An anonymous donor has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can provide information leading to an arrest of the person who started the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The fire started June 23, killed two people and destroyed about 346 homes.
Investigators have not released information about how the fire started, except to say it was not ignited by lightning, which means it was human-caused.
In a presentation about economic warfare within the United States, William Scott introduced the hypothesis that the Waldo Canyon Fire may have been started by al Qaeda terrorists. You can see his talk HERE; he begins speaking about this fire at about 3:30.
The map above is an example of how the the Waldo Canyon fire spread into the Flying W Ranch area of Colorado Springs on Tuesday, June 26.
One of the fires in central Washington. Photo by Kittitas Fire District
The Table Mountain Complex of fires tripled in size Wednesday and Wednesday night, growing from 9,500 acres to 30,434 acres, according to Bob Redling, an Information Officer for the fire which is burning in central Washington 11 miles east of Cle Elum. Usually firefighters can expect the relative humidity (RH) to increase substantially at night, slowing the spread of a fire significantly. However, the RH recorded at the Dry Creek weather station 26 miles north of the fire measured a low of 9 percent Wednesday afternoon that only went up to a high of 29 percent early Thursday morning. Even though the winds were moderate and in the single digits, the fire still added over 20,000 acres.
There are unconfirmed reports that on Wednesday the convection column of smoke went up to over 40,000 feet and carried 8-inch pieces of burning bark 6 to 7 miles away, falling near the Mission Ridge Ski Area.
Around 161 residences have been evacuated and at least one cabin has been destroyed by the fire.
KOMO photo
There are four large fires in the complex and firefighters are now managing them as one, since they expect them all to burn together soon. As you can see in the map below, the Table Mountain Complex of fires is very close to the Yakima Complex to the south and the Wenatchee Complex to the north.
Map of Table Mountain, Yakima, and Wenatchee fires, 10:33 a.m. MT September 20, 2012. The red and yellow areas are the most recently burned. (click to enlarge)
Most of these fires started from a major lightning storm on September 8 when over 3,000 strikes were recorded. There are approximately 95 fires in the Yakima Complex, according to information on Inciweb.
The video below has more information about the fires in the area.
A BAe-146 air tanker makes a drop on the Karney Fire northeast of Boise. (Inciweb photo)
The Karney fire that according to Boise County Sheriffs office officials was allegedly set by an 18-year old volunteer firefighter, has burned 430 acres 6 miles northeast of Boise, Idaho. The fire is about a mile west of the community of Robie Creek and is being managed by a Type 2 incident management team led by Incident Commander Mike Wilde.
CAL FIRE has installed an infrared (IR) video camera in one of their OV-10 Bronco Air Tactical Aircraft that can transmit real time live video to battalion chiefs on the ground in the San Diego area. The IR sensors can “see” through smoke to enable the aerial supervision and ground-based personnel to know the location and intensity of the fire. The system even has the capability for firefighters on the ground to control the camera.
The equipment was paid for with two grants of $100,000 each from San Diego Gas and Electric and San Diego County.
I am amazed that this technology has not been available to firefighters for a long time. Local television stations have been streaming live video of fires from helicopters for decades. The people that really need it, firefighters, have only recently started to have access to it.
The Firewatch Cobra helicopters that the USFS is experimenting with also has infrared capabilities and can stream video to a specially outfitted van that follows the helicopter around.
The camera would be part of a “next generation incident command system” providing data on where people and equipment are deployed, a technology that would also provide greater safety and situational awareness for firefighters.
UPDATE September 20, 2012: Below is a video that illustrates the new system:
Putting real time aerial IR images into the hands of Battalion Chiefs that are in a remote area actively engaged in suppressing a fire, is huge. Huge. It adds a whole new level of situational awareness. This could save lives of both firefighters and residents that might be endangered by the fire. $200,000 for this? If it performs like it sounds like it can, that is a cheap price for something so valuable. I wonder if it could have saved the lives of the five firefighters that died on the Esperanza fire? If a Division Supervisor or Branch Director had known where Engine 57 was in relation to the fire that day in 2006, I am convinced it would have made a difference. A $200,000 piece of equipment might have saved their lives.
