There are many fires that have occurred this month in Colorado that have similar names.
The Forks:
- West Fork
- East Fork
The Gulches:
- Ward Gulch
- Lime Gulch
- Bull Gulch
The Easts:
- East Peak
- East Fork
The Creeks:
- Brush Creek
- Derby Creek
Can’t we be any more creative than this?
This has GOT to be leading to some confusion, if dispatchers and others write down only part of a name or get it confused with another fire with a similar name. It could be especially annoying for air tanker pilots who fly from fire to fire, sometimes hitting several in a day.
Yes, generally fires are named after a nearby landscape feature, but they don’t have to be, unless a federal agency recently sent out a directive saying they MUST be.
The Chair Rock Fire, which started close to a well known landmark by the same name, had been burning and fought overnight, but when the U.S. Forest Service took it over on the second day, they changed it to Lime Creek. At least Chair Rock did not duplicate any words currently being used in fire names. It is unusual to change the name of a fire. It can lead to even more confusion than having fires with similar names.
Bill – we need a contest: “Best Ever Fire Names of the past 50 Years”. Open nominations for 5-10 days, pick the 10 best (in your opinion) and then put them out for a vote.
In the early 80s we in Northwest Montana got creative with fire names and were informed by the powers that be that were to name fires by geographic features in the proximity only due to the confusion and embarassment in the case of an incident going to court. We had fun with it while it lasted. I concede the point that there can be a great deal of confusion in the names even then due to the same names being used in the same geographical region.
There is now a standard for creating a name for wildfire. One we can cannot fires in order 1 thru 10 ect. and must be political correct. No more name than can offend. The standards came out a couple of years and if the name did agree with the highers up it would not be allow to be submitted on a 109 or WFMI. Even a geographic could offend. One must be careful these days.
DUH? Use unique alphabetic names each year:
alpha, beta, delta, gamma – etc
able, baker, charlie, dog, edward – etc
alice, betty, charlene, dorothy – etc
Ever hear of tropical storm – hurricane naming system?
Dennis, there are too many wildfires to use alphbeta name. I guess several hundreds fires (maybe thousand) start in one geographic area every year and all of them need name before they become well-known fire.
In 2012 there 67,744 wildfires reported up to NIFC.
http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html
Scroll down to the 80’s and you will see some years with well over 100,000 fires. I think there was a change in what gets reported up to NIFC.
I know many of our local fires that do not have a Fed or State agency response don’t make it into the NIFC reporting system at all.
Along with the fire name is the Incident Number. In the case of the West Fork Complex the Incident # is CO-SJF-000232. CO = Colorado SJF = San Juan NF. The 232 does not mean the 232nd fire for the San Juan NF. There are other local protocols that determine that number. The West Fork Complex now is made up of 3 fires (Windy Pass and Papoose) each one with its own Incident #.
http://rockyags.cr.usgs.gov/rmirs/
Most of us will be better able to communicate calling it West Fork Complex vs CO SJF 000232.
I can vouch for those thoughts from the general public. I’m not involved in fire-fighting in any way but I keep track of fires because of respiratory problems. I was talking to my husband the other day about how concerned I was about what I was hearing about the ‘east fork’ fire, thinking it was up the road from us, just east of where the ‘north fork’ fire had been last year. Turns out I had the wrong fire, thank goodness, but it’s very confusing….
“FLmoose → (Facepalm)”
Lol, here you go…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg
OCR
RedJeep… Are you serious about the Lion Gulch/Lime Gulch thing? That might be worthy of a #head-desk! We need a better naming system!
yep, there aren’t any LIMES in this part of Colorado, but plenty of mountain LIONS! I got my info directly from the first local responding agency, the North Fork Volunteer Fire Department. They were the ones who gave it the original CHAIR ROCK name, which is a geological feature in the same area.
Ahhhh…. But there’s is a Lion’s Gulch just outside Estes Park which is NOT where the Lime Creek/Lion Gulch/Chair Rock fire is. Chair Rock is most specific and makes the most sense. Really – who does name these things?
Was just discussing the East Fork fire on Facebook with a friend that that lives in Ridgeway. Someone who lives/works in the general area (Blue Mesa) chimed in that I was an idiot and obviously knew nothing about geography since the East PEAK fire is in an entirely different part of the state. (Facepalm) I know the fire is on the “East Fork” of the Cimmaron River, but couldn’t they have called it the Cimmaron Fire or the Sheep Mountain fire or even the Silver Jack fire to avoid the confusion?
As a private citizen who has a lousy memory and who isn’t a fire fighter or policeman, I agree. It’s hard for me to keep the names straight. Is the West Fork wildfire the one near Walsenburg or the one near Denver? Oh, yeah, it’s neither.
Most people will understand a nearby city or county name. How about “El Paso A2013” for the first fire to start in El Paso County in 2013? Then drop the 2013 for most conversations, and it becomes the El Paso A fire. At least that way I have an idea of where it is without Googling the name.
and to make it even more confusing, the Lime Gulch Fire is in Lion Gulch, but either radio static or a typo made it Lime, and they didn’t want to change it a second time :/
We had a fire called the “Outhouse” fire last year. Even got a picture of the Chief sitting in the namesake of the fire. I had not noticed it until you pointed it out, but I can imagine that it would cause confusion. We tend to give names according to the landowner or a road nearby, or even what caused it such as the Welder fire last year as we have few peaks, fewer gulches and very few creeks.
In my county we had the Mason Gulch Fire (2005) and then, smaller and superimposed on it, the the Mason Fire (2011). Locals call the second one the Biplane Fire, for a reason.