Wildfire Today

UPDATE at 2:53 p.m. MT, July 20, 2011:

A few updated facts about the WhoopUp fire from a spokesperson for the fire:

• A recent GPS mapping flight revealed that the fire has burned 7,343 acres.
• Today there are two or three heavy air tankers available and one more on order. (The number varies depending which official source you talk to.)
• Four large Type 1 helicopters are assigned to the fire. These typically come with significant entourages and large fuel and maintenance trucks. They are working out of the Newcastle Airport. It’s quite a coup to get four of these large helicopters on a 7,000-acre fire. They can be VERY effective if a water source is nearby, with each dropping many thousands of gallons of water every hour. One smaller Type 3 helicopter is on the fire, primarily being used for mapping, observation, and intelligence gathering.
• The Barrel fire five miles south of the WhoopUp fire began as two separate fires that, according to a spokesperson for the fire, grew together. The suppression of that fire is being handled by the WhoopUp fire organization.

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UPDATE at 9:50 a.m. MT July 20, 2011: updated the map and included more details about the WhoopUp and the Barrel fires, and added a new map showing nine other fires in the area.

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8:45 a.m. MT, July 20, 2011:

We will update this article throughout the day.

Here is a map of the WhoopUp fire showing heat detected by satellites at at 3:59 a.m. MT July 20, 2011. The red areas depict active burning, while the yellow and black areas indicates heat detected within the last 12 or 24 hours respectively.

The heat sources in South Dakota about five miles south of the WhoopUp fire are from a new fire, the Barrel fire. It is being managed by the same team suppressing the WhoopUp fire.

A spokesperson for the fire, Hollie Belmedico, told us that firefighters made good progress on the 5,544-acre fire Tuesday night and now they are able to call it 40% contained. There are at least 250 firefighters and six dozers assigned, along with a mix of Type 1 and Type 3 helicopters. Ms. Belmedico did not know how many helicopters or air tankers will be available today or the size of the new Barrel fire.

The weather forecast for the area of the fire has changed a little. Yesterday the Weather Service said the relative humidity would bottom out at 31%, but today they are forecasting a minimum RH of 25%, a high temperature of 83, winds out of the northwest (then north and later northeast) at 11-23 gusting up to 31, a 31% cloud cover, and 0-10% chance of precipitation. The predicted winds and the lower humidity could cause the fire to spread to the southeast, and later in the afternoon and evening to the south and eventually the southwest — unless the firefighters have strong firelines in place on the south side of the fire.

The map below shows fires or reports of fires that firefighters have responded to in the Newcastle and Custer area since July 18. Most of them were suppressed at less than 3 acres.

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UPDATE at 9:30 p.m. MT, July 19, 2011:

Below is an updated map of the WhoopUp fire, showing heat detected by satellites at 2:19 p.m. MT July 19, 2011. The red areas depict active burning, while the black indicates heat detected within the last 24 hours. The fire appears to be well established across the state line in South Dakota.

The fire was mapped today at 5,544 acres, and is listed at 10% containment. On Wednesday the passage of a cold front will affect the fire, with strong northwest winds at 10 to 22 mph, with gusts up to 32. The wind, which will be more northerly in the late afternoon, could push the fire toward the southeast or south. The temperature will be much more moderate — instead of 100 degrees it will max out at 83 and the minimum relative humidity will be 31%.

“Gilbert”, one the commentors on our first article about this fire, said the firefighter that was injured when he fell, broke his pelvis:

The guy that fell is a member of the Newcastle vol fire dept as am I. He fell off a type 4 [engine] the first morning of the fire and broke his pelvis. He is home now but sore. Happened about 0800 the morning the fire started.

We asked a fire information officer about this accident today, and were told the only thing they knew was that a firefighter was injured when he or she fell. We hope the gentleman has a speedy recovery .

Here is a photo of the smoke from the WhoopUp fire, taken from Wind Cave National Park Tuesday evening, 31 miles southeast of the fire.

We asked a fire information officer about the correct spelling of “Whoopup” and were told that it is one word, unlike what you may see elsewhere, and the “u” is supposed to be capitalized. So we will make an effort to remember: “WhoopUp”. In case you are wondering, the name comes from WhoopUp Creek, near the fire’s point of origin.

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The map below shows heat on the WhoopUp fire near Newcastle, WY detected by a satellite at approximately noon MT, July 19, 2011. The red areas depict active burning, while the black indicates heat detected within the last 24 hours. The gap between the black and red does not mean there was no fire there, just that the satellite did not detect much heat in those locations when it passed overhead, perhaps due to light fuels (vegetation) that ignited and then burned out quickly.

The fire appears to have crossed the state line, moving from Wyoming into South Dakota.

The map below shows the relationship of the WhoopUp fire to previous fires in the same area, in 2002 and 2003.

Frank Carroll, Information Officer for the fire (normally with the Black Hills National Forest), told us at 2:45 p.m. on Tuesday that the latest acreage figure they have for the fire is 4,335 acres, but said it is not very current and the fire is significantly larger.

There has been a great deal of lightning in the Newcastle, WY and Custer, SD area over the last 48 hours, resulting in numerous fire starts. At least two of them are unstaffed. Firefighters “are pouring in” to the Newcastle area, Mr. Carroll said.

There were three injuries to firefighters — two were heat related due to the 100-degree temperatures, and the third was the result of a fall.

Joe Lowe’s Type 2 Incident Management Team, Rocky Mountain Area Team C, will assume command of the fire at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Their last assignment, in June, was working on flooding in eastern South Dakota.

We have photos of the fire, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

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A lead plane is a small, twin-engine fixed wing aircraft the assists and directs the much larger air tankers that drop retardant on wildfires. They have a one-person crew, the pilot, who is very experienced in flying over fires in mountainous terrain with turbulent wind conditions. Their purpose is to determine a safe and effective flight path for the air tankers and to identify the exact location for the retardant drops. They will often make several passes over the target, sometimes from different directions, before they settle on the best approach for the much larger air tankers.

These photos are of the lead plane working in Ferguson Canyon on the Whoopup fire southeast of Newcastle, Wyoming, on June 18, 2011. This aircraft is a Beechcraft King Air 90 twin-turboprop that was dispatched out of Albuquerque Silver City, NM at 11:40 a.m. and spent the afternoon working with air tankers 45 and 07. All three aircraft were refueling and reloading retardant at the tanker base at Rapid City Regional Airport. Some lead planes have the capability of producing a puff of smoke to mark drop locations, but I didn’t see this lead plane doing that.

One interesting fact about lead planes is that some of their radio antennas are installed on the bottom of the aircraft, rather than the top. This makes it easier to communicate with firefighters below them on the ground. This King Air has at least three on the bottom — two on the wings and one or more on the fuselage.

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Update 7-26-2011: we put together a slide show of more photos.

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Here are a few more photos of the Whoopup fire southeast of Newcastle, Wyoming, taken Monday, between 1:15 p.m. and 7:45 p.m.

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Update 7-26-2011: we put together a slide show of more photos.

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