Always convert wild vegetation around a critical site into a managed light fuel complex. Expect a fire storm to come from any direction.
Create a shaded fuel break, savannah or “Defensible Space”, around what you want to survive. Big trees, well spaced, 25’ between crowns, not trunks. Prune all ladder fuels off tree trunks to separate aerial fuels from ground fuels. Leave no clutter, kindling, between heavy, best, straight leave trees. Just open, dry-brown grass or leaf cover between isolated, heavy fuels. Build 3 concentric, circular, Dragon Rings around house or town.
Your Universal Blueprint is set up for the high technique of calmly, safely, using strategic fire to systematically burn off all calories just before a firestorm arrives. For homes 1st Ring around foundation 6’-10’ patio. 2nd Ring out 100’, 2-3’ wide, 3rd Ring out another 100’.
For towns space between rings needs 600’ & Rings need to be 5’-6’ wide meandering, and asphalted
Climate change, more people and houses built out into wild fuels has created a new reality.
THIS BASIC BLUEPRINT ALLOWS INSTANT, UNIVERSAL, FORMATION OF LIFE SAVING BLACK-SPACE.
Firefighters in trouble, & in unburned fuels, (SAY a fire hooks around them or a wind shear blasts an unknown spot fire, right at them). Their first move is to try to get into the BLACK. A place where the fire has already consumed the calories. The above blueprint symbol; simply prepares the area around what you want to survive, so you can instantly create Black-space devoid of calories.
The beauty of circular control lines is the wind is always blowing in the right direction for a perfectly controlled Black-Line operation. All this Universal Blueprint idea is, “IS”, thinking ahead defensively, so that homeowners, and firefighters have always got an option to revert to; if things go really bad and the firestorm can’t be put out before it passes over the critical site.
By doing pre-work, pre-training, and live fire practice, using a “DRAGON WIZZ WHEEL” & FIRE-RAISING TOOLS, Like a self-starting, propane, plumber’s torch; you save time. Everything is all set to convert a Universal Blueprint instantly into a, “SAFETY HARBOR AREA”. A HOME TAKES 15 MINUTES, a small town, an hour. Increased fire dangers require a different method. “Defensible Space”, Alone only works in low to medium events with a lot of fire trucks and firefighters. In extreme conditions, Fire moves fastest in light fuels. destroys and kills people & homes quicker. If you learn the proper technique you can use wind, drought, & fire to in fact better save life and property in an emergency. In fact the stronger the fire conditions; the faster & safer it works.
Wildfire Agencies can’t do it alone anymore. They need help. They cannot establish, and set in the Universal Blueprint. What they can do if trained; is recognize the Blueprint, and then use it to save it. The land owners have to actually take responsibility to set in the shaping of the “BATTLE SPACE”. It is the land owner who owns the land, and has the toughest part of making this new Mitigation Procedure possible. The property owner has to do the hard work, and the maintenance so, that the Blueprint is recognizable, and usable. However, the land owner, has to be practiced, and fully capable of Black-Lining the Blueprint; in the event the suppression forces can’t get there.
in order to learn new skills of Mitigation. (A procedure to revert to), for those times, when suppression will obviously fail. Remote homesteads and towns are going to have to do the majority, of the costly, labor-intensive landscaping to create a Universally Recognizable cauldron around, what they want to protect. Realize, both fire fighters and interface dwellers start on an equal footing. This Mitigation procedure is new. There are no fire fighters who know anything about this. Both suppression people and common citizens are totally un-learn about this. Everyone has to Learn how
to ignite, 3 circular control lines around what is to survive. Firefighters know how to squirt water, and dig line, but that is all they know. They are as ignorant about mitigation as housewives. In order to advance survival; both groups have to adapt, change, into a new survival procedure to eliminate loss.
