Above: The Suomi Joint Polar Satellite System captured this photo of smoke from bush fires in New South Wales, Australia, November 8, 2019. The red areas represent heat.
Large, rapidly spreading bushfires that swept through areas in Australia Friday are being described as “unprecedented”. Saturday morning, local time, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) said at least 100 homes have recently burned in 42 fires that are still uncontained across the state. More than 30 people have been injured.
Saturday morning the NWS RFS said, “Fire activity has eased across some firegrounds. Nine fires are now at Emergency Warning and nine are at Watch and Act. We are still seeing erratic and dangerous fire behaviour across the remainder of fire grounds, which continues to pose a threat to homes.”
Queensland is also experiencing fires. Evacuation notices were issued Friday night for Lower Beechmont in the Gold Coast hinterland, Noosa North, and Thornton, west of Brisbane.
The fire destroyed over 1,600 structures and burned nearly 97,000 acres north of Malibu, California
Above: A CL-415 super scooper air tanker drops water on the second day of the Woolsey Fire, November 9, 2019. stonebrookphotography
When the Woolsey Fire started at about 2 p.m. on November 8, 2018 the humidity was five percent and the wind was gusting out of the north and northeast at 40 to 50 mph. At 5:15 the next morning it jumped the 12-lane 101 freeway and before noon ran for another six miles to the Pacific Ocean, a distance of about 15 miles from the point where it started 22 hours before.
It ignited in Woolsey Canyon on the Santa Susana Field Laboratory property, a complex of industrial facilities owned by Boeing above the Simi Valley near the Los Angeles/Ventura county line in southern California.
Two other major fires had already started earlier that day, drawing some of the firefighting resources that could have been used on the Woolsey Fire. The Camp Fire started early that morning wiping out much of Paradise in northern California before noon. Then the Hill Fire ignited at about 1 p.m. south of Thousand Oaks 13 miles southwest of where the Woolsey Fire began an hour later. The Hill Fire eventually burned over 4,500 acres and required the evacuation of 17,000 residents.
An After Action Review released in October by Los Angeles County listed some of the issues that affected the management and suppression of the Woolsey Fire that destroyed over 1,600 structures and burned nearly 97,000 acres.
Progression map of the Woolsey Fire, November 17, 2018. Perimeters produced by the Incident Management Team. Adapted by Wildfire Today.
The fire has burned 2,534 acres 21 miles southwest of Red Bluff, Calif.
Map of the Ranch Fire November 8, 2019. CAL FIRE map cropped by Wildfire Today.
10:58 a.m. PST November 8, 2019
Firefighters working on the Ranch Fire have completed a control line around almost half of the perimeter (see map above). Satellites have not detected very many large sources of heat on the western three-quarters of the incident for a couple of days.
The fire is 21 miles southwest of Red Bluff, California and one mile east of the Mendocino National Forest.
Evacuations are still in effect along Colyear Springs Road from Red Bank Road to the Mendocino National Forest Boundary.
CAL FIRE reports that the fire has burned 2,534 acres, which is a reduction from 3,768 acres due to more accurate mapping.
Resources assigned to the fire include 65 fire engines, 10 water tenders, 36 hand crews, 5 helicopters, and 13 dozers for a total of 1,123 personnel.
Two strike teams—Team 3 from Linn County & Team 10 from Clackamas County, who have been at the 3,768-acre #RanchFire near Red Bluff, California—have been demobilized & are returning to Oregon today. @OSFMpic.twitter.com/ODpfh5G1IN
#USFS has 366 people (firefighters, handcrews, pilots) and 35 resources (aircraft, engines, dozers) actively assisting our local and county partners with ongoing fires. We’re ready to add 632 people and 53 resources if needed. #OneTeamOneFight#CaliforniaWildfirespic.twitter.com/Vj5D6rGEjQ
Overnight photos from our crews on the #RanchFire. They are doing well & working hard as they work the fireline. They are working with another Cal Fire strike team as they hold a line at the creek bottom & chase spot fires throughout the night. pic.twitter.com/pyOnVYJehw
The Energy Release Component is at or above record levels in some areas of the state
The Energy Release Component (or flammability) of the vegetation in the Central Sierra area is the highest recorded for this time of the year. (Click to enlarge)
The forests and brush lands of many areas of California are ready to burn. The effects of precipitation received in the winter and spring have been negated by relentless warm, dry, and occasionally very windy weather. The recent Kincade and Maria Fires were examples of wildfire potential during strong winds.
The Energy Release Component (ERC) is a measure of the heat produced within the flaming front of a vegetation fire and is largely influenced by the moisture in the live and dead fuels. In other words, it reflects the flammability of the vegetation. The weather in the last few months in California has resulted in many areas having record or nearly record high ERCs in recent days, including the Southern Mountains, Bay Marine, Central Coast, South Coast, Central Sierra, and Santa Cruz Mountains.
