INCIDENTS

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Eastern Areas
Katrina Pummels Everglades, Heads for Louisiana

Hurricane Katrina caused significant damage in Everglades NP, but so far appears not to have had a major impact on other Florida parks. This morning, the hurricane will again make landfall, probably in Louisiana. It will then move to the north and east, bringing heavy rains along its path. This morning's summary begins with preparations in Louisiana, then reports on the hurricane's impacts in Florida:

Jean Lafitte NHP/New Orleans Jazz NHP

The parks began releasing employees at noon on Saturday. Employees, whether they evacuate or not, have been directed to check in with dispatch at Natchez Trace Parkway. Storm preparations were begun on Friday and completed early Saturday morning.

Everglades NP

The west wall of Hurricane Katrina's eye made landfall near the Miami-Dade-Broward county line at 6:38 p.m. last Thursday, and, to the surprise of most residents, dipped to the south and moved southwest across Miami-Dade. As Katrina progressed across southwest Miami-Dade, the south edge of the eye passed directly over the National Hurricane Center with gusts measuring 86 mph. This path caught many residents by surprise and had more dire consequences later: The storm moved diagonally over much of the park and exited Florida in the narrowest portion of the peninsula. That meant the storm had less time over land to weaken. And it impacted Flamingo with unexpectedly strong force winds and rain. The storm surge caused flooding in excess of five feet throughout the area. Its path and renewed strengthening over Gulf waters also had unexpected impacts on Dry Tortugas National Park (below).

Park staff living in Miami-Dade are dealing with the continuing county-wide effects of high water (12 to 15 inches of rain fell throughout the area, with locally greater amounts) and downed trees. More than 1.5 million residents were initially without power, with more than 850,000 in Miami-Dade County.

Park staff conducted an initial assessment of impacts on the park on Saturday. Assessments were made by ground and air, with most attention centered on Flamingo. The main park road is passable, but numerous downed trees are being removed from the roadway. Work on removing them was to continue on Sunday, along with work on secondary roads and trails.

Power has now been restored to the headquarters and Pine Island complexes. The Gulf Coast Visitor Center has power and shows relatively fewer storm-related effects. Shark Valley and Flamingo remain without power. Shark Valley may reopen in the near future after power is restored and downed trees are removed, but Flamingo will remain closed. More detailed assessments of building and property damage will be required to determine how long this area must remain closed to the public.  First priority is for the welfare of resident park and concessions employees whose homes and property have been damaged.  Employee losses include five personal vehicles and numerous personal household items. All Flamingo staff have been evacuated to temporary housing at Pine Island or in the local community.

The park estimates that 10 to 11 government vehicles have been destroyed.  Some additional few vehicles may join the list. All government boats at Flamingo appear to be okay. Since four to six feet of water entered most ground floor buildings, many tools and selected pieces of equipment have been destroyed.  Park heavy equipment, including tractors, fire truck and ambulance, appear to be okay. Two NPS housing trailers have damage and most concession housing trailers are total losses. Heavy losses were suffered among concessions boats, with houseboats pushed on land and canoes and kayaks scattered throughout the area. The concessions marina store and gift shop were flooded. It appears that not all lodge rooms were flooded and lodge roofs remain largely intact.  The rental cabins all have some level of high water and/or wind damage. The Flamingo campground came through in relatively good shape, but extensive debris, including grills, picnic tables and amphitheater benches, have scattered, sometime far into mangrove areas. The amphitheater screen is gone.

Visitor services were to resume at Gulf Coast VC on Sunday, but the remainder of the park remained closed.

The park is currently managing the incident with in house resources and assistance from a saw crew team from Big Cypress as a Type 3 team. The park anticipates requesting outside assistance through a Type 2 team early next week.

Dry Tortugas NP

Hurricane Katrina passed about 30 miles west of the park, with recorded wind speeds of 105 MPH. It appears that the park's communications tower is down, as Everglades staff have been successful in only limited satellite phone contact. It appears that park staff are okay following the storm.

Biscayne NP

The re-entry team checking the park reported half a dozen trees down, with some on the park entrance road. The dock suffered some structural damage. The park has power. Due to unsafe conditions accessing the park, including flooded streets, the park will remain closed.

Big Cypress NP

Minimal damage is reported. Numerous trees are down on Loop Road and power is out. Monroe Station, a historic structure in deteriorated condition, lost a six by six section of wall that was already rotted and termite infested. Other park buildings mainly suffered raised roof shingles and blown out screens. The damage assessment was to continue on Sunday with a helicopter overflight.

