line is near impossible because of the small openings between rocks, while clambering over the normally lose surface when wearing a backpack pump is inviting a twisted ankle.
CT Fire Danger:
High
CTZ004-010815-
WINDHAM CT-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...ASHFORD...PLAINFIELD...PUTNAM...
WILLIMANTIC
402 AM EDT THU APR 30 2009
...RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 2 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 7 PM EDT
THIS EVENING...
TODAY TONIGHT FRI
CLOUD COVER MCLEAR MCLDY MCLDY
PRECIP TYPE NONE SHOWERS SHOWERS
CHANCE PRECIP (%) 0 80 70
TEMP /24H TREND/ 65 (-1) 51 (+12) 69
RH % /24H TREND/ 22 (+8) 86 (-14) 66
20FT WND AM /MPH/ LGT/VAR SW 10 G28
20FT WND PM /MPH/ S 9 G19 S 8 G20 SW 13 G27
PRECIP AMOUNT 0.00 0.11 0.33
PRECIP DURATION 7 9
PRECIP BEGIN 8 PM CONTINUING
PRECIP END CONTINUING CONTINUING
MIXING HGT /FT-AGL/ 4710 70 1890
TRANSPORT WND /KTS/ S 17 S 19 SW 23
VENT RATE /KT-FT/ 80070 1330 43470
CWR 0 80 100
LAL NO TSTMS NO TSTMS NO TSTMS
HAINES INDEX 5 3 2
So today I saw read this in a post on wildlandfire.com regarding the concern over the potential swine flu pandemic:
When I wrote a pandemic flu pre-plan for my FD, ran it through public health folks for their thoughts, their immediate response was “good plan, but most important, emphasize handwashing!”. Something not everyone is real good at in fire camp.
It was just last night I was randomly looking through some photos from Life and saw this from the 1961 Big Basin Fire, handwashing in a fire camp:
Washing up at the 1961 Big Basin Fire
And if you think safety slogans are new…
Work Safely at the 1961 Big Basin Fire
The last day of April, 1942 was pretty typical along the Connecticut and Rhode Island borderlands. It was warm, it was dry. Gusty winds blew across the greening pastures and unplanted corn fields, and rustled the dead leaves covering the forest floor.
Edward LaCasse, a thirty year old railroad section foreman and volunteer firefighter from Plainfield, was in the woods of Sterling, Coventry and neighboring towns setting them on fire. As a section foreman he was responsible as part of his routine maintenance duties for keeping railroad right of ways clear of brush and to help organize the suppression of fires along them when a coal fired locomotives threw a spark. According to my parents, he also worked as a lookout in the fire tower on Ekonk Hill. He was someone who knew very well when and where to set forest fires for maximum impact.
These woods were primed to burn, beyond the normal yearly variations of weather that made the spring of ’42 on the dry side. Three and a half years earlier the ’38 Hurricane had hit these woods hard. Three and half years is long enough for sticks the width of a thumb up to the size of shattered tree trunks to have become extremely dry, but not long enough for them to rot. Stacks of salvaged timber were scattered around the countryside, but there was not enough men or markets to have cleaned up all the woods. That was laborious work in those years when the chainsaw had not yet replaced the axe and cross-cut saw, and when only trucks small by today’s standards still competed with teams of horses and oxen for supremacy as being the prime movers in the woods.
Over the next week some fifty square miles of eastern Connecticut and particularly western Rhode Island burned, despite the efforts of thousands of men from both states and the help of Mother Nature to control them.
Thirty five years later some of my favorite childhood memories are from driving through these woods with my parents. Sometimes my dad would recall his experience as a 20 year old farm boy from Plainfield helping on the fire line, although he didn’t provide much detail in keeping with the manner of his generation. As an eight year old in the back seat of our yellow Scout II bouncing down those dirt roads listening to the story, while imaging the woodlands around us, it certainly ignited my life long interest in forest fires and probably was the start of my interest in the fire service in general.
Maybe one day I will turn my research and opinions into a book, maybe not. I’m not sure such a niche product as the history of forest fires and control in southern New England it would attract much interest from a publisher. But for now I will use this blog to organize and share my notes. I’ve chosen the name, “The Wooden Nutmeg” for this blog as a nod to the mimeographed newsletter of that name published in the years before World War II and distributed to Connecticut Forest Fire Wardens and others interested in our forest fires.
Matt Kivela
Brooklyn, Conn.
