Red flags, prescribed fires, and cannon fire

Red flag warnings 4-6-2012
Red flag warnings April 6, 2012

The map for April 6 shows Red Flag Warnings covering large areas of the United States. And again, the map shows the warnings-constrained-by-state-boundaries-syndrome. This makes a person wonder if the forecasters on one side of the state boundary were too aggressive with their warning, or if the folks across the border were too timid, or it simply didn’t occur to them to post a warning. Or none of the above.

Check out the map below showing the locations of spot weather forecasts.If you go to the National Weather Service web site and click on one of the large flame icons, you’ll see that most of them are for prescribed fires —  few are for wildfires. And almost all of the prescribed fires are less than 100 acres.

Spot weather forecasts 4-6-2012
Spot weather forecasts April 6, 2012

Two spot weather forecasts are for locations in the Pacific Ocean. One was for a prescribed fire near Coburn, North Dakota, and the other one, in the Gulf of Alaska, was requested by the Coast Guard. I’m thinking that the latter is for the incident involving the derelict ghost ship Ryou-Un that was set adrift during last year’s tsunami in Japan. The Coast Guard decided to use a cannon on one of their cutters to blast holes in the ship and sink it rather than risk the chance of it running aground or endangering other vessels in the busy shipping lanes between North America and Asia.

Spot weather forecasts, Pacific Ocean 4-6-2012

From the photo below, it appears that the ship took quite a few cannon rounds from the Coast Guard cutter.

Coast Guard sinks ship
The Ryou-Un is set afire after being hit by the cannon from a Coast Guard cutter. Photo by U.S. Coast Guard
Coast Guard sinks ship
Photo by Petty Officer 2Nd Class Charly Hengen, U.S. Coast Guard

 

Detecting wildfires using radar and satellites

Radar image detecting wildfire smoke plumeSome employees of the National Weather Service in Glasgow, Montana have written a description of how on April 3, 2012 they detected two fires using radar and satellite imagery. Below are some excerpts from their document, which was the source of the two images displayed here.

…As our forecasters were working during the day on April 3rd, they noticed some plumes on satellite imagery, on a day where there weren’t any clouds for hundreds of miles in all directions. They called Richland County dispatch to check and see if there were any fires, and were notified that there were at least two fires, one in southwestern Richland County, the other in northeastern Dawson County.

As the day warmed up, the winds increased from a southerly direction, and the humidity dropped from around 68% at 8 am to below 20 percent after 1 pm. According to Rob Gilbert with the Sidney fire department, an area that had been burned during the weekend had reignited and quickly grew out of control as the winds blew the top layer of ash off the old burn. In all, the southwest Richland County Fire burned at least 1000 acres of land, and two abandoned farmsteads, northwest of Richey, MT.

The smoke plume from the Richland County fire was high enough that we were able to detect it on the Glasgow weather radar. The fire was located about 75 miles east-southeast of the radar, and at that distance, the lowest level of the radar beam (0.5 degrees) would put the radar beam at around 7,500 to 8,000 feet AGL. So, the smoke plume rose at least 1.5 to 2 miles high in the atmosphere.

Photo of wildfire smoke column in Richland County, Montana

 

Big Pond prescribed fire in Idaho

Marsh Master
The refuge Marsh Master, an amphibious fire vehicle was used to ignite the unit in wet marsh areas. The Marsh Master is also equipped with a water tank and pump.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to provide excellent photos of their fire management activities. They have posted on flickr some photos taken over the last two days at the Big Pond prescribed fire in the Camas National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Idaho. The 150-acre prescribed fire was in a bulrush marsh and grassland unit on the refuge. The intent of the burn was to reduce old flammable vegetation near private residences and improve wildlife habitat.

So far there are six photos of the project — here are three of them. All were taken by Lance Roberts, Zone Fire Management Officer. (I need one of those Marsh Masters.)

Big Pond Rx at Camas NWR
The refuge fire staff was assisted by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Idaho Department of Corrections fire crews to complete the prescribed burn.
Sand hills cranes at Big Pond Rx
Sandhill cranes feeding in the burned area, a numerous variety of waterfowl use this area for nesting and feeding.

 

Failed reverse-911 system may have contributed to fatalities in Colorado fire

A reverse-911 system intended to robotically call residents to advise them to evacuate may have contributed to the three fatalities during the first few hours of the Lower North Fork wildfire on March 26 southwest of Denver. All three victims called 911 during the early stages of the fire and talked to dispatchers, but they were not told to evacuate. But at that point it is possible that no decisions had been made to evacuate anyone, and during one of the calls the resident was told that the smoke they were reporting was a known prescribed fire.

About 2-1/2 hours after one of the early calls, the reverse-911 system notified some residents near one of the victims, but not the home of that victim, whose home was already in flames at that time.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s office said that the reverse-911 system malfunctioned, and that it notified only 88% of the residents that should have been evacuated.

All of this happened during the first two to three hours of the fire, while it had a rapid rate of spread and was being pushed by very strong winds. The investigation may reveal that it would have been impossible to physically go to everyone’s house to notify them to evacuate. It may also show that the technology to notify the residents failed — or maybe not. Right now accusations are going back and forth between the Sheriff’s office and the company that provided the reverse-911 system, each blaming the other.

The video below has audio recordings of some of the calls to 911, including at least one of the victims.

More information about the Colorado reverse-911 incident.

Several days ago I called our local police department and told them that I had permanently disconnected my landline telephone and would only be using a cell phone. I asked if they needed my cell phone number so they could link it with my address in their 911 system, since the landline was no longer available. I was told “no”. I asked “why?”. The officer told me that if I called 911 from a cell phone that had GPS capability, the location of my phone would be displayed on their screen. I asked “How will your reverse-911 system know my number if my neighborhood is notified about an emergency?” The answer was “We don’t have a reverse-911 system”.

So the good news is that our reverse-911 system cannot fail during an emergency — since it does not exist. And there can be no false since of security, relying on technology that may or may not work. The bad news is that robotic phone calls will not warn anyone in our town that they need to shelter in place or evacuate during an emergency.

 

Thanks go out to Kelly

South Dakota: structure fire at the Humane Society

Humane Society fire, Hot Springs, SDQuite a few resources, including brush engines, were dispatched to a structure fire at the Humane Society north of Hot Springs, South Dakota today. In the windy conditions there was probably a fear that the fire could spread into the vegetation and then threaten additional structures. However the Hot Springs fire department was able to confine the fire to the structure, which appeared from a distance to be a total loss.

Humane Society fire, Hot Springs, SD

Humane Society fire, Hot Springs, SD

The dozens of dogs kept at the facility were pretty excited by all of the unusual activity.

Humane Society fire, Hot Springs, SD

Below is a photo taken today that gives you an idea of the wind conditions.

Flag in wind

All photos were taken by Bill Gabbert.