¶ Pete Curran (Watch Duty) joins the Chuck ToddCast
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¶ Fire season in California is basically all twelve months now
free quote at ethos dot com slash chuck That is e t hos dot com slash chuck. Application times may vary and rates may vary. Well. My next guest is fills the role of the staff meteorologist for an organization called Watch Duty. And as many of you know, I've been obsessed with the local news problem that we have all across the country. Doesn't matter media market like I do in Washington or where my guest is in Southern California. It doesn't mean that local news is getting the coverage
that is necessary. And the focus of the conversation with this organization has to do with wildfires and wildfire season, which of course is such a huge issue in California. Being a Floridian, it's the equivalent of constantly having to be prepared for hurricane season or tropical storms. What's that consumes pretty much everybody's half of everybody's brain in Florida, just like wildfire season consumes about half of everybody's brain in southern California. And I see Pete is nodding along
¶ Fire season used to only last a few months
here in agreement. So but what I find fascinating about Watch Duty is it's filling a role that traditional local media wants filled and we know with all the cuts this is missing, and in some ways this might end up being a more trusted and a better way to do this. So part of this is also highlighting something new in the information ecosystem. So let me bring in Pete, current staff meteoralogists for Watch Duty. Pete, nice to meet you.
Good to meet you, Chuck, thank you for having me.
So look, we're on the I used to ask this of one of my oldest and closest friends lives in LA and he's now fond of saying there's no such thing as wildfire season unless you want to call all
¶ Watch Duty became the must-have app during LA fires
twelve months of the calendar a season. Do you concur with that these days?
Absolutely? Right? We all know for years that the fire scene has been getting longer. And if you talk to any firefighter and you ask them after it's been a tremendously rainy winter, perhaps, and you ask them, what do you think about fire season, and they will say, without missing a beat, it will be the mother of all fire seasons because there will be new growth and that growth will dry out and it will be really bad. And if we've had zero and it's been a really
¶ What was the information flow to the public before Watch Duty?
dry winter and you asked the firefighter what kind of a fire season, they will say, it will be the worst fire season ever. So it's a standard answer. That's the way it is. In California. We've when I started in the fire service, so that's my background. I started as a firefighter. It's been an entire career in the fire service. And you know, we used to have a
regular fire season, right. It used to start, you know, in southern California we would start maybe late May early June with some grass fires and then as the season progressed and the summer got hotter, but we were done with by typically, you know, November first, right after the Santa Ana's comedy.
So fire season in California was the equivalent of what hurricane season traditionally was, which is June one November thirtieth.
¶ Watch Duty updates fire information in real time
That was approximately fire season out.
West there you go, right, And so there was a tremendous right all the fire Service, they're staffing in logistics and resources all based on that. And so now it's a change in that for the last obviously decade that we've have turned into a year round fire season.
Tell me about Watch Duty. I know where it got on my radar produce. One of my producers, Lauren Gardner. He lives in LA and I remember during the fire in California, the Palisades in particular, Watch Duty became just a must have app all of a sudden everybody. It was one of those you know, it must be an odd thing for you guys to say your biggest growth period was during one of the worst disasters ever. Right,
that's never a comfortable place to be. And yet the reason you grew is you had information that people found to be factually correct and helpful. Look, you said you were a firefighter before. What was the information flow to
¶ Previous to watch duty, official updates were only twice daily
the public pre watch duty in your mind?
Sure, because one of the roles I filled was is a situation unit leader on a incident management team. So I can tell you what that information flow was, and that is, twice a day, we take snapshot of the incident and that goes through they fill out a very official form and that's percentage of containment, how many acres, how many resources on the fire. So that would be updated twice a day, and so the information to the public and the media and everything else would happen about
six am in the morning at six pm. In between those hours, there really wasn't specific information about the incident. So now with watch duty, we have an army of reporters of contributors that are looking at this incident in real time. They are digesting radio traffic on radio scanners, listening to the real time information. They're looking at cameras, the wildfire cameras that are pointed at the the fires.
They're looking at satellite imagery of hotspots and things like that, so they are able to report in real time things like where the fire is moving how fast are there any evacuations? So they vet this information, they make sure that it is valid through a number of sources before it appears on the app. So only vetted information appears on that app as official.
But for years before this existed, So how did you farm you know, when you were on these incident teams. Did you just have a collection of local media that
¶ The west had a wet winter, but not much snow. Bad for fire season
was paying attention, you try to have relationships with different TV meteorologists or how did it work?
