Former Afghan Air Force pilots plead with Canada for rescue after daring escape

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

• Email

'We are sure they will kill us because we are fighter pilots,' says one Afghan flier

Murray Brewster · CBC News · Posted: Aug 26, 2021 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: August 26

An Afghan Air Force AC-208 Eliminator used for ground attack. Known as a Cessna with a Hellfire, an aircraft like this was used by former Afghan military pilots to flee Kabul in the hours after the Taliban overthrew the democratically elected government. Those 13 aircrew are now appealing for asylum in Canada. (U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

As darkness fell a week ago Sunday, the Taliban had them totally surrounded.

There was no way out of the Kabul airport the night the Afghan government fell. For a dozen military pilots, there was only one thing left to do — fly.

In the weeks leading up to the government's capitulation, the Taliban had carried out a brutal assassination campaign that killed several of the pilots' comrades.

"They will kill us," one of the NATO-trained pilots, now in hiding in Tajikistan, told CBC News. "We are sure they will kill us because we are fighter pilots."

Twelve pilots and one aircrew chief tumbled into one of the Afghan Air Force's single-engine AC-208 Eliminators, known by their crews as a 'Cessna with Hellfire,' a reference to its air-to-surface missile.

The plane taxied for takeoff just as the first desperate wave of Afghan civilians fleeing the Taliban reached the edges of the runway — "a lot of people who were just running to the aircraft," said the pilot.

• Afghan interpreter pleads for help as last Canadian flight out of Kabul expected to depart today

• Western countries rush to complete Afghan evacuation before troops leave

• FIRST PERSON
  I risked my life for the Canadian military in Afghanistan, now my family is in danger

Roaring into the night sky, they left behind them a dark, chaotic city where sporadic gunfights and tracer fire marked the last gasps of the democratically-elected government they had sworn to defend.

CBC News interviewed three of the pilots via cell phone from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. Their identities have been verified through military records, but their names are being withheld to protect their lives and the lives of the families they left behind in Afghanistan.

The group of pilots includes those who have flown AC-208s, MD-530 attack helicopters and the UH-60 Blackhawk. 

An Afghan Air Force MD-530 attack helicopter on a patrol. In the final days before the Taliban takeover, the fledgling air force ran short of ammunition. Twelve pilots and one aircraft crewmember, who fled to Tajikistan, are asking for asylum in Canada. (U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

They are still wearing the flight suits they escaped in and say they have no access to the Internet to contact their families.

Authorities in Tajikistan, which shares a 1,350-kilometre border with Afghanistan, said that several Afghan military planes carrying more than 100 aircrew and soldiers have landed at various airports. Separately, a week ago, another Afghan military plane crashed in Uzbekistan. It's not clear whether it was shot down.

Although they're not under guard and are free to move around in Dushanbe, the aircrew who spoke to CBC News said they are afraid the authorities in Tajikistan will hand them back to the new Taliban regime — either at the behest of the Russians, who made it clear this weekend they want no part of a refugee crisis, or as a goodwill gesture to the new government in Kabul.

'They would take their revenge'

One pilot, who was a small boy when the Taliban were last in power, said he remembers their brutal ways and has no illusions about the fate that would await him in Afghanistan.

"I killed them," he said. "I rocketed them. I shot them. I am sure if I killed someone they would take their revenge and kill us."

All 13 aircrew are asking for asylum in Canada and the federal government's help with rescuing their wives, parents and children from the grip of the Taliban regime.

"All of us here ... we want to exit to Canada," said the first pilot, who had flown the AC-208 in combat since 2017. "We need help. We request the Canadian government to help us and to take us out from here."

Even though some of them trained in the United States, none of the pilots expressed interest in immigrating there after U.S. President Joe Biden claimed that "the Afghan military gave up, sometimes without trying to fight."

Out of ammo

It's hard to fight when you have no ammunition. All three pilots said their stock of missiles and other munitions ran out weeks ago and they had been reduced to flying intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) missions, watching in horror from the air as the Taliban advanced.

One pilot, who also flew the light AC-208, said that as the end approached and the Taliban prepared to storm the airport, he and his comrades had to make a choice: wait to be captured and die a futile, meaningless death, or flee in hopes of surviving and eventually seeing their families.

People looking to flee the country wait next to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 24, 2021. (Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

"We didn't want to die in Kabul," said the pilot, a five-year air force veteran. "We left our families behind and we are sick about it."

He said their families do not know whether they are dead or alive.

'We didn't have any chance to fight'

There was bitterness in the voice of a third pilot who spoke to CBC News. He said they were helpless in the final days of the fight, as the Taliban encircled Kabul and moved in to finish off the western-backed government.

"We didn't have any chance to fight with them because there was no rockets," said the pilot, who flew MD 530 Defender helicopter gunship.

The Afghan Air Force, once the crown jewel of the U.S.-led NATO training mission, was supposed to be the trump card over the Taliban, supporting troops on the ground holding back the militants.

As the U.S. withdrawal accelerated last spring, the Afghan forces' reliance on American and foreign contractors — to repair, maintain and fuel their aircraft — led to confusion and crippling shortages. It was a void the Pentagon was scrambling to fill as late as June.

The absence of airpower left Afghan troops on the ground alone to face the Taliban.

American and Canadian forces, along with the other western armies that fought in Afghanistan, relied heavily on missile-armed fighters, helicopter gunships and unmanned Predator drones to beat back insurgent attacks.

A full squadron of transport and attack helicopters belonging to the now-former Afghan Air Force. Thirteen flight crew who fled to Tajikistan following the Taliban takeover are now appealing for asylum in Canada. (U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

Handicapped by shortages, the Afghan Air Force sustained a final blow in early summer: a Taliban campaign to assassinate pilots which spread terror and confusion within the ranks.

"I believe the Taliban were going after anyone who had a higher military education," said retired Canadian major-general Denis Thompson. "That resulted in a number of targeted assassinations."

The Taliban had no airpower, so "if they could neuter the airpower of the Afghan National Security Forces by taking out their pilots, that would be a legitimate — from their perspective — military aim," Thompson added.

The federal government has announced that — in addition to a special immigration program for former interpreters who worked for the Canadian military and diplomats, along with their families — there would be a targeted refugee program for vulnerable Afghans who face reprisals under the Taliban.

"[The pilots] would fit the program because their lives were in danger, and their families would fit the program," Thompson said. "I believe the case fits the criteria."