Canaveral NS

Due to the change in the hurricane's track on Friday, the park returned to normal operations that same day.
[Submitted by Ken Garvin, Regional FMO, SERO; Leigh Zahm, Ranger, JELA; Bill Wright, Chief Ranger, EVER; Scott Anderson, Program Assistant, CANA; Brenda Lanzendorf, IC, BISC; Ed Clark, Chief Ranger, BICY]

FIRE MANAGEMENT

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NIFC/NPS Fire and Aviation Management
National Fire Situation Highlights — Monday, August 29, 2005

Preparedness Level 3

There were 146 new fires on Sunday, with four becoming large fires. Three Type 1 teams have been mobilized to support Hurricane Katrina recovery operations. A planning team and several logistics management teams have also been ordered.

Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.

Weather Forecast

Hurricane Katrina will make landfall early today as a major hurricane of category 5 strength on the southeast Louisiana coast. An upper level low pressure system will move across the Northwest today with a surface cold front moving across the western portions of Montana, Idaho, and Nevada. Although the front will bring cooling conditions with increasing relative humidity, along and ahead of the front will be very dry and windy conditions extending from the Rockies through the Great Basin and into northeastern California. Showers and thunderstorms should be confined mainly behind the front across Washington, western Oregon, central Idaho, and into the western portion of the Northern Rockies. In Alaska, showers will move east across the state today with best precipitation amounts across the south.

Red Flag Warnings

Expect both watches and warnings for central Idaho and Montana for cold front passage with high winds, low humidity and dry lightning. Gusty winds and low relative humidity for the northern two-thirds of Nevada, east of and along the entire Cascade-Sierra crest from Oregon to Lake Tahoe.

Fire Weather Watches

A fire watch has been issued for winds, very dry relative humidity and fuels for portions of Wyoming and western South Dakota this afternoon and evening.

NPS Fires

For a brief supplemental narrative on each fire, click on the bar with the arrow. Internal NPS readers can link directly to full reports on each fire by clicking on the notepad icon; public readers of the Morning Report can obtain similar information by going to http://www.nps.gov/fire/news

No updates on National Park Service fires have been received since yesterday.

National/State Team Commitments

Newly listed fires (on this report) appear below in boldface. Changes in the status of a fire (type of team, change from a fire to a complex, etc.) are also noted in boldface.

Fires are sorted by type of team; teams are listed in alphabetical order within each type by the IC's last name.

State	Agency	Team	IC	Fire and Location	8/24	8/28	% Con	Est Con
LA	FEMA	T1	Custer	Hurricane Katrina, Port Allen, LA	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
CA	CDF	ST1	Paul	Manton Fire, Tehama-Glenn Unit	-----	1,830	80	8/29
FL	FEMA	T1	Pinch-Tulley	Hurricane Katrina, Orlando, FL	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
MS	FEMA	T1	Quesinberry	Hurricane Katrina, Meridian, MS	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
MT	BIA	T2	Cowin	Seepay Fire, Flathead Agency	-----	1,000	0	UNK
CA	USFS	T2	Garwood	Blaisdell Fire, San Bernadino NF	-----	4,980	10	UNK
CA	BLM	T2	Giachino	Barrel Fire, Northern CA Resource Area	24,800	24,800	90	8/29
OR	State	ST	Savage	Deer Creek Fire, ODF	1,800	1,636	60	UNK
CA	USFS	T2	Sinclear	Harding Fire, Tahoe NF	2,000	2,208	90	8/30
MT	USFS	T2	Turman	Signal Rock Fire, Bitterroot NF	-----	2,500	12	UNK
OR	USFS	FUM	Cones	Granite Complex, Wallowa-Whitman NF	18,015	20,706	N/A	N/A
MT	USFS	FUM	Cook	Selway-Salmon Complex, Bitterroot NF	7,713	10,142	N/A	N/A
ID	USFS	FUM	Hahnenberg	Frank Church Fire, Payette NF	10,460	13,344	N/A	N/A
ID	USFS	FUM	Weldon	Red River Complex, Nez Perce NF	994	2,207	N/A	N/A

National Resource Commitments

Day	Wed	Thu	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Date	8/17	8/18	8/2	8/3	8/4	8/5	8/6
Crews	310	280	219	222	207	176	259
Engines	464	429	445	399	393	348	587
Helicopters	101	126	97	94	89	73	93
Air Tankers	15	15	15	15	16	18	16
Overhead	2,938	2,698	1,637	1,668	1,492	1,050	1,374

