News and opinion about wildland fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Red Flag Warnings, September 1, 2016 
The National Weather Service has posted Red Flag Warnings or Fire Weather Watches for areas in seven states: South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and California.
The Red Flag map was current as of 8:50 a.m. MDT on Thursday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts and maps. For the most current data visit this NWS site.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” That’s the title of a video, all in slow motion, showing firefighters working on the Bybee Creek Fire in Crater Lake National Park.
Squad 21 out of the Fremont-Winema National Forest working on the Bybee Creek Fire in Crater Lake National Park. Video shot and edited by David Corr.
NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, as part of an experimental program (above), has produced a smoke forecast for 5 p.m. on Wednesday, August 31, showing that many areas in the western U.S. are affected by smoke from wildfires.
Below is their forecast for 5 p.m. MDT on Thursday, September 1, 2016.
The last map, below, predicts elevated wildfire danger on September 1 in parts of California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. Isolated dry thunderstorms could be in the cards for areas in Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming.
The Pioneer Fire was very active Monday and Tuesday.
Above: Pioneer Fire. Uncredited/undated InciWeb photo.
On Tuesday the Pioneer Fire in central Idaho continued its march to the north, adding another 16,000 acres to bring the total to over 157,000 acres. Burning 32 miles northeast of Boise and 23 miles west of Stanley, it has been creating huge convection columns rising 30,000 feet into the atmosphere for the last two days.
Most of the growth on Tuesday was on the north side while it was pushed by an 8 to 12 mph wind gusting at 18 to 24 that was variable, but mostly out of the south. As we write this at 2:50 p.m. on Wednesday, the wind so far today has been out of the west and northwest at 4 to 10 mph with gusts of 16 to 24. The smoke being pushed to the east will probably make the air quality rather unpleasant in Stanley, due east of the fire.
The fire was very active late into Tuesday night due to the low relative humidity which ranged from 24 to 30 percent during the night at the White Hawk weather station at 8,344 feet elevation. At 2:33 p.m on Wednesday it was 66 degrees with 21 percent humidity.
The Pioneer Fire is one of five currently active fires in the United States that are staffed by more than 1,000 personnel.
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As of Tuesday evening the total number of resources assigned to fires in the US included 444 hand crews, 1,060 engines, 147 helicopters, and 19,064 personnel. When the number of crews approaches 500 and there are almost 20,000 personnel committed, you know things are getting busy.
Above: The photo above was taken from the research aircraft August 30 by Nick Guy of the University of Wyoming’s Atmospheric Science department.
The Fire Weather Research Laboratory from San Jose State University is conducting research from an aircraft flying over the Pioneer Fire in central Idaho. Today using N2UW, a twin engine 1977 Beech 200T King Air, they flew for over three hours at 27,000 feet studying the fire for the RaDFire project.
The aircraft is outfitted with a ton of instruments including Doppler radar. Craig Clements, Associate Professor in the Meteorology Dept. at SJSU, described it for us:
The radar is called the Wyoming Cloud Radar (WCR). It’s on the aircraft, points up, down, and down-forward to get horizontal winds and vertical winds. The goal of the RadFIRE (Rapid Deployments to Wildfires Campaign) is to get data on plume dynamics from ground based mobile Doppler Lidar. But we were awarded 10 flight hours to test the WCR to see if it works in smoke plumes. And it does so well, more than we can imagine!
First #SJSU RaDFIRE deployment with #NSF #Wyoming KingAir to study #wildfire plume dynamics w/ radar. #PioneerFire pic.twitter.com/VJvCqx9BAp
— SJSU FireWeatherLab (@FireWeatherLab) August 29, 2016
The group has been known to fly through the convection column. I’ve done that a few times and it’s an interesting experience — it can get a little turbulent, as you might expect.
On Monday they said the top of the pyrocumulus cloud over the fire topped out above 30,000 feet. In Tuesday’s photos it was at about 25,000 feet but toward the end of the day the top got up to at least 32,000 feet, Mr. Clements said.
The project is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and it’s being led by San Jose State University. Other collaborators on the project are David Kingsmill at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Wyoming King Air team.
Since it started on July 18 the Pioneer Fire has burned over 140,000 acres.
View from 24K ft of #PioneerFire #pyrocumulonimbus yesterday before penetration. #turbulence https://t.co/2oefuOnB60 pic.twitter.com/7lLIZDhgSw
— SJSU FireWeatherLab (@FireWeatherLab) August 30, 2016
Current flight path of UWKingAir over #PioneerFire Flight crew reports explosive plume growth: 1500 ft vertical/min pic.twitter.com/PspwQjrmLG
— SJSU FireWeatherLab (@FireWeatherLab) August 30, 2016
This last photo of the convection column was not taken by the researchers. It was shot by Steve Botti in Stanley on August 29, more than 20 miles away from the fire.
The Maple Fire in Yellowstone spreads closer to West Yellowstone and Hwy. 191
The video above was uploaded Monday August 29 the day before Highway 89 opened.
The south entrance to Yellowstone National Park opened Tuesday morning after having been closed for the last week after the Berry Fire burned across U.S. Highway 89 at the north end of Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park.
The fire was active Monday on the northeast, south, and west sides and has burned about 13,200 acres. A large smoke column actually assisted firefighters working on the east side of the highway Monday by shading the fire on that side of the lake, slowing the spread.
A new fire in Yellowstone National Park is named the Central Fire, probably because it is in the center of the park. It is 9 miles west of the Lake developed area and 2 miles south of Hayden Valley. The fire is just northwest of the 2015 Spruce fire which is expected to block the fire’s growth to the east. Currently it is burning in mature lodgepole pine.
The Maple Fire has spread considerably over the last several days and is within about 2 miles of Highway 191 north of West Yellowstone, Montana, and about 3.5 miles from the community. It has crossed from Wyoming into Montana and on the south side is burning along the Madison River very close to the West Entrance Road (Highway 20). It has reached the east side of the Boundary Fire that spread on its west side to within a quarter mile of Highway 191.
The staff at Yellowstone wants visitors to know that all entrances and roads within the park are open. Visitor facilities and businesses in the park and surrounding communities are not impacted by the fires and remain open.
The Buffalo Fire is in the north-central part of Yellowstone about 2 miles north of the Northeast Entrance Road (Highway 212). The fire has burned about 4,000 acres, a few of which may be just across the state line in Montana.
Above: the Maple Fire burns along the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park August 29, 2016. Video by Jeremy Weber of the West Yellowstone News.