Our present system of response now; only works on the easy fires. Whack-A-Mole suppression has to be augmented. A Universal Mitigation Strategic Doctrine needs to be adopted and implemented by all citizens who live in wild fuels. It also has to be adopted by all federal, state, local fire departments, all state insurance commissioners, all county planning-building departments. Anything less than this is not cohesive, and not aggressive enough for the coming homeland security and climate intensification challenges for our future. The ability to become comfortable and effective on stronger-faster wildfires is simply logical and reasonable to get to a Universally trained wildfire adapted society.
Two things that first responders can’t bring to the incident are: TIME and SPACE. It is too late to start dropping trees, and put in fire line around what is to be protected, when the Dragon is at the back door. Then burn off all the calories just before the firestorm rolls over your critical site.
Reality is; there are just too many houses out there. Never will there be enough fire trucks and firefighting resources. The standard deal is 4 engines per house. Also, get this: Fire leaders are not going to put their people in front of a full on, galloping fire storm.
We are good and gallant at the easy and medium intensity fires, but this new era of fire speed and killer power is producing evacuation only responses. The sad truth is, what we are doing is not working more and more often. With this simple safe system; we can save time, space, everything.
A ready set up, to instantly convert all, CRITICAL SITES, into a, “SAFETY HARBOR AREA”, has been developed. It is, a UNIVERSALLY RECOGNISABLE, FAMILIAR, WELL PRACTICED, & PROVEN SCHEME. Done right, and practiced; troops do not have to fight hard to win. No one is ever endangered. A simple, systematic, and effective way to get back to being effective at protecting life and property. We have to have something besides evacuation. High winds knocking down trees across roads. Tiny rural roads choked with too many people trying to flee; gets deadly by fast changing conditions.
People who live in the wild fuels, (interface dwellers), need to become wildfire adapted creatures; who have earned the right to survive. They have to be able to save themselves; if fire fighters can’t get there. They have to be able to manipulate events to save family/home from these killer fire storms. They have to become wildfire adapted creatures or they will end up on the wrong side of Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest.
Homeowners have to be the ones to do all the work converting natural fuels into a very specific, well managed blueprints. “SHAPING THE BATTLE SPACE”, in a 360 military, defensive position. It is a Universal Blueprint; always ready to receive the enemy Dragon of the wild places. Always prepared to give fire fighters an option to revert to; in order to save your structure, and their own lives. It is no longer a fire-fighting matter. It is now a HOMELAND SECURITY, and even a, MILITARY DEFENSE, issue. Climate Change has set us up as targets of opportunity. With our open borders, and so many strange unknown people entering our free society. The very nature of our enemies, create an underbelly of vulnerability. There is now an open invitation for our enemies to exploit and use the power of nature to attack and destroy entire regions of our country. This can be done very cheaply, and with no return address. No casualties need be sustained on their part.
For these reasons alone we need to gear up for the worse-case scenario. We owe it to give each citizen the ability to save themselves from an enemy, aerial fire attack. If it never comes, ( great)! This mitigation method will serve us well against natural, (lightning), and accidental ignitions during red flag wildfire conditions. Look we have to do something besides allowing fire storms to keep rolling through our people and critical sites. Consider the following actually unfolding:
A handful of enemy agents enter America. Quietly amass, and build a fleet of small ultralight aircraft.
They simply lay in wait for the right drought conditions to line up with strong regional winds. Then preferably at night, they launch. They lay out a pattern of ignition starts every quarter mile, all perpendicular to
those strong winds for hundreds of miles. By morning we’ll realize what was orchestrated against us, as a wall of flames hundreds of miles long; gobbles across the terrain.
We have nothing that is ready to deal with that. It would be far more destructive than any nuke, dirty bomb, explosive devices or terrorist mall shootings. Civilian home owners are easier to train, because they don’t suffer from thinking they know everything about fire. So many fire fighters, carry imagination baggage. Water squirters and line diggers can develop a certain degree of arrogance from years of typical suppression successes earned on regular hum drum easy fires. Problem being they have not learned much, from all the deadly single ignition starts, that have unfolded into tragic events. It is time to augment traditional initial attack skills to have an option of mitigation to protect life and property from destruction on fire storms too strong and fast moving to stop from killing people and houses.
