Wildfire Today

ABC News reports on technology in wildland firefighting

Bill GabbertSeptember 9, 2021Uncategorizedtechnology18 Comments

“In many cases, we’re still fighting fire with sharpened pieces of metal attached to the ends of sticks,” said Bill Gabbert.

Washington National Guard fire firefighter — Members of the Washington National Guard assisting on the Summit Trail fire near Inchelium, WA. WNG photo.

Here are excerpts from an article published September 8 by ABC News.

As wildfires in California and beyond have grown larger and deadlier in recent years, some in the firefighting sector say the tools and technologies used to combat new blazes have not kept up with the impact of climate change’s fury.

“In many cases, we’re still fighting fire with sharpened pieces of metal attached to the ends of sticks,” Bill Gabbert, who worked as a full-time firefighter for more than 30 years before becoming managing editor of the industry publication Wildfire Today, told ABC News. “Hand crews, using hand tools and chainsaws to remove the fuel on the edge of a fire so the fire burns up to that area where there is no fuel and then it stops spreading, that’s how we put out fires.”

Some major technological leaps, including computer modeling simulators have been made to help assist firefighters, but funding and bureaucratic hurdles in many cases have prevented their widespread adoption in communities that may need them. Meanwhile, a handful of entrepreneurs see the blank space as a ripe opportunity for new innovations they say can ultimately help save lives as the West now grapples with some of its largest fires ever recorded.

[…]

Jon Heggie, a battalion chief at Cal Fire, told ABC News that many fire agencies in recent years have explored emerging technologies as a way to address issues that arise in firefighting, noting how Gov. Gavin Newsom of California put out a call for “innovative ideas” to create “cutting-edge firefighting technology” in fall 2019.

One of the results of this effort — and “really, the one that stands out,” according to Heggie — was the creation and adoption of a computer modeling service that predicts a fire’s spread developed by the Bellevue, Washington-based firm Technosylva.

MORE: Nevada records worst air quality on record as wildfire smoke spreads
The software integrates weather, topography, fuel (combustable material) and more to “give us a real-time estimation of fire growth over a given period of time,” Heggie said.

“Anytime there is a fire started anywhere in California, a simulation is started so that the field commanders have that real-time information from the minute a fire starts,” he added. “It populates that fire based on where the fire was reported, that may not be accurate of where the fire actually is, so when the first arriving engines get on scene, they give a more updated report of location and then another report is generated and that will be more accurate.”

The data is critical for giving early evacuation notifications to communities that could be in the path of the fire, as well as for decision-making on how to best combat a blaze.

Dry lightning possible in California and northwestern states Thursday

Bill GabbertSeptember 9, 2021September 9, 2021UncategorizedRed Flag Warning, weather9 Comments

Lightning with little or no rain could start more wildfires

forecast weather fire wildfire dry lightning Sept. 9, 2021 map — Forecast for lightning with little or no precipitation for 6 a.m. MDT Thursday until 6 a.m. MDT Friday.

Areas in 10 western states are included in forecasts for isolated or scattered thunderstorms with little or no rain Thursday afternoon and night, prompting Red Flag Warnings.

Nationally 23,467 firefighters are actively attempting to suppress 58 large fires and another 47 are being managed under a less than full suppression strategy. If this dry lightning event in drought-affected desiccated vegetation creates a new round of wildfires it would put additional stress on the wildfire suppression system that is already struggling to mobilize enough personnel and equipment for the existing 105 fires. Only one of the 16 Type 1 Incident Management Teams is available for new fires.

The National Weather Service predicts “…dry and breezy conditions conducive to fire spread across portions of the western Great Basin northeastward to the northern High Plains. Deep-layer ascent associated with the approaching upper trough will also support isolated to scattered thunderstorms across the western Great Basin and portions of the Pacific Northwest into the northern Rockies. Several fire starts will be possible where thunderstorms occur given the extremely dry fuels in place.”

Some locations from central Nevada northwestward to central Oregon and eastward to south-central Montana could receive more than half an inch of rain, but lightning could occur with no rain. Of particular concern is the area from central Oregon into far Northern California where fire managers should expect dry thunderstorms.

Red Flag Warnings forecast weather fire wildfire dry lightning Sept. 9, 2021 map — Red Flag Warnings Sept. 9, 2021.

The analysis in the tweet below raises the possibility of lightning with little or no rain in California’s South Bay, Central Coast, Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County. This area is under a Red Flag Watch.

Important update in the fire weather discussion by @NWSBayArea noting more widespread lightning potential with incoming weather pattern (not limited to the North Bay and East Bay) this is in line with evening model and satellite trends (1/2) #CAwx #FireWx pic.twitter.com/eqYUECguRI

— Rob Mayeda (@RobMayeda) September 9, 2021

Our new age of fire

BillSeptember 8, 2021September 16, 2021UncategorizedStephen Pyne1 Comment

Firefighters on the Monument Fire in Northern California, August, 2021. USFS photo.

