Wildfire news, July 24, 2011

Eagle fire

The Eagle fire on the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation and the Anza Borrego Desert State Park in northern San Diego County has grown to 11,000 acres. The fire grew by only a few hundred acres today due in part to overcast skies and a relative humidity between 51% and 60%, recorded at the Ranchita RAWS weather station 3.5 miles south of the fire.

National Guard helicopters are assisting with crew shuttles, inserting over 100 firefighters into the remote area west of Borrego Springs, California. Assigned to the fire are 1,120 personnel, 63 engines, 74 hand crews, 19 helicopters, and 8 dozers. Sunday evening the fire was 40% contained.

Eagle fire map
Map showing heat detected by satellites on the Eagle fire at 3:06 p.m. PT, July 24, 2011. MODIS

A Borrego Springs resident posted a few photos of the fire.

Something for your trivia file: the 600,000-acre Anza Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California; and after New York’s Adirondack Park it’s the second largest state park in the contiguous 48 states.

Injured hiker starts signal fire

A 35-year old man hiking near Buckeye, Arizona injured his leg, and becoming dehydrated, set a signal fire hoping someone would find him. Here is an excerpt from KPHO:

The man’s fire was initially spotted by a local farmer who called for help. When deputies arrived they heard the injured hiker calling for help. Firefighters were able to get the man out by foot and to a waiting helicopter that took him to a nearby hospital in Goodyear.

The Buckeye Valley Fire Department was able to put out the brush fire, quickly keeping it to a small area. However, because of the remote area they are keeping an eye on it to make sure it is completely out.

Firefighters said they never recommend starting a fire, but in this case it worked out for the best.

“You got to take what he had. If he did not have a phone or any other way to make contact with anybody and he got to the point where he could not make it out of here himself, yes I would say he did the right thing we found him and got him out,” said Preston Hundley, of the Buckeye Valley Fire Dept.

Single engine air tankers in Arkansas

Air Tanker 494 reloading
A Single Engine Air Tanker is reloaded with water at the Hot Springs Municipal Airport on July 23, 2011. Credit: Arkansas Forestry Commission

The Arkansas Forestry Commission is bringing on two single engine air tankers a week earlier than previously planned due to the heat and a recent drought.

“Arkansas is in drought conditions and fuels are dry, especially across the south half of the state,” said Don McBride, Assistant State Forester-Protection. “Areas in the state have not received any significant rainfall for a couple of months. With the dry conditions and 100 degree temperatures, conditions are very dangerous for our firefighters. We need to do anything possible to slow these wildfires and cool them down to help suppression crews.”

Firefighters discover historic cabin

Lion historic cabin
Historic cabin found on the Lion fire

Firefighters on the Lion fire in California’s Sequoia National Forest discovered an historic cabin Saturday. Here is a news release from the USFS:

Historic Cabin Discovered on Lion Wildfire

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST Helicopter crew members spotted an old cabin in the forest’s wilderness while completing aerial ignitions yesterday.

Crew members halted ignitions and ensured that the cabin was protected from the fire. This cabin was undocumented by forest officials, so this is a special find for the forest.

“It’s exciting to have discovered an historic structure that we were unaware of in this fire response,” said Priscilla Summers, Western Divide District Ranger. “Efforts are underway by forest staff to determine how this cabin fits into the historical story of the area. The forest thanks the firefighters who saw this cabin and made the efforts to protect it from the fire.”

Please visit http://inciweb.org/incident/2400/ for information about the Lion Wildfire.

WhoopUp fire 100% contained

The 10,675-acre WhoopUp fire straddling the Wyoming/South Dakota border is 100% contained as of 7:00 p.m. July 24. Transfer of command to a local Type III organization will take place Monday, July 25th at 7:00 pm.

