Bureau of Land Management: Fire Preparedness Review

Bureau of Land Management: Fire Preparedness Review

 

Wildland Firefighting:

Preparedness Review for the Bureau of Land Management

 

A bee sting lays low a wildland firefighter in the Mojave Desert of St. George, Utah — or did it? This mock fire attack was part of the Arizona Strip District’s fire preparedness review at the start of the wildland fire season in the American Southwest.

Working and traveling with the Bureau of Land Management’s fire preparedness review team brought me to the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, 110-degree heat in Yuma, Arizona, and some pretty spectacular landscapes.

But the main purpose of the project was to capture the work of the Bureau’s Fire Preparedness Review Team: their mock fire exercises, equipment reviews, remote stations and helitack operations, and fuels management programs.

 

 

KINGMAN, AZ – MAY 15: Wildland firefighters from the Colorado River District wait for radio communications while attacking a mock fire in the desert east of Kingman, Arizona. The exercise was part of the 2022 Arizona Fire Preparedness Review in Kingman, Arizona on Sunday, May 15, 2022. Photo by Suzanne Allman, contract photographer for BLM

 

 

The picture of the “injured” firefighter was taken as part of one of these mock exercises in the Mojave Desert in the southwest corner of Utah. Firefighters of the Arizona Strip District practiced responding to environmental hazards — among them, the allergic reaction to a bee sting that required treatment, evacuation and calls for an airlift.

The ten-day photography project encompassed the Districts of the Arizona Strip, Colorado River and Phoenix area; we drove through desert, canyon, chaparal, and those gorgeous, butterscotch-scented Ponderosa pine forests.

 

 

A wildland firefighter deploys a hose to fight a mock fire in the desert east of Kingman, Arizona. Photo by Suzanne Allman, contract photographer for BLM

 

 

This project is part of a three-year blanket purchase agreement with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, to provide photo and video coverage of the BLM’s fire program on public lands.

 

 

A team of wildland firefighters from Kingman sets out with flappers, pulaskis and other tools to attack a mock fire in the desert east of Kingman, Arizona. Photo by Suzanne Allman, contract photographer for BLM

 

 

Environmental services photography assignments share a common thread. Whether they’re regulatory-driven initiatives, or projects designed to raise the profile of an agency, or to educate citizens about a particular problem or issue, these projects work to gain local support for community-based solutions.

 

 

 

With the rocky peaks of the Hualapai Mountains as a backdrop, firefighters use a brushcutter to trim fuels on a fuel break surrounding the community of Pine Lake, south of Kingman, Arizona on Monday, May 16 2022. Photo by Suzanne Allman, contract photographer for BLM.

The Virgin River flows between red rock canyon walls in the Bureau of Land Management’s Virgin River Canyon Recreation Area. Photo by Suzanne Allman, contract photographer for BLM

Get in Touch

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Challenging terrain, geography and environments are a personal specialty.  Capture the energy of your team at work, on training and field exercises, with heavy equipment or in challenging environmental conditions. These photos can be used again and again: in annual reports, your socials, on office walls and other marketing deliverables.  -Suzanne

 

  • CERTIFIED: SBA-certified WOSB, New York State- and City-certified WBE, and Port Authority certified DBE
  • REGISTERED: SAM & ORCA. Experienced in Federal Government contracting and subcontracting.
  • WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING CERTIFICATES S-130/190, L-180 
  • FAA PART 107 Since 2017
  • DUNS: 839898728.
  • FEIN: 84-2603642
  • We accept all government agency purchase orders and credit cards.

 

145 NEPERAN ROAD, TARRYTOWN, NY 10591

 

 

CONTACT

 

SERVING ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICE INDUSTRIES, ENGINEERS AND AGENCIES BY USING PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FORCE FOR GOOD.

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Digitizing William Henry Jackson’s Work for National Park Services

Digitizing William Henry Jackson’s Work for National Park Services

Federal Contracting in Nebraska:

Digitizing the Work of William Henry Jackson

 

 

 

Our assignment from the National Park Services: digitally archive the paintings and sketches of William Henry Jackson. 

William Henry Jackson’s images of Yellowstone, the Colorado Rockies, the native cultures of the Southwest and of the great geological survey teams of the period make up the largest and most significant body of American landscape photographs sent down to us through history.