It will take the combined energy and power of all those who live in the fuels to set up their holdings, so that the fire fighters have time to do what is needed to convert the, “UNIVERSAL BLUEPRINT”, into an instant, “SAFETY HARBOR AREA”, or a large black donut around what is to preside. Then, as back-up, all home owners have to know how to do what has to be done regarding consuming the calories that lay between home and fast approaching fire storm. (Remember at this stage of our suppression system, fire fighters do not know how to do this new procedure). But they know this.
TWO BASIC CONCEPTS – INSTINCTS - THAT ALL WILDFIRE FIRE FIGHTERS LIVE BY
- First basic fact of life is the old saying: “The only complete and good fire line, is black-line”. When fires are fought sometimes you can dig direct line which is right beside the flames. Then the fire can’t go across the mineral soil fire line, because there is no fuel or flame lengths to go across the line. This is called direct line. Fire fighters usually start putting in line at the tail of the fire, where the origin or least active part of the fire is located. Fire fighters usually split their forces, there at an anchor point. Then each crew heads up a flank digging line. Typically one flank is hotter and has bigger flames, and they keep getting bigger or longer as you proceed up to the most active part of the fire which is called the Head of the fire. The side of the fire that is hotter is uncomfortable because of the heat, so you cannot dig direct line. In this situation they back away from the heat and put in what they call indirect line. They do a little computer in the mind thing, and diagonally dig line, always staying a comfortable distance from the flames. The last person coming up the trail lays fire beside the line. The just started flames blow into the newly created fire line. The strips of fire along the line burns up all the calories in the unburned ground cover. This strengthens the line, so that when the flames come from the main fire; those active flames run into burned ground and have no fuel to continue its march. The oncoming flames wane and the line holds. That is BLACK-LINING.
- The Second fact of life is the Battle Cry: “Get into the BLACK”. If a fire hooks around or suddenly, (due to a wind change in direction), and power or a spot fire, that no one knew about, suddenly comes at you, and you are in unburned fuels. Your sole responsibility becomes to try to get into ground that has already been burned. For survival, that is your best option.
THE BLUEPRINT SETUP
This Universal Wildfire Blueprint was developed in the Arctic on four different National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska. Some 17 different U.S. Government Structures were set up as test cases. BLM and USFS Smokejumpers parachuted in to do all the thinning, pruning and digging in of the circular control lines. Native Athabaskan villagers from Huslia, and Houghes were also part of the preparation and work in the true wilderness of the huge Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge, which was as big as the state of New Jersey. The other huge Refuges that we used this method on were The Innoko, the Selawik, The Nowitna, and The Kanuti National Wildlife Refuges.
The jumpers loved jumping in on these projects, and we always had moose and bear for them to roast
over our camp fires and enjoy the wildest of our spectacular wild places. The Jumpers referred to these projects as, “THE BLACK DONUT OF DEATH” , PROJECTS. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service paid for the Athabaskan players, but the BLM footed the bill for all the jumpers. The grand scheme of things, was to get the various villages, that were private Native inholdings, inside the huge Refuges; to adopt and set in these Universal Blueprints around all their little settlements.
Climate Change really first showed up in the Arctic. We would follow thunder storms and watch lightning hit the ground from the jumper aircraft and watch the fire start. We would jump an entire DC-3 load of 12 to 16 jumpers immediately on the fire, but sometimes the conditions were too strong and nothing could stop the fire.
In Alaska they had a Fire Management Plan, but really it was not that at all, it was a suppression plan. It was good that the wilderness was so vast as seldom did a fire threaten a village, but it was obvious, that luck would eventually run out and they would have to start doing what was necessary to receive and parry the unstoppable firestorms, that would eventually threaten the villages It was obvious the lower 48 states were getting plenty of warning orders and hints, that this fire storm thing was going to happen down throughout the much more populated states. No one listened for over twenty years, but hopefully someone in a leadership position will in fact wake up and figure it out that we need an entirely new aspect in fire management. The science of pre-suppression Mitigation needs to be born and added to our way of life. A common new habit to live by.
