Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Regarding The Firefighting Of The Mount Charleston Fire



As a former firefighter who has fought many, many wild land fires, here is my opinion of how the firefighting of the Carpenter 1 (Mount Charleston) fire.
From the Las Vegas Sun: Firefighters continued to make progress on the once-rampant wildfire on Mount Charleston Tuesday containing 85 percent of the nearly 28,000-acre fire.
The 16-day fire that has scorched acres upon acres of forest and vegetation has dwindled into a creeping, smoldering flame. Only a few flames remain near Carpenter Canyon and the South Loop trail, said Kerri Paniagua-Smith, a public information officer with the incident management team.
The threat from the fire that has cost about $17.8 million is almost gone, said incident management team officials.
Read more: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/jul/16/fire-crews-shooting-90-percent-containment-kyle-ca/#ixzz2ZHySEEIo
The Good: No one in Kyle Canyon lost a home or business in the Town of Mount Charleston
The Bad: The fire burning a lodge and several outbuildings.  This is bad because they had plenty of water, if they drafted water off the 3 acre lake.  It doesn't sound like the firefighters did a good there.
The Ugly, very ugly: The firefighters allowed the fire to cross Kyle Canyon Rd by Harris-Springs Rd.  This area is fairly flat and with only shrub brush and occasional small pine tree to deal with.  A bull dozer and a crew or two could have stopped this fire before it cut off the main supply road to Mount Charleston.  This part of the firefighting was just plain unforgivable and someone should lose their job for putting so many people in danger.
The Good: The fire never went into Pahrump.
The Bad: Lee Canyon was never in any danger and the residents and workers were put out for no reason.
The Good: The volunteers, from the Mount Charleston and Mountain Springs Volunteer fire departments, people who donated supplies and money and the Red Cross.
The Bad: The cops pretending it was a mandatory evacuation when in reality, it was a suggestion.
The Bad: The people in Trout Canyon who don't have water.  Right now, it appears there is no help coming, but the person in charge of the water line should already have plans in place to have it fixed.
The Good: The firefighters fighting the good battle in most places, putting up to 16 hours on the line.
The Good:  CSSD for opening up 2 schools for the firefighting cause and to help the evacuees.
The Good: Brian Sandoval for keeping the BLM fire station on Mount Charleston open instead of letting the Clark County Fire Department take over.
The Bad: The media who over exaggerated the seriousness of the fire.
The Bad: The BLM an those responsible who could have stopped the fire from spreading the first day or two of the fire.
The good: The firefighters who had to climb the mountains to clear off brush, to those who slept overnight on the mountain and to those worked 16 hours a day putting out the fire.

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