By Steve Pyne

Fire in the West is expected, and not so long ago, it seemed something the West experienced more than anywhere else. Nationally, big fires were treated as another freak of Western violence, like a grizzly bear attack, or another California quirk like Esalen and avocados.

Now the wildland fires flare up everywhere. There are fires in Algeria and Turkey, Amazonia and Indonesia, and France, Canada and Australia. Last year even Greenland burned.

Fire seasons have lengthened, fires have gotten meaner and bigger; fires have begun not just gorging on logging slash and prowling the mountainous backcountry, but also burning right into and across towns. Three years ago in northern California, the Camp fire broke out along the Feather River and, burning southwest, incinerated the town of Paradise. Now, the Dixie fire, starting 20 miles north in the same drainage, is burning in the opposite direction, taking out the historic town of Greenville. The fires have us coming and going.

The causes have been analyzed and reanalyzed, like placer miners washing and rewashing tailings. Likewise, the solutions have been reworked and polished until they have become clichés, ready to spill into the culture wars.

The news media have fire season branded into their almanac of annual events. Scientific disciplines are publishing reports and data sets at an exponential rate. So far as understanding the fire scene, we’ve hit field capacity. What more can we say?

One trend is to go small and find meaning in the personal. But there is also an argument to go big and frame the story at a planetary scale that can shuffle all the survival memoirs, smoke palls that travel across the continent, melting ice packs, lost and disappearing species, and sprawling frontiers of flame, in much the way we organize the swarm of starlight in a night sky into constellations.
~
I’m a fire guy. I take fire not just as a random happening, but as an emergent property that’s intrinsic to life on Earth.

So I expect fires. All those savanna fires in Africa, the land-clearing fires in Brazil and Sumatra, the boreal blowouts in Siberia and British Columbia, the megafires in the Pacific Northwest — all the flames we see.

But then there are fires that should be present and aren’t — the fires that once renewed and stabilized most of the land all over our planet. These are the fires that humanity, with its species monopoly on combustion, deliberately set to make living landscapes into what the ancients termed “a second nature.”

But it was not enough. We wanted yet more power without the constraints of living landscapes that restricted what and when we could burn. We turned to fossil fuels to burn through day and night, winter and summer, drought and deluge. With our unbounded firepower we remade second nature into “a third nature,” one organized around industrial combustion.

Our fires in living landscapes and those made with fossil fuels have been reshaping the Earth. The result is too much bad fire and too little good, and way too much combustion overall.

Add up all those varieties of burning, and we seem to be creating the fire equivalent of an Ice Age, with continental shifts in geography, radical changes in climate, rising sea level, a mass extinction, and a planet whose air, water, soil and life are being refashioned at a breakneck pace.

It’s said that every model fails but some are useful. The same holds true for metaphors. What the concept of a planetary Fire Age — a Pyrocene — gives us, is a sense of the scale of our fire-powered impact. It suggests how the parts might interact and who is responsible. It allows us to reimagine the issues and perhaps stand outside our entrenched perspectives.

What we have made — if with unintended consequences — we can unmake, though we should expect more unknown consequences.

We have a lot of fire in our future, and a lot to learn about living with it.

Steve Pyne is a contributor to Writers on the Range where this article was first published. It is a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the author of The Pyrocene. How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next.

River Complex ran over 6 miles Wednesday, threatening Callahan, California

Bill GabbertSeptember 8, 2021September 9, 2021WildfireCalifornia, River Complex

Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the Haypress Fire established itself on Billy’s Peak during extreme fire behavior and a six-mile run to the northeast

8:02 a.m. PDT Sept. 9, 2021

River Complex fires map — River Complex of fires mapped by a fixed wing aircraft at 7:15 p.m. Sept. 8, 2021. The red areas had intense heat when the fire was mapped. The dots represent isolated heat.

Above is an updated map of the River Complex. The largest fire is the 162,543-acre Haypress Fire. The other is the Cronan Fire which has burned 5,940 acres.

Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the Haypress Fire established itself on Billy’s Peak during extreme fire behavior and a six-mile run to the northeast.

Resources assigned include 12 hand crews; 8 helicopters; 48 engines, 18 dozers; 26 water tenders; 9 masticators; 7 skid steers; 14 mules, and 3 horses for a total of 816 personnel and 17 animals. Six residences have been destroyed.

