News and opinion about wildland fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Wildfire history of California, interactive 
We often hear, “It’s not IF an area will burn, but WHEN”.
Capital Public Radio has developed an interactive map showing the footprints of wildfires that have occurred in California since 1878. You can see all of the fires at once, or individual years, and the map is zoomable. (The map may not display well in all browsers. It seems to work best using Firefox.)
I may or may not have spent too much time looking at these maps.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized8 Comments on 40 fire wildfire detection cameras to be install in the North Bay The cameras can spot a fire soon after it ignites.
Several organizations are cooperating to install a network of cameras in the North Bay area of California that can detect wildfires soon after they start. At a perfect location with a 360° view the near infrared sensors can spot the signature of heat on up to 5,000 square miles, and up to 20,000 square miles at night. If a second camera detects the same heat source or smoke, the triangulation can tell dispatchers the exact location, enabling firefighters to get to the scene quickly.
A supercomputer attached to the network can then model the fire’s spread in 30 seconds to predict where it will be burning in the next several hours.
Recently one of the $2,600 cameras was installed on a hill that overlooks the path of the deadly Tubbs fire that burned into Santa Rosa in 2017.
Below is an excerpt from the Press Democrat:
With support from PG&E, the network plans to cover Sonoma, Mendocino, Napa, Lake and Marin counties with up to 40 such cameras by the end of March.
Thirteen of the pan-tilt-zoom cameras are already operating in the North Bay, with their images available to emergency dispatchers and to the public at alertwildfire.org.
The broader goal is to establish 200 new cameras statewide this year and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget includes funding for 100 more, said Graham Kent, director of the seismological laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, that started the program.
The Sonoma County Water Agency is also supporting the camera installation project.
The AlertWildfire group, a consortium of universities, including Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, Sonoma State University, and Oregon State University will build and maintain the system.
“These cameras will provide us with early fire detection and a level of situational awareness that is critical as we adapt to new wildfire behavior,” Sonoma County Water Agency director and Board of Supervisors Chair James Gore said.
The fire-camera system is built to the specifications of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Seismological Lab’s earthquake monitoring communications network based in their College of Science. It features private high-speed internet connectivity capable of transmitting seismic, environmental and climate data, in addition to the live-streaming high-definition video from the fire cameras.
“These fire camera networks realize their full functionality when a cluster of cameras are deployed in one area and to supply early detection, 911 confirmation, and situational awareness as well as triangulation to locate the fires,” Neal Driscoll, a professor at UC San Diego and co-leader of AlertWildfire, said. “Sonoma County Water Agency’s vision has made the North Bay region the next fire camera cluster.”
Dozens of cameras are already installed and working in Southern California, the Lake Tahoe area, and locations in Nevada.
With the signing of the legislation Friday evening that funds the government for three weeks, the federal land management agencies are preparing to resume normal operations.
Saturday morning the U.S. Forest Service said, “All furloughed federal employees are required to return to work on their next regularly scheduled work day.”
The National Park Service issued a statement Friday: “Following the enactment of the continuing resolution, the National Park Service is preparing to resume regular operations nationwide though the schedule for individual parks may vary depending on staff size and complexity of operations.”
If no agreement is reached for longer term funding, the government will partially shut down again on February 15th.
Furloughed Bison Pour Back Into National Parks After Government Reopens https://t.co/LFt64eDqYN pic.twitter.com/K5s6qVyvAL
— The Onion (@TheOnion) January 25, 2019
On Friday January 25 both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a measure that would reopen the Departments of Agriculture and Interior as well as the other closed agencies, but for only a three-week period. The President signed the bill Friday evening. Hopefully before the three-week period expires, the politicians who are paid to develop a federal budget will do their jobs.
As this was written Friday night, the date the closed agencies will reopen has not been released. The U.S. Forest Service information page about the shutdown has not been revised to reflect the changes, but probably will be soon.
Even with this good news for the unpaid workers, it could be a while before they see their next paycheck. However, back pay for the shutdown period has already be authorized by a recent act of Congress.
Shutdown Story, Chapter 5
Below is the fifth in a series of articles in which we let firefighters and other land management agency employees associated with wildland fire describe in their own words how the partial shutdown of the federal government that began December 22 is affecting them. They all requested to remain anonymous.
Chapter 5, below, has been lightly edited.
This is what we heard from a Bureau of Land Management employee on January 8, 2019:
“It’s affecting me with stress about my finances since I have no clue when the shutdown will end. And I really want get back to work since I was been on Annual Leave on and off during the last two months.
“February and March tend to have a lot of meetings and training in my field which could be impacted since we are not in the office to know about them and make the travel arrangements.“For BLM in Nevada, I know hiring is affected because we can’t pull the lists of applicants or review them. We were able to get the list for one vacant position before the shutdown but now we can’t do anything with it because of the shutdown. The Region 4 Fire Hire has been postponed, which affects another job in my office.”
And on January 23, 2019 we received an update from the same person:
“I will be missing 2nd paycheck on Tuesday. I have pretty much stopped all my spending except for essential (food, medical, bills). I am trying to stay positive, but as it continues that gets harder. However, trying to help keep up the mood of my friends who are also furloughed, does help.
“I’m lucky that I have savings to get me to March but I can’t plan anything past mid-February since I have no clue what my work schedule will be. Overall, I’m just frustrated with the situation and really want to get back to work.”
Another employee, a seasonal, who had been worried about the firefighting job he applied for sent us this:
“I received some paperwork from the agency as well as my tentative selection notice. I’m supposed to be completing my background check this week but the fingerprint kit is being sent to the wrong address and I have no way of contacting anyone to get the issue resolved because of the shutdown. It’s a bit frustrating and I’m starting to be concerned about whether or not I’ll have the opportunity to complete S-131 Advanced Firefighter training this spring.”
All of the shutdown stories can all be found at the tag “shutdown stories.”
@FirePhotoGirl is a professional photographer who documents and reports on emergency incidents, concentrating on fires, usually in Southern California. This video is from the first night of the Camp Fire, which virtually wiped out the town of Paradise in Northern California last fall. Her handle is the same on both Twitter and Instagram.
Extreme heat on Friday in Victoria, Australia combined with strong winds and low humidity caused a bushfire 10 km (6 miles) north of Timbarra to grow from 300 hectares (740 acres) to approximately 10,522 hectares (26,000 acres). Lighting ignited the fire on January 16 and in an odd twist, extreme fire behavior Friday created hundreds of lightning strikes around a massive pyrocumulus cloud that rose to 38,000 feet while igniting additional fires.
The temperature at the top of the cloud was -55°C (-67°F) according to the Victoria Bureau of Meteorology.
Large bushfire in #EastGippsland producing a huge plume of smoke this afternoon stretching over eastern Bass Strait. Check out the satellite picture at https://t.co/9md40P2b4k pic.twitter.com/5ceZV5nf0T
— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) January 25, 2019
Friday evening the weather changed substantially, bringing in cool, moist air that slowed the spread of the fire. Officials say due to the size and difficult topography, it will be weeks before it can be completely contained.