Getting Canadian consular help will prove to be difficult. Canada has no embassy in Tajikistan and all cases are funnelled through the mission in Kazakhstan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Murray Brewster

Defence and security

Murray Brewster is senior defence writer for CBC News, based in Ottawa. He has covered the Canadian military and foreign policy from Parliament Hill for over a decade. Among other assignments, he spent a total of 15 months on the ground covering the Afghan war for The Canadian Press. Prior to that, he covered defence issues and politics for CP in Nova Scotia for 11 years and was bureau chief for Standard Broadcast News in Ottawa.

Ukrainian troops rescue Afghans bound for Canada in daring operation 
August 30, 2021

About 360 evacuees from Kabul, including 80 Ukrainian citizens, arrive in Kiev on August 28.
Agence Anadolu/Getty Images

A plane carrying Afghan translators, including one who worked for The Globe and Mail and another who served the Canadian military and their families, arrived in Kiev following a daring operation by stationed Ukrainian soldiers at Kabul airport.

The rescue, which was coordinated by the Ukrainian military, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office and The Globe, could pave the way for more Afghans fleeing the Taliban to reach Canada. Ottawa has promised to resettle vulnerable Afghans on condition that they can travel to third countries, and The Globe has learned that the Canadian government has asked the Ukrainian government if it would be ready to transport more refugees to Canada. in Kiev, where they would be processed before resettlement.

The translators’ rescue was carried out early Friday morning in Kabul, a day after the last Canadian evacuation plane left Afghanistan, and hours after the deadly suicide bombing at one of the airport gates international Hamid Karzai, which resulted in the deaths of at least 170 Afghans trying to flee the country, as well as 13 American soldiers. Following the attack, claimed by the local affiliate of the so-called Islamic State, the United States said only foreign nationals – and no longer Afghans applying for visas – would be allowed into the airport.

Despite this restriction, as well as the growing risks to coalition forces ahead of the planned withdrawal of the last US forces on August 31, Ukrainian troops marched into the city of Kabul to escort two minibuses – carrying the translators to their destinations. from Canada. and their families, 19 people in all – on the airfield.

The soldiers had photographs of the license plates of the minibuses, and they surrounded and escorted the vehicles the last 600 meters to the airport.

“The convoy entered [the airport] because the Ukrainians came out. We just sent them the license plates of our vehicles… and they came to the local bazaar to find us. They said “Ukraine? We said ‘Yes!’ and they took us inside, ”said Mohammed Sharif Sharaf, a 49-year-old father of five who spent 10 years as a fixer and translator helping The Globe cover Canada’s role in the war in Afghanistan. .

After reaching the airport, the 19 Afghans were boarded a military cargo plane – which was stationed in Kabul as part of Ukraine’s little-known contribution to the NATO-led effort in the country – and flew to Islamabad with a group of other Afghans the Ukrainians had previously rescued. In the Pakistani capital, they were transferred on a chartered commercial plane that transported the group to Ukraine, with a brief stopover in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.

In a tweet, Zelensky said “360 more Ukrainians and citizens of other countries” arrived in Kiev on Saturday. “Our military, our intelligence services and our diplomats did a brilliant job. Ukraine does not leave its struggling citizens in difficult times and helps others!

Taliban agree to let foreign nationals and Afghans leave, international statement says

Shribman: Withdrawal from Afghanistan is not the end of US power, just another round of frustrated ambition

Two previous attempts, planned by the Canadian military before it left Kabul airport, failed to get Mr. Sharaf’s group into the airport, as did another attempt organized by the Department of US state. These operations relied on the ability of Afghans and their families to reach designated meeting points near the airport gates, which proved impossible in the chaos outside the facility, where thousands of ‘Afghans gathered in hopes of being airlifted out of Kabul, which fell to extremist Taliban on August 15.

The Ukrainian operation succeeded where others had collapsed because the Ukrainian army deployed special forces troops to the city on foot to carry out the rescue.

Evacuees said they were stunned that Ukrainian troops took risks to save them, unlike Canadian and US forces.

“Everyone was surprised. I tried last month to get someone to get us. We asked Americans, Canadians, Qataris, everyone – and no solution. They were afraid to go out, ”said Jawed Haqmal, a 33-year-old father of four who worked for two years with the Canadian Special Forces in Kandahar. “Ukrainian soldiers were angels to us. They did an exceptional job. They have a big heart.

Retired captain Jérémie Verville of the Royal 22e Régiment said his former translator’s escape was “a stor an who went out of his way to ask for help.”

Mr. Sharaf, Mr. Haqmal and their families arrived in Kiev with passes issued to them a day before the Ukrainian operation by the office of Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino. The documents indicate that porters should be treated as Canadian citizens and that they had visas to travel to Canada.

The documents were enough to get them out of Kabul, but created hours of bureaucracy at Kiev’s Boryspil Airport on Saturday, where border guards had no idea how to deal with evacuees, many of whom had passports. expired or only identity cards issued by the former Afghan government. government. The Sharaf and Haqmal families, along with others on the plane, were finally granted 15-day humanitarian visas to enter Ukraine, in part because of promises from the Canadian Embassy that they would be quickly resettled. .

“What this extraordinary effort demonstrates is that we can and will continue to be very nimble in providing Afghan refugees with all the visas or documents they need to make it clear that they are bound for Canada and should be authorized. to get here, ”Mendicino said in a telephone interview.

While the dramatic Kabul operation is unlikely to be repeated due to the deteriorating security situation in the country, the Islamabad-Kiev trail that has been mapped could be used to help move other Afghans to Canada. who have reached Pakistan, then they can travel to Ukraine where they can be screened and processed for resettlement in Canada.

“Canada has further requested our further support and we will be happy to assist you,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in response to questions e-mailed by The Globe. He said the rescue of Kabul demonstrated the capabilities of his country’s military and why it should finally be accepted into the NATO alliance, a long-standing goal of the Ukrainian government. “In these horrific circumstances, our military officers displayed bravery, high class and exemplary professionalism. “

Roman Waschuk, a former Canadian ambassador to Kiev who aided the operation by putting the Globe in touch with a senior official in Mr Zelensky’s office, said the Ukrainians accepted the rescue mission largely thanks to the support that their country had received from Canada during its own seven-year war with Russian-backed forces in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine. Canada has provided some $ 700 million in financial assistance to Ukraine since the start of the conflict and has deployed 200 troops on a rotational basis since 2015 on a mission to train Ukrainian troops for combat.