So there was on every incident management team there's a public Information officer PIO shop and they may have one to twenty people, depending on how big the fire is. So those folks would do outreach to the local medias also, but they would always have to key only off of those official twice a day ICs two nine reports is what they called, and so they could only sing whatever
was on those sheets. But yes, previous to watch duty, it would be the pios, but mostly it would go to the National Interagency Fire Center VERA official places that would release this information. The maps that you see, the fire perimeter maps, the acreage that's where it would come from.
And you guys are fully private. Is it nonprofit? Is it NGO? How would you describe it.
It is fully nonprofit donor supported. At this all started
¶ There were massive fires in Nebraska and Kansas in mid-March
John Clark Mills was in the tech industry Silicon Valley around twenty twenty one, purchased a home and then was immediately threatened by wildfire. And he found that there was no one place that he could go to find out about evacuations, to find out about the fire movement, to find out about what was happening. And so his thought was, shouldn't there be such a thing, this one stop shop? And he made it. He made it happen. And that's what watch duty is.
So let's talk about this season. There's been all It was a wet winner. So that but as you said,
¶ California had its hottest March ever, Cat 5 cyclone in Pacific in April
you know, you can spin a wet winter means new growth means more fuel for fires, or a dry winter means even drier condition, more fuel for fires. I mean, is it really heads tails you lose.
This season? It is is pointing in that direction, right. So, as you know, we had a pretty wet winter, but what we didn't have was a lot of snow. Right. So even though let's say in california's not snow black,
¶ It's going to be a very significant fire season
we're about right so and not just in California, we're talking about to the entire west Colorado, the lowest snow pack ever right throughout the west.
This man, we got plenty of yr snow. We got plenty of that out east. It was a crazy We got more. There was a stat Pete, you'll love this. I think we had Denver had more days over seventy and we had more snow out here. I mean, it was just crazy.
It's been a crazy season. And so right, I mean we're seeing things that the handwriting is on the wall. Right. So in February we had a two hundred and eighty thousand acre fire in Kansas. Then in March, six hundred and eighty thousand acre fire into Erasca, followed by another two hundred and fifty thousand in mid March. When does that happen? That never happens.
So the March, I mean that's supposed to be still winter, right, still right, most no.
In low lying area. So the planes were the first wake up call. A six hundred and eighty thousand acre
¶ Fuels are drying out this year at a record rate
fire in mid March is a wake up call. Then in California we have the hottest March on record ever. Right then we start seeing a marine heat wave caused by this this March right. So off the eastern Pacific, we have the hottest. The Scripts Institute is recording sea surface temperatures the hottest they've seen. Now we have what last week, a Category five typhoon in the Western Pacific in April. Right. So my comment previously was the handwriting
is on the wall. And if you're a fire manager, if you're in this business, if you're a fire behavior in US, if you're looking at those fuels and you are not realizing these signs, then your head is in the sand. It's going to be a very significant season.
How you know. Look, I'm being an East coaster. I'm you know, like I said, we're all in. If you're Fluoridian, you're an amateur meteorology, hurricane expert. We all think we're hurricane experts.
I spent years of the Hurricane Center, you bet.
And so, but I feel very ignorant when it comes to fire season and all of that. For again, proximity is everything. How hard is it to forecast fire season?
¶ Tropical storms on the west coast bring lightning that start fires
And I mean, and how connected is it to La Nina and El Nino? And I know we're about to do a flip?
Right, So great question. So as the forecasters are looking at this season. What are we looking at right, Well, first we're looking at that the things we just talked about, the dry smoke, snowpack. We know that all of the things that burn, right, which is what grass brush, timber, those things are drying out in record ways because normally we start fire season with grass fires, but the heavier stuff, the timber, would be wet from the snow. Well, guess what,
we don't have the snow. So now we have a scenario where all the fuels are drawing out rapidly, and we're going to enter into a scenario where we're going to start to having these one hundred acre fires, two hundred acre fires in California, and all of a sudden, the timber that wouldn't normally burn is now going to be receptive to burning a month or two earlier than it would be. So we're looking at in all areas a scenario where throughout the West, throughout the Midwest, even
of a significant fire season. So we look at these models, we look at the weather models. Obviously, you know a wildfire is driven by slope, topography, fuel, and weather. Weather being the most difficult to predict, right, So when I
¶ Humans are procrastinators, how do you advise them to prepare?
go to a fire, I'm looking at the winds. I'm looking at as their cold front. Are the winds going to change direction? Is there lightning? Right? Typically a lightning bust from a decaying tropical system act right, So we do have tropical cyclones that might come up the Baja Spine of Mexico even though the water is too cold for them to sustain themselves.