Dragonslayers is trying to contribute this concept in order that so many rural homesteads and towns do not have to be destroyed: Please hear our plea, something has to be done or the losses will go on.
A STRATEGIC WILDFIRE SURVIVAL & MITIGATION DOCTRINE.
DRAGONSLAYERS developed a small plastic tool called a, “DRAGON WIZZ WHEEL”. This device has a baseboard with a small house, and a prepared cauldron, of 3 circular control lines, (DRAGON RINGS), set in around the item you want to save. The entire area around the little house has a shaded fuel break or Savanna in between those 3 circular control lines or Dragon Rings.
There is a clear plastic disk riveted to the base board in such a way, that it can spin on that rivet located atop the front of the little house. The clear disk has a wind arrow, and two semi-circles of fire are attached to that wind arrow.
The beauty of circular DRAGON RINGS is the wind is always blowing in the right direction to burn off the ground cover right in front of the Dragon Rings. All you have to do is stand in front of the little house in the real world. Hold the, DRAGON WIZZ WHEEL, on the horizontal in front of yourself, then line up the wind arrow in harmony with the on-site wind. The semi-circles of fire attached to the wind arrow, shows the user, exactly where to lay the tiny strip of fire in front of the Dragon Rings so that the small flames blow into the control lines and go out. In this way the fire fighter or the home owner always controls the flame lengths no matter the strength of the conditions.
Forests areas immediately around a lone homestead or a town of closely huddled homes; need to be converted into a shaded fuel break or savanna. Heavy fuels like big trees need to be thinned so there is at least 25 feet between the crowns of the trees not the tree trunks. All the ladder fuels need to be pruned to separate aerial fuels from ground fuels. This has to be done up a minimum of 10’. Eighty percent of all structures destroyed in firestorms are not in thick congested forests. They are often in intensively managed forests with reasonable levels of, “DEFENSIBLE SPACE”. Defensible Space is a start and works well, when you have lots of fire trucks handy, and fire-fighting resources on medium intensity fires. However, on extreme fire storms Defensible Space leaves too many calories in the ground fuels, that (GRASS) actually carries fire the fastest to destroy things quicker.
In many pictures of destroyed homes you see the hulks of black logs and metal roofs at times, but often crowns of pruned conifer trees still green, and very much not damaged. In those Eastern Deciduous Forests where there are no leaves on the trees, but rather all fluffy like that carry the fires surprisingly strongly and so fast. and was the grass and sometimes close in shrubs that carried the fire and embers up to the structure.
Since we can’t stop the killer fire storm headed toward our home or town; what we have to do is set in circular control lines around what we want to protect. We have to do what firefighters do when they are in obvious danger. They get to the Black. What owe to ourselves is to learn from the lessons of the dead and learn how to create instant Black just before the firestorm arrives, and you do it safely and systematically.
TAKE COMMAND OF YOUR HOLDINGS EARN YOUR OWN SURVIVAL
The attitude has to be, “MY HOME, MY LAND, MY RESPONSIBILITY”. The goal here is to earn your right to survive. Actually, Both fire fighters & interface dwellers need to grow into a wildfire adapted species. Be on Darwin’s positive theory side of it all.
Fire Suppression agencies do not presently know how to deal with extreme wildfire storms. Neither do the people who live in wild fuels. Climate Change has changed everything. We all have to learn new skills, responsibilities.
We cannot keep doing what we are doing, because it is not working. Finally, a mitigation procedure that allows a, “UNIVERSAL BLUEPRINT & SCHEME”. to parry extreme fire storms, make them pass and do no harm. We do well on easy, common sense fires, but not good on the serious, extreme, killer fires that seem to coming with higher drought codes and stronger winds with climate intensification.
