Friday night firefighters were beginning to slow the spread of the Hill fire which had burned 1,100 acres in Cajon Pass east of Los Angeles. The fire, which at times has halted traffic on Interstate 15, is being managed by resources from CAL FIRE and the San Bernardino National Forest.
One firefighter was transported off the fire for a medical emergency. A second firefighter suffered heat exhaustion. Resources on the fire include 72 fire engines, 5 dozers, 5 water tenders, 5 helicopters, 14 airtankers (including the DC-10) and 22 handcrews. A total of 831 people were assigned to the fire.
The Los Angeles Times has a gallery of excellent photos of the fire, such as the one above. Check it out.
Having been on a “few fires” recently (including this one), I have to wonder about the accuracy of the 7-Day, Monthly, and 90-Day products coming out of “predictive services”.
For some reason and somehow, they aren’t taking with the local fire managers nor looking at the true fuel moistures, fire behavior trends, nor actual fire behavior being experienced in areas they are “predicting” for from their city offices.
Instead of using real-time info and fire manager experience, it seems recently that “predictive services” now-a-days only relies on computer models and rainfall data.
IMHO.