“This is, in part, a return on the investment of successive Canadian governments in the training of the Ukrainian army. There is a lot of respect and appreciation for what Canada has done over the past seven years, ”said Mr. Waschuk.

Rachel Pulfer, executive director of the Toronto-based Journalists for Human Rights, said the Ukrainian rescue was one of many since Canada ended its evacuation on Thursday. She said her organization – working with other groups, as well as individual Canadian journalists – had compiled a list of 275 Afghan media and human rights workers and their families who wanted to leave, but who had been left behind by the Western Airlift. Twenty-nine of them have since left the country, including Mr. Sharaf and his family, who account for seven of that figure.

“Each of these 29 people represents a miracle of human ingenuity and resilience in the face of the longest possible odds imaginable,” Ms. Pulfer said. “The sad reality is that we have hundreds more left – the numbers are growing every day – and much, much more to be done to keep those most at risk safe.

Floating wind turbines could open up vast ocean tracts for renewable power

Technology could help power a clean energy transition if it can overcome hurdles of cost, design and opposition from fishing

The world’s first floating wind farm 15 miles offshore of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland. The 30 megawatt installation can power approximately 20,000 households

 Photograph: Xinhua/Alamy

Supported by


Paola Rosa-Aquino
Sun 29 Aug 2021 

In the stormy waters of the North Sea, 15 miles off the coast of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, five floating offshore wind turbines stretch 574 feet (175 metres) above the water. The world’s first floating windfarm, a 30 megawatt facility run by the Norwegian company Equinor, has only been in operation since 2017 but has already broken UK records for energy output.

While most offshore wind turbines are anchored to the ocean floor on fixed foundations, limiting them to depths of about 165ft, floating turbines are tethered to the seabed by mooring lines. These enormous structures are assembled on land and pulled out to sea by boats.




Millions of electric car batteries will retire in the next decade. What happens to them?

The ability to install turbines in deeper waters, where winds tend to be stronger, opens up huge amounts of the ocean to generate renewable wind power: close to 80% of potential offshore wind power is found in deeper waters. In addition, positioning floating turbines much further off the coast helps avoid conflicts with those who object to their impact on coastal views.

Floating offshore wind is still in its early stages: only about 80 megawatts of a total of about 32 gigawatts (0.25%) of installed offshore wind capacity is floating. But some experts say the relatively new technology could become an important part of the renewables mix, if it can overcome hurdles including cost, design and opposition from the fishing industry.

The US has traditionally lagged behind Europe when it comes to offshore wind power, but that may be changing. Joe Biden has pledged to build more than 30GW of offshore wind by 2030. The Department of Energy says it has invested more than $100m in researching and developing floating offshore wind technology in an attempt to establish itself as a leader in the sector.

While the reliable winds and relatively shallow waters of the US east coast have made it the favored target for offshore wind projects, such as the recently approved large-scale Vineyard Wind off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, on the west coast the waters are mostly too deep for fixed-platform turbines. It’s here that advocates hope floating wind will take off.

In May, the Biden administration and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced a plan to bring floating offshore wind to California. They have identified two sites: a nearly 400-square mile area north-west of Morro Bay, which could host 380 floating wind turbines, and another further north off Humboldt Bay. Together these projects could bring up to 4.6GW of clean energy to the grid, enough to power 1.6m homes.

“[The announcement] was a real breakthrough,” said Adam Stern, executive director of the trade association Offshore Wind California. “At a time when the effects of climate change are evident in California every day, in the form of wildfires and drought conditions,” he said, “offshore wind can provide clean, reliable electricity for millions of California residents.”

The International Energy Agency estimates that for the world to stay on the pathway to carbon neutrality by 2050 it needs to add 390GW of wind power (80GW of which would be offshore) every year between 2030 and 2050.

It’s a big jump from current numbers, especially for the offshore wind industry, which installed just over 6GW of new capacity in 2020. But wind power has been growing as costs fall and countries look to move away from fossil fuels to meet climate goals.

How much floating wind will factor in is unclear. Countries including Norway, Portugal, South Korea and Japan are installing or planning floating wind projects, with more than 26GW of capacity estimated to be in the pipeline, according to one estimate.
Advertisement


“Without a doubt wind is a big part of the solution for going to zero,” said Michael Webber, an energy expert and engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin. But he believes floating wind is likely to take time to scale up, predicting that onshore wind and fixed-bottom offshore wind would dominate for the next decade.

Big hurdles certainly remain. Cost is a significant one. Floating offshore wind generation costs are about double those of fixed offshore wind, although these are expected to fall as technology advances and supply chains improve. Estimates by the research body the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggest floating turbine projects could achieve cost parity with their fixed-bottom counterparts around 2030.

One wrinkle is the number of designs to anchor the floating turbines, which some experts believe will make it harder to drive down costs.

Three of the main floating wind turbine designs include the spar-buoy (left), the semisubmersible (center) and the tension leg platforms (right).

 Photograph: Joshua Bauer/NREL

There are three main designs. The spar-buoy – the design of the Hywind floating turbines in Scotland – has a long, weighted cylinder tube which extends down from the turbine and below the ocean’s surface to balance it. Semi-submersible platforms, which are the most common for installed and planned projects, are modular and made up of floating cylindrical structures secured by mooring lines. The tension-leg structure has a smaller platform anchored to the seabed with taut mooring lines.
Advertisement


“I’ve lost count of how many concepts are actually out there,” said Po Wen Cheng, head of wind energy at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. “Ford didn’t make the car affordable for the big masses by making 30 different types of car – they just made a Model T. If we really want to lower the cost, we cannot tolerate so many different concepts,” he said.

Parts of the fishing industry have also expressed concerns that offshore wind could interfere with their equipment, obstruct fishing areas and negatively affect their livelihoods.

Semi-submersibale floating wind turbines off the coast of Viana do Castelo, Portugal. Photograph: Hugo Amaral/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

The first floating windfarm in the US may end up in Maine, where the University of Maine, RWE Renewables and the Mitsubishi subsidiary Diamond Offshore Wind are developing a small demonstration project that would generate 12MW of energy.

It has faced enormous opposition from lobster fishers who say the turbines interfere with their business. They reached a compromise in July: this pilot project will go ahead but the state legislature approved a ban on new industrial wind projects in state waters until March 2031.

Fishermen have rung alarm bells about California’s projects, too. “Far too many questions remain unanswered regarding potential impacts to marine life,” said Mike Conroy, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations in a May statement about plans for floating wind in the state.

Walt Musial, NREL’s lead of offshore wind research, said even a large-scale deployment of offshore wind along the east or west coast would take up only a tiny portion of the ocean and turbines would be carefully sited. But he stressed the continued need for good communication “to ensure optimal coexistence and to help the fishing community adapt and continue to access the space within the turbines for fishing”.

The California government foresees offering commercial leases for Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay next year. Stern is hopeful that floating offshore wind would create thousands of well-paying clean energy jobs in the state, as well as accelerating the retirement of natural gas plants, reducing pollution in communities that disproportionately bear the burden of environmental impacts.

“There are a lot of challenges to get floating wind turbines running in US waters,” said Po Wen Cheng, “but there’s no doubt about the potential.”

USA

Experts warn of dangers from breach of voter system software
By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY

August 28, 2021

FILE - In this Jan. 4, 2021, file photo a worker passes a Dominion Voting ballot scanner while setting up a polling location at an elementary school in Gwinnett County, Ga., outside of Atlanta. Republican efforts to question the results of the 2020 election have led to two significant breaches of voting software that have alarmed election security experts who say they have increased the risk to elections in jurisdictions that use the equipment. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, File)


ATLANTA (AP) — Republican efforts questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential race have led to voting system breaches that election security experts say pose a heightened risk to future elections.

Copies of the Dominion Voting Systems software used to manage elections — from designing ballots to configuring voting machines and tallying results — were distributed at an event this month in South Dakota organized by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump who has made unsubstantiated claims about last year’s election.

“It’s a game-changer in that the environment we have talked about existing now is a reality,” said Matt Masterson, a former top election security official in the Trump administration. “We told election officials, essentially, that you should assume this information is already out there. Now we know it is, and we don’t know what they are going to do with it.”

The software copies came from voting equipment in Mesa County, Colorado, and Antrim County, Michigan, where Trump allies had sue unsuccessfully challenging the results from last fall.

The Dominion software is used in some 30 states, including counties in California, Georgia and Michigan.

Election security pioneer Harri Hursti was at the South Dakota event and said he and other researchers in attendance were provided three separate copies of election management systems that run on the Dominion software. The data indicated they were from Antrim and Mesa counties. While it’s not clear how the copies came to be released at the event, they were posted online and made available for public download.

The release gives hackers a “practice environment” to probe for vulnerabilities they could exploit and a road map to avoid defenses, Hursti said. All the hackers would need is physical access to the systems because they are not supposed to be connected to the internet.

“The door is now wide open,” Hursti said. “The only question is, how do you sneak in the door?”

A Dominion representative declined comment, citing an investigation.

U.S. election technology is dominated by just three vendors comprising 90% of the market, meaning election officials cannot easily swap out their existing technology. Release of the software copies essentially provides a blueprint for those trying to interfere with how elections are run. They could sabotage the system, alter the ballot design or even try to change results, said election technology expert Kevin Skoglund.

“This disclosure increases both the likelihood that something happens and the impact of what would happen if it does,” he said.


The effort by Republicans to examine voting equipment began soon after the November presidential election as Trump challenged the results and blamed his loss on widespread fraud, even though there has been no evidence of it.

Judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, election officials of both parties and Trump’s own attorney general have dismissed the claims. A coalition of federal and state election officials called the 2020 election the “most secure” in U.S. history, and post-election audits across the country found no significant anomalies.

In Antrim County, a judge had allowed a forensic exam of voting equipment after a brief mix-up of election results led to a suit alleging fraud. It was dismissed in May. Hursti said the date on the software release matches the date of the forensic exam.

Calls seeking information from Antrim County’s clerk and the local prosecutor’s office were not immediately returned; a call to the judge’s office was referred to the county clerk. The Michigan secretary of state’s office declined comment.

In Colorado, federal, state and local authorities are investigating whether Mesa County elections staff might have provided unauthorized individuals access to their systems. The county elections clerk, Tina Peters, appeared onstage with Lindell in South Dakota and told the crowd her office was being targeted by Democrats in the state.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said she alerted federal election security officials of the breach and was told it was not viewed as a “significant heightening of the election risk landscape at this point.” This past week, Mesa County commissioners voted to replace voting equipment that Griswold had ordered could no longer be used.

Geoff Hale, who leads the election security effort at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said his agency has always operated on the assumption that system vulnerabilities are known by malicious actors. Election officials are focused instead on ways they can reduce risk, such as using ballots with a paper record that can be verified by the voter and rigorous post-election audits, Hale said.

He said having Dominion’s software exposed publicly doesn’t change the agency’s guidance.

Security researcher Jack Cable said he assumes U.S. adversaries already had access to the software. He said he is more concerned the release would fan distrust among the growing number of people not inclined to believe in the security of U.S elections.

“It is a concern that people, in the pursuit of trying to show the system is insecure, are actually making it more insecure,” said Cable, who recently joined a cybersecurity firm run by former CISA Director Christopher Krebs and former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos.

Concerns over access to voting machines and software first surfaced this year in Arizona, where the Republican-controlled state Senate hired Cyber Ninjas, a firm with no previous election experience, to audit the Maricopa County election. The firm’s chief executive also had tweeted support of conspiracy theories surrounding last year’s election.

After the county’s Dominion voting systems were turned over to the firm, Arizona’s top election official said they could not be used again. The GOP-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted in July to replace them.

Dominion has filed suits contesting various unfounded claims about its systems. In May, it called giving Cyber Ninjas access to its code “reckless,” given the firm’s bias, and said it would cause “irreparable damage” to election security.

Election technology and security expert Ryan Macias, in Arizona earlier this year to observe that review, was alarmed by a lack of cybersecurity protocols. There was no information about who was given access, whether those people had passed background checks or were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements.

Cyber Ninjas did not respond to an email with questions about the review and their security protocols.

Macias was not surprised to hear that copies of Antrim County’s election management system had surfaced online given the questionable motives of the various groups conducting the reviews and the central role that voting systems have played in conspiracy theories.

“This is what I anticipated would happen, and I anticipate it will happen yet again coming out of Arizona,” Macias said. “These actors have no liability and no rules of engagement.”

WATER AS A WEAPON OF WAR

'Desert': drying Euphrates threatens disaster in Syria

Issued on: 30/08/2021 -

Aid groups and engineers are warning of a looming humanitarian disaster in northeast Syria, where waning river flow is compounding woes after a decade of war

 Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

Rumayleh (Syria) (AFP)

Syria's longest river used to flow by his olive grove, but today Khaled al-Khamees says it has receded into the distance, parching his trees and leaving his family with hardly a drop to drink.

