KS Fire Officials Make Changes after Wildfires

Feb. 25--After Reno County's March 2017 wildfires, Deputy Fire Chief Doug Hanen, with the assistance of Emergency Management Director Adam Weishaar and Sheriff Randy Henderson, conducted an extensive "after action review" over several months to see what went right, what didn't and how the response could be improved.

"We looked at every aspect of how the incident went down, from the media to the way utilities -- from power and gas to pipeline groups -- were handled," Hanen said. "Every possible entity involved or impacted was detailed in the report."

For the most part, the effort by numerous agencies was positive and commendable, the 30-plus page report notes, but a few areas needed improvement.

Two changes they've already started to implement, Hanen said, include the fire department's operational response and its equipment.

Flipping the fleet

Reno County Fire District 2 merged into the Hutchinson Fire Department in 2000, adding the challenge of fighting brush fires in the sand hills north of town to the responsibilities of a primarily urban department.

"At the time of the merger (with District 2) there was a fire across Sand Hills State Park," Hanen said. "We weren't very good. In fact, we were horrible. We got trucks stuck. We didn't know what we were doing. With the help of former Fire District 2, mixing crews, we've come a long way. In 18 years, we've become very good at wildland firefighting at this point."

"We're still kind of top heavy," Hanen said. "We had six 6-by-6 brush units and four smaller units. Since last year, we've sold off two of those (larger units) and are in the process of having two smaller ones built. We're trying to flip our fleet."

They've found, Hanen said, the smaller trucks, though holding less water, are more versatile in the Sand Hills.

"It gives us the best chance," he said. "Roadways have a base. We can get our larger equipment on them, but, especially in the sand hills, the base is not there. If we get an apparatus stuck, it's there until the fire is under control. We don't have the means or resources to get it out."

"The big trucks we have we can place in open fields, and we still have a need for some of those," he said. "We still have 108 square miles. The Sand Hills fire covered 27 square miles, (out of 50 to 60 square miles in the sand hills.) But we need the proper mix of units, so we're in the process of changing that."

During the event -- and for many grass fires today -- the department also used utility all-terrain vehicles. They use the Polaris side-by-side, with a 75-gallon water tank, mainly for mop up or to get into areas that are not reachable by regular units, like very wet areas or small areas, Hanen said. The department also used it during the state fair.

"We currently have one, and South Hutchinson has one as well," Hanen said. "They proved very useful during the week of March 2017. The fires that occurred that Friday were in some wet areas that could not be reached with anything else."

The Hutchinson department hopes to add another one UTV in the future, and many of the rural fire districts in the county are looking to purchase some as well, Hanen said.

Sending everything

On the operational side, if there is a "red flag" warning issued by weather officials indicating a high wildfire danger on that day, the department now sends at least three brush units immediately on an initial grass fire call and is quicker to call for outside assistance.

"We're sending everything and not waiting for someone to get there" to assess the fire, Hanen said "We continue to learn from these and be better prepared. If we see smoke, we get units out right away, countywide. Every department in the county gets notified at one time; then we go to a side channel for the incident."

They may also put out a regional mutual aid advisory. Depending on which departments have some capacity, Hanen said, "they will send what equipment they feel comfortable sending and they'll meet at a staging area. They'll come to the scene as one and stay together as a unit."

Each grouping includes four brush units, a water tender -- which is a tanker that hauls water for refilling trucks -- and a task force leader in a supervisor's vehicle, Hanen said.

That's also a different operational set-up than in the past, when an incident commander directed all units in the field.

"In the case of last year, we had a line stretched seven miles north and seven south," Hanen said. "We had 150 pieces of apparatus on March 6. It's very difficult to control such a group. When each task force group is reporting to one person, it helps in the span and control, all the way up the line to the Incident Commander."

They've also found what often works best is to line up the brush units, with one out front and others behind performing "mop up."

Besides mutual aid from nearby departments, officials can call on firefighters and other emergency response aid within a 19-county task force. It's called the Fire Operations Response Coordination or FORCe, first created after the Greensburg tornado, and reactivated three years ago following a series of large fires in Kansas and Oklahoma.

FORCe crews were called in the second night of the March fires to spell exhausted local firefighters overnight. There were replaced by volunteers from departments around the state later in the week.

"They are helpful in the fact that they close the gap of when State or Federal Resources will arrive," Hanen said. "FORCe is completely mutual aid between departments, but can be deployed quickly, usually arriving within a couple of hours, whereas State and Federal resources can be up to 24 to 48 hours."

Back burns and weather

Some other changes the department has adopted over the past couple of years, said Fire Chief Steven Beer, are "fighting fire with fire" and letting some fires burn, rather than putting them out.

"We used to try to chase after them (fires)," Hanen said. "We'd get out in a field and try to put it out. That works great in an open field. But when it's between homes and trees are everywhere, and you're trying to chase a fire that's going 30 to 45 mph, you can't drive fast enough to chase it."

Now every brush truck carries a drip torch, which uses a mix of gasoline and diesel in a can with a drip spout to set backfires.

"It's how we stopped the March fire at 56th and K-61," Hanen said. "It's how we stopped the Jupiter Hills fire as well. The point is to try to get ahead of it. You can't just get a couple of hundred yards. We have to get miles ahead, to let it burn back against the wind."

It's usually not the fire front, though it may be massive, that makes containing a wildfire difficult, but thousands of burning embers carried on the wind, which start spot fires and create multiple fire fronts, often jumping roads and firebreaks.

"You have to get a good blackout area, so there's no place for the oncoming fire to burn," he said.

Now, if there is a fire along a railroad right of way -- where sparks from trains ignite them -- if there are not high winds or high fire danger, they will monitor the fire, but let it burn.

"Otherwise, we'll be back out next week," Hanen said.

"We also pay a lot more attention to the weather," Chief Beer said. "We always pay more attention to humidity."

Being aware of conditions helps firefighters prepare in advance of potentially high fire days.

Certified for wildfires

The Hutchinson Fire Department over the past four weeks put all its firefighters through a daylong wildland fire refresher.

"It went from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.," Beer said, and included instruction from the Kansas Forestry Department.

Officials recognized a few years ago that the sand hills north of Hutchinson have turned into "one of the worst areas for a true urban interface for wildfires in the nation, due to homes intermingling with the grasses and trees," Beer said.

As a result, the Hutchinson Fire Department became the first fully-paid department in Kansas to achieve "red card certification" for all its firefighters, he said, referring to training specifically for fighting wildland fires.

The agency has now chosen to go beyond that, sending all its firefighters to more advanced wildland fire training to certify them as "squad bosses," and they're also seeking to have the first "red card" fire investigator in the state.

The training requires the firefighters, in small groups or pairs, to join in battling wildfires in other states during the latter part of the wildfire season.

"Ultimately our goal is to have a truck go out to Colorado or California," Beer said. "It's obviously different than a brush truck around here. They'd be gone two weeks at a time. We'd also be able to have the unit useable here."

The federally-funded program means the training and response entails a minimal cost to local taxpayers, "but the experience they bring back would be invaluable," Beer said.

Capt. Mike Cain, a Hutchinson firefighter for 17 years, and fire inspector for four, has completed the 40-hour wildland fire investigation training, but must still complete a "task book" using specific investigative practices to earn his investigator's red card.

With a fire investigator specially trained in looking for causes of wildfires, they hope to cut down on the number of intentionally set fires in the county, and provide the public more information about fire causes and how to prevent them, Beer said.

Mapping the future

One other area way the fire department is working to reduce the threat of wildland fires is to look further back than last year.

They've mapped all the major wildfires in the county over the past decade and identified some patterns officials hope to use in creating firebreaks.

"We're trying to use history to be more prepared for the future," Beer said. "We're looking for anything that gives us an indication where we could stop these fires. The map tells tales of what happened in the past."

They hope to work with townships and homeowners to make landscape changes that can significantly reduce risks of out-of-control wildfires, particularly removing trees and keeping ditches mowed.

