Glendale Fire Academy Explorer Post 21 Graduates Sixteen Cadets

With the hope and dreams of becoming a professional firefighter, sixteen explorer cadets graduated Saturday from the Glendale Fire Academy. Class 21 faced rigorous challenges during their ten week academy. Team work and dedication was the theme of the day as the recruits proved their proficiency with live firefighting demonstrations in front of a crowd of approximately 100 family members. Applause rang from the crowd as each cadet received their certificate of completion.

On a sad not I was informed that my drill master Captain Bill Costello from the 1979 Glendale Fire Academy had passed away. These cadets however continue the excellent tradition that Captain Costello instilled in me 30 years ago at the very same training center: Honor, Respect and Devotion to Duty.

Special thanks to Kristen Kenefsky who shot digital images from the hydrant members position which allowed me to scale the tower and shoot from the roof of the drill tower.

Photos Jeff Zimmerman and Kristen Kenefsky:Copyright So Cal Fire Journal, Zimmerman Media LLC

Traffic Collision Results in Two Acre Wildfire

A high speed traffic collision resulted in a 2 acre wildfire today in the Antelope Valley. A young female driver was reportedly driving at a high rate of speed when she lost control of her vehicle striking a power pole on Ave K at 90th street west. Upon arrival Engine 130 found a fast moving wind driven wildfire in grass resulting from the accident. Los Angeles County firefighters ordered a first alarm grass fire assignment and contained the fire in approximately 20 minutes. The driver was shaken as a result of the accident but was not transported to the hospital.

Photos Jeff Zimmerman

Wildfire Season Slowing in Calif:

A small wildfire was handled by LACOFD 131 today at 45 street east and Ave S.

HIGH PRESSURE CENTERED OVER THE GREAT BASIN IS SLOWLY WEAKENING BUT WAS CAPABLE OF BRINGING ANOTHER DAY OF VERY DRY RELATIVE HUMIDITIES ALONG WITH WEAK OFFSHORE WINDS TO MANY AREAS SOUTH OF PT. CONCEPTION TODAY. NUMEROUS STATIONS EXPERIENCED SEVERAL HOURS OF SUB-10 PERCENT RELATIVE HUMIDITY READINGS. FORTUNATELY LIVE FUEL
MOISTURES HAVE RISEN ABOVE CRITICAL LEVELS. NORTH OF PT. CONCEPTION ...NEAR NORMAL TEMPERATURES AND MORE TYPICAL ONSHORE BREEZES PREVAILED.

LAFD 26, House Fire 2300 Block of 12 Ave

LAFD Task Force 26 found a single family dwelling well involved upon arrival in the 2300 Block of 12 Ave. Firefighters made quick work of this fire.

Wildfire Los Padres National Forest

A fast moving wildfire was held to 7 acres today on the Los Padres National Forest near Lockwood Valley. Several helicopter and hotshot crews held the fire to the area of origin in the old Day burn. No structures were damaged. Two motorcycles were seen leaving the area of origin as crews arrived to attack the fire. The fire is suspicious in nature and is under investigation. Photos Jeff Zimmerman, Zimmerman Media LLC.

Climate Change and Fire Weather

Cave Study Links Climate Change To California Droughts:

Science Daily (Nov. 15, 2009) — California experienced centuries-long droughts in the past 20,000 years that coincided with the thawing of ice caps in the Arctic, according to a new study by UC Davis doctoral student Jessica Oster and geology professor Isabel Montañez.

The finding, which comes from analyzing stalagmites from Moaning Cavern in the central Sierra Nevada, was published online Nov. 5 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

The sometimes spectacular mineral formations in caves such as Moaning Cavern and Black Chasm build up over centuries as water drips from the cave roof. Those drops of water pick up trace chemicals in their path through air, soil and rocks, and deposit the chemicals in the stalagmite.

"They're like tree rings made out of rock," Montañez said. "These are the only climate records of this type for California for this period when past global warming was occurring."