"It's as if we were in the desert," said the 50-year-old farmer, standing on what last year was the Euphrates riverbed.

"We're thinking of leaving because there's no water left to drink or irrigate the trees."

Aid groups and engineers are warning of a looming humanitarian disaster in northeast Syria, where waning river flow is compounding woes after a decade of war.

They say plummeting water levels at hydroelectric dams since January are threatening water and power cutoffs for up to five million Syrians, in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis.

As drought grips the Mediterranean region, many in the Kurdish-held area are accusing neighbour and archfoe Turkey of weaponising water by tightening the tap upstream, though a Turkish source denied this.

Outside the village of Rumayleh where Khamees lives, black irrigation hoses lay in dusty coils after the river receded so far it became too expensive to operate the water pumps.

People walk through what was the Euphrates riverbed near the Syrian village of Rumayleh

 Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

Instead, much closer to the water's edge, Khamees and neighbours were busy planting corn and beans in soil just last year submerged under the current.

The father of 12 said he had not seen the river so far away from the village in decades.

"The women have to walk seven kilometres (four miles) just to get a bucket of water for their children to drink," he said.

- 'Alarming' -

Reputed to have once flown through the biblical Garden of Eden, the Euphrates runs for almost 2,800 kilometres (1,700 miles) across Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

In times of rain, it gushes into northern Syria through the Turkish border, and flows diagonally across the war-torn country towards Iraq.

This combination of handout images made available by the European Space Agency shows two satellite false colour images captured on May 5, 2020 (top) and May 7, 2021 of decreasing water levels in Syria's Tishrin reservoir - EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP

Along its way, it irrigates swathes of land in Syria's breadbasket, and runs through three hydroelectric dams that provide power and drinking water to millions.

But over the past eight months the river has contracted to a sliver, sucking precious water out of reservoirs and increasing the risk of dam turbines grinding to a halt.

At the Tishrin Dam, the first into which the river falls inside Syria, director Hammoud al-Hadiyyeen described an "alarming" drop in water levels not seen since the dam's completion in 1999.

"It's a humanitarian catastrophe," he said.

Since January, the water level has plummeted by five metres, and now hovers just dozens of centimetres above "dead level" when turbines are supposed to completely stop producing electricity.

Across northeast Syria, already power generation has fallen by 70 percent since last year, the head of the energy authority Welat Darwish says.

Two out of three of all potable water stations along the river are pumping less water or have stopped working, humanitarian groups say.

- 'Water weapon'? -

Almost 90 percent of the Euphrates flow comes from Turkey, the United Nations says.

To ensure Syria's fair share, Turkey in 1987 agreed to allow an annual average of 500 cubic metres per second of water across its border.

But that has dropped to as low as 200 in recent months, engineers claim.

Water levels at Syria's Tabqa dam AFP

Inside Syria, the Euphrates flows mostly along territory controlled by semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities, whose US-backed fighters have over the years wrested its dams and towns from the Islamic State group.

Turkey however regards those Kurdish fighters as linked to its outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and has grabbed land from them during Syria's war.

Syria's Kurds have accused Ankara of holding back more water than necessary in its dams, and Damascus in June urged Turkey to increase the flow immediately.

But a Turkish diplomatic source told AFP Turkey had "never reduced the amount of water it releases from its trans-boundary rivers for political or other purposes".

"Our region is facing one of the worst drought periods due to climate change," and rainfall in southern Turkey was "the lowest in the last 30 years", this source said.

Analyst Nicholas Heras said Turkey did hold leverage over Syria and Iraq with the huge Ataturk Dam just 80 kilometres from the Syrian border, but it was debatable whether Ankara wanted to use it.

That would mean "international complications for Ankara, both with the United States and Russia", a key Damascus ally across the table in Syria peace talks.

Aid groups and engineers say plummeting water levels at hydroelectric dams since January are threatening water and power cutoffs for up to five million Syrians 

Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

"The easier, and more frequently utilised, water weapon that Ankara uses is the Alouk plant" that it seized from the Kurds in 2019, Heras said.

Fresh water supply from the station on another river has been disrupted at least 24 times since 2019, affecting 460,000 people, the United Nations says.

- 'Drought is coming' -

But Syria analyst Fabrice Balanche said the drought did serve Ankara's long-term goal of "asphyxiating northeast Syria economically".

"In periods of drought, Turkey helps itself and leaves the rest for the Kurds, in defiance and in full knowledge of the consequences," he said.

Wim Zwijnenburg, of the PAX peace organisation, said Turkey was struggling to provide enough water for "megalomanic" agricultural projects set up in the 1990s, a challenge now complicated by climate change.

The Tabqa dam is Syria's largest. Dry spells are to become longer and more severe around the Mediterranean, the United Nations has warned, with Syria most at risk, according to the 2019 Global Crisis Risk Index 

Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

"The big picture is drought is coming," he said.

"We already see a rapid decline in healthy vegetation growth on satellite analysis" in both Syria and Turkey.

A UN climate change report this month found human influence had almost definitely increased the frequency of simultaneous heatwaves and droughts worldwide.

These dry spells are to become longer and more severe around the Mediterranean, the United Nations has warned, with Syria most at risk, according to the 2019 Global Crisis Risk Index.

Downstream from the Tishrin Dam, the Euphrates pools in the depths of Lake Assad.

But today Syria's largest fresh water reservoir too has withdrawn inwards.

On its banks, men with tar-stained hands worked to repair generators exhausted from pumping water across much further distances than in previous years.

Agricultural worker Hussein Saleh, 56, was desperate.

"We can no longer afford the hoses or the generators," said the father of 12.

"The olive trees are thirsty and the animals are hungry."

A man holding a water bottle stands near a pump drawing water from the shallows of the Lake Assad reservoir, along the Euphrates river by the town of Rumayleh in eastern Syria Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

At home, in the village of Twihiniyyeh, power cuts had increased from nine to 19 hours a day, he said.

At the country's largest dam of Tabqa to the south, veteran engineer Khaled Shaheen was worried.

"We're trying to diminish how much water we send through," he said.

But "if it continues like this, we could stop electricity production for all except... bakeries, flour mills and hospitals."

- 'Short on food' -

Meanwhile, among five million people depending on the Euphrates for drinking water, more and more families are ingesting liquid that is unsafe.