They talked about the warm water though, I keep like the MIDI you said that, it's like there you go. There, are we going to see something we've never seen before, like landfall on the west coast of one of these typhoons?
Right? So, two years ago, we had a decaying tropical storm. It was still tropical storm as it entered the southern US first time ever, but it brought abundant lightning over
¶ People should clear their properties of anything combustible
California that started all these fires that went for months. So this year, with that hot water, the al Nina, the developing issues on the Sea service temperatures, we could certainly see tropical activity further north. We're already hearing from the fishermen. You want to know about al Nina. You talk to the fishermen if they're catching these big fish that they don't normally catch in those waters, that's the first sign and that's what we're hearing.
Wow, with a hurricane, there's some preparation. YEP, walk me through what you'd be telling, what you are telling people in southern California because unlike hurricane there's not a I assume, it's not like you can track, well, we know a fire may start in this ten day period. You don't
¶ Does hosing the house and yard actually help?
have that kind of precision like we do with organized storms. So you know that, I assume is the hardest part to get people to prepare. It's you know, we're the human species are procrastinators. I think we've learned this now over time one hundred percent.
So what we're telling the people is and what the drum beat has been right. Certainly the LA wildfires in twenty twenty five is a wake up call to harden your home against wildfire, right, to be ready to evacuate, to have a go kit. Not unlike you know, a tropical scenario, but really when you're talking about wildfire, and we saw this in the LA wildfires, right, the wind blows the end members into the built environment, it gets
¶ In a big fire, water pressure becomes a massive problem
into the attics, into the eves. Then you're losing the house. It starts the fence on fire, It lights the playground equipment on fire in your backyard, the wood that may be stacked. So trying to mitigate those issues is a big thing, right, So we call it zero zone, which means the four or five feet closest to your home. Whatever that is, planters, whatever, move all that combustible material away from your home. Try to cover up your attic vents with a fine enough mesh screen that prevents those
embers from going in, and basically just be smart. Clear your property of anything that's combustible, because once those embers start flying and they're going a mile or two beyond where the fire is, there's very little right you've lost control of the ability to get out in front of that. It's going to light anything on fire that's combustible. So that's a real challenge. And trying to get people to harden their homes, be ready to go, to ready to evacuate.
That is really the key moving into firecities.
Does dampness matter? You know, you'll see some people hosing
¶ How can people build differently to adapt to fire threat?
their backyards if they know a wildfire is coming. You know, all of that does that? What is the level of help something like that does?
So you know, if they wet down their roofs, they wet down. The fuel is going to help for a while, you bet it might. But as you as you can imagine, once a wildfire is moving into an urban interface, everybody's doing that right. The firefighters are trying to tap the hydrants. Everybody's on their hose, right, uh. And so that water pressure that the firefighters desperately need now is going to go down.
And that what happened during the Palace Sades fire.
Absolutely. And then what happen is as soon as you burn a home, right, imagine all that plumbing that now is exposed, right, the toilet, all of that plumbing now is then you have water, and you multiply that in the hundreds and then commercial buildings that have commercial sprinkler
¶ New homes with non combustible roofs survived the LA fires
systems that are now flowing because those pipes have burned. So that is part of the problem. You have free flowing water and you lose water pressure.
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¶ Firefighters assess which homes have been hardened during a fire
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¶ Wooden fences bring fire to the house
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Do we need? Is it better housing material? Like? What's what's some you know? You know, I'm long enough to remember when people worried about whether they're homes in California were earthquake resilience. Yea, Now it seems as if I'd be more concerned about whether my property was fire resilient more than I would earthquake resilient. So what is that you described the outside? Is there different types of building
¶ What's the status of California utilities burying power lines?
materials we had? I'd be thinking about do we want one story not two story? I mean, I just like, let's assume we're living in this healthscape now for a while. Okay, I mean, you know it is what it is. How do we live with this threat in a way that won't feel like you're constantly having to evacuate.
So another great question. So we know that the better you could harden your home. And we talked about the outside. But I was involved in the in the after action ANALYSI at the led wildfires and we went through those communities. We saw blocks that were decimated by wildfires, and then we saw an entire block, untouched, standing, brand new home built to certain specifications. And so to your point, what
was that that was a non combustible roof material? Right, So any kind of composite material on your roof that doesn't sustain combustion. Right, So the old wood shape shingles, roofs, those are just waiting to catch on fire.
