Wildfire Today

From the Press-Enterprise:

10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 24, 2008

By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

A bus filled with Riverside County firefighter inmates toppled in Aguanga on Monday night, injuring all 16 on board, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The Riverside County Fire Department bus was leaving the scene of a 20-acre blaze about 7:30 p.m. near Highway 371 and Wilson Valley Road. The Oak Glen Conservation Fire Camp inmate crew was brought in during cleanup efforts to assist firefighters, Riverside County fire officials said.

The driver, fire Capt. Steve Knutson, was headed west on Wilson Valley Road when he began driving down a speed grade, CHP Officer Ron Thatcher said.

He was going too fast and tried unsuccessfully to shift gears, Thatcher said. The bus ran up a dirt embankment and flipped on its right side.

The fire captain suffered moderate injuries and was taken by ambulance to Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar, Thatcher said.

Two inmates were critically injured and one was airlifted to Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley.

Another inmate was reported with moderate injuries and 12 other inmates who suffered minor injuries were treated at the scene, according to the Riverside County Fire Department.

The Clover fire, on the Sequoia and Inyo National Forests listed at 13,250 acres and 10% containment, has been less active the last two days.

Photo from the Clover fire

The map below shows heat in red detected by satellites last night. The perimeter as uploaded by the incident management team is in yellow.

On the north side of the Indians fire an evacuation order has been placed for the Arroyo Seco Drainage effective at 0800 hours on June 25.

The Gallery fire south of Big Sur, part of the Basin complex, has been very active the last few days. If it has not already, it almost certainly will merge with the Basin fire just to the north. As of last night the combined acreage was 13, 550 for the two fires. Evacuations are still in effect for the Partington Ridge area, and Hwy. 1 remains closed. The fire has consumed 16 structures and is burning in the tracks of the 1977 Marble-Cone fire which scorched about 165,000 acres.

You have to think about the possibility of the Basin complex burning into the Indians fire which is about 5-7 miles away. There is a 20-39% probability this will happen by June 30 if there is no suppression action in that area. I imagine that would disappoint Bill Molumby’s team that has struggled to obtain 71% containment of the 57,943 acre Indians fire. Having burned area on both sides of your fireline is disconcerting, to say the least.

The map below shows heat in red detected by satellites last night. Click on the map to see a larger version.

Numbers for the lightning bust, as of noon today June 24, in northern California only:

Fires on federal jurisdiction:
Number of fires: 528
Acres burned: 8,347

Fires on state jurisdiction:
Number of fires: 455
Active fires: 101
Unstaffed fires: 73
Contained: 203
Acres burned: 52,346

Not all initial attack fires are reported

Total reported fires during the lightning bust in northern California: 983

Incident Management Teams committed in northern California only, as of 1300 today:

• SHF – Lime Complex- T2 Kaage/ T1 Opliger
• SHF – Iron Complex – T2 Swartzlander
• SHF – Area Command Zimmerman
• SHF – FUMT Ourada/Soper
• LNF – Cub Complex – T2 Batten
• LNF – Peterson – T1 Ruggiero
• KNF- Siskiyou Complex – T2 Paul
• PNF- Canyon Complex – T1 Pincha-Tulley
• SRF – Ukonom/Orleans– T2 Lund
• SRF – Hells Hat Complex – T2 Secrest
• TNF – Yuba River Complex – T2 Joseph
• TNF – American River Complex – T1 Summerfelt
• SHU – Shasta Complex – T1 KERCHEN
• BTU – Butte Complex – T1 Lewin
• MEU – Mendocino Complex – T1 Waterman
• LNU – Wild Fire – T1 Morris
• ONC- NIMO – Gage
• ONC – Order 1 T1 team staging SAC

Wildfire Today reported yesterday that the Lessons Learned Center and the Incident Management Teams web sites had been hacked. They are both back up again according to Paula at the LLC:

We thank you for your patience throughout the weekend, and most of today, while our programmers worked to isolate a weakness within our database code. The weakness was exploited by a global attack, affecting over 510,000 WebPages, not directed at any one website. This code was identified and replaced, increasing our system security.