Those cut off from the network instead pay for deliveries from private water trucks.

But these tankers most often draw water directly from the river -- where wastewater concentration is high due to low flow -- and these supplies are not filtered.

Among five million people depending on the Euphrates for drinking water, more and more families are ingesting liquid that is unsafe Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

Waterborne disease outbreaks are on the rise, and contaminated ice has caused diarrhoea in displacement camps, according to the NES Forum, an NGO coordination body for the region.

Marwa Daoudy, a Syrian scholar of environmental security, said the decreasing flow of the Euphrates was "very alarming".

"These levels threaten whole rural communities in the Euphrates Basin whose livelihood depends on agriculture and irrigation," she said.

Aid groups say drought conditions have already destroyed large swathes of rain-fed crops in Syria, a country where 60 percent of people already struggle to put food on the table.

In some communities, animals have started to die, the NES Forum has said.

The United Nations says barley production could drop by 1.2 million tonnes this year, making animal feed more scarce.

Balanche said Syria was likely facing a years-long drought not seen since one from 2005 to 2010, before the civil war.

"The northeast, but also all of Syria, will be short on food, and will need to import massive quantities of cereals."

Downstream in Iraq, seven million more people risked losing access to water from the river, the Norwegian Refugee Council's Karl Schembri said.

"Climate doesn't look at borders," he said.

© 2021 AFP

Fear, acceptance mix in cradle of Tunisian revolution


Issued on: 30/08/2021 

A woman walks past the sculpture of Mohamed Bouazizi's cart in the square named after him in central Sidi Bouzid

ANIS MILI AFP

Sidi Bouzid (Tunisia) (AFP)

Many people in Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of Tunisia's 2011 revolution that launched the Arab Spring, see President Kais Saied's power grab as a necessary evil.

But there are also fears that last month's dismissal of parliament, sacking of the prime minister and Saied's assumption of sweeping powers may bring Tunisia one step closer to another dictatorship.

It was in this large town of central Tunisia on December 17, 2010 that Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit and vegetable salesman angered by police harassment, set himself ablaze.

His suicide sparked an unprecedented uprising that left some 300 people dead and toppled long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

But more than a decade later, hopes for a better future have given way to anger and disappointment over the North African country's politicians' failure to improve living standards.

The chants of "Dignity!" and "Work!" that filled the air during the revolution have again sounded at recent demonstrations.

Ahmed Ouni is 36, unemployed and not at all happy with his lot.

"These last 11 years have been worse than 23 years under Ben Ali! Parliament and the government smothered us in poverty, so good riddance to them!" he said.

Mohamed Bouazizi Square in Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia 

ANIS MILI AFP

"Because the Tunisians chose Saied, he has their endorsement to lead the country and do what has to be done. We have confidence in him," Ouni told AFP.

- 'Go for it' -

Sidi Bouzid's infrastructure has improved and more businesses have opened, but some people still feel marginalised and look to Saied to make their lives better.

"Go for it," said Ouni. "The people are with you."

Saied, a retired professor and specialist in constitutional law, was elected president in 2019.

On July 25, the president invoked the constitution as he granted himself full powers, having suspended parliament for an initial 30 days.

On August 23, he announced that these measures would continue indefinitely.

"This is necessary surgery to stop the bleeding," said Abdelhalim Hamdi, a 47-year-old construction worker with a degree in history who has also organised protests in Sidi Bouzid.

"The politicians in power have stolen our dreams and ambitions," he said, adding that he backed abolishing the constitution because it was "drafted to serve narrow interests".

Graffiti artist Kaisser Grojja, also known as 'Wolf Gang', works on a mural in Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia

 ANIS MILI AFP

Many believe that suspending or repealing the constitution -- hailed internationally on its adoption in 2014 -- is inevitable.

"It's a necessary evil to save the country, even if it will probably lead to an authoritarian regime," said Sami Abdeli, 38.

He was speaking in central Sidi Bouzid, close to the sculpture of Mohamed Bouazizi's vegetable cart on which is marked the word "Freedom".

Residents of the town are normally quick to engage in conversation about politics, but many appeared reticent to comment on Saied's actions.

"We can see that self-censorship is back," said Mounira Bouazizi, blogger and coordinator at the Sidi Bouzid office of the International Observatory for Media and Human Rights.

- Anti-corruption purge -

"People no longer want to express themselves freely and say what they really think."

She said that on social networks Saied's supporters "use violent speech and do not accept any criticism of the president".

Yossra Abdouni, a 25-year-old engineering student, voiced caution.

"The idea that one person has all the executive power scares me," she said. Saied "is vague about his intentions -- he hasn't presented any programme".

"Even if the economic and social situation has become worse and the political class is fragmented, at least we had freedom and democracy," she added.

Red peppers drying along the side of the road to the town of Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia ANIS MILI AFP

President Saied's move last month was condemned by Ennahdha, the Islamist party that is the largest in parliament, as a coup.

Since then, parliamentarians, magistrates and businessmen have been targeted with travel bans and house arrest in an anti-corruption purge that has raised fears of a decline in freedoms.

"Saied is moving towards an individualist and dictatorial regime. He hears only his own voice," said Rabeh Zaafouri, who heads the Tunisian Human Rights League office in Sidi Bouzid.

Zaafouri said Tunisians would "never allow a return" to the conditions of before the 2011 revolution.

© 2021 AFP

LEGALIZE COCA LIKE BOLIVIA DID
Colombia's illicit coca economy helps communities thrive

Issued on: 30/08/2021 - 

Workers toil in a coca field in the mountains of Patia in Colombia's Cauca department Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

Patía (Colombia) (AFP)

In the mountains and jungles of southwestern Colombia, peasants, migrants and women carrying babies toil doggedly in the coca fields despite the dangers posed by guerrillas and drug traffickers -- and despite the government's anti-drug campaign.

These plantations are known as "San Coca" -- Saint Coca -- due to the locals' devotion to growing the plant, which provides the active ingredient in cocaine, and their understanding of all it provides to them in the face of the risks.

Colombia is still the world's largest producer of the addictive stimulant, even though successive governments in Bogota have worked to combat the trade.

"Coca (plantations) were born as a response to institutional abandonment... and have allowed everyone in these areas to achieve a minimum of dignity," said Azael Cabrera, the leader of Agropatia, an organization representing 12 rural communities and townships.

"Forget about the state -- it doesn't exist here."

For community leader Reinaldo Bolanos, "we don't see ourselves as belonging to this State, as for the State, either we don't exist or we are a burden."

