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Well, thanks for joining us for sustaining us here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.

Later in the broadcast, we're going to be talking with the fire captain of the Orange County Fire Authority here in Southern California about wildfire season.

And then we're going to take you on a journey to the Pacific Northwest for a special report about saving lives during an avalanche or the most interesting team of rescuers.

First, though, we begin with life after a wildfire in this case, wildlife.

And we have some very unique video.

This is part of our continuing content sharing partnership with public media and PBS stations all throughout the U.S.

So now we travel to the Willamette National Forests of Blue River, Oregon.

Country and environmental attorney there has placed dozens of remote cameras deep into burned forested areas.

He's capturing video of animals, wildlife, all sorts of plants slowly returning to the seed.

Our public media partner, OPB, Oregon Public Broadcasting, has our report.

Oh, it's a burned out structure up here.

Let's go this way.

I, I think I'll set one right down there.

My name is Ralph Bloomers.

And for the last four years, I've been capturing wildlife photography in severely burned areas.

Armed camera?

Yes.

Take pictures.

Yes.

Right now I have cameras in seven different locations from this excuse all the way to Mount Hood, the Columbia River Gorge, and then some in the Santiam Canyon.

We're here in the beach fire.

And this burned about nine months ago.

So it's still kind of a black blank canvas, a charcoal canvas for nature to paint green.

This will let off and it'll travel up to two miles out.

If there's animals, we will get to see them.

There's so many strongly held beliefs about fire, fire destroying the forest fire, killing all wildlife that all fires can and must be put out.

And the reality is that this landscape has lived with fires since the retreat of the ice sheets.

And so, you know, for the most part, the animals survive these big events and thrive afterwards.

This is in the Columbia River Gorge, and I picked this cougar up in three different locations.

And at this same location, I've gotten the mama and kids.

One of the other things that I do is time lapse.

So this is an area where it's all stand replacing fire.

This is one of my most favorite spots because the sea of avalanche lilies there is incredible.

They're only there because this forest burned in high severity and they're sun loving.

And then you also capture the wildlife eating these flowers.

You capture the bees pollinating them, and there's just all this noise and activity in something that people believe a lot of people believe has been destroyed.

And then here's Louis.

One of my favorite captures in that landscape is this big, lonely bull elk that I've named Louis.

And in this particular shot, he turns and looks right at the camera, knows it's there.

I am going mostly to high severity patches where everything is killed because there's the most bird life, there's the most regrowth of vegetation, there's the most food for the elk, which means there's more likely to catch the cougars there.

There's more food for the bears because they prefer the fireweed and the young plants and they're eating all of that stuff.

They're digging into logs and eating the the bugs.

Really.

It's a vast supermarket of tasty treats for them.

When I first started trying to capture wildlife out there, I didn't expect to capture as much with my camera as I have.

As we wrestle with intense fires and have this sense of mourning that we've lost places as we know them, they are changed, but I think what I take away from it is that they're dynamic, these landscapes, and we love them because they're wild and dynamic and because we aren't in control of them.

Thank you, Oregon Public Broadcasting for that report.

And joining me now to discuss the wildfire situation in California and beyond is Captain Sean Dorn with OCO, FAA, the Orange County Fire Authority in Southern California.

Captain Dorian, thank you so much for being here.

Good afternoon.

We always appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Now, before we get to all the issues about wildfires, take a minute or so to tell us about what CFA is, a fire authorities, what communities you serve, and then we're going to get into all the specifics.

Fantastic.

All right.

So I work for the Orange County Fire Authority because CFA down here in Orange County, California, and we serve 23 cities plus the unincorporated areas of the county of Orange.

So approximately 1.9 million residents, Adam 78 fire stations.

And that ranges from everything from the big cities of Dana Point and San Clemente up into central Orange County with Santa Ana and Garden Grove, the Canyons, Yorba Linda, all the way up to going Park and SEAL Beach.

