How Wildland Firefighters Fight Wildfires in the West

The first large wildfire of the 2024 season to affect Sedona and the Verde Valley is the 960-acre Bravo Fire. Burning on the heavily wooded Camp Navajo, an Arizona National Guard installation south of Bellemont, an unincorporated community located 22 miles north of Sedona and nine miles west of Flagstaff, the The wildfire was handled by the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, not the United States Forest Service, as is common in most parts of the American West.

At the height of firefighting operations on June 7, 150 firefighters, eight air tankers, one air attack aircraft and lead aircraft, four helicopters, several fire engines from surrounding agencies, two Hotshot teams and two manual teams were fighting the fire.

The fire broke out on the night of June 5, according to DEMA, but the cause remains under investigation. The wildfire broke out on the morning of June 6 and our photojournalist, David Jolkovsky, was the first to alert us when he saw a plume of smoke emerging on the horizon while filming another assignment .

We received our first press release a few minutes later, as the very smoky fire grew to 100 acres. By the afternoon, the area was several hundred acres when firefighters arrived on scene.

Fighting a wildfire is not like fighting a structure fire like most of us have witnessed in our lives, with local firefighters rushing to the scene and using hydrants or mobile tank vehicles to extinguish the fire with water and extinguish it as quickly and as safely as possible.

The last major wildfires in our region occurred in 2021: the 78,065-acre Rafael Fire on the Coconino Plateau, the 41,924-acre Backbone Fire southeast of Camp Verde, and the eponymous Cornville of 1,241 acres.

In July 2022, the Committee Fire burned 300 acres atop Munds Mountain immediately east of Sedona before being extinguished by a combination of aircraft suppression and monsoon rain.

The 2022 wildfire season has otherwise been light and there have been no major local fires in 2023. For those new to the Sedona area or the West in general and experiencing their first wildfire season, or a fire season with wildfires in our area, wildfire management may seem counterintuitive.

Wildland firefighters construct a fire line, which provides a gap in vegetation and potential fuels such as dead or fallen trees, to expose soil or rock using digging tools or setting small, controlled fires, burning the area before the large wildfire could reach it.

Many wildfires burn for weeks until contained, which is the goal: letting fires burn in a confined area until they starve or are extinguished by rain.

Wildland firefighters start at what they call an anchor point, usually the place where a wildfire burns with the least intensity. From there, firefighters construct a fire line that eliminates the fuels. The size of the fire line depends on wind, weather conditions, fire behavior, topography and fuels in the area.

Steady wind and windy conditions caused by the wildfire itself can cause fires to cross fire lines, which is both dangerous for ground crews and requires them to establish a new fire line .

Crews may also deliberately start wildfires in front of an advancing wildfire to consume fuel, which can block the fire's progress or change its direction.

Adjusted correctly, depending on the winds and terrain, the backfires move towards the main fire and are sucked in without spreading. They are effective but risky, as they can spread and make existing wildfires worse.

Ground crews and planes use water to fight wildfires, but water in very hot fires can evaporate before it has time to cool the fuels.

Fire retardants can reduce the intensity and speed of a wildfire and include different types of firefighting foam classes, which contain synthetic surfactants that reduce the surface tension of a liquid and increase the capacity of the water to permeate an area. The foam forms a covering that adheres to surfaces to prevent oxygen from reaching potential fuels.

Flame retardants are typically composed of 85% water, 10% ammonium phosphate fertilizer and 5% other ingredients such as corrosion inhibitors, thickeners, bactericides and flow conditioners that prolong their life. effectiveness after the water evaporates. They are tinted with a red iron oxide pigment so pilots can see where they have already dropped retardant.

Hotshot Interagency Teams are teams of at least 20 elite firefighters who are regular firefighters from local departments trained to become strategic and tactical wildfire experts. Many travel the country during fire season and their local departments are reimbursed by state or federal funds for their work.

Smokejumpers are the rarest and most trained firefighters who parachute near wildfires. There are six USFS smoke teams in the country, including one based in McCall, Idaho, where our new city manager worked before coming to Sedona in April.

Hopefully our 2024 season will be calm and fire-free, but in case a fire breaks out locally, you'll have a better idea of ​​what all these teams are doing to contain it.

Christopher Fox Graham

Editor-in-chief