For decades, the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were effectively in charge in Cauca until the historic 2016 peace agreement between the government and the leftist rebels.

In theory, the fighters left the area under disarmament plans, and the peasants expected the state to step into the void, but they never did.

So three years later, dissident guerrillas that opted out of the peace deal moved back in -- with new weapons but the same ideology

With no state presence or support, the peasants were left vulnerable and turned to planting coca after suffering losses with other crops including yuca, corn, coffee and sugar cane.

The "coca economy" in Cauca helps to sustain local communities but locals say the Colombian government does not distinguish between the farmers and the drug traffickers Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

And so the "coca economy" was born: a network of activities around the cultivation and processing of coca leaves which are then used to make cocaine, with rebels serving as the middlemen between the farmers and the traffickers.

The work puts food on the tables of locals, but there is a problem -- the government does not distinguish between the coca growers and the drug traffickers.

- Respect for those with guns -

Despite a half-century battle by authorities against the drug trade, the white powder continues to flow freely into the United States and Europe.

Colombian coca leaf collector Edison Tovar works in the mountains of Patia 

Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

During that period, 10 Colombian governments failed to put a dent in the illegal trade, despite millions of dollars in anti-narcotics support from Washington.

In Cauca, the guerrillas reign once again -- they are part of the dissident Carlos Patino Front, and billboards and posters bear the face of Patino, a rebel killed in 2013.

Military interventions in the area are "less intense" than in other zones, Defense Minister Diego Molano admits, because of the danger posed to security forces.

"But that doesn't mean we're going to let these groups continue with this criminal dynamic," Molano added.

Nevertheless, the trade -- which is lucrative because coca can be harvested four times a year, as opposed to just two for coffee -- has grown considerably.

In 2010, there were 5,900 hectares (14,580 acres) of coca plantations in Cauca, according to the United Nations.

A decade later, that number had nearly tripled to 16,544 hectares.

"The army never came here after the Havana deal. Once again, this area is screwed by illegal armed groups," said Bolanos.

The influence of the guerrillas is still apparent in Cauca - on murals, billboards and posters

 Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

"We've learned to respect whoever has weapons."

Cabrera chimes in: "The peasants have no authority over the rebels -- we can't tell them to leave, we have no choice but to let them come. But that doesn't make us guerrillas or drug traffickers."

- Family business -

Entire families, old women, single mothers with their children, impoverished former city residents and even Venezuelan migrants who walked for months to reach Cauca can be found picking coca leaves in the plantations.

Colombian coca leaf collector Karen Palacios, 20, gets ready with her daughter for her work shift at a coca field -- she has been doing this work since she was a teenager 

Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

"Students who don't have classes or are on holidays also come to the fields to pick and so contribute to their studies and to putting food on the table at home," said community leader Abel Solarte.

While still a minor, Karen Palacios moved from the capital Bogota to Cauca with her partner, a native of the region.

Now 20, she learned to pick leaves before the couple broke up, leaving her as the single mother of two-year-old Dana.

"I used to take her to the plantations and would set up a tent or a hammock so she could sleep while I worked," said Palacios.

At one point, she was able to put Dana in day care, but then the coronavirus pandemic swept through Colombia, and the center closed, meaning Palacios again must bring her daughter into the fields.

And since the family shoe business succumbed to the ravages of the pandemic, Palacios's father, stepmother and brother all joined her in Cauca as coca leaf pickers.

Women work repairing roads in the coca-growing area

 Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

Numerous single mothers like Palacios work in the fields.

"Many of us don't have a husband and we have our children, and if we go picking, we can get them food and clothing," said Dora Meneses, spokeswoman for a group of 60 pickers.

- The boom -

According to United Nations estimates, between 2016 and 2018, more than 200,000 families -- amounting to just over a million people, or two percent of Colombia's population -- were working on coca plantations.

Experts believe some families planted additional coca crops in order to get cash payouts for destroying them under a 2016 peace deal between the government and FARC rebels Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

Part of the boom was fueled by one of the peace conditions that included cash payouts for those who agreed to destroy their coca crops.

Experts believe the peasants took this as an incentive to plant more, to earn more from their destruction.

Almost 100,000 families agreed to destroy their crops in return for the compensation and an end to legal proceedings against them, according to official figures.

But in the Patia townships, the business continues to thrive.

Yeison Enriquez fled Venezuela with his wife and three children as their country spiralled into economic meltdown.

He went from viewing coca as an illegal crop to defending the "source of work" that his brother also migrated to Colombia to do.

"We can't count on this opportunity in the city. In the countryside, there is always work and if they eradicate the coca. I think I will have to migrate once again," said Enriquez.

In 2017, plantations across Colombia reached a record level of 171,000 hectares.

In 2020, the country managed to reduce the size of its coca plantations to 143,000 hectares but without reducing the amount of cocaine produced -- 1,228 tons -- which the UN says was due to a better crop yield.

Since the arrival of right-wing President Ivan Duque in 2018, Colombia has increased its eradication of coca crops and the confiscation of drugs -- 549 tons in the last 18 months alone.

And controversially, it is preparing to restart aerial glyphosate spraying to eradicate coca crops, which had been suspended since 2015 due to its harmful effects on human health and the environment.

Colombians protest against the use of aerial glyphosate spraying to eradicate coca crops, as the chemical has been shown to have detrimental effects on human health and the environment

 Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

It is also a major threat to the peasants' livelihoods.

"We don't want to sink into misery. We're organizing resistance -- to march, to protest, to strike," said Solarte.

- Staving off poverty -

Antonio Tamayo, 40, a plantation leader, moved to Cauca from Antioquia, 700 kilometers (435 miles) away, after the coca crops there were destroyed.

A man holds a chunk of coca paste at a makeshift lab in Colombia's Cauca department -- the peasants help make the base ingredient for cocaine, but they say intermediaries take it to drug traffickers, and they are not to blame for where it ends up 

Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

In the same farm where the leaves are grown, they are shredded and then processed with lime, cement, gasoline and ammonium sulphate to produce the paste that forms the base ingredient for cocaine.

Every week, he says, "intermediaries" for the traffickers collect the hard, whitish paste to take it to clandestine neighboring laboratories where "chemists" transform it into pure cocaine.

The peasants keep out of the most lucrative part of the business -- the making and selling of cocaine -- but complain that the government lumps them into the same category as the cartels.

"We're classified as drug traffickers ... but others are making the money," said Cabrera.

