Above: warning about critical fire weather predicted for Thursday February 18, 2016. NOAA.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center is predicting “extremely critical” fire weather conditions for areas in the south-central United States on Thursday, including the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, northeast New Mexico, southeast Colorado, and southwest Kansas.
Their forecast calls for relative humidities between 4 and 13 percent with 30 to 35 mph winds gusting up to 50 mph.
The map below shows the Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings in effect today, February 17.
Red Flag Warning (red) and Fire Weather Watches (yellow) for February 17, 2016.
The Red Flag map was current at 11:15 a.m. MDT on Wednesday. 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.
Team Rubicon organizes veterans to provide relief to those affected by natural disasters, both domestic and international. Their mission is to “unite the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams.” Much of what they do is volunteer work, but they have been busy lately training veterans to fill various firefighting roles. Several groups of Team Rubicon folks have gone through basic wildland firefighter training. A typical class is described in a blog on their website.
Today we saw a tweet about one of their fire classes and in looking around, found quite a few more that were related.
The report that the U.S. Forest Service wrote about last year’s fires in the Washington and Oregon reminded me of one of the best pictures of the fires in 2015 — the one you see above. The photo is at the beginning of the “Interactive Story Journal” which provides summary information from the main report.
We first used the photo on September 6, 2015 in an article with several other images by the photographer, Kari Greer. It was taken on the First Creek Fire on the west side of Lake Chelan in Washington and as you can see it shows a rising moon as the fire backs down the slopes.
We contacted Ms. Greer who told us it was taken above the Hale place in 25 Mile Creek on August 27 as the moon was coming up. The camera was on a tripod at about 9 p.m. with a 50mm focal length at 1/80 second.
Photo above: Firefighters observe the Cougar Creek Fire southeast of Mt. Adams in southern Washington in 2015. From InciWeb.
The U.S. Forest Service has produced an exhaustive summary and review of the 2015 wildfire season in what they call their Pacific Northwest Region — what the interagency community calls the Northwest Geographic Area — Oregon and Washington.
The report is huge, 281 pages. In addition to general information about the fire activity, it includes sections about weather, air quality, technology, and summaries of 28 fires with 14 of those being covered in greater detail than the others.
The main 281-page report can be be found here (it’s a LARGE file). There is another version they call an “Interactive Story Journal” which provides summary information from the main report as well as interactive web maps, videos, and numerous photos as well as “time-enabled fire progression maps” for selected fires.
Below are some excerpts from the report:
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Most Severe Fire Season in Modern History
The 2015 fire season in the Pacific Northwest was the most severe in modern history from a variety of standpoints. Oregon and Washington experienced more than 3,800 wildfires (almost 2,300 in Oregon and more than 1,500 in Washington) that burned more than 1,600,000 acres (more than 630,000 acres in Oregon and more than 1,000,000 acres in Washington)—including 1,325 fires representing 507,000 acres on U.S. Forest Service lands (information as of September 30, 2015).
Initial Attack was successful in rapidly containing all but about 119 of these fires. This response represents an almost 97 percent Initial Attack success rate. Approximately 50 of these fire escapes occurred during a ten-day period in mid-August when numerous Large Fires (a wildfire of 100 acres or more in timber or 300 acres or more in grass/sage) were already burning in the Pacific Northwest. During this time, the Northern Rockies and Northern California were also experiencing unusually high numbers of wildfires. This situation limited the ability to rapidly obtain Initial Attack reinforcements as well as almost all types of firefighting resources needed for Large Fires.
Firefighters conduct a firing operation to protect homes on the Chelan Complex in Washington, 2015. Photo by Kari Greer.
Tragedy Strikes
Tragedy struck on August 19 when three U.S. Forest Service firefighters were killed while attacking a fire on private land near Twisp, Washington.
During this severe fire season, approximately 675 structures were lost. While well over 16,000 structures were threatened, most were saved from loss by aggressive suppression actions.