THE DRAGON WIZZ WHEEL: A TRAINING AND REMEMBER GUIDE
In the picture of the dragon wiss wheel below: The fire storm is coming from the lower left hand corner of the picture. Note how the wind arrow lines up in harmony with the wind on site driving the fire. The red dots show where to lay your drips of fire to blow into the dragon rings.
This simple device when combined with live, outdoor training with paper small house and insanely heavy ground fuel made up of dry straw and 3 control lines or, Dragon Rings, will in a few hours make both fire fighters and interface dwellers familiar and even confident in applying fire in hand to be operationally effective in using this scheme on real homes/towns.
DRAGON WIZZ WHEEL TRAINING & REMEMBER GUIDE SHOWS THAT THE FIRESTORM IS COMING FROM THE LOWER LEFT HAND CORNER. ORIENT THAT WIND ARROW FROM WHERE THE FIRESTORM IS COMING FROM AND THE SEMI-CIRCLES OF RED SHOW YOU WHERE TO LAY FIRE FROM PROPANE TORCH OR A DRIP TORCH. This creates the first black donut in a safe manner. When Back Donut is formed then proceed right up to the Dragon Ring in front of the home and fire off the fuels right immediately around the structure.
Dragon Wizz Wheel; shows, where/how to, “Black-Line” circular dragon rings, control lines in harmony with the wind. Provides instant Black Space, just before fire storm arrives. Secret is to burn off all light fuel calories, safely, & systematically just before firestorm arrives.
The wind arrow is printed on a clear disk; riveted to the base board, so it spins at the center of what you want to protect. To use it as a training & remember guide: stand in front of the real house. Lay this plastic tool on the horizontal. Then, orientate the wind arrow so it is in line with the on-site wind direction, which is where the fire storm is coming from. The red dot semi-circles, attached to the wind arrow; show you, where to lay fire with a self-igniting propane torch or a drip torch. Note that a semi-circle of tiny flames forms beside the inside of the circular Dragon Rings. The wind will blow the small flames into the control lines (Dragon Rings) and go out. The beauty of Dragon Rings is that the wind is always blowing in the right direction to produce a BLACK DONUT around what is to be protected. You always control the flame lengths. BLACK SPACE devoid of calories is the name of the game. A clean house devoid of litter, and a Savanna or light grass or leaf litter is what you need to systematically, and safely carry fire across the ground just before a firestorm passes. This is what will cause it wane in power to diagonal up over and around. Make sure you know how to make it pass and do no harm.
The two pictures below show a couple of training pictures of Spanish Firefighters going through a Dragonslayers outdoor, “fire in hand training”, with Dragon Wizz Wheel. There were 40 students. Each person had their own little training house. We had 20 MPH winds. First house we simply ignited the dry straw up wind. Flames quickly grew to 6’ flame lengths and burned the first house down. After a hour classroom of explaining the theory, and use of the Dragon Wizz Wheel we went outside. The fuels and conditions the same as the first house that was destroyed.
The mission was to burn all the same fuels only spare and save the vulnerable paper house. We did not lose any of the 40 houses. Some were Forestry Students no fire experience. Their imaginations told themselves this was not going to work. In the end all became believers they could apply same concept to real homes. The actual use of fire in hand with the Dragon Wizz Wheel in hand actually showing, where in relation to the wind, to lay the fire. One use and everyone becomes a confident user of this procedure. Those people who have never been trained and actually used the training and Wizz Wheel, can have no real experience black-lining 3 concentric Dragon Rings, have zero credibility to speak about this method. It sounds too risky with their imaginations kicking in to build a case about not letting everyone do this. What we are saying only those trained and have done this procedure are qualified to do it. Most all firefighters are harder to train than housewives, because they don’t know how to do this, and if they are afraid they cannot think a house wife or a teenage kid can do it, but if trained they can in fact save their own lives and the home they live in.
