Soldier Basin Fire, southern Arizona

Soldier Basin Fire

We ran across some photos of the Soldier Basin Fire that burned 10,775 acres in southern Arizona six miles north of the U.S./Mexico border near Nogales, Mexico. It started May 17 and by Saturday May 25 had been 75 percent contained and turned over to the Coronado National Forest’s Sierra Vista Ranger District.

Soldier Basin Fire

All of the photos are from InciWeb and are uncredited.

Soldier Basin Fire

Soldier Basin Fire

Soldier Basin Fire

Soldier Basin Fire
Aerial ignition with a Plastic Sphere Dispenser.

Black Hills Color Run

Color Run

I stopped by the Black Hills Color Fun Run today. These runs are becoming popular around the country. It is not a race and there are no official winners or official times — it is focused on “fun, positive energy, and promoting healthy living for the whole family”. The registration fees from the event today will go toward the Hot Springs Youth Water Park.

The runners and walkers get sprayed with a washable paint-like liquid, usually out of super soakers. At the 5K event today they were sprayed with a different color at each kilometer mark and at the finish.

Color Run

These next photos are before and after pairs. The first in each pair was taken after the 1 kilometer spraying and the next is the same folks at the finish line, 5 kilometers later.

Color Run

Color Run

Color Run

Color Run
Continue reading “Black Hills Color Run”

Prescribed fire escapes in California State Park

San Felipe Fire
San Felipe Fire as seen from Mt. Laguna at 9:50 a.m. PT, May 5, 2013 (click to enlarge)

(UPDATE at 7:18 a.m. PT, May 26, 2013)

CAL FIRE is reporting the fire has burned 2,650 acres and is 90 percent contained. Resources assigned include 612 personnel, 50 engines, 23 hand crews, 6 dozers and 11 water tenders.

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(UPDATE at 12:19 p.m. PT, May 25, 2012)

After overnight GPS mapping, the fire is now listed at 1,800 acres and 70 percent containment.

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(UPDATE at 5:30 p.m. PT, May 24, 2013)

The incident commander of the San Felipe fire northeast of Julian, California is calling it 1,850 acres and 70 percent contained.

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(UPDATE at 3:27 p.m. PT, May 24, 2013)

The images from the Mt. Laguna camera show that the San Felipe Fire is not putting up as much smoke as it was earlier today. CAL FIRE, in a 2:30 p.m. update, reports that it has grown to 1,800 acres and is still 60 percent contained.

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(Originally published at 10:25 a.m. PT, May 24, 2013)

A prescribed fire in Anza Borrego Desert State Park 4 miles northeast of Julian, California got away from firefighters around noon on Thursday. A change in the wind direction is being blamed for the escape, now named  the San Felipe Fire, that as of Thursday evening had burned 1,500 acres and was 60 percent contained.

The Ramona Sentinel reported that CAL FIRE conducted the prescribed fire.

Map of San Felipe Fire Anza Borrego
Map showing the approximate location of San Felipe Fire, heat detected by a satellite at 10:35 p.m. PT, May 23, 2013 (click to enlarge)

As of 6:15 p.m. on Thursday the resources assigned to the San Felipe Fire included 644 personnel, 65 engines, 24 hand crews, 5 air tankers, 7 helicopters, 5 dozers, and 13 water tenders.

An animation of still photos taken from Mt. Laguna Thursday afternoon is available HERE. A window may pop up outside of your browser. It will take a while to load, and it may not work in the Chrome browser.

The latest still image is available HERE.

The fire is in the same general location as the Vallecito Lightning Complex of fires that burned more than 15,000 acres in August.

USFS tries out UAV for studying fires

UAV view of fire
The view of a prescribed fire from the hexacopter

The U.S. Forest Service is experimenting with a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for studying smoke generated by fires. The six-rotor hexacopter can carry a five-pound payload and the onboard GPS enables it to hover in one spot or follow a predetermined flight path.

“We first took a test flight in a field near the University of Georgia,” says Scott Goodrick, project leader of the Forest Service Southern Research Station Center for Forest Disturbance Science. “Then a friend told me he was doing a prescribed burn on his pasture, so we took it out there to see how it would perform. We’re very impressed with how easy it is to maneuver the hexacopter.”

“For now we’re just using the camera, which provides very good images,” says Goodrick. “Eventually we’ll add an infrared camera so that we can measure different aspects of fire from overhead, as well instruments to measure weather variables and particulate matter in smoke from fire. At some point, we’ll be able to measure what happens to vegetation after a fire and compare this to the data taken by satellites.”

Here are links to two recent articles about the use of drones to monitor wildfires, in Popular Science and the New York Times.

Forest Service Chief could override air tanker protest

In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chief of the Forest Service Tom Tidwell said he has the authority to override the protest filed by Neptune Aviation for being passed over in the awards for next-generation air tankers. Chief Tidwell said he will make a decision within the next couple of weeks.

He also said the USFS hopes to obtain the C-27J aircraft that the Air Force may decide to declare surplus, and the agency would outfit them with scaled down versions of the Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) retardant tank systems that are used in military C-130s, rather than conventional gravity-powered tanks.

More information is at Fire Aviation: