9:01 a.m. PDT August 6, 2021
Most of area where the Dixie Fire has been burning has not been visited by fire within the last 40 years. There are roughly 100,000 acres of the 430,000-acre blaze that did burn in several fires between 2008 and 2012. This is the area in the center of the present footprint, that burned in the two to three weeks after it started July 14. Since then it has been spreading more quickly in very old vegetation.
To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Dixie Fire, including the most recent, click HERE.
Generally the predominate wind direction is from the southwest, but wind events can come from other directions that can cause major growth. Thursday night the Dixie Fire was 13 miles southwest of Susanville, population about 15,000, but there are a number of old burns near the city that could slow the fire if it makes it that far. Closest to Susanville are two large fires from 2020, Sheep and Hog. Between them is the 2016 Willard Fire.
Update 7:44 a.m. PDT August 7, 2012
I added this map that shows the history of fires in the area of the Dixie Fire before 1980. It is unknown how complete this data from NIFC is, or how far back in time it goes.
I moved out of Colorado. The area by grand lake that burned last year was very very thick timber that was 96 % dead. I used to pound my pillow at night. WHY cannot they made fire lines or do something ? WHY . Thats denvers water supply. When you have 100 % of a snow storm coming in. And its close. Light a section. Beatle kill is moving into Estes Park now. But we had a hard freeze 2 October’s in a row that will slow the advance.
I added a map that shows the history of fires in the area of the Dixie Fire before 1980. It is unknown how complete this data from NIFC is, or how far back in time it goes.
I’d like to hear more about snags acting as lightning rods. I worked in fire suppression for 31 years and can’t remember ever being on initial attack on a lightning fire and seeing a snag that was struck by lightning. I have seen lots of green trees that were struck though.
As far as IMETs out on the line. I worked as an FBAN for 26 years and always asked the IMETs I worked with if they wanted to go out on the line with me. Most did. I had one IMET tell me not to take any photos with him in the photo because the National Weather Service thought it was too dangerous out there and told them not to go to the line.
Wellll TJ
I know how that NWS IMET feels…some Agencies are like that. It takes some education to have folks understand what field operations are when they haven’t been exposed to the true and dynamic changes in the wildland fire environment…Kudos to his explanation and kudos to the Agency who had the cajones to see what the value of letting that IMET move with the times and the Earth…………….
It is symbiotic. The IMET wants to learn from the FBAN and vice versa. Great teamwork with people from different teams!
The Smokey Bear fiasco was the worst thing for our wildlands. It was initially for prevention of “man caused” fires then morphed into all fires.
And because of it and the obvious mismanagement of our Federal wildlands, it’s safe to say that our forests have become dead, dying, decadent, disease, and insect infested, fuel loaded time bombs.
so has all the decades of logging that has destroyed most of our old growth forests.
The fires in California in the last 2 years have destroyed hundreds of times what logging ever did and the next fires will be even worse if we don’ start cleaning up the dead wood. These fires in Old growth mixed conifer forests tended to burn the old growth forest and leave the plantations. There are numerous examples.
When I first started clearing the land around my house in Oregon, I kept an informal tally of the weight of the loads as I hauled them & burned them.
I counted 32,000+ pounds in the acre around the house (of dry combustible fuel).
In the raw forest up the hill an 1/8 mile, 100,000 pounds +, per acre.
When I walk up there (the top of the hill, 1/2 mile up) I feel like an ant touring a nuclear bomb.
There is SO MUCH dry dead wood.
It seems like there couldn’t be more, anywhere.
And I remind myself, well 200 miles isn’t much geographically. What I am seeing is possibly similar to what is burning in Lassen right now.
I did the calculations to compare the fuel load to a Hiroshima size Atom bomb, 15,000 tons of dynamite equivalent. It worked out to {approximately} 2 square miles if the fuel loading is 100,000 pounds per acre.
Admittedly, slower burning.
It seems like such a shame that that energy is burned without doing anything except raising CO2 levels.
Maybe they ought to changes rules a little on what trees locals can fell for fire wood? That could help thin out the areas around our rural towns and properties.
Good Christ
We were doing that on USFWS lands in the 1990s after RX burns.
Get a permit for $30 and come and get as much wood as on could haul
What is so hard about this program? Oh wait new Forestry types are toooo busy in the office to go monitor these types of operation to get these snags that were “meant to back to the soil” off the forest floor
Yep, Forestry Operations of the old days ought to back in force…anything on the ground that potential fuels is either harvested as home heating or sent to facilities to be reduced to wood chips or in cases facilities that support heating and a/c with wood that could be used rather than sitting for years waiting for conflagrations and start by enforcing all cleaning up of wood after harvesting or wind blowdowns.
Labor intensive? Yes…but what is billions in firefighting?
You’ve answered Agencies age old question that they are STILL seeking answers for
27 years of seeing fire come out of the wilderness and destroy everything. Been retired for four years and been all over the US like the Wallow Fire got there and it was 3500 acres in the wilderness when I left it was 500,000 acres. My position was Structure Group what a mess when they could of put it out sooner.
So 40 years ago what would a natural fire have done in comparison to the Dixie? Certainly it would not have been as aggressive nor all-consuming. Might it have eventually extinguished naturally, consuming a fraction of what Dixie has? In hindsight, how many natural starts were there in the region over the last 40 years? And earlier on, what sort of ongoing mosaic of burns would we have now were not all starts immediately extinguished that might be a limiting factor to fire growth, explosive growth at least? All of this is moot. LR
Lone Ranger, not so sure that 40 years ago it would have been much different under the same climatic conditions. For example, the 1933 Tillamook Fire in western Oregon, burned very large (350,000 acres) and very hot. Large, high-severity fires have occurred historically in both Oregon and California forests whenever the weather/climate conditions have all lined up to allow it.