The data in these ERC charts shows the most current levels being above the 97th percentile for any date and close to or above the maximum ever recorded on November 5. (Charts for more areas in California)
The Energy Release Component (or flammability) of the vegetation in the Southern California Mountains is the highest ever recorded for this time of the year.
One thing that is striking about this information is the ERC in the Central Sierra, an area where the wildfire danger usually drops quickly after September. The conditions we are seeing now are similar to or perhaps more extreme than in 2017 and 2018 before the Camp, Woolsey, Thomas, and North Bay Fires that combined destroyed over 29,000 structures in October, November, and December.
This is not normal. The fire seasons are longer than they were a couple of decades ago.
The fuel is ready now. The only things lacking are very strong winds and an ignition source.
There are no forecasts for very strong winds within the seven days in California, but wind is difficult to forecast and can sneak up on you. There is a possibility for an off-shore flow around November 15.
The three months with historically the most Santa Ana wind events are November, December, and January. The forecast for California in November is for higher than average temperatures and precipitation that is at or below average.
One-month outlook for probability of precipitation and temperature, made Oct. 31, 2019, valid in November, 2019.
And in what sounds like it is from The Onion, the CEO of PG&E gives advice about refilling refrigerators after they had to be emptied during power shutoffs.
SAN FRANCISCO—With blazes engulfing Sonoma County and smoke-filled skies blanketing much of the Bay Area, officials in California announced Friday they would attempt to mitigate any further spread of wildfires with a mandatory shutoff of oxygen to thousands of the state’s residents. “In order to eliminate factors that could contribute to the fires’ growth, we will cut the flow of oxygen in high-risk areas throughout the northern part of the state,” California Public Utilities Commission president Marybel Batjer told reporters, explaining that the rolling “air-outs” would last 12 hours on average and residents would need to plan accordingly. “If each Californian can learn to make do without oxygen for just a day or two, we could avoid much of the devastation caused by wildfires. We understand this is a hardship, but it is simply too dangerous to allow open oxygen in fire-prone areas. Those requiring emergency supplies of air will be allowed to offset the shortage by cultivating hundreds of plants inside their home.” Batjer later confirmed that oxygen would continue flowing to all businesses deemed vital, including the headquarters of every major tech giant in or around Silicon Valley.
This satire is a takeoff on the fact that in recent weeks Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison cut power to millions of Californians over multiple days to prevent the companies’ dangerous and inadequately maintained infrastructure from starting more wildfires during strong winds. About 1,400 schools serving more than 490,000 students lost power for at least one day during power shut-offs between Oct. 24 and Nov. 1, according to Scott Roark, spokesperson for the California Department of Education.
Noyes: “What do you say to people who just can’t afford to restock their fridges and are losing all this food they’ve had in their households after these shut offs?”
Johnson: “These events can be hard on people, really hard on people, particularly people who have struggles anyways and there are community-based things you can do, food banks, these kind of things. But for us, you know the main thing is we didn’t cause any fires, we didn’t, for these people we didn’t burn down any houses, the Kincade fire is still under investigation, I got that, but one of the things we did was give them the opportunity to actually refill their refrigerator ’cause their house is still there.”
The effects of shutting off the electricity rather than harden their infrastructure has far-reaching repercussions, including traffic lights not working, businesses having to close, difficulty in finding functioning gas stations, air conditioning and heating unavailable, parents looking for child care when schools close, and many others.
Some cell phone systems do not have robust emergency power supplies, in fact some have none because the FCC does not require it. This can make the situation even worse for those without land lines who can’t call 911 for emergencies or receive evacuation notifications when endangered by a wildfire. It also makes it impossible for cell phones to receive earthquake warnings from the system that is being rolled out in California. In Marin County 57 percent of cell towers were down on October 28, for example.
The severe Diablo winds and fire weather in Northern California last month further proved how fragile our phone networks can be in a long, persistent power outage: 57% of cell towers in Marin County were down; Sonoma County saw 27% of them out; Napa, 19%. https://t.co/7ZZfZaw3PPpic.twitter.com/hi3ziSDBAl
This video shows the physical fitness test, WFX-FIT, used to evaluate wildland firefighters in Alberta, Canada.
This physical fitness test looks a hellofa lot more suited to test wildland firefighters than the Pack Test used by Fed agencies in the U.S. (And don’t get me started on the Step Test that was used a couple of decades ago) https://t.co/cn1q3Z8bcD
The Pack Test version of the Work Capacity Test and the Step Test used by the Federal agencies in the United States basically measure how fast you can walk and how low you can keep your pulse rate, respectively. The Step Test was replaced by the Work Capacity Test.
The WFX-FIT used in some areas of Canada, which first saw widespread use in 2012, is described as “a valid job-related physical performance standard used to determine whether an individual possesses the physical capabilities necessary to meet the rigorous demands encountered while fighting wildland fires.” Here is a link to more information about the test.
