The 2006 fire season bolted out of the gate like a racehorse and wrapped up 10 months later like a packhorse — carrying a big load over the long haul.

Winter and Spring

The 2006 fire season literally started Jan.1, with wind-driven grass and brush fires in Texas and Oklahoma. In fact, the fire season throughout the southern plains region started unusually early, and it was unusually sustained. By the end of February, 18 states had reported large fire activity.  By mid-September, nearly 2 million acres had burned in Texas alone, resulting in the loss of 19 lives and more than 400 homes.  

As spring emerged, the wildfire situation progressed at well above average levels. Florida found itself fighting large fires, and the southwestern United States braced itself for a tough fire season as the region had just endured one of the driest winters on record. As April, May, and June passed, however, the Southwestern fire season — though busy — fortunately didn’t experience the kind of catastrophic wildfires that have marked recent seasons. Nineteen fires in Arizona and New Mexico were serious enough to require incident-management teams.

June

As summer set in, portions of California, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada experienced record-breaking temperatures, and a period of extended hot temperatures across the West resulted in the rapid melting of abundant snow packs in the Sierras, Cascades and Rocky Mountains. The heat wave also parched fuels at lower elevations, including the volatile combination of grasses and brush left over from excellent growth conditions in 2005.

Before the month of June was over, significant large fires occurred in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada and Utah. Officials at the National Interagency Fire Center mobilized two “modular airborne firefighting systems,” which are military cargo aircraft temporarily converted to airtankers.  The two MAFFS were stationed in Mesa, Arizona for 12 days in late June/early July.

July

July saw increasing fire activity throughout the interior West. A two-week period in mid-July saw a major wildfire outbreak in Montana, resulting in 22 large fires or fire complexes that burned some 450,000 acres. Meanwhile, California saw almost 112,000 acres burn during July. Other states having significant large fires in July were Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and the Dakotas. Minnesota dealt with a stubborn 31,000-acre fire in the forests of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

British Columbia also experienced significant fire activity in July, to the extent that the Canadian government requested assistance from the U.S. government. NIFC responded by sending an incident-management team and five crews to British Columbia for several weeks.

Starting on July 18, the national preparedness level (a 1-5 scale that wildland-fire agencies use to express the tempo and resource demands of the wildland fire season) escalated rapidly from level 3 to level 4 and then from level 4 to level 5 in a two-week period. The increase in preparedness levels was partially driven by the competition for firefighting resources that began to be felt in mid to late July. Mid-level fireline managers and supervisors, helicopter managers and Hotshot crews were the most in-demand resources.

Beginning in July, the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin and Northern Rockies areas sustained repeated periods of lightning. The Pacific Northwest, for example, saw two separate lightning episodes (three-day periods with 150 or more fire starts from lightning) in July.

On July 21, NIFC again requested the deployment of MAFFS to Klamath Falls, Ore., for firefighting duty. These aircraft were stationed at Klamath Falls until Sept. 13.

August

Lightning continued to be a major factor in the fire season in the month of August, with the Pacific Northwest undergoing a second round of serious lightning episodes. Between August 6 and 10, the region grappled with an amazing 690 new fire starts. By the end of the fire season, the Pacific Northwest would see lightning fires ignited at almost 30 percent of the 10-year average rate.

Competition for scarce resources finally reached the point that NIFC activated agreements and requested fire-suppression assistance from Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Ultimately, 390 foreign firefighters and fire specialists would come to the United States to assist with firefighting. Resources from Australia and New Zealand mostly comprised mid-level fireline supervisors and helicopter managers. Resources from Canada included 10 hand crews, 12 smokejumpers and more than 60 support and supervisory specialists.

NIFC also requested a battalion-sized unit from the U.S. Army. Named “Task Force Blaze,” this unit included 550 soldiers and officers.  Task Force Blaze served nearly three weeks on the Tripod Complex in Washington state.

In early August, two additional military MAFFS units were requested to be stationed in Boise, Idaho, for firefighting support in the Great Basin and parts of the Northwest.  With this deployment, all available MAFFS that the Department of Defense could supply were in use. MAFFS aircraft operated out of Boise until Sept. 16.

The continuing fire situation clearly justified the requests for international help. Nevada alone had more than 1.3 million acres burn in 2006; and in two other geographic areas (the Eastern Great Basin and the Pacific Northwest), more than 1 million acres burned in just the month of August. While faring better, the Northern Rockies, California and the Rocky Mountain regions all saw significant fire activity in August as well.

Incident-management teams were generally busy over the entire season, but August, however, was a particularly busy month. On average, 26 incident-management teams were assigned to fires each day in August.  The peak day for incident-management team commitment to fires occurred on August 25, when 38 teams were assigned to incidents.

September

Firefighters were relieved when the shortening days and cooler temperatures of September finally arrived. On Sept. 3, U.S. Army ‘Task Force Blaze’ demobilized from the Tripod Complex in northern Washington State and returned to its base at Fort Lewis. By the end of the month, all but 30 of the Australian and New Zealand fire specialists had completed their assignments and returned to their home nations.

By the middle of the month, cooler weather and precipitation arrived over the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies, bringing respite to fires in those regions.  Teams managing large fires in Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana used the improved weather conditions to make good progress on their incidents, and many of the lingering large fires from late August and early September were finally contained.

However, the fire season was not over. Santa Ana winds in southern and central California combined with typical warm and dry conditions in autumn and caused several fires to exhibit rapid growth. One of the worst of these fires was the Day Fire, which burned northwest of Los Angeles from Sept. 4 until it was contained nearly a month later, after burning more than 160,000 acres.

In spite of difficult firefighting conditions in California, the national preparedness level dropped to preparedness level 4 on Sept. 15 and preparedness level 3 a week later.

Summary

Nearly 94,000 wildfires burned a record 9.6 million acres during the 2006 fire season. Nearly 32 percent of those acres burned on Interior-managed lands. Wildfires burned more than 2,100 structures and caused tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Tragically, 22 firefighters and firefighting pilots lost their lives this year while working in fire suppression or prescribed fire.