Above: Morning briefing for firefighters on the Wildomar Fire, October 27, 2017. USFS photo.
(Originally published at 12:24 p.m. PDT October 27, 2017)
According to the U.S. Forest Service Friday morning the Wildomar Fire south of Lake Elsinore in California has grown to approximately 700 acres. It was reported at 12:32 p.m. Thursday in the Wildomar Off Highway Vehicle area in the Cleveland National Forest west of the community of Wildomar.
The weather is warm and dry in the higher elevations where it is burning at 2,600′. At 9:20 a.m. Friday the El Cariso weather station 5 miles to the northwest recorded 80 degrees, 15 percent relative humidity, and a 7 mph NNE wind. But east of the fire the terrain drops 1,400′ to the Elsinore Valley where at 8:49 Friday morning it was 57 degrees, 60 percent relative humidity, and no wind.
Friday’s forecast for the higher elevation is for 88 degrees, 11 percent relative humidity, and northwest to north winds of 9 mph. Saturday should be about the same.
The photo above of the Friday morning briefing showed an active smoke column not long after sunrise.
On Thursday the USFS and CAL FIRE fought the fire aggressively with hand crews, engines, helicopters, and air tankers including one of the DC-10 Very Large Air Tankers.
The time-lapse video below shows the fire from about 14 miles to the southeast. It was shot by a camera at the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve, from its ignition time at around 1 p.m. Thursday, overnight, and into the morning of Friday October 27, 2017.
N472NA is one of Neptune’s BAE-146’s showing in the bottom right corner. Also, N429DF is a Forest Service OV-10A (south of fire).
Interesting what we miss and radar picks-up. A TBM (ghost tanker) approaching the 215 north of the 15, spooky.