Further Information

This report is meant to present just highlights of the current fire situation. Two other NIFC sites provide much greater detail:

Full NIFC Situation Report (PDF file) — http://www.nifc.gov/news/sitreprt.pdf
National Fire News — http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html

Information on NPS Fire and Aviation Management (FAM) and on park fires can be found at:

FAM — http://www.nps.gov/fire
Park fires — http://www.nps.gov/fire/news

OPERATIONAL NOTES

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Fire and Aviation Management
Firefighter Safety Advisory on Radio Operations

National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group

Firefighter Safety Advisory

August 24 , 2005

Subject : Narrowband and Wideband Operation

Area of Concern: Fire and Aviation Operations

Distribution: Fire and Aviation Personnel, Aviation Personnel and Radio Communications Personnel

Congress mandated a restructuring of the Federal Radio Frequency Spectrum requiring Federal Agencies to transition to narrowband FM frequencies (162.0000 to 174.0000 MHz) by January 1, 2005. In the process of implementing the conversion to a narrowband radio system, a number of conflicts have surfaced. It is critical for firefighter safety that radios used in wildland firefighting operations are able to properly function in both wideband and narrowband mode.

Safety teams, SAFENET and SAFECOM have verified these conflicts to the National Multi-Agency Coordinating (NMAC) Group. An Area Command (AC) team has been assigned to implement immediate action regarding this issue.

All equipment from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) radio cache is narrowband and frequently maintained. However, most radios utilized by Wildland firefighters do not come from the cache.

Identified Concerns:

• At times radios are issued with no training in wideband/narrowband operations.
• At times radio users do not know how to recognize wideband/narrowband conflicts.
• At times Communications Unit Leader (COML), Communications Technician (COMT) and Electronic Technicians are not equipped or trained to program and field service all brands and types of radios.
• Radio specifications in engine, crew and aviation contracts are often too vague to ensure proper radio equipment.
• Not all cooperators and Federal agencies are narrowband capable (repeaters, handhelds or mobiles).
• The NMAC Group, and others, have issued safety advisories and alerts highlighting some of these issues.

Indicators of Narrowband/Wideband Incompatibility:

• Wideband radios operated in a predominately narrowband environment may be much louder (loud deep voices seem to be problematic), "choppy", inaudible or distorted with feedback.
• A narrowband radio transmitting to a wideband radio may sound very soft and quiet in comparison to a wideband transmission.
• Repeaters, used in a mixed mode environment, may lock open, then reset; effectively stopping all transmission for up to three minutes.
• Some models of radios do not indicate on the screen wideband or narrowband mode, or those that do, falsely indicate the mode.
• In multi-jurisdictional incidents there now may be an inability to communicate with cooperators.

Programming/Maintenance:

• Verification of the operating mode, either wideband or narrowband is essential. The proper mode has to be set by cloning, programming from a computer, or manipulating the radio in some fashion, depending on the model of radio. When reset, the radio would need to be tuned.
• Field keypad programming of frequencies does not necessarily change the operating mode of the radio. Narrowband frequencies have four decimal places (i.e. 166.6725) instead of three as in a wideband frequency (i.e.166.675). Adding the fourth decimal place from the radio keypad does not mean the radio is operating in a narrowband mode.
• Local unit radio shops have password protected handhelds and mobile units, which can not be programmed or cloned on incidents.
• Narrowband radios need to be tested and tuned annually.

Mitigation Measures:

• Frequency guides, Incident Action Plans, communication plans, and other documents displaying radio frequencies, must be published in a format which includes tones and mode of operation. All briefings must include frequencies in a format similar to the one below to ensure accurate and positive communications:

Function	Rx Frequency	Rx Tone	Tx Frequency	Tx Tone	Mode
Air-Ground	170.0000	None	170.0000	No tone	Narrow
Big Repeater	169.8750	None	170.4750	114.8	Narrow
State Tac One	151.475	None	151.475	None	Wide

• Report all issues and conflicts to the local radio technician, frequency managers or Communications Unit Leaders on an incident. Reports must be detailed as to what, when, where and the type of equipment involved. NFES radio kit numbers should be a part of the report as well.
• Do not ignore issues or conflicts.
• Do not employ untested "work-arounds"; consult with electronics technicians and telecommunications specialists.
• Radios that are not compatible should be removed from service.

Diagnostic Techniques:

Testing of equipment by users can assist in the determination of operational modes and detect problems prior to incident deployment. These field tests should not be viewed as the only tests necessary.

