- Subject: NPS Morning Report - Tuesday, August 5, 1997
- Date: Tues, 5 Aug 1997
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
To: All National Park Service Areas and Offices
From: Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office
Day/Date: Tuesday, August 5, 1997
Broadcast: By 1000 ET
*** NOTICE ***
Secretary Babbitt swore in Robert Stanton as the 15th director of the
National Park Service yesterday morning.
INCIDENTS
97-431 - Acadia NP (Maine) - Rescues
On August 2nd, rangers and other personnel were completing a two-hour litter
belay carryout of a woman with an ankle injury from Penobscot Mountain when
they received a report that a visitor had fallen over a cliff along the
park's loop road. J.M., 19, a German national, had fallen more than
25 feet while hiking down a steep rocky area at an overlook near Hunter's
Beach. Rangers and the Mount Desert Island SAR team members set up a litter
lowering and raising system while she was stabilized by rangers and local EMS
personnel who had rappeled down the cliffside to her location. A Coast Guard
boat was able to get close enough along the rugged coastline to pick her up
and transport her to Seal Harbor. She was taken to a hospital in Bar Harbor,
where her condition was recently upgraded from critical to stable. Ranger
Richard Rechholtz was IC. [Rob Yates, DR, ACAD, 8/4]
97-432 - Gulf Islands NS (MI/FL) - Car Clouting Arrests
Escambia county deputies arrested T.P., M.F. and J.R.
on July 30th for an auto burglary which had occurred at the Battery
Worth parking lot in the Fort Pickens area earlier that day. The initial
vehicle stop was based on information from the burglary victim and was
relayed to local agencies by park dispatch. During the stop, deputies
received critical information from rangers regarding the items that had been
stolen. All three were charged with felony burglary of a vehicle,
misdemeanor theft and possession of burglary tools. The arrests led to
clearance of two other burglaries which had occurred in the park between July
25th and 30th. When arrested, the trio had in their possession an annual
park pass which they had obtained illegally. [Skip Prange, GUIS, 8/4]
97-433 - Mojave NP (CA) - Storm Damage
A severe lightning storm which passed through the area early on the morning
of July 28th damaged the world's tallest thermometer, which is located on the
front of the park's Mojave desert information center in Baker. It's
uncertain if the thermometer was struck directly or suffered from power
surge, but it initially read 130 degrees when the actual temperature was in
the 80s. The thermometer has been shut down until the motor can be rebuilt.
It could be down from one to two weeks, during what will probably be the
hottest weather of the summer. The incident received coverage on television
stations in Los Angeles. [Interpretation, MOJA, 8/4]
FIRE ACTIVITY
NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS LEVEL - Level II
LARGE FIRE/INCIDENT SUMMARY
Sun Mon % Est
State Unit Fire/Incident IMT 8/3 8/4 Con Con
AK# Southwest Area Inowak T2 521,900 571,500 10 NEC
Chiniklik Mt. T2 3,283 3,283 90 8/5
Devils Peak -- 660 660 100 CND
Galena District Simels -- 365,865 365,940 0 NR
Garfield Creek -- 53,000 53,000 0 NR
Magitchlie Creek -- 209,409 290,409 0 NR
Fairbanks Area Butte Creek -- 4,222 4,222 0 NR
CA Los Padres NF * Logan T2 - 1,200 0 NEC
Lassen-Modoc RU * Gooch ST - 500 0 NEC
NV Elko District Reinhart -- 650 650 50 8/4
Winnemucca District * Summit -- - 1,000 10 8/5
WA State * Pow Wah Kee -- - 8,000 0 NEC
# Alaska has 54 other large fires burning for a total of 1,679,592 acres.
Heading Notes
Unit -- Agency = BIA area; NF = national forest; RU = CA state resource
or ranger unit; RD = state ranger district; District = BLM
district; NWR = USFWS wildlife refuge
Fire -- * = newly reported fire (on this report); Cx = complex; LSS =
limited suppression strategy; CSS = containment suppression
strategy
IMT -- T1 = Type 1; T2 = Type II; ST = State Team
% Con -- Percent of fire contained
Est Con -- Estimated containment date; NEC = no estimated date of
containment; CND = fully contained; NR = no report; LPS = limited
protection status
NUMBER OF NEW FIRES (FIVE DAY TREND)
NPS BIA BLM FWS States USFS Total
Thursday, 7/31 2 6 29 0 85 71 186
Friday, 8/1 1 4 20 0 121 64 210
Saturday, 8/2 0 5 11 1 52 79 148
Sunday, 8/3 0 1 9 0 45 67 122
Monday, 8/4 0 4 12 0 232 41 289
TOTAL COMMITTED RESOURCES (FIVE DAY TREND)
Crews Engines Helicopters Airtankers Overhead
Thursday, 7/31 54 82 36 6 170
Friday, 8/1 63 43 39 12 166
Saturday, 8/2 68 123 32 7 201
Sunday, 8/3 92 76 27 8 38
Monday, 8/4 84 108 29 28 227
COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT
1997: YTD Ten Year Average: YTD
Number of fires 42,360 52,916
Acres burned 2,369,618 1,903,232
CURRENT SITUATION
Initial attack and large fire activity increased yesterday in the Northwest,
California, and the western Great Basin. Type II teams were mobilized to the
Los Padres NF and to northern California. NICC processed resource orders for
helicopters, air tankers, and other support for new fires and Nevada and
California. Units in California, Nevada, Arizona and New Jersey are
reporting very high to extreme fire dangers.
[NICC Incident Management Situation Report, 8/5]
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
No submissions.
OPERATIONAL NOTES
FLETC Training Courses - FLETC has sent along updates and new information on
the status of several courses which missed the training course summary in the
July 28th Morning Report:
o Nominations for the environmental crimes course, which will be held in
Denver from September 16th to the 18th, close on August 11th.
o Nominations close today for the surface skeleton and buried body
recovery course and the ARPA training course, both of which will be
held at the Grand Canyon - the first from September 24th to the 26th,
the second from September 15th to the 19th.
Anyone wanting to attend these courses who has not yet sent in his or her
nomination should do so as soon as possible. You can get an extension by
notifying Tom Cherry at FLETC via cc:Mail. Please provide him with your
name, park, social security number and a brief statement of your intent to
attend the course. Please contact your park or regional training officer for
copies of the announcements.
MEMORANDA
"Annual Fee Free Day," signed on July 29th by the acting deputy director and
sent electronically to all regional directors and park superintendents. The
full text follows:
"All park units which collect a recreational admission fee will honor Fee
Free Day this year on Founder's Day, August 25. Whether a park is collecting
the admission fee under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act authority or
collecting a new admission fee under the Recreational Fee Demonstration
Program, the National Park Service will take this opportunity to invite the
public to visit the parks at no charge."
EXCHANGE
No submissions.
OBSERVATIONS
This section, which appears intermittently in the Morning Report, contains
observations regarding the National Park Service, the System and the several
professions of park employees. Today's observation has been excerpted from a
collection of quotations entitled "John Muir: In His Own Words," compiled and
edited by Peter Browning.
"In God's wildness lies the hope of the world - the great fresh unblighted,
unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and
the wounds heal ere we are aware."
John Muir, July, 1890, from "John
of the Mountains"
* * * * *
Distribution of the Morning Report is through a mailing list managed by park,
office and/or field area cc:Mail hub coordinators. Please address requests
pertaining to receipt of the Morning Report to your servicing hub
coordinator.
Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the cooperation and
support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.
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