Should we brand them? Is it something that maybe? I mean, look, you're not I'm asking you to be a politician or a regulator, but if they were asking your expert opinion, we'd be like, you know, this shouldn't even be allowed. Like, for instance, in Florida, I don't think you should have
¶ Power companies have been proactive about fire danger
manufactured housing. I'm not saying manufactured housing doesn't fill a role, but if you're in a in an environment that you could get fifty or more mile an hour weds, these things blow right over. I don't think it's illegal.
So let me tell you a secret. It's not so secret. But when firefighters go into a community and they have a fire coming into an entire urban interface, they're going to send a bunch of fire engines to the block and the first folks in that block are going to do an analysis or an assessment within ten minutes which homes have been hardened and which haven't. And those homes that have that shake shingle roof that have overhang of
growth materials, power lines, things like that, combust materials. Right, they know that's a problem house versus the house that's got right, a composite material roof glass that's maybe double pane glass, right, so the external paine of the glass cracks in the heat, but the inside maintains. We saw that in the in Los Angeles. So other things that
¶ At some point burying lines won't be a choice
you can do. We also found that fences, wooden fences, they catch on fire and they bring the fire to the house because the fence is usually ran up to the house. So get a composite fence, right, do things composite plastic, plastic or right, some some sort of metal fence, whatever you want to do. Aluminum that that doesn't sustain because that is what we found brought fire to the
house that that ended up burning the house. Don And now it's on video, right we see homes have those cameras were whattn happen in real time?
So let's talk about power companies. What what is the level of power line burying in California? How you know,
¶ Vulnerable communities will likely have to bear cost of burying lines
I know in Florida, every time there's a you know, new construction, they bury power lines. But you know, if it's grandfathered in, it's grandfathered in. What's the situation in California on that same.
Situation, so we know it's it's it's no news that the power companies have had failures where those lines have started fires in California, large wildfires in the past. That's certainly not news. Uh. And as these are identified and they can they bury those power lines, we know that that in high winds, uh, there's arcing, Uh, they have power line failures, falls into compostible grass. And so that's what started the whole Public Safety powers off the psps's right.
So I'm sure you've read that when these red flag warnings, when these high winds are expected in high fire danger corridors, they will preemptively shut down the power to those areas. And so we've been living with that for you know, five years plus now, and so it is arguably either either of the world.
Doesn't it was just gonna say, I mean, doesn't feel like it's worked, has it?
Uh? Well, so hard to say, right, So it depends
¶ What fire conditions cause you to lose sleep?
on if they shut it off and they avoided a fire, would we know? Yeah, can they shut off? Can they shut off the power lines into Los Angeles in the middle of a regular business day because those same circuits also provide power to the wildline interface. Right, So it's a problem for the power companies, I get it. But the more they can bury that stuff, the more they can harden those areas. And so really I've seen in the last five years the power companies they have been
very trying to be very provactive with fire danger. They've hired a lot of meteorologists that do nothing but they put you know, sensors in all their high power transmission towers, which is great information to meteorologists. Right. So that's where we get a lot of our data is from these utility weather stations that they put up. They are trying to forecast fire danger they're trying to preemptively do these public safety power shut offs. But it's still a problem.
It's still a problem. How do you write can you ever really just I mean, the real answer is just shut off the power when there's a red flag warning, but I don't think the public would like that.
Well. The real answer, though, is bearing is sort of forcing the burial power lines. I mean, I know the way, you know, even here in Virginia, they the way the power company works is if they have a certain number of neighbors could say no, then well they're not going to bury power lines in this community. It seems like at some point it's at some point it's not going
to be a choice. Now, the question is it something is an insurance premium that you risk seeing quadruple if you don't do it, If your neighborhood doesn't have very power lines, everybody's going to pay more in homeowner's insurance or not. I mean, you know, sadly, it usually is
¶ Elevated danger conditions will begin around June
how you get behavior to change is when there's a financial penalty or incentive.
Absolutely so much like the tropical situation in the southeast right every time there's a fire, our insurance rates go up and I believe that it is going to end up being like you stated that areas that don't have buried power lines, that have exposure to higher potential of fire danger are going to end up putting that bill to try to bury those lines, because we're certainly paying for it in insurance costs for fire danger. Right now,
all that stuff is assessed by fire danger. When I moved into my house, my insurance said, well we can't. We're going to have to cancel your homeowners insurance because your house is right up against a wildeline area. Are
¶ Experience of working for the fire service prior to becoming a meteorologist
high resolution satellite imagery dictated that your house was up against Yes, up against balin And I said, that is irrigated association vegetation. Does your satellite differentiate? And they really? I go yes, this is green irrigated vegetation and they go, okay, you're fine then, but that's what we're up against.
So you had to prove you weren't a fire risk, and you could individually make that happen.
Didn't matter that I was a fire behavior analyst and meet her alogist a spend career in the fire service and say, listen, I know about this and I'm not in an urban wildline interface but right, it's the embers. It's the wind speed in the ember cast. It's all they have to say is you're within three miles of the urban interface, you're exposed to embers.
So when do you start losing sleep when there's a high wind warning when you know what is what is sort of when you're you know going, I better have ready, better have the coffee going.
So the answer is yes, when we start seeing the fuels that are going to be what we call a receptive fuel bed. The probability of ignition. So if the grass or the brush, the timber, whatever it is is dry enough and we already talked about it that we know it'll catch fire if there's an ignition, and then you add some hot, dry winds or cold front passage that's not going to rain. That's when the red flag warnings go out. That's when my role in watch duty
¶ Weather is the most important thing for firefighters to prepare for to stay safe
is to provide this weather information to watch duty so they can proact right in terms of staffing, in terms of beefing up the reporters that are going to be watching in a certain area, so I pinpoint the areas that are going to be the highest fire danger, and internally watch duty we do things to make sure that they're ready for that. So they're trying to proact rather than react to these to these high fire danger, fire weather situations.
We're taking morning early afternoon on Tuesday, April twenty first, would you say that you're that the danger right now is already elevated and it's you're in an ever any any day now, we could get you know, the wrong,
¶ Firefighter organizations have a staff meteoroligist & fire behavior analyst
you know, some campfire gone awry because of the conditions that because of the conditions you just described over the last ninety days.
I would say that we are maybe not this month, but probably a few months away from that.
So really starting in June is when you think this is going to be a really really ugly summer.
I think, and if you add the potential of maybe some lightning from a decaying tropical system. So as soon as you know, so we start in the Pacific May fifteenth, you guys, start June first, we start, you know, a couple of weeks earlier. Alls we need is something like that to kick off what is certainly going to be a very significant fire season. And I am very concerned. All of my coworkers are very concerned. I think it's going to be a very active fire season.
When it comes to it's interesting to me that you're
¶ Best practices now that meteorology has been infused with firefighting?
were you firefighter before you were a meteorologist.
It is I'm an odd duck in that way. And then I came to a backwards so check. You're absolutely right. So and that's why I got interested in meteorology. So I think you'll find this interesting. So I spent I was a firefighter paramedic here in southern California, got promoted, and spent really twenty eight years in the fire service in southern California. And during that period of time, they started sending me as part of these teams to these
large wildfires. And it was at those large wildfires that I realized how weather, how important weather it was, and how it basically drove the cadence of the incident. And so I started taking if you classes as much as I could. I was already a reserve for FEMA, and I was considering maybe taking an early retirement and going back to school to earn a meteorology degree, which is right at that point in my career, was unheard of.
So I did that. I sold my house, I grabbed my then eighty four year old mom, moved lock stock and barrel to Miami, Florida and went to school at FIU and earned a meteorology degree while working at the National Hurricane Center for those three years. While I was there, get to fly through a hurricane. And so as soon as I was done with school, I came back went back on the same incident management team as I had been on as a situation yet leader, but now as
the incident meteorologist. So I was able to get qualified as an I met which is the guy that goes
¶ Every year we see new fire behavior that's unprecedented
out to the fire. I sit in the tent, right, so instead of running up and down the hills with the back of the hose, all right, I get to be briefing the folks on the potential fire danger and making sure that everybody stays safe because there is the number one issue when it comes to being prepared for wind changes, lightning, thunderstorms. Right, it's it's a it's a you know, it's a big deal when I'm out there, and I'm usually out there for at least two weeks at a time.
Well, my daughter's about to graduate with a degree in oceanography and a minor in meteorology there University of Miami, so obviously South Florida pretty good, pretty good haven for for a weather education. Let me ask you on the meteorology front, how many you know a staff meteorologists for a fire department? Now did that exist twenty years ago? Yeah? I didn't think so. Now it's it's normalized position.
No, it's it's becoming more normal. These large organizations, especially state organizations cal Fire and California.
I seemed like the LA Fire Department, the big fire department are doing this right.
Yeah, And they have a fire behavior analyst, so that the guy that matches the weather with the potential fire behavior in the fuels condition, and so they call him an f BAN fire behavior analyst. And so these positions now to your point, are endemic in most of these large organizations. And so when I go out on the fire with the fire team, I sit next to a fire behavior analyst. They need my weather information, I need their fuels information. We produce the fire weather forecast that
goes out to all the firefighters. We do that twice a day.
¶ Remote, solar powered stations provide updated data once an hour
Just to give an example. How much obviously this has changed firefighting. It has changed certainly some procedure. You were on the front lines before this world existed. Now you see it. How would you say, what's been some of the best practices that have been created now that meteorology and experts like yourself are infused into the firefighting protocols.
So it's made a huge difference. And it's taken fatality incidents to for wildfire incidents in the past to really forge that notion that weather is super important to these teams. So and in the nineties, really we started seeing meteorologists show up to wildfires. Now it's unheard of that one of these teams would go out to a fire without a meteorologist. So we branch what the National Weather Service.
We basically have them on a constant chat, all right, because they're the ones responsible for issuing the watches and warnings. So we're in lockstep with them. I'm attending briefings online with them. They're saying, hey, do you see this? Do I see the winds starting at this time? So I carry that information. I hone it the forecast. I write my own forecast for the fire, very detailed to the topography that we're in because wins and complex topography is
not easy for the weather models to do. And we hone that forecast. But I really want to say, is
¶ The more data meteorologists have... the better
the fire behavior, the fire weather that we've been seeing every year. Every year we see more significant fire behavior that we haven't seen before. I'll give you an example, fire tornadoes. When we used to talk about a fire tornado, we would all think, well, that's a fireworld. It's a little rope, you know, area, but instability. It's maybe a couple feet wide, you know, it goes twenty twenty five
feet in the atmosphere. And then it's because the instability caused by the fire and they you know, the heat on the ground. Starting in two thousand and nineteen, the
¶ Nobody in climate science denies that there's global warming
car fire in Reading, California, half mile wide, rotating, real, honest to god tornado caused by a wall fire. I've never seen that before. So now we're seeing them every year. So fire seasons are getting longer, fire behavior is getting more significant, the challenges to firefighters is becoming more significant. So you think about the firefighting community, which is where I write, I came through that and environment, and the
¶ Every year now becomes "the hottest year ever"
way we teach our new folks is by the old guys teaching the new guys. This is what I saw, this is what I did. Now in a situation where we're seeing fire behavior we've never seen before, So that old guy teaching the new guy paradigm is now not working anymore because the new guys seeing it for the first time, right along with the old guy. Right. So that is a challenge to the fire Service and we're having to redefine what that is every year.
What's a data stream you're not getting that you wish you did that would improve your your forecasting?
Oh, holy cal you know, meteor I'll just live in data, you know that, right, So I'll give you an example. Uh, we use remote automated weather stations called ras, self contained weather stations that we can put in the back country that are solar powered. They don't require connectivity in terms of, you know, any hardwiring. So they broadcast up to a satellite and every hour we get temperature, humidity, wind speed,
wind direction, brand, barometric pressure every hour. Well is that frequent enough for you?
Sure?
Right? The utility the weather stations five minute data from the utility stations, five minute data from most of the other stations. So one thing we could use is more frequent updates. The reason that it is the way it is because each one of those stations, after broadcast up to a satellite, have a very narrow window to do that,
¶ Fire seasons are getting worse globally, not just in western U.S.
and that there's only so much bandwidth if you will. But the technology gets better every year. Now we have a lot of different satellite systems, so maybe that will change. But we live and die by data. The wildfires in Los Angeles, part of what happened on the Eaton fire in the Altadena area was because of mountain wave, what we call a mountain wave phenomenon. So when strong winds flow over topography, we get very turbulent winds on the lease side of that topography. I would love to be
able to time that. If we had some wind profilers, some light ar microwaves, we could time when those were happening. Because the firefighters on the ground would say about every thirty and forty five minutes, we have a violent burst of winds and then it would back off for another half hour forty five minutes, and then we have another one hundred miles an hour recorded on that fire. So if we could provide that warning, if we could get more into details, save lives. So the more data, the better.
¶ There aren't enough candidates to fill all the firefighting roles
Meteorologists live and die by the data.
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¶ Federal firefighting resources get moved seasonally
this is becoming a bigger problem. Is this Is it changing climate? Is it? How seasonal is it? How cyclical? Is it? When it's La Nina? Is it less of a concern than when it's El Nino. I mean, run through all of those variables for me.
So nobody in the scientific community, and I think you would agree with this is denying that there is climate change. Buddy in my business is denying that there's global warming. We know that for a fact, right, we can empirically point at.
The oceans getting hotter, and every year the temperatures get right.
