Wildfire Today

Indians fire
The crews made a lot of progress in the last 24 hours firing along the Arroyo Seco drainage. There was very little activity from the main fire. There is still the possibility that the Basin complex will burn into the Indians fire. A “zone” boundary line has been established between the two fires to clarify responsibilities. The Indians fire is 60,070 acres and 82% contained.

Basin Complex (Gallery and Basin fires)

The fire was very active on the northwest side. They have 16 dozers and 23 crews building line, with some of the lines being in the same places as on the 1977 Marble Cone and 1999 Kirk fires. Highway 1 is still closed to non-residents and evacuations are in place.

The map below shows heat, in red, orange, and black, detected by satellites last night, with the red areas being the most recently burned. The yellow lines are the perimeters uploaded by the incident management teams yesterday. Click on the map to see a larger version.

The residents and firefighters in northern California must be hating the air they have been forced to breathe for the past several days. I got a taste of it a while ago here in South Dakota. I smelled forest fire smoke and looked outside and saw that smoke is visible in the air. I checked the current satellite photos and there were no large fires or smoke plumes originating anywhere near the Black Hills.

The new NOAA smoke tracking site has been down for the last 1-2 weeks, but I thought I’d check it on the off-chance it has been fixed. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it is working! And now I know why I’m smelling and seeing smoke.

Click on the map to see a larger version.

Here is a map of the Indians fire, west of King City, and the Basin Complex (Gallery and Basin fires) south of Big Sur.

The red area on the northwest side of the Indians fire is most likely their firing operation along the Arroyo Seco river.

The map below shows heat, in red, orange, and black, detected by satellites last night, with the red areas being the most recently burned. The yellow lines are the perimeters uploaded by the incident management teams yesterday. Click on the map to see a larger version.

Basin complex update from the U.S. Forest Service last evening:

Firefighters continue to build and improve fireline throughout the east side of the Big Sur area and have been moving toward Manuel Peak. Dozer lines are being constructed along the North Coast Ridge Road south to Dolan Ridge to eventually meet up with the road from the Big Creek State Reserve. Structure protection engines remain in place along Partington Ridge, the North Coast Ridge Road and Highway 1. Today higher humidity at all elevations within the fire has moderated fire behavior due to wind changes.

Indians fire update from the U.S. Forest Service last evening:

The fire did not expand significantly today. The firing operation continued eastward from the Arroyo Seco Campground south of the Arroyo Seco River and good progress was made due to the absence of smoke shading from the Basin Complex Fire and warmer, dryer weather. Good progress was made today improving line along the Rodeo Flats Trail.

Photo of Basin complex courtesy of Alana Cain

“Silas” left this message on one of the earlier posts:

I’m the editor of the Record Searchlight in Redding, and we have posted a page for our community to thank the firefighters for their efforts. Anything you can do to spread the word to your readers would be appreciated. There’s a lot of gratitude here, and we want to make sure the folks who should hear about it do.

Take a couple of minutes and say thanks. Here’s the link:

http://www.redding.com/news/2008/jun/26/thank-you-firefighters/

HERE is a link to a pretty good map that shows some of the larger fires in California and includes a little information about each one.