7:54 p.m. PDT Sept. 8, 2021

A fixed wing mapping flight early Wednesday morning roughly confirmed the heat detected on the River Complex by a satellite at 3:51 a.m. Wednesday (see the map below). At the video briefing from the Incident Management Team Wednesday evening the map being used had not been updated accurately in about 24 hours. The briefing did not include any information about additional significant fire spread during the day.

Wednesday was a little more humid, there was a cloud and smoke cover, and there was much less wind at the Callahan #2 weather station, all reasons for more subdued fire activity.

Thursday’s weather forecast for Callahan predicts very little wind through Friday morning except for six to nine mph breezes from the southwest for about six hours Thursday afternoon. The area will be under a Red Flag Warning from noon Thursday to noon on Friday for the possibility of dry lighting Thursday evening and night. There is a chance for a small amount of rain Thursday night.

12:32 p.m. PDT Sept. 8, 2021

River Complex fire map at 3:51 a.m. Sept. 8, 2021 — River Complex map at 3:51 a.m. Sept. 8, 2021. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 3:51 a.m. PDT Sept. 8, 2021, which have not yet been confirmed by surveillance resources closer to the ground.

The River Fire in Northwest California near Coffee Creek was extremely active Tuesday evening. After 5 p.m. the wind shifted at the Callahan #2 weather station to come out of the southwest gusting at 15 to 26 mph with relative humidity in the teens. At a Wednesday morning briefing the Operations Section Chief said this pushed the north side of the fire about two miles to the north in the South Fork drainage along Cecileville Road, prompting the evacuation of Callahan.

The east side of the fire rapidly spread up Wolford Creek to the northeast. It spotted across Coffee Creek southeast of the footprint of the 2014 Coffee Fire and continued to the northeast and east along Coffee Creek.

The Operations Section Chief said it was “Rapid explosive fire behavior and what we have been talking about as the worst case scenario of fire growth. It was a flaming crown run in the tree tops at a rapid pace.” The fire ran for about 6.5 miles along the Coffee Creek drainage, he said, creating spot fires up to two miles ahead.

The map above shows the fire perimeter (in green) from September 7. Cloud cover Tuesday night prevented a fixed wing aircraft from mapping the entire fire. A satellite detected heat at the red dot areas shown, and they were so far from the previous perimeter I at first doubted their accuracy. Satellites and even sensors in fixed wing aircraft can sometimes falsely identify heat in a very large, intense convection column of smoke as heat on the ground. But fires typically spread more slowly and with less intensity and heat at night. The satellite overflight was at 3:51 a.m. Wednesday when typically there is no very large smoke column. These heat locations also are consistent with the descriptions by the Operations Section Chief in the Wednesday morning briefing. The bottom line: if these satellite detections exaggerate the fire spread, it is not by much.

After the fire passed through the upper reaches of Coffee Creek firefighters rescued some residents who had earlier refused to evacuate.

On Wednesday firefighters expect the fire to move toward Mosquito Flats and the communities of Coffee Creek, Callahan, and Eagle Creek. They will make sure all of the residents are out of the mandatory evacuation areas which are on a map maintained by Siskiyou County. Air tankers will drop retardant near the communities if the inversion, wind, and smoke conditions allow the safe use of aircraft.

Personnel will assess areas southwest of the community of Coffee Creek for locations to construct contingency firelines. Damage assessment teams on Wednesday will begin working their way into the recently burned area to evaluate possible damage to structures.

Dixie Fire burns to Highway 395 again

Bill GabbertSeptember 7, 2021WildfireCalifornia, Dixie Fire2 Comments

Southeast of Susanville, California three miles southeast of Herlong Junction

9:45 a.m. PDT Sept. 7, 2021

Dixie Fire map, southeast side cross Highway 395 — Dixie Fire 3-D map. Looking northwest at the escarpment along US Highway 395 at 8:29 p.m. PDT Sept 6, 2021. Bright red areas had intense heat during the mapping flight.

Monday afternoon and evening the southeast side of the huge 917,000-acre Dixie Fire ran to the east pushed by variable winds down a steep escarpment and across US Highway 395. During an 8:29 p.m. mapping flight the fire stretched for a mile along the west side of the highway and for about half that distance had burned across the road. At that time it had not spread very far beyond the highway as it moved into agricultural land. The fire reached US 395 south of Honey Lake three miles southeast of Herlong Junction between roads A25 and A26.

The north side of the fire is also active. At least half of Lassen Volcanic National Park has burned. Within the park on Monday the fire was making a push to the north and northeast across the park boundary south of Badger Mountain. It was also very active around Prospect and West Prospect Peaks within and just north of the park.

Dixie Fire map north side — Dixie Fire map, north side, 8:29 p.m. PDT Sept. 6, 2021. Bright red areas had intense heat during the mapping flight.

West of Highway 44 south of the Bogard Rest Area there were three spot fires Monday night about half a mile west of the highway that combined had burned approximately 130 acres as of sunset on Monday.

