Written by Kaitlyn Gomez
Climate change has been brought to a point where traditional suppression only works well on the easy fires. Defensible spaces refer to thinned and pruned well-spaced heavy fuels with all cluttered, kindling, and type hazards removed. This works well on low to medium-sized events, where there are lots of fire trucks and firefighters. In red flag conditions, defensible space trades heat-holding qualities for speed. Grass or open loose-leaf litter carries fire faster than any other fuel type, destroying everything quicker.
Two things first responders cannot bring with them are time and space. The other factor that needs to be addressed is that when firefighters realize a fire has turned on them and they are in real peril, they try to get “In the Black,” where fire has already burned off all the killer light fuel calories. Due to this, it becomes important that all critical sites develop instant black spaces. So, to better save people, firefighters, homes, and entire communities, defensible spaces need to be augmented into a “Universal Wildfire Mitigation Blueprint,” which Thomas ‘Troop’ Emmons calls “an intentional fire pit.”
This “blueprint” prepares all critical sites set in wild fuels to be encompassed by three circular control rings, which Emmons refers to as “Dragon Rings.” These shape the “battle space” and get ready to enact a scenario to create an “Instant Black Space.” This can disrupt the mechanics of destruction and the fuel that the firestorm needs to destroy, which is not wildfire-adapted.
This has to be universal. The process includes heavy fuels thinned between tree crowns (not trunks), where ground fuels are separated from aerial fuels by pruning ladder fuels up to 12 feet. Here, the ground fuels are separated by three permanent, meandering, circular control lines down to mineral soil around what is to be protected.
These Dragon Rings need to be only 2 feet wide with 100 feet of managed vegetation in between the rings for a single home. For towns or subdivisions, the two outer Dragon Rings need to be 4 to 6 feet wide and asphalted, with 600 to 800 feet wide managed vegetation between the two outer Dragon Rings. If firefighters can’t get there, homeowners can fire off their own escape fire. This is why mitigation training and qualification practice have to be learned by the entire society.
Dragonslayers, USFS, and BLM Smokejumpers developed the Universal Wildfire Mitigation Blueprint, developing the “Dragon Wizz Wheel.” The Dragon Wizz Wheel shows the trained mitigator exactly where to lay fire from a self-starting, propane plumbers torch.
To use the device, the user stands in front of the real house and lays the Dragon Wizz Wheel horizontally. The user turns the clear plastic disk that spins on a rivet, located through the front of the little house, printed on the baseboard. Just line up the wind arrow in harmony with the actual wind direction on site.
In the diagram pictured above, the wind is coming from the lower left-hand corner of the diagram. The red dots always spin with the wind arrow. So, all one needs to do is start adding fire to the grass or leaf cover right near the Dragon Rings. The flames just start burning into the Dragon Rings and go out. The black ground that has just been created widens the Dragon Ring. It keeps biting off more and more unburned fuel until the entire area is black, as both Dragon Rings are burned to form a black donut.
The same burn off scheme works between the inner two Dragon Rings of what needs to be protected. The critical site stands in a huge black spot. Firestorm hits and flames reach up and go around the black space, effectively passing by without doing any harm.
Low-bid systems with a single-function, awkward, fixed, traditional fire-hand tool are often not as efficient. And fire shovels, combi-tool, fire rake, mud flap beater, and various short-handled hoes could all limit human resources. There is excessive shipping, reshipping, administration, handling, storage, and movement between warehouses and caches, resulting in a logistical nightmare and unnecessary waste.
Finally, the USDA awarded Dragonslayers two grants to develop better tools. The Federal Wildfire Coordinator told the two Forest Service Equipment Development Centers to partner with Dragonslayers and put their best people on the project so everyone would be happy with advancements. However, Development Centers refused to work with Dragonslayers and continued for 20 more years trying to stop hotshot crews welding steel. This continued, wasting money and fostering the GSA and DLA low bid fire tool system.
Pictured below are present-day fixed, awkward, and dangerous tools that cost the taxpayers tenfold than what the new Dragonslayers tools cost. This entire system needs to be scrapped via the new DOGE folks to give the firefighters what they want.
The Dragonslayers’ universal wildfire tool kit is engineered to last an entire career. It’s designed to take a handle, a primary tool head, and a secondary tool head, adaptable to whatever regional fuel type they’re dispatched to. The tools are stowed in a travel bag totaling 8 lbs, making them suitable for first-time deployment via commercial air. These tools pay for themselves on the first fire and are built to last a career.
Troop.dragonslayers@yahoo.com
dragonslayers.com
