The photo above was distributed on Twitter Friday morning July 10 by the National Weather Service out of Glasgow, Montana, along with this explanation:
A view of two circulations in the upper level flow mixing with smoke from Canadian wildfires.
The smoke is so that that it is casting a shadow on the ground. Pretty fascinating, I must say.
To get you oriented, the US/Canadian border goes across the middle of the photo, and below that are the states of Idaho, Montana and North Dakota.
The next image is from the Aqua/MODIS satellite, taken on Thursday, July 9. I added the text and the arrows. The red dots represent the location of wildfires. Click on the photo to see a larger version.
Fire near Excelsior Creek in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Photo by Parks Canada.
(UPDATED at 3:40 p.m. MT, July 10, 2015)
The brown and red dots represent heat detected by a satellite of a fire in Excelsior Creek in Jasper National Park. The most recent detections were at 5:18 a.m., July 10, 2015.
The map above shows the approximate location of the fire at 5:18 a.m. on June 10 in Excelsior Creek in Jasper National Park in Alberta. The fire in the Maligne Valley is approximately 9 miles (15 km) east of the community of Jasper.
Friday morning it was reported to have burned approximately 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres). Friday afternoon a light rain fell in the area, slowing the spread for a while.
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(Originally published at 10 a.m. MT, July 10, 2015)
With a wildfire in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada spreading rapidly, fire managers evacuated about 82 people, including 52 that were flown off the Skyline trail by helicopter.
The fire was reported at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday approximately 15 km (9 miles) south of the municipality of Jasper. Visitors are being evacuated from the Maligne Valley, the Skyline trail, and Maligne Lake.
Below is an excerpt from the Edmonton Journal:
“We see this as the highest priority fire in the national parks right now,” said David Smith, a fire and vegetation specialist for Jasper who is also serving as incident commander.
According to Smith, the fire is between 200 and 250 hectares [494 to 618 acres] in size, moving at about 15 metres [49 feet] per minute. As temperatures drop and the sun sets, the fire is expected to “settle down” overnight.
Crews are currently fighting the fire by air only as conditions prove too hazardous for ground crews at this time. Despite the high number of fires across the prairies, there are crews slated to arrive in Jasper Friday, before noon.
Though the fire is currently out of control, Smith said people in Jasper need not worry about their safety. At this time there are no park facilities in the way of the fire and because the wind is pushing the fire up to Maligne Lake, Smith said, “the town of Jasper is 100-per-cent safe.”
The video below is a 2-hour time-lapse of the smoke from the fire, shot Thursday from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m., compressed to 30 seconds.
These next photos are general shots of fires and firefighters in Alberta, sourced from the Facebook page for “Alberta Wildfire Info”.
Fire north of Slave Lake, July 9, 2015Firefighters from Jalisco, Mexico assisting with wildfires in Alberta.
This video illustrates how the Paradise Fire is spreading through the rain forest in Olympic National Park in Washington. The fire easily climbs up the lichen and moss on a tree then drops burning embers to the ground or onto an adjacent tree branch where it can continue to spread.
The fire started May 5 and has burned 1,520 acres. It is being managed by a team from the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO).
Automatic camera system detects fire, leads to stranded mom and newborn baby
A new camera system designed to detect the first signs of wildfire smoke in a forest, did just that in northern California a couple of weeks ago not long after the cameras were installed. Below is an excerpt from an article in the Red Bluff Daily News:
…The story began two weeks ago when a pregnant Amber Pangborn reportedly went into labor while driving on the outskirts of Oroville, took a shortcut and got lost. Eventually her car ran out of gas and she was stranded on the side of a road in the Plumas National Forest. There was no cell phone service.
She told a Chico TV station that she laid out a sleeping bag in the back seat of her car and gave birth to her daughter, whom she named Marisa. She survived for three days on bottled water and apples and fended off bees and mosquitoes.
Desperate, she started a brush fire with a lighter and a can of hair spray. The fire was detected by the PG&E-funded wildfire detection camera systems, which use integrated GIS-Data to pinpoint fire start locations.
The images were sent to a dispatch center, which alerted Butte County fire officials who worked with their counterparts in the Plumas National Forest to send a helicopter. The woman and her newborn daughter were rescued and taken to an Oroville hospital.
The $2 million system, which PG&E funded to detect wildfires in key, remote locations in Northern and Central California, worked exactly as it was intended, said Mike Weber, battalion chief for Butte County Fire Department in Oroville…
Iowa political candidate bashes fire trucks use in chief’s funeral
Rhonda Appelgate, a write-in candidate for the city council in Nevada, Iowa was incensed that fire trucks participated in a procession honoring a recently deceased fire chief, Mark Farren. She wrote on Facebook that it was “another example of inappropriate use of our emergency services and vehicles.” She went on to say, “We do not use emergency personnel, or employees, to honor people, and firefighters, police, soldiers, EMS, etc. are just people like all of us. I am sorry for Mark’s family, but I need to address this issue as a potential city representative … I will make sure that our resources are no longer abused.”
Firefighters from Mexico assist with fires in Alberta
Five dozen firefighters from Mexico are in Edmonton Thursday getting ready to help fight wildfires in northern Alberta.
The 62 brigadistas will join the 1,700 firefighters currently working in the province.
Firefighter Hector Trejo says the firefighting in the state of Jalisco season ended a week ago, about the time they received the request to come to Alberta.
“For most of the guys it’s their passion to fight fires, get to know the forest, and what a better way to do it than in another country and helping others,” he said.
One of the biggest adjustments for his crew will be using more water than they traditionally use against the flames, Trejo said.
Oregon fire department offers free housing for volunteers
The Forest Grove Rural Fire District in Oregon is offering free housing for firefighters who will live at the fire station and volunteer to fight fires.
The fire district is offering free rent in a manufactured home next door to its Gales Creek station in hopes of assembling a more reliably staffed volunteer firefighter pool.
The house will be home to any four volunteer or intern firefighters who want a free private bedroom and bathroom with utilities paid in a rural setting. In return, the firefighters agree to respond to fire and emergency calls in the area.
“It’s just really tough out there to find volunteers,” said Forest Grove Fire Marshal Dave Nemeyer of the rural fire district, which spans from Forest Grove to near Banks and deep into the Tillamook State Forest.
Footprint in Alaska
One of the Pennsylvania firefighters helping out with fires in Alaska, sent back this photo.
This is an interesting video of a wildfire in Canada. Contrary to the description with the video that we referenced earlier, it was shot in Nelson, British Columbia. (Thanks Fis and Keith.)
In the second half of the video the fire appears to be influenced by a down-slope breeze.
If the brown areas above have a hot and dry summer, wildland firefighters will be spending a lot of time over the next couple of months in California, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
And, those same areas were warmer than normal during the first half of 2015. Some were the warmest ever recorded for the period.
I stopped trying to predict the nature of fire seasons a long time ago. Pre-season weather is a significant factor, but more important is the weather during the fire season. So ask me again in September how busy firefighters in the west will be this summer.