On Tuesday crews will continue to complete line in the steep and rugged terrain in the wilderness of Lassen National Volcanic Park and are establishing direct and indirect containment lines south of Old Station utilizing lines created during the 2012 Reading Fire.

Firefighters are preparing for increased fire danger due to predicted strong winds. The forecast for the north side of the fire calls for southwest winds gusting around 20 mph or more every afternoon through Friday with relative humidities close to 20 percent.

Briefing on five major wildfires in Oregon

Bill GabbertSeptember 6, 2021September 7, 2021WildfireOregon13 Comments

Middle Fork, Rough Patch, Jack, Devils Knob, & Bull

4:18 p.m. Sept. 6, 2021

There are five major wildfires or complexes of wildfires in western Oregon. None of them are raging, but there is not much standing in their way to to take off if a wind event comes over the horizon. The exception is the Jack Fire which is pretty quiet and only staffed by five personnel.

As you can see in the satellite photo below which shows approximately the same area as in the map above, an inversion is trapping smoke on the four southern-most blazes. This indicates that there is not much wind on the fire. The inversion and smoke partially block convection above the fire and solar heating of the vegetation, slowing the spread.

Satellite photo, Oregon Fires, 1:56 p.m. PDT Sept, 6, 2021.

Starting from the north, here are a few details about these five fires. The term “complex” means there is more than one fire being managed by the same Incident Management Team.

Bull Complex, 16,724 acres, Mt. Hood National Forest, 571 personnel. It is 18 miles east-northeast of Mill City. Following a round of lightning in the afternoon on August 2, four fires were identified on the south end of the Mt. Hood National Forest. Three, Janus, Kola, and Ridge Fires, were in the southeast corner of the Bull of the Woods Wilderness in the Janus Butte area. The fourth fire, Round Lake, was east of the wilderness. And a fifth, Ogre Creek Fire, was detected August 3 in the Round Lake area. By August 18 they had all merged. The fire is currently being managed by Northern Rockies Type 2 Team #4.

It is actively spreading to the west in Welcome, Mother Lode, Battle, and Elk Lake Creek drainages, and to the north along the ridges between Dickey Creek and the Collawash River.

Bull Complex of fires, Rhododendron Ridge, OR, Sept. 2, 2021 Inciweb.

Middle Fork Complex, 24,930 acres, Willamette NF, 2 fires, 686 personnel. It is 23 miles southeast of Eugene and is being managed by the Pacific Northwest Team 6, a Type 2 Team which says that many snags, steep terrain, and smoky conditions make direct attack unsafe. They are planning burning operations on the Gales Fire and are staffing both night and day shifts to take advantage of weather which is slowing the spread. Firefighters are preparing for heightened fire behavior on Tuesday afternoon.

On the Kwis Fire, an engine crew continues to break up and put out all remaining burning material near the fire perimeter. “Every once in a while, we find a stump hole burning,” said Field Operations Chief Ryan Sullivan.

Gales Fire, Middle Fork Complex, OR — Gales Fire, Middle Fork Complex of fires, OR, Aug. 16, 2021, InciWeb.

Rough Patch Complex, 41,185 acres, Umpqua NF, 4 fires, 714 personnel. It is 18 miles southwest of Oakridge and started July 29 from 20-plus lightning ignitions. Several more fires were later added to the complex including the Jack Fire when another storm moved through August 1, bringing the total to 42. On August 28th Northern Rockies Team 1 (Type 1 IMT) assumed command. The Complex now consists of four fires: Chaos, Little Bend, Buckhead, and Near Minky, all being managed under a full suppression strategy. Firing operations on all four fires are either being planned, prepped, or are underway.

Jack Fire, 23,990 acres (grew by 4 acres in 24 hours), Umpqua NF, 5 personnel. It is 31 miles east of Roseburg. They are calling it full suppression but report that only 55 percent of the perimeter is contained.

Devils Knob Complex, 46,596 acres, Umpqua NF, 2 fires, 711 personnel. It is 20 miles northeast of Azalea. Initially it was a group of 43 fires mostly on the Tiller Ranger District that started from lightning on July 29 and August 1. All fires in the Complex are being managed under a full suppression strategy. On September 6, the Rocky Mountain Type 1 Incident Management Team assumed command.

The two largest fires still spreading are the Smith and Big Hamlin Fires. The Smith is primarily north of the South Umpqua River, while the Big Hamlin is south of the river. Of the two the Smith Fire is the most active. Firing operations are underway on these two fires. The other fires are being monitored and held.

Firefighter Devils Knob Complex of fires — Firefighter on the Devils Knob Complex of fires, OR, Aug. 13, 2021, InciWeb.

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