Thank you Richard. I think we’re pretty much in agreement that my childhood friend, Smokey Bear, really messed things up? Of course big fires have always been around, Peshtigo for instance but I’d guess, historically, the general wildfire regime permitted fires to naturally extinguish at much smaller acreages than we see in the fires of the last few decades. Fire science and technology has come an exponential distance since its infancy in the late 60s/early 70s(?) when I attended university. Were there any Wildfire Science curricula back then? Anyway…. it is so frustrating to see a fire gain momentum as we are seeing more frequently. Climate change being a reality, we now have the opportunity to watch intact biomes dissected by wildfire, accelerating their disappearance/evolution, extirpation of a multitude of species, extinction of some. It is difficult to see any farther than my lifetime, perhaps my father’s. From this short-term perspective the loss of our environment is tragic to the Nth degree. But Mother Earth is resilient, perhaps not from the impact of humanity. LR
@ Richard Halsey That may be the most informative information on this topic I have seen. Thank you for the data.
Hi Bill. Below is the link to a map of the Dixie Fire perimeter by my colleague Bryant Baker showing not just past wildfires, but all the logging activity, prescribed burns, treatments, etc. The fire has already burned further north than the map shows, but the basic conclusion remains. The attention usually given to when an area last burned often misses the real story which you know – the age of the habitat is not particularly relevant to fire size when we are confronting the new conditions being facilitated by climate change – excessive drought, low humidity, dryness. So the frequent answer to attempt fire risk reduction, habitat clearance, is not particularly successful.
Link to map:
https://static-cdn.edit.site/users-files/3b3fc386c028b07ea44488862bd52900/2021-dixie-fire_management-history_v1.png
Excellent map illustration, Richard. Have you and Bryant got to estimates of burn severity yet? Have you identified differences in severity or behavior that are apparent between say, wilderness and thinned areas, or non-treated previously burned or unburned? That’s quite a mix to look at there.
Hi Kelly. Too early to get reliable data on burn severity. I suspect this fire as well as the Bootleg Fire (which has a similar mix of management/disturbance) will provide some extremely interesting insights. I’ll try to remember to revisit this post when we have the info. The problem I’ve always had with the initial fire severity data is that it is really just measuring green, not mortality. For example, Big Basin Redwood State Park showed a lot of high severity immediately after, but wow, large numbers of those redwoods now look like green bottlebrushes!
Open up the mills that were shut down trying to save the Owls
Many of these monster megafires get started in old burn footprints which greatly increase the intensity and add the fire size until a wind event picks up the crown fire and increase the rate of spread. Many of these old burns have fuel loads in the hundreds of tons/acres of dry rotting wood and old snags that make resistance to control off the scale. Here’s some examples of those fires that started in old burn or very quickly burned into them. Dixie, Monument, McFarlane. Many of he large fires in the past also started in old burns as well including the Carr Fire and Camp Fire. These old burn area also often contain numerous dead snags that act as lightening rods in storms. These are all examples in California bur I’m sure this occurs all over the West.
Which is why such areas should be high priority for fuels projects. Really, if the fuels are 40 years old, that’s 40 years during which work could have been done to reduce the hazard, especially for firefighters who will be working someday in the area, and to think strategically about the location, size, and objectives of the placement of fuels work which will affect the behavior and effects of future wildfire.
Am curious what fuels projects should consist of in this changing environment of invasive fire prone grasses and ever increasing fire indices, year over year ??
Not being argumentative….am truly curious how you rebuild a fire resistant healthy ecosystem after these hot negatives nuke the landscape.
Yes I know there are some mosaic patterns left behind, but after almost 20 years of air attacking, I’ve seen some pretty wasted landscapes..
What worked in the past might not fit the future?
Really good question. With regard to mixed conifer forests, the use of prescribed fire as a thinning agent prior to the wildfire reduces fuel loading, and so wildfire severity, and reduces stand density, and so competition for moisture, which would allow trees a better chance of post fire survival. But after a fire, the presence of mosaics and surviving seed trees is key for recovery; if it is a moonscape, type conversion is assured. So, fuels projects should be targeted where such work can help forests recover, especially to reduce the severity of future wildfires which can degrade the area especially through heavy mortality of both overstory trees and reproduction.
Dead forest, hasn’t burned-40-year forest, burned last-year forest, raked forest, or unraked forest… it is all ready to burn like gun powder. We need a strategic air command style strike force to put all fire-starts out immediately. The forests have become the enemy within us if we allow them to burn during this climate crisis.
Ted – after 40+ years in fire and fuels management, I can say unequivocally that all fires CANNOT be put out immediately, regardless of resources committed to I A. Ain’t gonna happen, so develop a better series of strategic and tactical options.
A strategic air command style strike force would be the “better series of strategic and tactical options” that you suggest. I agree with you, our current way of responding to fire-starts sucks. I am talking about what we have to change to in the very near, urgent future. After 40 years in fire weather, remote sensing and coordinating with emergency managers, I see putting out fire-starts quickly (if not immediately) a very real possibility.
Right on. The Camp Fire 2018 exploded through “snag land”. you cold see the large areas of snag on google before the fire. (hey just curious, are you with Sierra Pacific?)
That’s my son. Same first name. To avoid confusion I often go by Roger and he is Tony.
cool.