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Nov 15, 2024 | 
wheatlife.org | Jennifer Ferrero |Anthony Smith |Curtis Evanenko |Trista Crossley
Crop rotations date back thousands of years. Back then, farmers may not have understood the science behind rotating crops on the same land from season to season, but they used it in practice for crop production. Since then, science and experience have expanded our agricultural knowledge exponentially. Modern-day farms in Washington state still use crop rotations contingent on location, weather, weeds, disease, and water. Crop rotation has many objectives in mind.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
airmedandrescue.com | Jennifer Ferrero
Worldwide, there has been an increase in wildfires and a decrease in the number of firefighters, especially volunteers. Wildland fire activity has increased over the years and is often attributed to climate change with increased heat and decreased forested vegetation management. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, conducts daily incident reports for the USA.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
airmedandrescue.com | Jennifer Ferrero
Films about underwater entrapment have dazzled cinema audiences for decades. In Hollywood, the underwater rescue business is big, from a commercial airliner landing on the Hudson River at the helm of Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger to rescues with submerged cars, boats, ships, and even submarines. In the case of helicopters or float plane crashes over and into water, preparedness is necessary outside of film story arcs.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
wheatlife.org | Jennifer Ferrero |Anthony Smith |David Kohl
Nitrogen is all around us. It is a colorless and odorless gas converted into a fertilizer for food production. Are nitrogen fertilizers helpful or harmful? How and when can it be applied to make the most impact in an ever-changing farming landscape? I turned to the insights of two seasoned farmers, Jack DeWitt and Jim Kent, who have cultivated the land in Eastern Washington and Northeast Oregon for decades.
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Aug 1, 2024 | 
airmedandrescue.com | Jennifer Ferrero
According to the US Coast Guard’s Recreational Boating Statistics, the five primary accident types in 2023 were: collision with a recreational vessel, collision with a fixed object, flooding/swamping, grounding, and capsizing. A small percentage of those in an accident were wearing life jackets. The number one vessel type with the highest casualties was an open motorboat, followed by personal watercraft, and accidents were often due to inattention and inexperience.
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May 30, 2024 | 
airmedandrescue.com | Jennifer Ferrero
Understanding and mitigating risk are mission-critical for pilots and crews in search and rescue (SAR) and helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) environments. At day’s end, everyone wants to make it safely home to their family. So how do we mitigate the risks that come with bad weather, darkness, and rugged terrain? There are key similarities between operators, crewmembers, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) regarding the ability to run a safe operation.
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
airmedandrescue.com | Jennifer Ferrero
Firefighting technology in 2024 and beyond comes down to modern technologies in use with collaboration and community. There are iPads, cell phones, high-tech software, and satellites for rapid response; other, more traditional methods are also in play. Various technological approaches exist in a global economy with high-tech and low-tech nations. Some approaches are still rudimentary, and some are highly advanced. The fire risk is ever increasing due to urbanization and climate change factors.
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Mar 15, 2024 | 
wheatlife.org | Jennifer Ferrero |Anthony Smith |Norman Brock
Wheat fields in Washington can be home to many insects, weeds, and diseases. Producing quality food crops requires intervention. Many factors are at play in the realm of safety for humans and the environment, including using insecticides, herbicides, or fungicides. In this article, we refer to all these types of products generally as “pesticides.” It’s a complex picture that affects global crop output from the state and our long-term environment and economy.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
eu1.hubs.ly | Jennifer Ferrero
In an emergency, you can land a helicopter just about anywhere. However, most operators are interested in where they can land legally and safely. For emergency medical operators, landing on hospitals or in a location where you are picking up an injured person means finding a helipad. Chief Pilot Karl Wellfare of Life Flight Network said security and safety are the most critical factors when landing on a helipad: “We land on a lot of different helipads, elevated and ground-based pads.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
airmedandrescue.com | Jennifer Ferrero
In an emergency, you can land a helicopter just about anywhere. However, most operators are interested in where they can land legally and safely. For emergency medical operators, landing on hospitals or in a location where you are picking up an injured person means finding a helipad. Chief Pilot Karl Wellfare of Life Flight Network said security and safety are the most critical factors when landing on a helipad: “We land on a lot of different helipads, elevated and ground-based pads.