• Start with a radio that is operating properly (i.e. tuned correctly and operating in the narrowband mode).
• Tests should be conducted at a uniform distance between radios. Distances less than 15 feet will likely yield false results. Short distances may mask problems; therefore tests should be conducted with the radios miles apart when possible.
• Primary simplex and repeater channels should be tested.
• Ensure the transmission is loud and clear. Test should be more than a routine "ten" count. Use the following text for the test.
• "Radio check. Testing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. How do you copy?"
• Responder should reply, "Loud and clear. Testing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. How do you copy?"
• Results should be weighed against the indicators of incompatibility listed above. If transmissions are not loud and clear, it may indicate a radio problem that should be investigated by a radio maintenance specialist.
• Testing should include: dispatch, mobiles, handhelds, repeaters and base stations.

Summary:

Fire and aviation personnel should always maintain a high level of situational awareness and be prepared to mitigate hazards. This may require alternate means of communications, adjustment in tactics and/or development of new fire strategies.

The key is to establish reliable communications before going into the field. Radio problems that occur as described above, or other unusual FM communication difficulties, should be investigated immediately. Check all radios to ensure they are properly programmed in the narrowband mode. Additional references for radio programming are available at http://radios.nifc.gov.

Issues that can not be resolved locally at your forest, district or state can be addressed to the Communications Duty Officer at the National Interagency Incident Communications Division at (208) 387-5644 or by visiting http://radios.nifc.gov.

Finally, if a radio problem adversely affects ground or aviation operations, or causes an unsafe situation, please remember to document the event by submitting a SAFENET ( www.safenet.nifc.gov ) or SAFECOM ( www.safecom.gov ).

The NMAC is committed to resolve these problems. Firefighter and public safety are our highest priorities.

//s// Don Artley

Don Artley
The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group
[Submitted by Don Artley, don_artley@nifc.blm.gov, 208-867-0908] More Information...

PARKS AND PEOPLE

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Intermountain Region
Lloyd (Oly) Olson to Retire on September 3rd

Oly began his National Park Service career as a seasonal ranger at Whiskeytown NRA in 1970, and in 1974 obtained his first permanent position as a park technician at Petrified Forest National Park. He was an intake park ranger at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, working in the Boulder Beach sub-district from 1976 to 1978. From 1978 to 1988, he was at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park as district ranger and area manager. Then, from 1988 to 1999, he served as the Wawona district ranger and as the park's safety manager at Yosemite National Park. Most recently, Oly has been the Intermountain Region's regional risk manager.

Following a successful career spanning more than 32 years with the National Park Service and a total of 35 years of federal service, Oly will retire, effective September 3rd. He and his wife, Laura, will be leaving the Denver area and setting up a new residence on the Oregon central coast in Newport, Oregon.

Reflecting back on his career, Oly stated, "I would like to issue a heart felt 'thank you' to all of those that I have had the opportunity to work with over the years.  As it always seems to be the case, the most important element of a great place to work is the quality of the people that make up the team that keeps the unit running.  I have been extremely fortunate to have been able to work with some of the best people in the NPS, at some of the best places, and during some of the most challenging times."

Oly added, "As I look back over the years at the different places where a lot of us have worked together, I feel that we can all take pride in fact that our combined efforts have indeed made a positive difference for the good of the National Park Service.  Being an NPS employee has been, and continues to be one of the best jobs in the federal government — one that the general public still holds with high regard and with great respect.  Where else do families ask to have your picture taken with their children?  The next few years may be extremely challenging for everyone in the NPS, and will require that you keep the faith and make the best of the situations that you encounter.  We all do what we do best and I am confident that you all will meet the challenge to continually make the difference and to constantly improve the National Park Service.  Keep up the great work and take the time to enjoy your parks and develop friendships with your co-workers."

A social gathering in Oly's honor is planned for August 29th at the Intermountain Regional Office, Conference Room 10A (12795 W. Alameda Pkwy.), from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.  Anyone wishing to make a monetary contribution towards the purchase of a parting gift for Oly, may send donations to Chérry Huss or Jennifer Sahmel at NPS, 12795 W. Alameda Pkwy, Denver, Colorado  80225-0287.  Also, please send anecdotes, cards, photos, and well wishes to Chérry or Jennifer.
[Submitted by Patricia Turley, patricia_turley@nps.gov, 303-969-2701]

Submission standards for the Morning Report can be found by clicking here. All reports should be submitted via email to Bill Halainen at Delaware Water Gap NRA, with a copy to your regional office and a copy to Dennis Burnett in Division of Law Enforcement and Emergency Services, WASO.

Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.