NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Friday, June 30, 1995   

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

INCIDENTS

95-349 - Great Smokies (Tennessee/North Carolina) - Car Clouting Arrest

On the afternoon of June 27th, motorist K.H. was driving south on Newfound
Gap road when he saw a man remove what looked like a woman's purse from the
back seat of a car, then get into a nearby truck.  K.H. pulled off the road
and alongside the truck and told the man to put the purse back where he got it. 
The truck, with three occupants, instead sped away toward Gatlinburg with K.H.
in pursuit.  K.H. flagged down road foreman Gary Gassaway, who radioed
rangers, advised them of the situation, and told them that the chase was
heading into town.  Maintenance man Duane Carr followed behind the vehicles and
retrieved the purse and other objects thrown from the truck.  Gatlinburg police
finally stopped the truck at a roadblock east of town.  The three occupants
fled into the woods, but were eventually captured with the aid of a canine
unit.  K.H. positively identified the men and the property.  All three have
criminal histories; two were out on bond at the time.  They have been charged
with both federal and state offenses, including theft of the purse, possession
of personal property, resisting arrest, driving violations, and improper tag
display.  [Jason Houck, CR, GRSM, 6/29]

95-350 - Canaveral (Florida) - Aircraft Crash

H.B. was flying from West Palm Beach to New Jersey in a single-engine
Beechcraft Bonanza on June 27th when he began losing oil pressure.  Around 6:40
a.m., he radioed Patrick Air Force Base and advised that he was putting the
plan down.  The Bonanza lost power and went down on the shore about 30 feet
from the dune line.  The plane sustained heavy damage to its left wing; the
right landing gear was torn off.  H.B., however, sustained only minor
injuries.  He was taken to a hospital in Titusville, where he was treated and
released.  Units from the park, Kennedy Space Center, Coast Guard and county
sheriff's department responded to the incident.  On June 28th, the plane was
disassembled and removed from the park with little or no environmental impact. 
No oil was in the engine at the time of the impact, and remaining fuel was
pumped out without incident.  [Bill DeHart, CR, CANA, 6/29]

95-351 - Lake Meredith (Texas) - Aircraft Crash

An ultralight aircraft crashed in a meadow in the Saddle Horse Canyon area on
June 27th, seriously injuring one of its two occupants, a couple from Fritch,
Texas.  The park first became aware of the incident when the couple's son
called on the morning of the 28th and reported them overdue from an evening
flight.  As preparations were being made for a search, a report was received
that the woman had walked to a gravel pit operation about four miles from the
park's northwest boundary and reported that her husband had been injured in the
accident.  He was quickly found by the crew of an Amarillo medivac helicopter
and taken to a hospital, where he is being treated for spinal injuries,
including a shattered T-12 vertebra.  The woman told investigators that they'd
landed in the meadow, but that they could not get airborne again with both on
board.  She stayed on the ground while her husband tried to take off to find a
better spot, but instead nosed into the ground from a height of about 300 feet. 
[CR, LAMR, 6/29]

95-352 - Lake Meredith (Texas) - Serious Injury from Dog Attack

A woman from Dumas, Texas, was walking to the toilets in the Chimney Hollow
campground early on the morning of June 25th when she was attacked by another
camper's pit bulldog, which was running loose at the time.  Several visitors
came to her aid and had to beat the dog to get it to release the woman's ankle. 
Particles of the victim's sock were driven deep into the tissue around her
ankle, and surgery, including skin grafts, will be required.  Rangers had
difficulty waking the dog's owner because he was in a drunken stupor.  Various
charges are pending against him.  When the victim's brother was leaving the
campground, he saw the dog in the middle of the road and subsequently told
rangers that he ran over it.  The dog, however, ran off, and has not yet been
found.  [CR, LAMR, 6/29]

95-353 - New River Gorge (West Virginia) - Rescue

On the evening of June 16th, J.D., 35, fell while dismantling an
old coal preparation plant in the park and severely fractured his leg.  The
structure was recently sold to J.D.'s company, and he and a partner were
working on taking it down.  When rangers arrived, they found him on the
building's second floor.  Since all of the stairs and ladders and most of the
supporting members of the lower floors of the six-story structure had already
been removed, rangers had to employ ladders and technical gear to reach him and
a technical litter lowering system to get him to the ground.  He was taken to a
hospital in Oak Hill, where surgery was required to repair fractures of tibia,
fibula and ankle bones.  [Rick Brown, Acting CR, NERI, 6/27]