At the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago, climate records from Greenland show a warm period called the Bolling-Allerod period. Oster and Montanez's results show that at the same time, California became much drier. Episodes of relative cooling in the Arctic records, including the Younger Dryas period 13,000 years ago, were accompanied by wetter periods in California.

The researchers don't know exactly what connects Arctic temperatures to precipitation over California. However, climate models developed by others suggest that when Arctic sea ice disappears, the jet stream -- high-altitude winds with a profound influence on climate -- shifts north, moving precipitation away from California.

"If there is a connection to Arctic sea ice then there are big implications for us in California," Montañez said. Arctic sea ice has declined by about 3 percent a year over the past three decades, and some forecasts predict an ice-free Arctic ocean as soon as 2020.

Oster's analysis of the past is rooted in a thorough understanding of the cave in the present. Working with the cave owners, she has measured drip rates, collected air, water, soil and vegetation samples, and studied what happens to the cave through wet and dry seasons to determine how stalagmites are affected by changing conditions.

Oster collected stalagmites and cut tiny samples from them for analysis. The ratio of uranium to its breakdown product, thorium, allowed her to date the layers within the stalagmite. Isotopes of oxygen, carbon and strontium and levels of metals in the cave minerals all vary as the climate gets wetter or drier.

"Most respond to precipitation in some way," Oster said. For example, carbon isotopes reflect the amount of vegetation on the ground over the cave. Other minerals tend to decrease when rainfall is high and water moves through the aquifer more rapidly.

Oxygen-18 isotopes vary with both temperature and rainfall. Measuring the other mineral compositions provides more certainty that the changes primarily track relative rainfall.

The stalagmite records allowed Oster and Montañez to follow relative changes in precipitation in the western Sierra Nevada with a resolution of less than a century.

"We can't quantify precipitation, but we can see a relative shift from wetter to drier conditions with each episode of warming in the northern polar region," Montañez said.

Other authors on the paper are Warren Sharp, a geochronologist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, and Kari Cooper, associate professor of geology at UC Davis. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.


Adapted from materials provided by University of California - Davis.


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Pioneer Smoke Jumper Dies at Age 98

One of the first smokejumpers dies at 98:
Earl Cooley, who made the first parachute jump on a wildfire in 1940 passed away Monday at the age of 98. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Missoulian.

Pioneer smokejumper Earl Cooley once told a newspaper reporter the only bad part of parachuting into a forest fire was the walk home.

Considering that his chute nearly failed to open and he landed 140 feet up a spruce on the Forest Service’s first-ever jump on a wildfire, it’s fair to wonder why the practice of smokejumping ever got a second chance.

But Cooley and fellow jumper Rufus Robinson had their fire under control by the next day when a team of ground-pounders finally arrived. Then they all hiked the 28 miles back to the ranger station.

Sixty-nine years after he made that historic jump into the Nez Perce National Forest on July 12, 1940, Cooley died in Missoula on Monday at the age of 98. He left behind plenty of “silk stories” from his days as a smokejumper, U.S. Forest Service district ranger and Missoula real estate broker.

“There wasn’t the safety consciousness there is today,” author John Maclean recalled of the man his father, Norman Maclean, interviewed extensively for the book “Young Men and Fire.” “You took the risks, and nobody paid attention to that anyway until Mann Gulch. Smokejumping didn’t need to be sold because it worked. There were lots and lots of fires you couldn’t get to and you had to get to.”

Cooley’s smokejumping career included the Mann Gulch tragedy, where he was the spotter for 12 jumpers who later burned to death when the fire overran their escape route. Danger was part of the job for the men who established the techniques later used by the U.S. Army Airborne troops in World War II.

“He was acutely aware of his place in the history of smokejumping,” Maclean said of Cooley. “By the time my dad started investigating the Mann Gulch fire, there was a dwindling number of primary sources. We are all better off because Earl put down on paper that early history. No one else could have done it.”

Cooley also helped found the National Smokejumper Association and served as its president for three years. In 1984, he chronicled much of the Forest Service’s early smokejumping history in his book “Trimotor and Trail.”