We have a very wide area and a lot of diversity within Orange County.

We're proud to serve.

And certainly are not too busy.

There's only about, what, 3 million people in Orange County, California.

So not too bad.

Okay.

Let's begin with a simplistic questions.

Honestly speaking, Captain Dawn, how bad is the wildfire situation in the south and in this state?

We hear a lot.

Give me some perspective.

Well, every year is a different challenge, right?

So we go back to the year 2020 and 2021 where we saw some of the largest fires in the state, you know, upwards of a million acres.

And thankfully, you know, looking back last year at 2022 in relative terms, it was a quieter year, especially for us here in Orange County.

But the second part of that is our job is to have and our goal is to have those fires extinguished before they are the big news, before they are covered.

And as a matter of fact, power fires goal is to keep 95% of wildfires in ten acres or less.

So that's one of the metrics we try to work towards.

So if you don't see the fires, the news oftentimes doesn't mean they're not starts that are happening.

But we're also doing a better job is impressing us every year.

We're dealing with the different challenges, you know, the environments and the way these fires start as well.

So we had a pretty good start to our rainy season here, beautiful green hills, and we'll see how that plays out for the growth of the fuels and what we call vegetation on hillsides for 2023.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that we are hearing in the news so much these days about, well, maybe the wildfires are happening far too often, right?

Repeatedly during the year, in some cases.

It's not just fire season anymore.

I hear folks saying, well, you know, they happen more often than not.

More acreage burn, more lives lost, more property destroyed.

It's intensifying.

Is that the way you perceive all of this?

It is.

I've been in the fire service for about 18 years now, and I've seen a lot of change that in in the number of fires and the frequency of fires.

And again, most notably, especially in 2020, 20, 21, throughout the state in the West, which is the number of acres burning.

Now, that's not the only metrics we use, though.

You know, we're here in what we call the WUI or the Wyoming Urban interface.

So we also look at the lives we're saving in the homes that were defending and the businesses we're keeping open and the infrastructure we're protecting.

So while we do see those big acre fires in other parts of the state and other parts of the West, we also have to remember that our delineation line, if you will, between humans and nature is getting more and more blurred.

So our job is necessarily always the acreage number goals have to focus on as well how we serve the community.

And that goes back even before the fire starts with our community efforts and fire prevention, community risk reduction.

And so there's as many layers to it.

However, the big fires definitely make the news and our job is trying to try and get there before that and keep them suppressed.

However, you know, oftentimes we're dealing with the fuel, the weather and topography all kind of combined.

And those are are formidable forces, if you will.

So with that said, getting to the specifics, what exactly does the CFA do?

What do you do in terms of the wildfire mitigation?

You know, there's fuel mitigation at brush clearance, as you mentioned, the wildland urban sprawl management.

What exactly do you do?

Well, our big stress is that community is our number one partner in safety, and that comes in the form of individual education, HRA organization and education, working with our cities, counties, state parks, all of us together, because it's not one single piece of that puzzle that prevents or reduces or mitigates the wildfire risk.

So for us, we have a community risk reduction section within next sessions that pre fire management specialty.

And their goal and their objective is to work with those communities, the ways partner organizations, with our crews, the equipment which includes hand crews, heavy fire equipment such as dozers and Master Caters, and then even the volunteer organizations that get together and have possibly a brush clearing event and woodchipping event.

So throughout the year it's a multi-pronged effort, but it's definitely deeply entrenched with a community as our our first and foremost partner.

Take me through some of those steps of exactly what you do.

And then, as important, what can we, the public, do?

I'm always curious what we can do to mitigate risk and how can we keep ourselves safer, I guess related to fire prevention.

Captain Dawn Well, I appreciate you asking that because where we live, you know, lightning isn't necessarily the biggest start to fires out here.

You know, where you live in a relatively benign climate in that regard.

But however, humans are remain the number one cause of fires in some regard.

