The wildfire burned 83,000 acres 15 miles west of Custer, South Dakota
The Black Hills National Forest plans to ignite the 2,700-acre Anti-Horse prescribed fire Wednesday March 11, if the weather is suitable.
“This is scheduled to be a two day burn, however we may burn into Friday March 13th if conditions warrant,” said Josh Morgan, Fuels Assistant Fire Manager Officer, Hell Canyon Ranger District.
The Anti-Horse Project area is located approximately 15 air miles west of Custer, South Dakota and 17 miles east of Newcastle, WY in the Surveyor Hill Road/Jasper Fire area, across from the U.S. Forest Service Tepee Work Center.
The objective of the burn is to reduce long term fire hazards and improve health and vigor of forested stands in portions of the Jasper fire area. In 2000 the 83,000-acre Jasper Fire created extensive areas of dead and dying stands. The dead trees have fallen to the ground, creating high concentrations of fuel on the ground that create a hazard to firefighters, the public, and forest resources.
In 2013 a decision was signed which allows 16,500 acres of fire hazard reduction in the Jasper Fire and the nearby Roger’s Shack Fire. Over the course of about 10 years, prescribed burning is being used to reduce the fire hazard in these areas. In addition, the decision includes about 650 acres of thinning to improve the health and vigor of islands of forest stands within these areas. “Over the next several years we will work on this project to make the area more resilient for the future,” said District Ranger Lynn Kolund when he signed the decision in April, 2013.
The spread of the South Main Fire was stopped by 286 firefighters and 4 aircraft
A prescribed fire on the Cleveland National Forest in southern California escaped the intended project area on March 6 and burned an additional 20 acres. It occurred near the South Main Divide between Lakeland Village and a residential community west of the road.
The spread of the South Main Fire was stopped by 286 firefighters, 3 helicopters, and at least one S-2T air tanker.
A fire in the panhandle has burned over 29,000 ares
(UPDATED at 8:01 p.m. CDT March 8, 2020)
After more accurate mapping the Oklahoma Forestry Services reported Sunday afternoon that the Beaver Fire in Beaver County has burned 29,120 acres and is 50 percent contained. Crews continue to improve fireline and mopup hot spots.
On Saturday Cody Rehder of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol wrote on Twitter, “The town of Beaver is being evacuated at this time. The fire has reached the SW edge of town. Structures are on fire and the HS football field as burned.”
(UPDATED at 12:55 p.m.CST March 8, 2020)
The Beaver fire in the panhandle of Oklahoma is still estimated to be 13,000 acres, but that could change after more accurate mapping is complete. Saturday the Oklahoma Forestry Services responded to 30 new wildfires.
In a Sunday morning update the OFS said, “OFS are over the fire in an [Oklahoma Highway Patrol] aircraft mapping the fire and coordinating with ground resources. Rain chances do enter the southwestern part of the state this afternoon and gradually move east through the state, but going fires from yesterday will remain active.”
(Originally published at 9:37 p.m. CST March 7, 2020)
The 412 Fire in the Oklahoma panhandle has destroyed structures and burned approximately 13,000 acres, the Oklahoma Forestry Services (OFS) announced in an update at about 8 p.m. CST Saturday. At about 7:30 p.m. Saturday the OFS said fire had been at least temporarily stopped at the EW 100 road three miles north of Beaver.
The communities of Beaver and Forgan are under evacuation orders. Firefighters from Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas are battling the fire along with Air Tanker 95, a privately owned S-2 aircraft formerly operated by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The air tanker is under a call when needed arrangement in Kansas, operated by Ag Air Service out of Nikerson, Kansas. The aircraft can carry up to 800 gallons and still has the radial engines, unlike the S-2s operated by CAL FIRE today that have been converted to turbine engines.
There are no details available as to the number of structures that have been destroyed or the locations. Damage assessments are underway.
The area was under a Red Flag Warning on Saturday. Strong winds pushed the fire approximately 14 miles across plains.
The 412 Fire occurs one day after the three-year anniversary of the huge Starbuck Fire that burned half a million acres across Oklahoma and Kansas. State and county officials estimated the fire caused at least $50 million in damages.
The 412 Fire near Beaver was one of 19 wildfires the OFS responded to across the state Saturday.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Matt. Typos or errors, report them HERE.
The results could lead to more accurate models for spotting and fire behavior
Data collected in an Australian study could lead to the development of more accurate predictive models for wildfire behavior and spotting, especially for extreme wildfires.