Every year, Right, twenty twenty three was the hottest year ever until when until twenty twenty four, and then that
¶ The biggest risk is fires breaking out everywhere at once
was the hottest year level, right, So every year we're having that hottest year ever. We're certainly seeing the effects of that in the wildfires with the lengthening fire season, with that fire behavior that we talked about. Now this year we're going to add a strengthening al nina. It certainly looks like that. So we already have this what they're officially calling the blob, that hot marine area in the eastern Pacific of sea surface temperatures. So the blob,
¶ Federal resources have been cut & changed under Trump administration
as they're calling it, is certainly going to help the development of the al Nina which takes place in the Equatorial Pacific. So if we are headed into what the European weather models are calling a potential for a soup, what is that? That's say, thing over two degrees over average warming in that area of the Equatorial Pacific. So if we're entering into a super al nino, what does that mean for the tropical activity in the Pacific? What
does that mean for wildfire? Does that mean more lightning? Right? So climate is changing, we're trying to react to it as fast as we can, but it certainly has a foothold in the wildfires in the West. The fire behavior that we're seeing, it's it's been one year after another.
We're on our continent. We're used to the western part of the continent being the most susceptible to Wildfire's part of it is that it's more open, so lightning strikes are more likely to trigger them. Are we are you
¶ The wake up call for this year was the massive fire in Nebraska in March
you know what is the increase we're seeing in wildfires and other continents and what does that tell you about our future on the West Coast.
Well, we know that we're seeing wildfires globally. UH, their length, their seasonal fire scenes are growing as well. Right Australia every year in New Zealand, UH every year has very significant fatality wildfires, Central America, South America, the Jungles, We've seen those burning. We know that that's a problem. So I think it's the evidence is there that globally we are seeing an increase in fire activity and it concerns me and our community a great deal. When I first started,
¶ Colorado has been under red flag warnings 30 times already this year
you would have a firefighter vacancy very seldom. We would hire a handful of people every year because because.
Competitive job people want to competitive and now it's a good job. Good people like the hours, flexibility.
Right. We can't hire enough, right, we go from one academy to the next. As soon as one academy and is the next one starting.
Then, you see, can't get enough. Are you still getting
¶ The public gets "warning fatigue" leading them to not prepare
an increase in people wanting to be firefighters? You just have more demand or are fewer people actually wanting to be firefighters?
A lot of people want to be firefighters. To your point, they love the schedule. It's a great job, right, it's the right. I delivered babies, I flew in helicopters, I you know, did all those things.
One of my best friends from high school is still better that he failed the firefighters examined. See how I think he tried it three times? Crazy miss.
It's a great job, but it gives you a front row seat, really to seeing all the things that we've talked about. So, like I said, in my career, we had a finite fire season. Now I'm seeing a fire season that doesn't end. Now I'm seeing fire tornadoes. Now
¶ Watch Duty isn't just in California, it serves the entire nation
I'm seeing tropical weather activity in San Diego. Now I'm seeing right, all of these things that when I started heard of and having to demand power to have to adjust this know, right, fire season the way that the federal wildfire goes, we follow fire season around the nation, right, So in this time of year, usually the southwest, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas panhandle, that's typically what starts burning first,
¶ Watch Duty will be adding flood warnings in the future
and so the federal resources they focus in on those areas. And then typically as soon as the monsoonal rains come, maybe in June, then there's a shift, right, and wildfires moves up to the Pacific Northwest, and it's Washington, and it's Oregon, and it's northern California. And then as we get later into the season, right August September, then California right,
other parts of the West start burning. And so the federal government, right, all the US Foresters, the Bureau of Land Management, all those federal agencies, right, the fixed wing aircraft, the rotary wing aircraft, all the things that the big stuff that everybody needs, that gets shifted around. So, Chuck, my question is what happens if it all happens.
At once, And that's a concern you have.
The concern I have if the monsoons don't come on time and the Northwest starts burning at the same time, then how are we shifting those manpower, staffing, logistics, How are we shifting that like we normally do?
Well, this is a pretty good place to land this plane on. So what you're saying is we are not prepared sort of federal, state, local, the collective if multiple regions in this country experienced fire season at the same time. And what you're saying is because of the sort of we've got sort of all these conditions that are that are coming together at the same time, the likelihood of this is what is it ten percent? How would you put it?
I would put it higher than that. I would put it thirty years.
We're going to have multiple regions on fire at the same time, and then this is going to be a stretching of resources that maybe we're not prepared for.
And let's add to that, what do you think has happened with those federal wildfire agencies over the past year? Right?
