Free Republic

Boaters on Lake Bemidji hindered efforts to fight a nearby wildfire Tuesday, the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office said. A wildfire sparked before 4 p.m. Tuesday in Eckles Township, prompting a precautionary evacuation of people in the area at about 4:45 p.m., Beltrami County Emergency Management said. Firefighting crews tackled the 75-acre blaze on the ground and from the air via air tankers and helicopters. But those interested in watching what was going on made it difficult for the airplanes to collect water from Lake Bemidji. At about 6 p.m., the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office posted on Facebook asking people to...

Pope Enlists Atheist to Hose Down Media Firestorm Leftist Eugenio Scalfari dedicates three pages to defending Francis ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis has used his latest interview with his atheist journalist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, to de-escalate media furor over the book on priestly celibacy published by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cdl. Robert Sarah. The case of Benedict apparently coming out against Francis' possible ordination of married priests in the Amazon and other outlying regions is closed, the pontiff tells Scalfari, founder of La Repubblica, in a three-page interview. Francis insists that the pope emeritus has demonstrated "fraternal" solidarity with him and has not allied himself with Cdl....

Wednesday brought the distrubing and sad news that wildfires were threatening the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California. Well, it was sad news to most people. But that didn’t stop a few prominent liberals in and out of the media from either gloating or blaming conservative inaction on global warming. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and occasional CNN guest Will Bunch used the dangerous fire as an opportunity to hype his anti-Reagan book and to tout this as a what-goes-around-comes-around type situation:

The annual Fireman’s Parade is a big deal in Franklin, New Jersey. But there’s a bit of controversy after volunteer firefighters from Sussex County included a Trump 2020 banner in the Color Guard. The banner included the words, “Keep America Great.” Local Democrats are furious. The Sussex County Watchdog reports that the volunteer firefighters have received death threats. And some citizens are calling for the volunteers to be fired. “Evidently, their loathing of Donald Trump is more dear to them than the safety of their own children,” the Watchdog reported. The New Jersey Herald reports someone filed a complaint with...

A company expects to make available soon in the United States a tracked wildland fire suppression vehicle featuring a turbine aided nozzle/mist blower and a 1,300-gallon water tank that can be refilled by helicopter. “The first demonstrator chassis is ready in Reno, Nevada at Powerbully now and waiting for the turbine to be shipped from Italy by air freight,” Nicholas Davis, CEO of Arcus Fire said. “It will be doing a week-long demo program at Reno during late October. The second demonstrator is also ready for the turbine in Montreal at Prinoth. It will have an HKD Blue turbine on...

PATHS TO PROGRESS   Instead of having understaffed towns try to do their own research in the middle of an emergency, the FAC Network offers a cooperative model where communities can share best practices and get help quickly. LOS ANGELES—For Annie Schmidt it began in 2014, with a stranger on a bus. Ms. Schmidt was in Colorado Springs for a workshop held by the newly created Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, or FAC Net. On the way to a field trip, she found herself sitting beside Justice Jones of the Austin Fire Department, discussing his extensive work on post-fire recovery....

The drone was spotted about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday flying between two fixed-wing aircraft battling the massive wildfire burning south of Big Bear Lake, according to Mike Eaton, forest aviation officer for the San Bernardino National Forest. The sighting of the illegal aircraft prompted authorities to recall all aircraft battling the fire. “We don’t want to deal with unknown aircraft in our airspace,” Eaton said. “They’ve got enough on their mind already … difficult terrain, difficult weather, winds and other things. They don’t need to be worrying about model airplanes or drones.” Authorities could not figure out who was flying the...

MUST SEE MAFFS 6 146 AW CHANNEL ISLANDS AIR NATIONAL GUARD ON THE #RIMFIRE AUGUST 22 6 P.M. HI-DEF VIDEO WATCH FULL SCREEN MUST SEE MAFFS 6 ON THE #RIMFIRE 22 Aug 13 1750 Video Description: MAFFS 6 146AW Channel Islands Air National Guard working the #RimFire for US Forest Service and CAL FIRE View Full Screen

The Battle for Featherville has begun. Fire crews moved from a defensive to an offensive posture Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning as they took the fight to the Trinity Ridge Fire, which has burned over 105,200 acres of prime forest land in Elmore County. With favorable weather conditions Wednsday, firefighters began setting controlled burns along the ridge west of Featherville on the northern part of the Pine-Featherville corridor. But it will be a race against a storm front expected to hit this weekend that could cause erratic and unpredictable behavior with the fire. *snip* In the Pine-Featherville area, there are...

The Navy has teamed up with Virginia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania to develop a humanoid robot to fight fires on-board its vessels. The Navy Technology Center for Safety & Survivability at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., carries out research to solve Navy problems regarding combustion, fire extinguishing, fire modeling and scaling, damage control, and atmosphere hazards. The robot, called the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot, or SAFFiR for short, is designed to move throughout the ship, interact with people and fight fires. It will be charged with handling the dangerous firefighting tasks normally performed by humans. The...

