The American Fire was very active during the day on Thursday and well into the night, adding over 2,000 acres as it spread to the northeast up Secret Canyon toward Ford Point and Whisky Hill. The map below shows the location of the 7,367-acre fire.
The fire is 22 miles west of Lake Tahoe, 9 miles south of Emigrant Gap, and 22 miles southwest of Truckee.
The red line is the perimeter of the American Fire at 9 p.m. PDT, Thursday, August 15, 2013. The pink line was the perimeter early Thursday morning. (click to enlarge)
A 10,000 gallon water tank and a 10,000 gallon mobile retardant plant for helicopter operations has been established at the Blue Canyon Airport just south of Interstate 80.
One mining structure has been destroyed and there have been two minor injuries.
The local weather can be monitored at the Seed Orchard weather station west of the fire where the relative humidity was 19 percent at 7:33 Friday morning. The forecast for the fire area calls for 75 degrees, relative humidity of 17 percent, and 13 mph winds gusting up to 20 mph around noon.
The map above shows the distribution of smoke from wildfires in the United States at 2:13 p.m. MDT, August 16, 2013. (UPDATE: Darren Clabo provided this link to a satellite animation that shows the smoke early Friday morning.)
Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches for enhanced wildfire danger have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah.
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The Red Flag Warning map above was current as of 8:20 a.m. MDT on Friday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts. For the most current data, visit this NWS site.
The map shows the distribution of smoke from wildfires in the United States and Canada. Fires in Idaho and Utah are creating a great deal of smoke, but nothing like the fires in northern Manitoba which are smoking up most of the province. Smoke from those fires is also affecting the Great Lakes area.
Granite Mountain Hotshots hike to the Yarnell Hill fire June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.
The city of Prescott is being barraged with many questions about the different levels of compensation for the families of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots that were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30. According to the Daily Courier, the city has hired the marketing consultant firm Up Agency for “pre-litigation strategic communications services to the City of Prescott.” The newspaper has a lengthy article that covers the financial issues, legislation being drafted to address some of the issues, and the reaction of Juliann Ashcraft, the widow of Hotshot Andrew Ashcraft.
The Daily Courier also has an article about a three-person fuels crew the city has hired that will be using grant money, some of which earlier went to fund the Granite Mountain Hotshots, to continue doing some of the fuels work in the city that the Hotshots had been conducting for years.
AZCentral has an article about the difficulty the city may face in continuing to obtain insurance coverage if they decide to rebuild the Hotshot crew. The city had been self-insured for years, but on June 1, less than a month before the fatalities, they obtained liability and workers’ compensation insurance through the Arizona Municipal Risk Retention Pool.
Map of Patch Springs Fire at 2:26 p.m. MDT August 16, 2013
Fire managers on the Patch Springs fire southwest of Salt Lake City were notified this morning they would be receiving aircraft no longer needed on the Rockport Fire north of Park City, Utah.
The BLM reported that the Tooele County Sheriff’s department evacuated the town of Terra and the BLM Clover Springs Campground on Highway 199 Friday afternoon. The fire is now on the south side of the highway.
The latest acreage number provided by the BLM is 14,000 acres. An order has been placed for Dunford’s Type 2 Incident Management Team.
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Wild horses are attracted to a new water source near the Patch Springs Fire Aug 14, 2013. The tank holds water for refilling helicopter water buckets. Photo credit @UtahFireInfo
(UPDATED at 6:50 p.m. MDT, August 15, 2013)
Map of the Patch Springs Fire at 3:25 p.m. MDT, August 15, 2013. The squares indicate heat detected by a satellite, with the red areas being the most recently burned.
The Patch Springs Fire has been active today, spreading at least two to three miles to the north and moving closer to the town of Terra on the south. By late afternoon officials closed Highway 199 to help provide a better environment for firefighters working in the area. “Precautionary evacuations” are underway for the Willow Community northeast of Terra.
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(Originally published at 11:09 a.m. MDT, August 15, 2013)
The 13,000-acre Patch Springs Fire, started from lightning on August 10, has grown to within a mile of the outskirts of Terra, Utah, which is just south of the fire. The Terra Fire Chief and the Patch Springs Incident Commander have set trigger points for the possible evacuation of the town and the potential closure of Highway 199 (Johnson’s Pass). Today crews, a dozer, and aircraft will be reinforcing a fire line around the community.
The north end of the fire is burning in Antelope Canyon, 10 miles from the Tooele Army Depot, a Superfund hazardous materials site with 902 ammunition storage igloos.
Map of Patch Springs and Rockport Fires, showing heat detected by a satellite. The red dots were seen at 4:20 a.m. MDT August 15, 2013. The location of the Rockport Fire can be seen at the upper right, where 13 homes burned. (click to enlarge)
The Patch Springs Fire is being suppressed by 12 engines, 3 handcrews, a water tender, 2 helicopters, a dozer and air attack, for a total of 149 personnel.
Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are flying over fires this summer in the Pacific Northwest and Tennessee to study how particles called aerosols given off by wildfires and agricultural burns evolve over time. The Biomass Burning Observation Project will gather data to help researchers flesh out one of the least understood areas of climate, the role of aerosols in cloud formation and climate.
Recently the researchers have sampled smoke generated by the Milemarker 28 and Colockum Tarps Fires in Washington, and the Elk and Pony Complexes in Idaho.