Does that mean somebody is lighting that fire intentionally?

Not necessarily, but it could be using equipment, you know, power equipment on a hot, windy day.

It could be having a tow chain not secure properly as it creates sparks.

It could be a problem with a car that creates a spark, a roadside fire.

But at some point, that human element has touched so many of these starts, the fires that we recognize, we have a lot of work we can do to prevent that one program that's been very successful for many agencies is called Ready, Set, Go.

And what that does is it discusses the responsibility and the value of our of our community having buy in with the preparation, everything from construction features to their homes to eradication of plants, putting in proper plants, maintaining that, preparing for evacuations.

And then when the time comes, actually evacuating.

That's been a very successful program.

And a lot of our community has had great feedback about the success of that now, and they realize we can make a difference in doing this together.

Speaking of that success, it's not just the boots on the ground.

You get folks over to the CFA keeping us safe and all their success to help us.

You've got some very interesting technology I want to say that's helping you folks fight wildfires, right?

It's not just the boots on the ground these days.

You've got all kinds of cameras, you've got all kinds of technology, you've got all kinds of different things.

Can you share with our audience some of that high tech stuff you've got?

Absolutely.

So we are in a dynamic environment.

And one thing we're not going to do is be left behind because we can't just rely on old tactics to fire temperature to fight fires in this new environment.

One of the programs is called Fire.

It's a California I'm Cal Fire funded and our oh yes funded program has had great success.

It stands for fire integrated real time intelligence system and that is basically at certain points a plane flying these these disasters.

It can be fires, it can be debris flows, it can be oil slicks.

But having actual intelligence in the air, mapping these incidents with real time accurate mapping for that acreage we discussed and even modeling, if there are no fire suppression efforts, you know, this fire is expected to go this far in this amount of time, possibly this number of homes will be in the path.

And it gives our incident commanders on the ground a real time intelligence to use to fight that fire versus the old days waiting for people to physically map fire and use our helicopters who are also doing reconnaissance and water drops and rescues.

So this has been a very nice platform for that.

In addition to the cameras you mentioned, alert, California is a fantastic program with whom we're partners.

And throughout the state, they have approximately 1000.

They pan, tilt, zoom cameras in place.

So those areas were maybe not might not have somebody there as fire watch tower In the old days.

There's cameras out there.

And so if we have a report of a fire, we can use those cameras to find out if these are actionable events or if they're, you know, false reports, if you will.

So those are just two of the products we use right now that have had great success not only here, but throughout the state of California.

And again, all of that depends on these partnerships we have with private, public, state, local, federal, All of that is not one entity doing it by itself.

We're all doing it together.

Orange County, California, is an interesting area.

I've reported in this county for years.

You've got over 30 cities you have now over 3 million people.

You've got the four or five freeway, the five freeway, the 73, the toll roads.

You've got so much of a concrete jungle, you've got suburbia, all the houses being built in South County.

But set against the backdrop of this urban sprawl wildland interface, is it tough to manage that sort of situation?

And when you've got homes and a freeway and buildings right against this wildland area?

Captain Doren Well, is it difficult?

That's just part of our job.

I mean, we have to be really secure no matter where it is.

If it's if it's not here, I think it's 100 miles out.

There's going to be a line where the communities banged up against a while, and that's going to happen, whether it's one mile in or two miles to the east.

So even from the original days of Orange County being here, the wild man urban interface is a very real factor.

And that's true throughout the state in the country as well.

Yeah.

So the way we mitigate that is pre-planning.

So that pre fire management, we talked about our community risk reduction, how the fire codes, the building codes, adapting to these new environments and getting more creative and addressing those concerns farther and farther out.

We know that especially when those wind events come in and we have the very low humidity and high winds, high temperatures for days on end and that vegetation is drying out, we know the potential for embers being strewn past two miles ahead of the fire exists.

So a big focus is on what can we do for your home in that urban interface.