Burning embers driven ahead of a wildfire can dramatically increase the rate of spread and the danger faced by firefighters and the public. Under moderate burning conditions a small number of spot fires might be suppressed if enough firefighting resources are available, but on large plume-dominated fires pushed by strong winds spot fires far from the main fire can burn together making suppression at the head of the fire impossible. In many cases ember showers have been the primary ignition source for the destruction of structures in the wildland urban interface.
During the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in eucalpyt-dominated forests in Australia the maximum spot fire distances were 30 to 35 km (18 to 22 miles) and during the 1965 wildfires in eastern Victoria were 29 km (18 miles). Spot fires in North America have been documented at distances of up to 19 km (12 miles).
A research paper on spotting distance in Victoria and New South Wales was published earlier this week by the International Journal of Wildland Fire, written by Michael A. Storey, Owen F. Price, Jason J. Sharples, and Ross A. Bradstock, titled “Drivers of long-distance spotting during wildfires in south-eastern Australia.”
The researchers took advantage of the increasing use of airborne mapping technologies on wildfires in Australia, including infrared and multispectral line scanning, to analyze data from 338 observations. (See map above.) They used ArcGIS to manually draw polygons and determine the size of the actively burning areas of the fire, which they called “source fire area”, and measured the distance to spot fires and the size of each. They also collected fuels, weather, and topography information.
Below is an excerpt from the research:
Maximum spot fire distances ranged from 5.0 m to 13.9 km (mean, 0.9 km; 95th percentile, 3.9 km). The mean number of spot fires per source fire (irrespective of distance) was 13. The distribution of maximum distance values appeared exponential, with a high proportion of shorter distances (Fig. 4a). Very long-distance spotting was rare; only 11 source fires had a maximum spotting distance >5 km.
Eleven of the fires had spotting distances more than 5 km (3.1 miles). The longest distance measured to a spot fire was 13.9 km (8.6 miles).
The analysis of 338 wildfire line scan observations found the size of the active area of the source fire to be the strongest predictor of long-distance spotting. Important secondary effects were fuel, weather, and topography.
Excerpts:
Wind speed was important to both Maximum-distance and long-distance Spot-number. Upper-level wind speed had weaker but still significant effects in the models. Wind at different levels can influence many aspects of wildfire behaviour, including plume development, plume turbulence and tilt, fire intensity, vorticity development, firebrand transport and ignition likelihood in receiver fuels.
A steep slope somewhere within the source fire (i.e. source fire max. slope) increased the maximum spot fire distance and the probability of spot fire occurrence >500 m. TRI [Terrain Ruggedness Index] performed similarly but was highly correlated with slope (>0.9), so was not included in the same models. An area of relatively high wind exposure (e.g. exposed ridge) also increased maximum spotting distance. Slope and wind exposure may be important through interactions with wind, changing wind speed, increasing turbulence and potentially enhancing pyroconvection, leading to enhanced firebrand generation and transport.
[W]e did not find a commonly used measure of bark spotting potential to be a significant predictor. Our results suggest that to accurately predict long-distance spotting, models must incorporate a measure of source fire area. Gathering data on spotting and plume development at wildfires over a range of intensities (including measuring intensity and frequent line scans) and improving fuel maps should be prioritised to allow for the development of reliable predictive spotting models.
The fibrous or stringy bark on some eucalyptus species is particularly suited aerodynamically for being lofted in a convection column and traveling for long distances while still burning, and is one of the primary ignition sources for long range spotting in Australia. The bark on North American trees is different, but the methods used by the Australian researchers could be used to collect similar spot fire occurrence data in the United States and Canada which could lead to improved spotting and fire behavior models.
The Two Hollows Fire burned about 2,200 acres of industrial timber land in Pearl River County, Mississippi, approximately nine miles southeast of Poplarville. Jason Scott of the Mississippi Forestry Commission said 22 homes and 18 outbuildings were threatened but all were saved. The MFC responded with 19 employees, one fixed wing aircraft, seven bulldozers, and one drone. Multiple VFDs also responded with six engines and one water tender.
The fire was reported Saturday night, February 28. It took 12 hours to contain, and the Mississippi Forestry Commission monitored the fire for an additional 48 hours.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Fires also detected in eastern OK and southeast MO
At 4:14 p.m. CST on March 5 the GOES 16 satellite detected fires and smoke in Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southeast Missouri. It is difficult to tell if they are wildfires, prescribed fires, or agricultural burning, but most of them appear to in forested areas.
The March 5 prediction for Red Flag Warnings designated areas of enhanced wildfire danger north and northwest of Arkansas.