“I am extremely proud of the work done on the Whoopup Fire,” said Deputy Incident Commander Jay Esperance. “To get to 100 percent containment without injuries or structural loss is due to the hard work achieved by all incident personnel.”
An account of an epic rescue

If you have ever wondered what it’s like to be struck by lighting, check out an article at trib.com about how numerous people were struck by lightning last year on a mountain in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Three groups of climbers, for a total of 17 people, had to be rescued when an unexpected storm moved in. The article is very interesting; here is an excerpt:
Continue reading “Wildfire news, July 24, 2011”

FEMA warns Texans about driving into smoke

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued a news release which includes a statement saying:

Many Texans have lost their lives during severe wildfire seasons because a wildfire overtook them in their vehicles.

The release goes on to advise motorists that they should never drive into dense smoke or they could become a fire fatality. Makes sense, of course, and it’s always good advise.

We are aware of smoke-caused fatalities occurring on highways in other places, including Florida in 2008 and also during the Cedar fire in San Diego County in 2003 when residents were killed while trying to evacuate from the Wildcat Canyon Road area.

File photo of the wreckage from the January 9, 2008 crash on Interstate 4 in Florida caused by smoke from a prescribed fire. The Ledger.

Eagle fire, near Warner Springs, California

UPDATE at 7:57 p.m. PT, July 22, 2011:

At 7:44 p.m. PT the FireWatch helicopter mapped the fire at “3,700 acres plus”.

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7:00 p.m. PT, July 22, 2011:

The Eagle fire in southern California near Warner Springs has quickly grown to become one of the largest fires in southern California so far this year. Burning in northern San Diego County on the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation, by 6:00 p.m. PT Friday it has grown to 2,850 acres. The number of hand crews on the fire matches the number of engines — 25 of each. I doubt if there is any other place in the world where you could get 25 hand crews on a fire in the first 7 hours. Of course, some of those may be ordered but not yet on scene. CalFire is calling it 15% contained.

You can listen to radio traffic from the fire at RadioReference.

Here are two maps showing the location of the Eagle fire.

Eagle fire map
Map showing the location of the Eagle fire, at 1:55 p.m. PT, July 22, 2011. MODIS/Gabbert
Eagle fire map
Map showing the location of the Eagle fire, at 1:55 p.m. PT, July 22, 2011. MODIS

One of the readers of Wildfire Today, “Lone Ranger”, from a vantage point in the desert east of the fire, sent us this information at 6:11 PT today:

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“…The predominant winds have been pushing the fire northeastward into the desert mountains, wilderness, Sheep Canyon Natural Preserve, all day. I’d guess it’s up to around 2000 acres and burning in the rugged peaks and canyons north of San Ysidro Peak and Ranchita.

It started (no lightning) on an eastern part of the Los Coyotes Reservation out of Warner Springs. It moved eastward into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park early this moring and has been burning in the Palm Canyon drainage west of Borrego Springs all day. As best as I can tell it’s been in the bottom of the Middle Fork and likely the North Fork of Palm Canyon and up and down the ridges and peaks in between. A lot of smoke and backing in the burn area of the 2002 Pines Fire but it does get up and moving occassionally in some draws.

Since it’s in the State Park (desert mountains)few resources will be spent other than monitoring I’d guess. It just isn’t going to go anywhere other than taking out some long unburned canyons and ridges north of the Pines Fire burn and lots of beautiful desert wilderness. Some native palm groves, usually quick to recover but in these drought conditions, who knows. Old junipers and mesquites. The bighorn sheep have plenty of room to get out of the way. If will probably burn to the desert floor in Coyote Canyon in a day or so. I’m curious if State Park management will permit it to burn through and beyond (never before!). I’m hoping unfortunate inmates will draw the line there in our lovely summer temps but it would be interesting to break new ground by letting it burn through and across Coyote Canyon, a very prominent desert natural resource. An ecologist’s and State Park powers’ dilemma. I wonder!

The oaks and pines of the Los Coyotes up on top? I’m sure that’s where the forces have been.

No photos of note. Just lots of smoke visible from this desert side but maybe a light show tonight. Surely my swamp cooler will fill my place with the sweet fragrance of smoke as it descends into the Borrego Valley later this evening.