2015 Fire Season Milestones
In August, to help support Washington State’s fires, the Emergency Support Function 4 (ESF4) was activated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The Emergency Conflagration Act—that authorizes the Oregon Office of the State Fire Marshal to mobilize structural firefighters and equipment to assist local resources battling fires—was invoked by the Governor of Oregon on July 30 in response to the Stouts Creek Fire, on August 13 for the Cornet Fire and Windy Ridge Fires, on August 14 for the Canyon Creek Fire, and on August 20 for the Grizzly Bear Complex.
The Washington State Fire Service Mobilization Plan is implemented to provide personnel, equipment, and other logistical resources from around the state when a wildland fire or other emergency exceeds the capacity of local jurisdictions. In mid-August, the Chief of the Washington State Patrol authorized such a state-declared mobilization on the Carpenter Road Fire, the Kettle Complex, and the Okanogan Complex.
The Pacific Northwest Region had the highest priority in the nation for firefighting resources during these dates: July 25 and 26, August 14-31, and September 8-13.
The Pacific Northwest Region was under a Preparedness Level 5 (the highest, most severe level) from August 13 through September 4.
The greatest number of uncontained fires occurred on August 18: 25 Large Fires totaling 822,512 acres in the Pacific Northwest Region (105 Large Fires totaling 2.2 million acres nationally).
Weather
The first six months of 2015 were the warmest first six months of any year over much of Oregon and Washington since record keeping began in 1895.
These record-warm temperatures observed during the winter and spring, coupled with below-average precipitation, led to an exceptionally poor snowpack throughout the winter and spring.
From June 1 through September 15, a total of 51,019 lightning strikes were recorded over Oregon and Washington. The average for fire seasons from 2000-2014 through September 15 is 78,775 strikes. While the number of the 2015 strikes was below this average, the background of drought in 2015 enhanced the ability for lightning strikes to ignite multiple fires in short periods of time.
At least 26 bushfires are being fought by firefighters in Tasmania.
Photo above: Backburning near Arthur River in northwest Tasmania, January 29, 2016. Photo by W. Frey.
Bushfires that have been raging across northwest Tasmania for several weeks are still causing great concern in the island state south of Australia.
One of the fires in the Central Plateau has burned about 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) in the World Heritage Area, about 1.2 percent of the WHA. Unique alpine flora such as pencil pines, king billy pines and cushion plants — some more than 1,000 years old — have been destroyed.
A burned area at a World Heritage site in Tasmania. Photo by Dan Broun.
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has sent many of their wildland firefighters across the Bass Strait to assist their neighbors in Tasmania.
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has sent a great deal of aid to assist with the fires in Tasmania. In these photos equipment is arriving to set up a camp capable of sleeping 150 firefighters at Moles Creek. Next week more firefighters and fire engines will be mobilized to Tasmania. NWS RFS photos.
Three air tankers from North America that have been working in Australia during their summer bushfire season have also been deployed, including a DC-10, Avro RJ85, and a C-130. This may be the first time these large aerial firefighting resources have been used in Tasmania. The Fire Service felt it was necessary to warn the residents to “not be alarmed” when they saw the air tankers “flying a bit low over the coast”. More information about the air tankers in Tasmania is at Fire Aviation.
A DC-10 air tanker being used to fight wildfires in Tasmania. Photo by Tasmania Fire Service.
Most of the most active bushfires are in the northwest part of Tasmania. Three of the largest are in these areas:
Arthur River and Nelson Bay. 21,000 hectares (52,000 acres).
Pipeland Road. 62,000 hectares (153,000 acres).
Lake Mackenzie Road. 25,000 hectares (68,000 acres).
Another fire in the southwest part of the state has burned 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) between Lake Gordon and Lake Pedder.
At least 26 bushfires are still active while 48 others have been contained.
Below are maps showing the locations of the fires, and more photos.
Now that the terrorists who took over the facilities at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon have been arrested, there are new occupants in the fire lookout tower. Great Horned Owls.
Click on the photo a couple of times to see a larger version.
