Eastern & Southern Areas
By Paul M. Ross, Jr.

Nationally, the 2005 fire season has been characterized by an increase in acres burned, yet a reduction in the actual number of fires, according to statistics provided by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. Firefighters again found themselves battling fast-moving desert and range fires, due to high fine-fuel loading. At the same time, many wildland personnel responded to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, fighting flooding and, in some cases, utter devastation. Whether flames or floods, wildland firefighters saw an active 2005 across the country. 

Photo courtesy Virginia Division of Forestry
A team of master chainsaw operators from the Virginia Division
of Forestry helps clear downed trees from 200 miles of roadway
in Laurel, Miss., following Hurricane Katrina.

Eastern Area & the Midwest
Firefighters from Minnesota to the eastern seaboard responded to frequent spring and summer fires, but natural disasters in the form of tornadoes damaged more homes than did any 2005 flames. Initial NIFC predictions in January called for a normal to below-normal fire season in the Midwest and East, with potential for an early start; forecasters observed that below-average snow cover in north-central states could make fine fuels available for ignition earlier in the season than usual. In the end, the Eastern Area’s 2005 fire activity proved the smallest in acreage nationally, with 88,000 acres burned, yet held the second-highest fire occurrence, with nearly 12,000 individual blazes. Prescribed fire operations treated an impressive 201,000 acres.

As is typical in the Midwest, firefighters fought not only brushfires but also cold weather in January and February, with escaped trash and field burns representing most of the activity. It is not uncommon to find firefighters working in this area clad in long johns beneath their Nomex, chasing flames that race through leaf litter understory or fields of prairie grass in spite of near-freezing air temperatures. To combat these situations, firefighters must establish water supplies by chopping holes in frozen ponds or streams, and they must maintain a good supply of gas for leaf blowers.

Although most fires in the Eastern Area this year were not large, firefighters did battle three challenging blazes. In April, the human-caused McKenzie Hill Fire in southern Missouri scorched 3,400 acres, requiring a Type 3 incident command team to help corral the flames. In early May, the Cottonville Fire burned 3,400 acres south of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. Firefighters faced even more difficult conditions on the 1,335-acre Alpine Lake Fire, ignited by lightning in early August on the Superior National Forest (SNF), 50 miles north of Grand Marais. With access limited to boat transport from the command post, firefighters spent nearly three weeks controlling the fire; a Type 2 incident management team (IMT) assisted. A CL215 scooper, an airtanker and helicopters also assisted firefighters.

Although the Eastern Area and the Midwest don’t face large-scale wildland/urban interface (WUI) incidents like those seen in the West, wildfires still burned structures throughout the region in 2005. Officials reported 65 residences, one commercial structure and 159 outbuildings destroyed as a result of vegetation fires.

SNF personnel oversaw some of the season’s most extensive prescribed fire projects, including the 10,000-acre West Zone Burn in St. Louis County near Trout Lake, Knife Lake and Ely, Minn. The burn reduced the density of logging slash, grass, brush and blowdown (timber blown down by a large windstorm in 1999). SNF personnel also conducted a 4,300-acre burn in the Boundary Waters area, 30 miles north of Grand Marais, again burning dense stands of blowdown.

Photo by Paul M. Ross, Jr.
In the Midwest in January and
February, firefighters establish
water supplies by chopping holes i
n frozen ponds or streams.

In addition to sending many personnel to the South this fall for hurricane-related duties, the Eastern Area faced another all-risk assignment for its responders following a major tornado south of Madison, Wis., in mid-August. Covering an area of 4,000 acres in and near Stoughton, the tornado destroyed 20 homes and damaged another 185 residences.

Officials issued a fall fire outlook for the Eastern Area in October, predicting reduced wildfire potential for the remainder of the year. Portions of the Northeast, particularly New Hampshire and Massachusetts, dealt with flooding rains in mid-October, further reducing the danger of a significant fall fire season.