Admin moderator, if this is inappropriate please delete. Thanks! I've been helping a non-profit, the International Fire Relief Mission. We collect equipment in the US from fire departments and businesses and ship it overseas to fire departments that either don't have anything or are so poorly equipped, it's a wonder they can do anything. As an example until we shipped equipment to New Guinea, the firefighters responded barefoot wearing overalls. There's another non-profit that raises money for other non-profits and holds a yearly awards ceremony in which as much as $15,000 is awarded. We operate on about $10,000 a year....

Israel was caught flat-footed by the forest blaze now raging for a second day through the tinder-dry Carmel hills above the Mediterranean port of Haifa, because it has no water-bombers. The death of 41 people in the flames on Thursday shocked the country. Some 15,000 Israelis had to be evacuated from their homes as the flames swept down on them unchecked. The inadequacy of the response has been openly admitted. "Israel has never prepared itself in any form for such a need," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. "It was never taken into account." He told reporters: "We have to stop...

Get ready for a firefighting vehicle that might have arrived from your old Saturday morning GI Joe cartoons. Yanko has showcased an ATV design by Liam Ferguson that can carry remotely-operated water cannons and a two-person crew into the heart of a raging blaze, and emerge unscathed. Firefighters currently rely on modified Toyota Landcruisers or other utility vehicles for doing recon on hotspots. Those work well in a pinch for navigating rough terrain, but carry only a meager water supply of 500 liters and cannot survive a burnover when flames suddenly sweep over the area. The proposed Amatoya vehicle...

One of the last two Flying Boats from World War II -- a 747-sized airplane that can only land on water -- will be floating on Lake Elsinore this summer, ready to dump tons of water on Southern California wildfires. The 'Mighty Martins' One of the last two Flying Boats from World War II -- a 747-sized airplane that can only land on water -- will be floating on Lake Elsinore this summer, ready to dump tons of water on Southern California wildfires, it was reported today. A Martin Mars JRM-3 flying boat -- with a wingspan greater than a...

December 30, 2008 Man’s engenuity knows no bounds and we are regularly fortunate enough to report on a technological solution that is so clever that it inspires us all to seek inspired responses to difficult problems. Bushfires deliver destruction and terror throughout the world and are often so powerful they defy man’s attempts to control them. In January 2003, Australians watched aghast as a bushfire destroyed 70% of the entire Australian Capital Territory and entered the suburbs of Canberra, the nation’s capital city. When a bushfire needs to be stopped, most countries simply do not have the resources. Until now!...

High-Tech Firefighting Tools Headed for the Front Lines 1. ATV-Mounted Power TorchSometimes, the best way to stop fires is to start them. Since the 1970s, fire managers have used so-called prescribed fires to burn up dry, flammable fuel before it accumulates into something that could start a much more dangerous conflagration. Determining when and how to set a prescribed fire is a complicated science. "A lot of the grassland areas have lots of acreage that's got to be burned by a certain deadline. You can't just do it any old day," says smoke jumper Brandyn Harvey, who worked for...

Menino: Bodybuilding Firefighter Should Quit Albert Arroyo Did Not Show Up To Work Monday BOSTON (WBZ) ― The Boston firefighter who claimed to be permanently disabled - but then competed in a body building contest was a no-show at work on Monday and now he might lose his job altogether. Albert Arroyo was ordered to return to work by Fire Commissioner Roderick Frazer. He sent a letter to Arroyo late last week ordering his return to work on Monday. Arroyo did not show up for his shift and he did not contact anyone with a reason for his absence. "The...

BIG SUR -- The fires that bedevil California took another ominous turn Thursday as a blaze near Goleta triggered more evacuations and authorities shut another 10 miles of Highway 1 along the flaming Big Sur coast. Mushrooming in size, the Goleta fire was declared a local emergency by Santa Barbara County officials. Because of its proximity to populated areas, it was also designated the top firefighting priority in a state currently plagued with a multitude of fires, some of them burning without intervention in remote areas. In Goleta, residents of more than 1,600 homes had been ordered to evacuate by...

TASWELL, Va., Feb. 12, 2008 – More than 120 Virginia National Guard soldiers went on state active duty yesterday to join in the battle against wildfires raging throughout the state. Virginia Army National Guard aviators Warrant Officer Aaron Trombley (left) and Chief Warrant Officer John Anderson (center) check the location of their water drop on a Virginia wildfire Feb. 11, 2008, near Tazewell, Va., with Dave Slack, Virginia Department of Forestry regional forester. Virginia National Guard photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. While a Virginia National Guard helicopter dumped 600-gallon buckets of water to help contain fires in...