If that firebrand or ember does come out, we prevent it from starting a fire in your homes because we can prevent that fire from starting.

It won't start the house next door on fire and how that migration that we talk about.

So it's not anything new.

This is something that we deal with as firefighters and that the country deals with, because the fact is humans and the environment, we're here to coexist.

We have to have that flex, that creativity and that dynamic stance, if you will, to make sure we're always ahead of the game or at least in line with it.

And in our remaining 30 seconds.

With all that said, what is your final message to we, the to our viewers, to we, the public, whether it's about CFA, whether it's about keeping us safe or what we should do, what do you really want to have us know?

Well, we are one fire department.

Many, however, one theme that is constant across all fire service, especially here in Orange County, is the pride.

Are we?

We take this job seriously, we defend our communities and we can't thank you enough for your past actions and in advance for the community's partnership with us.

For that, be part of the ready, set, go programs for reaching out for education, for being there with us as we work to prevent injuries and destruction and damage to homes from wildfires.

We can do this together in Orange County has been awesome.

Well, I've always said that you guys are heroes.

Thank you so much for taking care of us.

Thank you so much.

Captain Shawn Dorn with the Orange County Fire Authority for your interview.

You're too kind.

Thank you so much.

You have a great day.

Thank you.

And now for more of our content sharing partnership with Public media and Oregon Public Broadcasting, we travel back to the Pacific Northwest and visit Mt.

Batchelor, Oregon, for a story about a special team of workers dedicated to avalanche rescue.

And believe me, this is not just any team of rescuers as you're about to find out.

Here again is OPB.

It's pretty interesting because, you know, when you're traveling around the mountain with the avalanche dogs, people are always really excited and they're yelling like, oh, the avalanche dogs and, you know, trying to get their attention.

But the reality is, is they're here to do a job.

And when they're at the mountain, they're working.

They are here to rescue you.

If you were caught in an avalanche.

When most avalanches happen in the backcountry, they can happen on any mountain, including here at Mt.

Batchelor.

And if that worst case scenario is to happen, the avalanche dogs are the first responders.

They're like just a member of our patrol.

They show up with us in the morning.

They get their uniform on just like us, and they ride the chairlift up with us.

And they're here all day.

It's a rough life.

Even with daily efforts to mitigate potential avalanches, around 3% of avalanche fatalities in the US have involved guess skiing or snowboarding outside the boundaries of ski resorts.

Today, many of the major ski resorts in the US have avalanche dog programs like Mt.

Bachelor started their program in the 1990s.

We've got three aging dogs and kind of one one new young pup, So we're definitely at a transition point.

We've brought Shasta on.

She's a new pup.

Riggins is almost ten, the two Goldens Banyan and Mango, they're eight and a half.

So we're going to be rebuilding the team over the next few years.

Next year.

Little girl.

Well.

It takes about two years to fully train an avalanche dog.

Load her through that.

A little scary.

The first year.

The focus is a lot on just basic obedience, learning to travel around the mountain.

To assist.

Riding chairlifts, riding snowmobiles, dogs, getting used to the guests, calling for them and teaching them not to run towards the gas.

And maybe get hit by their skis.

So for the second year, we really focus on the game of finding someone buried in the snow.

And it really is hide and seek for them.

It's a game.

Search.

It could take ski patrollers hours to locate someone buried in a field of avalanche debris.

It can take a dog only seconds to pick up the scent.

We're training them to find with their nose what they can't see on the surface.

The speed at which a dog can locate a person buried in the snow and help to dig them out is a matter of life and death to get them out of there.

If someone buried in an avalanche is found within 15 minutes, they have a 90% chance of survival.

But if the rescue takes more than 35 minutes, their chances of survival drop to 30%.

Super important for things to happen quick, right?

So you got someone trapped in the snow.

They've got just minutes of maybe available oxygen in there.

Dogs are a important tool for us to be able to find someone quick that's like a boy, get a job on the trigger.