No water drops visible. A very distant CDF Bronco on occassion and perhaps the sound of a very distant bomber. It’s just the biggest fire of the season so far. That’s all.

There’s always the chance of it squirreling around on top and, who knows? Likely, not.”

WhoopUp fire update July 21, 2011

UPDATE at 9:30 p.m. MT, July 21, 2011:

The WhoopUp fire started four days ago on July 17, and late today the incident management team for the first time made a good quality, fairly current, map available to the public. It can be found on InciWeb and clearly shows the controlled and uncontrolled portions of the fire perimeter as of 8:00 a.m. today. It is a great map, but maps like this could have been made available to the public two or three days ago. A Geographic Information System (GIS) specialist can make one of these in a couple of hours after someone flies around the fire with a GPS receiver.

Providing this important information to the public that is affected by the fire is an important responsibility of the fire managers. Ideally, the Situation Unit on a fire would collect the fire perimeter data late in the afternoon near the end of the burning period and the updated map would be available later that night or no later than 7:00 a.m. the next morning. And if the fire team is fully staffed, they could even do this twice a day if the fire is moving rapidly.

InciWeb is the place these maps should be posted, since we have been trained for years that it is the default place, the one common source, for information about large wildfires and other incidents across the United States.  Posting photographs and maps on Flickr and other obscure commercial and government agency sites, like some fires have done over the last month, does not serve the public. And it leads to questions and confusion about copyrights for documents and photos that are in the public domain. Government photos have appeared on Flickr with a copyright warning — for photos that should be in the public domain.

But getting back to the updated information on InciWeb… The new adjusted size is 8,884 acres, down 1,116 acres from the 10,000-acre figure that was on InciWeb around noon today. The acreage figure includes both fires, WhoopUp and Barell. The new map, with data current as of 8:00 a.m. today, shows no completed fireline on the Barrel fire, which is 4 miles south of the WhoopUp fire. Since the main WhoopUp fire appears to be approximately 80-90% contained, the Team was going to shift some resources to the Barrel fire, so maybe they made significant progress on that fire today, making use of the two heavy air tankers and the three heavy helicopters.

In looking at the new map, the Barrel fire appears to be approximately 1,500 acres. The map also shows a fire that is new to me, about a mile northwest of the Barrel fire, perhaps 30-60 acres in size.

Since the Incident Management Team is now beginning to provide some current information to the public on InciWeb, we will cut back on the production of our cobbled-together maps. While they have been fairly accurate, using the best satellite data available, they can’t compare to one made when you have access to a helicopter and a GIS specialist.

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UPDATE at 1:42 p.m. MT, July 21, 2011: According to updated information at InciWeb, the official size of the two fires combined, WhoopUp and Barrell, is now 10,000 acres, an increase of 2,629 acres over the size that was announced this morning. Smoke can be smelled in Hot Springs, SD.

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7:21 a.m. MT, July 21, 2011. We will update this article as needed today.

Evacuations were lifted Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. for the WhoopUp fire, which straddles the border between Wyoming and South Dakota seven miles southeast of Newcastle, Wyoming. The strong winds that were forecast for Wednesday did not materialize, at least at the Red Mountain weather station southeast of the fire. The Barrel fire four miles south of the WhoopUp fire, the result of two fires burning together, is being managed with the WhoopUp fire and has been active over the last 24 hours. It will be the main focus of firefighters on Thursday, Steve Till, a spokesperson for the fire told us.

Numbers:

  • Acres: 7,371, which includes both the WhoopUp and Barrel fires, an increase of 1,827 acres.
  • Containment: 40%, down from 60% yesterday.
  • Helicopters: 3 Type 1 (heavy), and 1 Type 3 (light)
  • Air tankers available: 2
  • Personnel (as of late on Wednesday): 527, an increase of 277 compared to Tuesday (according to the National Incident Management Situation Report). Some demobilization has started.

The weather forecast for the fire area on Thursday predicts 90 degrees, winds out of the southwest and west at 8-14 with gusts up to 16-18, relative humidity of 17%, and 0-12% chance of precipitation.