"We have to give a plug to Harvey County," Hanen said. "They've had a number of fires run across Burmac Road. There were a couple of really big ones there. They worked hard with their township to clean out the ditches. All the trees that burned up and fell over they've cleaned up ... They're well aware the road's a good firebreak where they can try to make a stand."

Sharing responsibility

Residents living in the area also share responsibility, Beer said, of protecting their property and that of their neighbors.

"Create some defensible space where we can try to hold a fire," he said. "If we work together for a common goal we'll be more successful."

Kansas Forest Service officials presented a number of wildland fire preparedness events in the past.

"The first one was back in 2014," Hanen said. "One person attended that. They tried to run one in November 2016, and 40 people showed up for that. Then they ran one a couple of weeks after the fire, and 150 people were here. Hopefully, that will help at least a little bit. There's tons of information on the Internet."

The fire department would also be happy to send personnel to talk to individuals and help them assess what can be done to make the property safer, Beer said.

"You look at your homes every day and hardly think about these things, but we live and breathe it," he said. "We see things differently than normal people do."

State assistance falls short

One area noted in the after action report that fell well below needs and expectations during the fires was the response of the State Incident Management Team.

The afternoon of March 4, the second day of fires, local officials requested a state team for Sunday morning, so that local incident managers could get some rest.

The team was in place the next morning and assisted in managing the Jupiter Hills fire for most of the day.

While the state team sent a lot of people, and they were effective in handling logistics for food, fuel and lodging for volunteer responders, the assessment stated, they "seemed overwhelmed by a moving event," were "inexperienced...in essential positions" and lacked accountability.

Then, that evening, rather than assist in organizing operations for the next day -- when winds were expected to shift and potentially create "the real possibility of a threat on the city of Hutchinson," the report stated -- the IMT team left.

"The real need was for fresh crews and additional brush units for Monday morning operations," the report stated. "IMT all but left for the evening, while Reno County Emergency Management and Hutchinson Fire personnel began looking for mutual aid."

"A call to the state revealed there was little assistance they could provide."

That left local responders to start calling counties around the state looking for assistance, with a fire crew taking return calls from those could assist.

Lacking experience

There were also issues while the state IMT were managing the incident with keeping local jurisdictions up-to-date on objectives and planning for the next operational periods, the report stated.

"These IMT teams are all people like me, emergency managers or retired fire chiefs," said Reno County Emergency Management's Weishaar. "Their agencies allow them to go out and train to do larger incident. It was no fault of the state (the team fell short) but the state is trying to fix it."

In the past, Weishaar said, such teams have responded only after a disaster, to help with recovery. The 2016 Anderson Creek fire in Barber County marked the group's first active wildland response.

"Until two years ago, the team was for recovery," he said. "They never practiced a rapidly expanding event, with things thrown at them. They didn't know how to respond."

The state has since revamped the program, placing teams under the Kansas Department of Emergency Management and able to respond nationwide instead of just in Kansas.

Weishaar, however, said he'll not call on the team for active assistance "for a few years," until it is more experienced.

The national Type II Incident Management Team, on the other hand, which was called in late in the fires, "was night and day," regarding expertise and experience with wildfires, Weishaar said, and officials wished they'd called it in sooner.

Local officials learned a lot from the team, especially in how to re-populate areas following the evacuation and in dealing with victims following an event.

No warning

However, there was also some "disconnect" with local officials, not keeping them apprised of the situation and allowing local input on the needs of the community, the report noted.

The Grassland Fire Danger Index hit 175 -- double the "extreme" danger rating -- on March 6.

The city manager, county administrator, sheriff, police chief, EMS and 911 directors, Emergency Management, the fire chief and Kansas Forestry officials met at 10 a.m. that day "to talk frankly and openly about the real threat to the city of Hutchinson for the day."

"All those in attendance were in favor of not inciting panic on the public and (that) the information would not be released," the report stated.

Later that day winds reignited the fire in the Highlands, forcing two rounds of emergency evacuations in northern Reno County.

The report doesn't address that decision, but it does suggest a need for better, more timely communication with the public and establishing a reliable notification and alert system.

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