Sympathies to the people of Arizona who feel the loss profoundly.
This image from Current Large Incidents July 02, 2013 (click here)
The Yarnell Hill fire was the inferno that killed those very talented men yesterday. It is the red dot on the map.
This is the drought map of Arizona as of June 25, 2013.The fire is drought related. Anyone can see that.
This fire is not a matter of fuel ready to start such a blaze. The fuel source is not litter on the floor of a forest. The fuel source is high grass/grasslands. This is a Climate Crisis fire due to the high ignition rate and intense heat.
...Fourteen of the men were in their 20s (click here) ....
...At least 400 firefighters were battling the fire at midday Monday, said Mary Rasmussen of the Southwest Area Incident Management Team. She said crews would focus on the eastern flank of the fire, where structures in Yarnell and Peeple’s Valley were threatened. She said efforts to determine why the firefighters died would continue....
...The low humidity, type of fuel, topography and northwest direction of the wind was feeding the and pushing it up the hill toward the communities, Reichling said....
I am not at the site of the fire. But, placing priorities on saving structures is not necessarily the best result in extinguishing the fire in an expeditious manner. The best way to end the destruction of structures is to extinguish the fires and necessarily triage the event.
The physics of fires is fairly straight forward. Grasslands burn quick, as opposed to trees. Fast burning fuel will create an inferno far faster than a forest fire will. The higher the temperature of the fire the more it will create it's own winds that will fan the fire into hotter and hotter trends. The idea is to end the blaze, not simply stop structures from burning. Wildfires are different from structure fires.
The best strategy of any wildfire is to smother the fire and end any more fuel from igniting as soon as possible.
...Juliann Ashcraft said she found out her firefighter husband, Andrew, was among the dead by watching the news with her four children....
This should not have happened. The families should have been notified first so there was support for them before the information was released to the public. All the public HAS TO KNOW is to evacuate with early warnings expecting the possibility.
I apologize for pointing to political dysfunction, but, this has to stop. We could go on repeatedly being grateful for bravery. I prefer people alive and not dead.
...Brewer said in a statement that “it will forever ring as one of our state’s darkest, most devastating days.
“It will forever remind us of the constant peril our firefighters selflessly face protecting us. We can never repay these nineteen men and their families for their service and the ultimate sacrifice they made on our behalf. We can, however, offer them our deepest, eternal debt of gratitude.”
The governor ordered state flags to be flown at half-staff on Wednesday....
We could go on fighting fires caused by drought and lose more people and more structures if elected officials like Governor Jan Brewer doesn't stop playing politics with our people, land, natural resources and the state of the Climate.