We were hired by the Department of the Interior to digitize hundreds of Jackson’s works. I set up in the place where his collection is held, the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in far western Nebraska. Over one week, I digitized the extensive collection of oil and watercolor paintings, albumin stereoviews, sketches, maps, lithographic prints, pencil drawings, certificates and ink washes.

We spend whatever time it takes to fully research a project before beginning it, and for me that meant getting ahold of an out-of-print copy of “The Pioneer Photographer”, Bob Blair’s expanded edition of Jackson’s diaries and letters. One hundred sixty of Jackson’s images illustrate a narrative of the expanding American West of the 1860s and 70s, and a still-young American nation. It was an important asset in preparing for the digitizing process.

A painting of horses and a covered wagon crossing the mountains of Oregon

Blue Mountains, Oregon. Watercolor, William Henry Jackson

By the time I got to Nebraska, I was a fan. I’d read the colorful stories attached to the creation of the paintings. And so it was slightly disorienting to spend so much time with the paintings themselves.  Here was the sketch of the mule who spied on the artist as he painted. Here was the great oil painting of the Holy Cross, a rock formation in the mountains (Jackson was disappointed with his foreground work, and so repainted over it). Here were the black-and-white photographs of mountains and canyons, never previously photographed but taken at such risk and difficulty for the surveying team.

A highlight of this trip, for me, was exploring the land around the two national monuments, Scotts Bluff and Agate Fossil Beds. Because it’s possible today to explore the exact locations where Jackson had created his images, I wandered the Scotts Bluff area, trying to match up the painted images with the landscape as it appears today.

 

A painting of the American Plains, showing a tepee, horses, encampments, and covered wagons crossing the flat landscape

“Because the transcontinental railroad had not bridged the Western United States, the Oregon Trail was still teeming with activity as Jackson headed west, fording the South Platte near Julesburg, Colorado, in 1866. The river, more than half a mile wide, was filled from bank to bank with teams.” — from The Pioneer Photographer

 

photo of workroom showing process of still photography of artwork

Digitizing William Henry Jackson’s collection, held in Agate Fossil National Monument. Harrison, Nebraska.

 

Always one of the main attractions: hiking after the work is done.

a canyon at the end of the day in Nebraska

Smiley Canyon, Nebraska.

Get in Touch

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Allman Environmental Services Photography is ready for and experienced in Federal contracting. Get in touch to see how teaming with AESP on your next Federal contract can help you meet your diversity and documentation goals. 

We are based in the Northeast and work anywhere in the United States.

 

  • CERTIFIED: SBA-certified WOSB, New York State- and City-certified WBE, and Port Authority certified DBE
  • REGISTERED: SAM & ORCA. Experienced in Federal Government contracting.
  • DUNS: 839898728.
  • FEIN: 84-2603642
  • OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 certified.
  • FAA Part 107 licensed.
  • We accept all government agency purchase orders and credit cards.

 

145 NEPERAN ROAD, TARRYTOWN, NY 10591

 

 

CONTACT

 

SERVING ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICE INDUSTRIES, ENGINEERS AND AGENCIES BY USING PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FORCE FOR GOOD.

Qualify Us Now! ProView

The Places We Go: Wadhams

The Places We Go: Wadhams

 

Wadhams, New York, in Essex County

 

 

 

Funny name, lovely landscape in this out-of-the-way corner of New York State. 

In a tucked-away corner of northern New York State, we delivered progress photography and videography (including aerials) for a water treatment project in Wadhams, a former mill town on the banks of the Boquet River. I’m always happy to do small projects like this one, especially when they lead to old-school or historic places I’d never find by accident. 

Not much there, not even the small-town basics. But the going up there is pretty, ambling along valleys between the Adirondack foothills and Lake Champlain. And if you’re there on any day except Monday and Tuesday, you can stop in at the Dogwood Bread Company — an oasis of conviviality, warm bread and fine cups of coffee.

Allman Environmental Services Photography provides progress photography and videography services (including aerial) to environmental projects of any scale and anywhere in the United States. We love the jobs that are challenging, out of the way or in difficult terrain. We’d love to hear about your project.