What the coca pickers earn is just enough to stave off poverty. A seasoned worker can earn up to $37 a day -- more than four and a half times the minimum wage.

- Prosperity on the horizon -

The "San Coca" lands are crisscrossed by dirt roads that can turn into quagmires when heavy rains fall.

The dirt roads in the "San Coca" lands can become impassable when heavy rains fall 

Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

Despite this, the traffic is incessant. The trucks authorized by guerrillas pass one after another loaded with fuel, ice cream, bread, clothes and more.

The local "coca economy" has created a community of consumers that pay handsomely for things they used to produce on their own land.

And in urban areas, the coca bonanza has fueled a construction boom, Bolanos says. Roads are being improved and schools are getting more supplies.

"The big difference with coca is that it provides us with the ability to feed ourselves and also allows us to cover what the government doesn't," said Bolanos.

But in this mountainous region, everyone fears the return of aerial crop spraying -- they recall communities left in ruins, people displaced, homes abandoned, and the death of much of the plant life.

Airplanes first sprayed the herbicide in 1984 before returning in the 1990s and then again in 2008.

"Aerial spraying is practically murder for these towns," said Bolanos.

EXPLAINER: How wildfire camps keep crews ready for battle

By KEITH RIDLER

August 28, 2021


FILE - In this Aug. 25, 2015, file photo, Mac Mega, center, rests with fellow firefighters from Oregon-based Grayback Forestery, at a camp for firefighters battling the Okanogan Complex Fire in Okanogan, Wash. Empty cow pastures on one day can be bustling with hundreds of firefighters the next as fire camps with colorful tent cities spring up. Truckloads of supplies and equipment are needed to keep wildland firefighters effective at fighting flames for weeks on end. The size of each camp is determined by the size and complexity of the wildfire. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Empty cow pastures on one day can be bustling with hundreds of firefighters the next as fire camps with colorful tent cities spring up.

More than 20,000 wildland firefighters are battling some 100 large wildfires in the U.S. West, and truckloads of supplies and equipment are needed to keep them effective at fighting flames for weeks on end.

“We’ll set up a small village,” said Evans Kuo, a “Type 1” incident commander assigned to the nation’s biggest and most dangerous wildfires. His incident command team has 44 members. “The main idea of the camp is to not only house the incident command team, but also house the base camp that has food, water, sleeping and showers.”

___

HOW LARGE ARE FIRE CAMPS?

The size of each camp is determined by the size and complexity of the wildfire, with the largest blazes drawing more than 1,000 firefighters and support staff that are directed by Type 1 incident command teams.

U.S. Interior Department agencies, primarily the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Forest Service supply firefighters, as do state agencies and tribes.

There also are Type 2 command teams on smaller and less complex blazes that draw from about 200 to 500 firefighters. Type 3 incidents may or may not have a fire camp.

More than 95% of all wildfires are put out quickly or within days by local firefighters, and are classified as Type 4 or 5. They typically don’t have fire camps.

Food caterers, semi-trailers with shower stalls and portable bathrooms are brought into large fire camps to make sure firefighters get enough food and a chance to wash off the dirt, ash and sweat.

“That’s a huge morale boost out on the line,” said Bubba Pugh, who has been fighting wildfires with the Idaho Department of Lands for about a decade. “Having the fire camp helps us get the job done.”

___

WHO’S IN CHARGE OF A FIRE CAMP?

An incident commander with decades of firefighting experience runs the show, plotting short-term and long-term strategy that’s recalibrated daily. Fire camp responsibilities are separated into divisions that include planning, logistics, communications, medical and even security.

Large fires will also have an air operations branch to coordinate fire retardant drops by jets or other aircraft, as well as water drops by helicopters. Some camps will also have a person in charge of night operations, when firefighters can make good progress.

Public information officers help inform area residents through social media and news outlets. They also work with law enforcement officials on evacuations and road closures.

While fire camps are hierarchical, the system includes an outlet for firefighters to anonymously report safety concerns to an employee relations person at a camp or online.

Camps also include someone tracking the overall cost of fighting the fire, which can run into the millions of dollars. The federal government spent $2.3 billion fighting wildfires last year, a number that’s expected to grow significantly this year.

___

WHERE ARE FIRE CAMPS LOCATED?

Kuo said schools make good fire camps because they have electricity and internet access, something that has become increasingly important in fighting fires. Information can be distributed to firefighters on smartphones using code scanners.

Firefighters bring their own tents, and can set up on athletic fields or, if in more remote areas, anywhere from meadows to cow pastures.

“Sometimes we don’t get the most luxurious fields to sleep in,” Pugh said. “But find a nice, flat piece of ground, and just expect to be there for the duration.”

Communication in remote locations is mainly done through handheld radios. Communications teams put repeaters — devices that receive radio signals and retransmit them — on ridgetops so commanders can communicate with firefighters in the field.

The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise has the largest store of handheld radios outside the U.S. Department of Defense. Center spokeswoman Jessica Gardetto said most of the center’s radios, about 23,000, are at large wildfires. All radios are not in use at the same time as they need to be charged.

Remote command posts are often operated from yurts, or office trailers, with different divisions having their own workspace.

Large fires also often have satellite camps to save time because it can take hours to drive from a command post to other areas of the fire.

___

HOW AND WHEN IS FOOD SERVED?

Firefighters get three calorie-heavy meals a day and snacks to keep them fueled for the physically intensive work.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, firefighters gathered in chow halls in the morning and evening, enjoying the camaraderie of the job while away from the fire line. Now, firefighters disperse to eat their meals, sometimes going back to their tents or finding a tree to sit under. Lunch is typically a bag lunch eaten in the field.

At satellite camps, pre-cooked food is flown to them.

___

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

Type 1 and Type 2 incident command teams each day produce an incident action plan that spells out goals and responsibilities, typically looking four days ahead. Each day the plan is recalibrated based on a variety of factors, chief among them weather. The plan is typically 12 to 20 pages long, and is made available as a PDF so it can be viewed on smartphones or other devices.

Kuo gets up at 5 a.m. to prepare for the 6 a.m. morning briefing, which is followed by other briefings and planning sessions during the day that lasts to 10 p.m.

“Somewhere in there you try to grab some food,” he said.

Most firefighters have been on the job for months, and will likely be needed for more than another month as some fires are expected to burn well into September.

“There is some burnout factor,” Kuo said, summing up the current atmosphere among firefighters. “But this is what we signed up for, so you dig deep and get through it.”