WhoopUp fire map
Map showing heat detected by satellites on the Whoopup and Barrel fires at 3:00 a.m. MT, July 21 2011. The red areas represent active burning, while the black and yellow areas indicate heat detected within the last 12 or 24 hours respectively. The brown cross-hatched area is the fire perimeter provided by the incident management team at 10:00 p.m. July 19, 2011. MODIS/Bill Gabbert
WhoopUp Fire
Firefighters burn out from a wet line on the WhoopUp fire, July 19, 2011. Photo: Frank Carroll, USFS
WhoopUp Fire
WhoopUp Fire. Unknown date. Photo by Shelia French.

The Rapid City Journal has an excellent gallery of photos of the fire and also a few taken at the air tanker base at Rapid City Regional Airport. The caption on THIS picture is, unfortunately wrong, and should read: “I’ll be glad when they get that busted hose fixed. It’s getting old filling the air tankers with these damn buckets!”

More maps:
Continue reading “WhoopUp fire update July 21, 2011”

Smokejumping photo

parachutes over a fireThis photo on the GreatFallsTribune web site got my attention. The caption reads as follows:

Smokejumpers head for an open landing area during the early stages of last season’s Rat Patch Fire deep in the Missouri River Breaks. BLM PHOTO

I am not certain there are any smokejumpers in the photo — it may be para-cargo. Regardless, unless there is a green meadow or no vegetation in that drop zone, it seems like an odd choice for a place to insert people OR cargo — between two fingers of fire. But, it’s difficult to tell much from the photo.

The picture was attached to an article about the outlook for the wildfire season in Montana. Here is an excerpt:

Above-average precipitation and snowpack that contributed to severe flooding this spring in Montana likely will ease the severity of the wildfire season.

However, the season is beginning to heat up after getting a late start because of wet conditions, according to the Northern Rockies Coordination Center in Missoula.

The center, which coordinates fire resources and predicts severity of the fire season for the region, is forecasting a below-average to average fire season in the Northern Rockies because of the cool, wet spring, coupled with the heavy snowpack.

Moist conditions slowed the usual July 4 beginning of the fire season by two weeks, said Bryan Henry, a predictive service meteorologist for the Northern Rockies Coordination Center.

Wildfires burn about 160,000 acres in a normal year in the Northern Rockies.

“We’re probably looking at that or maybe less,” Henry said.

Wildfire in Israel threatens Holocaust memorial

Israel fire air tanker
One of six air tankers working on the fire in Israel, July 17, 2011. Photo: Yossi Zamir

On Sunday a wildfire on the outskirts of Jerusalem threatened the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial before it was brought under control that evening. The fire came within 40 meters of the facility before it was contained by 50 firefighters and six air tankers.

Here is an excerpt from a report by IsraelNationalNews.com:

A major fire broke out on Sunday in the Jerusalem Forest, near the Har Herzl military cemetery and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial project. Some 150 dunam (37 acres) of forest were destroyed before the blaze was under control and the flames were stoped several hundred meters before reaching the Pi Glilot fuel storage facility.

The fire spread quickly through the woods due to the heat. Eight firefighting squads were working to extinguish the blaze all afternoon. They requested planes to help as well.

As they battled the Jerusalem Forest fire, firefighters were alerted to a second blaze south of the capital, near Tzur Hadassah. Police are investigating a suspicion of arson as the fires are now known to have broken out in five places simultaneously.

Late last week a major forest fire raged in the Golan region in the north for almost 24 hours. The fire burned 10,000 dunams (2,471 acres) of land and caused three women to suffer light injuries from smoke inhalation.

The firefighters made use of six of the seven Air Tractor AT 802 single engine air tankers that they recently put under contract. The government of Israel saw the need for air tankers after the disastrous Carmel fire last December which burned for four days, claimed 44 lives, forced the evacuation of nearly 17,000 people, and consumed 8,650 acres.

Israeli firefighters
Photo: KKL-JNF

 

Thanks go out to Dick