But for the dogs in training today, this is just a fun game.

And when they do find that person, they get to do their favorite thing, which is play tug.

They're a good boy.

Oh boy.

Oh, good boy, Minion.

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

You know, if you don't sound like a crazy idiot, you're not doing it right.

That's like super high pitched praising the dog.

Everybody, you know, they're from Denver.

But one thing is funny is people always are like, Oh, I would have thought it would be a Saint Bernard, you know?

And it's just that that that image of the Saint Bernard with the cast of Brandy or whatever coming to Rescue you.

Using dogs for Alpine Rescue has a long and fascinating history dating all the way back to the 1600s in the Alps between Switzerland and Italy is the Saint Bernard Pass.

It was here The monks raised dogs to help locate and save stranded travelers.

Legends tell of the many Alpine rescues.

These dogs performed when skiing first came to the United States.

So, too, did mountain rescue dogs.

This rare film shows Saint Bernard training on Mount Hood in the 1930s.

But it's not just Saint Bernard that make great avalanche dogs.

Generally avalanche dogs.

You want the dog to be a retriever.

That's really playful.

That's why Golden retrievers, black labs, labs work well.

She just is the 16th dog to join up Bachelor's Avalanche dog rescue program.

And today is a big day.

Her first training German.

She'll start by watching the older dog Banyan that you got there.

You get him out of there, you know.

Now go on, buddy.

Go on, get him out of here.

What are you going to get him out of here?

Matter.

What you got there?

Oh, Vineyard.

Oh, good boy.

Did you find me?

Oh.

Oh, boy.

Oh, good, good.

Jump in here, buddy.

Oh, come now.

It's Shasta's turn.

She has to.

It's this unifying fact.

You can find me.

Shasta.

What's this?

What's this?

What's this?

The first step is to get Shasta used to the idea of running into a snow cave to play without the digging part.

That'll come later in her training.

She's in a snow cave sniffing around, and we've got a tug toy that she's holding on to.

And we're playing a little tug of war.

She's not scared at all.

This is exactly what we want to see.

All right.

Ready, Riggs?

Okay.

As the puppy Shasta starts her first season, Riggins is nearing the end of his career.

His first day on the job.

He was seven week old puppy.

He rode around in my jacket on the chairlift.

We freaked.

So, yeah, he's been here 11 seasons now.

You know, I have such a strong bond with Riggins.

We've spent so much time together.

I know all dog owners have strong bond with their animals, but I don't know.

It's just something different.

It's just at another level.

My husband always gets mad and says the dog gets more kisses than he does.

It's a little bittersweet, you know, when I see the gray on his beard and, you know, he's getting older and he's about to turn ten, he's probably only going to be an avid dog up the mountain for another year or two, max, you know, And it's sort of an end of an era for me.

I remember being so young in the program and so gung ho and wanting to train my dog and just wanting so badly to be a part of that program.

And now I'm kind of passing that on to the next generation.

Good girl, Shasta.

You know, watching Drew step into a new role and bring on his own avid dog.

And, you know, it's it's very heartwarming when you see that, you know, you know that it's okay.

It's time.

You know, it's okay to move on.

You know, we spent all this time training these dogs years, training them up.

And the goal in the end is that he never has to be used to find someone buried in an avalanche.

The goal is that he just continues to do drill after drill after drill, and he retires, having never had to be deployed to rescue someone.

It's the whole point of the program is for that one time that we need him and we'll have him and we'll be able to deploy him with the goal of saving someone's life.

He finally gave voice to play.

It's the end of another long day at Mount Bachelor, and after the lift closed, the ski patrol and the Abbey dogs have one last duty sweep the empty runs to make sure everyone has gone home safe.

You know, at the end of a long day, getting a nice view of the mountains and.

Being with your dog.

That's a good way to end it.

Thanks to Oregon Public Broadcasting for that report.

I told you you don't want to miss this story.

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