FIRE ACTIVITY

1) NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS LEVEL - Level II

2) LARGE FIRE SUMMARY
                                                                   %   Est
State    Area                Fire         IMT      6/29    6/30   Con  Con  

 AZ    Arizona Strip 
        District         * Nevershine      T2         -   2,000     0  NEC
                         * Air Strip       --         -   1,000     0  NEC
                         * Tank            --         -   2,000     0  NEC
                         * Savanic         --         -       ?     0  NEC
                         * Pigeon          --         -      80     0  NEC

 MN    Superior NF         Gunflint        T2     2,346   2,346    50  CN 7/1 

HEADING NOTES:

Fire     * = newly reported fire (on this report).  Cx = complex.
IMT     T1 = Type 1; T2 = Type II; ST1 = state Type 1; ST2 = state Type 2.
% Con   Percent of fire contained.
Est Con Estimated containment date.  NEC = no estimated date of
        containment; CND = fully contained; NR = no report.

3) FIRES YESTERDAY -

                NPS     BIA      BLM     FWS    States     USFS      Total

Number            6       5        6       0        66       37        120
Acres Burned    500       4      180       0       913      185      1,782

4) COMMITTED RESOURCES -

               Crews     Engines     Helicopters     Airtankers     Overhead

Federal           27        51           15               3             63
Non-federal        3         6            2               0             20

5) COMPARATIVE SUMMARY -
                                      CY 1995            Five Year Average
                                    Year-to-Date           Year-to-Date

Number of Fires                        43,989                  38,790     
Acres Burned                          698,793                 741,646 

6) SITUATION - Initial attack and large fires continued in the Southwest
yesterday.  Another 314,000 acres burned in Canada yesterday.  A Bell 205
helicopter crashed during operations there on Wednesday, killing three of eight
occupants.  There were no U.S. firefighters on the helicopter.

7) OUTLOOK - A fire weather watch has been posted for dry lightning in central
and eastern Arizona.  Fire activity is expected to continue throughout the
Southwest.

[NIFCC Incident Management Situation Report, 6/30]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Colorado NM (Colorado) - Peregrine Falcons

The park's red rock cliffs and canyon country are currently home to three pairs
of peregrine falcons.  All three pairs have been highly successful in producing
young - a total of ten chicks.  Most of the chicks have been banded by the
Colorado Division of Wildlife, but one aery proved too difficult to reach and
chicks there were left unbanded.  The chicks are expected to begin fledging
sometime this week.  [Laurie Lee, RMS, COLM]

OPERATIONAL NOTES

No notes.

OBSERVATIONS

"Interpretation is considered to be the most important function of the National
Park Service, at least by those gifted employees who have devoted their careers
to an activity that the Park Service can take credit for pioneering.  It is not
education, although it was originally so called, but a distinctive refinement
of - and one is tempted to say improvement on - the classroom variety of the
learning process.  Its origination, shortly after the Park Service was
established, supplied an essential ingredient required if people were to
appreciate the meaning of national parks...The word 'interpretation' came
gradually to replace the term 'education,' in part no doubt to avoid any
suggestion that the modest appetite for knowledge that the average visitor
carries with him while on vacation would be promptly submerged in a tide of
completely accurate but exquisitely boring facts.  But interpretation also
seemed a better term to describe the function of dealing with subjects that for
most people were unfamiliar - geology, biology, botany.  It was almost like
learning a new language.  The process of translating this language, the
language of the earth, suggested the term 'interpretation'...The interpreter's
task...is to fulfill the charge of Charles Darwin: 'We must see with the eye of
the mind.'  Interpretation, concludes Freeman Tilden, is 'mindsight.'"

                                       William C. Everhart, "The
                                       National Park Service", 1972

Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the cooperation and
support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

Telephone: 202-208-4874
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