Southern Area
Early predictions of a busy fire season in the South, particularly Florida, did not stand the test of spring weather.  Instead, for the second year in a row, tropical storms dominated the collective operations of wildland fire personnel. Firefighters and other responders will remember 2005 for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent brushes with two other storms, hurricanes Rita and Wilma.

Although local and state politicians in Louisiana criticized the federal response following Katrina, several federal IMTs, fire crews and other units were pre-positioned regionally throughout Louisiana and Mississippi in late August in anticipation of the hurricane, and were on the go immediately following the storm. Southern Area personnel coordinated thousands of responders—local, state and federal—pouring into the ravaged hurricane zones.

But prior to all the storms, there was a fire season. Nearly 23,000 reported fires charred more than 363,000 acres of wildlands throughout the South. “Fire activity during the Southern Area’s spring fire season was below normal,” reports Southern Area Coordination Center’s Kathy Wiegard. “There was some heightened concern over potential in South Carolina in February, but nothing materialized beyond increased initial/extended attack activity. Sporadic fire activity occurred from spring into fall in the western portions of the geographic area [Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas], where longer-term drought, low relative humidities and high temperatures prolonged the season and contributed to some extreme fire behavior.”  

Firefighters fought a spate of spring blazes on Virginia’s George Washington and Jefferson National Forests and surrounding wildlands. Activity peaked in March and April, but Texas continued to require frequent initial-attack operations throughout the summer, due to several large incidents within the state. Officials monitored dry conditions in eastern Kentucky and portions of Virginia, where fire danger remained high in the fall.

January through May saw heavy prescribed burning in the South. Various agencies accomplished more than 1.3 million acres of controlled burns.
The below-normal fire year has been more than offset by a devastating hurricane season. 2005 is the worst year on record for hurricane activity, according to Wiegard, both in terms of the number of storms and the severity and extent of damage. “Resource mobilization for hurricane response/recovery has set new records as well,” she says.

“Since Hurricane Dennis in early July, 10,061 [wildland] personnel have been mobilized as helicopter crew members, operators/crew members for equipment or as individual overhead. In addition, 134 [incident management] team and 427 crew assignments occurred.”

During the early portion of the response to Hurricane Katrina, wildland fire personnel dealt with extremely challenging operating conditions. Flooding, high temperatures and widespread lawlessness in the form of looting and gunfire directed at fire personnel reminded firefighters that they were not fighting fire in the Montana forests. “We’ve done things this time that the wildland fire community has never before been tasked with, and folks have risen to these challenges with great dedication,” says Southern Area Coordination Center’s J.P. Greene. Responders with George Custer’s Type 1 IMT oversaw the mass evacuation operation at the New Orleans airport and supported a major triage hospital. “Custer’s team pulled 15 days of some very challenging duty in the early going. We’ve had folks working way outside the normal ‘box’ and doing a very good job,” adds Greene.

In the last weeks of October, the Southern Area continued to support the operations of thousands of responders in the hurricane zone. Interagency personnel from all corners of the United States have traveled to the area. Eight Type 2 IMTs remained assigned, handling duties ranging from base-camp coordination to timber damage assessment, wildfire attack and management of mobilization centers. Other crews assisted in debris removal, housing support and emergency medical and firefighting duties. 

As if there had not been enough natural-disaster activity, Hurricane Wilma threatened the Florida peninsula in late October. In preparation, Southern Area interagency coordinators staged 10 fire crews in Jacksonville, Fla., ready to respond and assist with potential storm damage following Wilma’s landfall.

Fire officials may have their hands full next year as a result of the large areas of timber blown down by hurricane winds throughout the South. “Given the hurricane damage, I know there will be more concern in the short-term for increased fire activity in the Gulf Coast states,” says Wiegard.

Paul M. Ross, Jr. is a firefighter/EMT/helitack squad leader and professional writer with 14 years of experience in both Western U.S. wildland firefighting and urban fire-rescue. He lives in St. Louis, Mo., where he is a firefighter/EMT for the Eureka Fire Protection District. Contact him at prossjr@yahoo.com.