¶ We have better data than ever, just need the resources & attention
So now they have not been expanded, We've shifted a lot of things. We were basically taking all the federal resources under one roof. Now, how do you think firefighters like change?
Yeah, about as well as all of us do. Right right, you.
Ask any firefighters are two things they don't like the way things are and change.
Right, Welcome to the American voter. Hey, we need change, but I want that change, Okay, exact voter.
So yes, I have a concern that we're going to have overlapping fire seasons that is going to challenge us in terms of our resource and capabilities this year.
I do, and I think, Look, I'll tell you the biggest issue that I worry about, just sort of politically on this is that there's this perception this is a West coast problem, and you're talking to me about Kansas and Nebraska. Last time I checked either one of those states around the West coast, Like, this is essentially west of the Mississippi problem, isn't it.
This is the year?
Right?
The wake up call was a six hundred and eighty thousand acre fire in Nebraska in March. That was the wake up call. If we can do that now, we're really in trouble. So Colorado, the state of Colorado.
They had their season a couple of years ago. Yeah, and we know.
Absolutely the least snowpack on record ever to their record keeping. The Colorado the state of Colorado are a red flag warning. Right, is something that the National Weather Service issues when they have significant fire weather. Right. I think the state of Colorado has been under a red flag warning. I think at least thirty times in the last month and a half. So now you're the fire chief. I hate to put that, like, what does that do? That numbs people, doesn't it? Well,
that's my point. That's what I'm going to ask you. So if you're the fire chief and I tell you that there's a red flag warning and you're going to respond to that, do you respond the same way many times later? It's the same issue that occurred in Los Angeles.
This happens with hurricane watches versus warnings and how wanting. Yeah, you know, I went through her an infamous hurricane called Hurricane Andrew. And when that hit. One of the reasons it was it was so devastating is that South Florida had gone through like twenty misses. Yeah, I feel like in my childhood, and so people just got used to it. How we're all experts. You know, it's going to turn north because they all turn north, and then this one didn't turn north.
It only takes one.
Yeah, and that's and that's always the case. Well, man, I learned a lot here. I don't. It sounds like, Look, you're not an activist, but if you could sound the alarm, you'd like to get more people paying attention to that we need. Doesn't sound like we have the resources to deal with what we could be facing this calendar.
I think it's going to be a very significant year. I think folks to prepare, do all the things that we talked about hard in your home, download watch Duty one, stop shopping back.
You guys are ination. You're not just a California here, right, it's a nation.
It's the coonus.
You bet focused on wildfires.
Correct, Currently we're focused on waterfires, but we're probably going to expand to other areas. Uh, there's a good chance of flooding, right, so we're seeing a lot.
Of another thing that the forecasting on flooding is not as accurate as we wish it were.
Well, it's a challenge, right, So there's this sort of an insidious thing. Right, There's a lot of reasons that flooding occurs. But we can use the watch Duty paradigm and machinery and focus on flooding. Also. Yeah, that's something I think.
It seems like we're pretty good at hurricanes because there there are even regular storms because you can track them, right, or it's footing and yeah, yeah, with the other stuff, there's too many other variables that it's just hard to acount.
For right, You've got So, we had the significant flooding in the last few days in the Great Lakes region, right, Michigan, Wisconsin, major flooding those rivers, right, So they had very slow moving thunderstorms that rained some of them two inches an hour and sat for days at a time. So they're
still dealing with very significant flooding. But there's the surprise flooding, right, the very unfortunate accident that occurred last year in Texas right in the hill country with the fatalities, right, So those were slow moving thunderstorms overnight, non moving pausing that. So we feel that we can focus our watch duty army and kind of help with with that same issue.
Well, regardless of where anybody is on the politics of climate change, the issue is we need to do more warnings and be able to you know, mitigate and be able to respond. And it seems to me that that's I really hope it isn't politics that is slowing down the amount of resources going into this. I think just as we've never had better data, we've never had the ability to be better at this than now. We just need the political will to fund these entities. Right.
We need to respond, and we need to not be fatigued to buy warnings, and we need to really pay attention to what's happening. We have the data, we just have to respond to it.
Pete Current, great to meet you really learned a lot, and man, you're pretty good at this. You've got a good meteorology. Is also got to be able to communicate the science, you know. Thank you to speak you speak American, you don't just speak English, so I appreciate it.
I'm used to having to brief firefighters right right, you got thirty second attention span. You got to get in and get out there.
You go. Nice work. Good to meet you, Pete.
Thank you, sir, appreciate it. Thank you, Cheb