There could be significant effects Saturday in some areas of Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Northwest Nevada
Forecast for 6 p.m. MDT September 7, 2019. Vegetation fire smoke near the Earth’s surface. NOAA.
These images represent the forecast for the distribution of smoke from vegetation fires at 6 p.m. MDT September 7, 2019. If the predictions are correct, smoke is going to be heavily affecting some areas in Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Northwest Nevada late in the day Saturday.
Near Surface Smoke (in the map above) is what affects people and animals in real time. Vertically integrated smoke higher in the atmosphere (in the map below) can have additional environmental effects and can contribute to interesting sunsets.
Forecast for 6 p.m. MDT September 7, 2019. Vertically Integrated vegetation fire smoke at high altitudes. NOAA.
The Northern California fire is 15 miles northeast of Quincy and 17 miles south of Susanville
Walker Fire. September 5, 2019. InciWeb.
(UPDATED at 7:40 a.m. PDT September 8, 2019)
After being slowed earlier by cloud cover, the Walker Fire south of Susanville, California was very active late in the day Saturday, spreading toward the northeast in two large fingers 2 and 4.5 miles long, coming to within 5 miles of US Highway 395. Spot fires occurred more than half a mile ahead. The fire grew to the north up Wheeler’s Peak drainage and east around the Antelope Fire scar. Murdock Crossing is between the two large fingers, and now has fire to the west, south, and east. At 7:35 p.m. Saturday the fire was one mile south of Antelope Lake.
A mapping flight at 7:35 p.m. MDT Saturday found that the fire had burned 38,049 acres. It is 15 miles northeast of Quincy and 17 miles south of Susanville.
The Incident Management Team reports that during the period of reduced fire activity firefighters made progress on the south side, assisted by Very Large Air Tankers, water-scooping air tankers, conventional large air tankers, and dozers.
Map of the Walker Fire. The red line was the perimeter mapped by a fixed wing aircraft at 7:35 p.m. PDT September 7, 2019. The white line was the perimeter at 9:38 p.m. PDT September 6, 2019.
Resources assigned to the fire include 11 hand crews, 46 fire engines, and 6 helicopters for a total of 535 personnel.
The weather forecast for the Walker Fire area on Sunday calls for 67 degrees, relative humidity of 32 percent, clear skies, and winds out of the west-southwest at 8 to 13 mph gusting at 20 to 24.
(UPDATED at 8:43 a.m. PDT September 7, 2019)
The red line was the perimeter of the Walker Fire mapped by a fixed wing aircraft at 9:38 p.m. PDT September 6, 2019. The shaded area represents intense heat.
A mapping flight Friday night showed that the Walker Fire in Northern California had grown to 24,040 acres, an increase of about 6,000 acres since the last reported size of 17,912. The fire spread approximately 4 miles to the north and 6 miles to the east since noon on September 6. (see map above)
The fire is 15 miles northeast of Quincy and 21 miles south of Susanville.
The Plumas County Sheriff’s Office ordered mandatory evacuations for the Genesee Valley road corridor, the Ward Creek area, and the Flournoy Bridge area (through CodeRED).
Escape Route Index: A Spatially-Explicit Measure of Wildland Firefighter Egress Capacity
Above: a figure from the research
Previously we covered research that is underway to help wildland firefighters determine the best escape routes from a dangerous fire. A paper published in 2017 looked at the use of LiDAR to analyze the effects of slope, vegetation density, and ground surface roughness on travel rates for wildland firefighters’ escape routes. And earlier this year we reported on research that studied crowd-sourced fitness data to estimate rates of foot travel on slopes and how it could be integrated into recommendations for escape routes.
Below are excerpts from a research paper that was published July 8, 2019, written by Michael J. Campbell, Wesley G. Page, Philip E. Dennison, and Bret W. Butler. It is titled, Escape Route Index: A Spatially-Explicit Measure of Wildland Firefighter Egress Capacity. Link to the entire document.
From the Abstract
A previously published, crowd-sourced relationship between slope and travel rate was used to account for terrain, while vegetation was accounted for by using land cover to adjust travel rates based on factors from the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). Land cover was found to have a stronger impact on ERI values than slope. We also modeled Escape Route Index (ERI) values for several recent wildland firefighter entrapments to assess the degree to which landscape conditions may have contributed to these events, finding that ERI values were generally low from the crews’ evacuation starting points.
From the Conclusions
In this paper, we have introduced a new metric for assessing and mapping egress capacity, or the degree to which one can evacuate from a given location, on a broad, spatial scale based on existing landscape conditions. ERI is not a single metric, but a suite of four spatially-explicit metrics that define the relative travel impedance caused by terrain and land cover faced by a fire crew, should that fire crew need to evacuate. The intent is that this modeling technique will be employed to aid in wildland firefighter safety operations prior to engaging a fire, acting as a decision support tool. Given that the metric relies on US nationwide, publicly-available datasets, the goal is that ERI metrics would be mapped in advance of fire suppression and used to direct fire crews toward potential control locations with higher capacity for evacuation, thus reducing the potential for injurious or even fatal entrapments.
ERI does not map escape routes, per se, it highlights areas that have a greater or lesser capacity for providing efficient escape routes. Areas with high ERI values will likely have an abundance of open, easily-traversable terrain, through which many potential escape routes may exist requiring little alteration of the land cover. Conversely, areas with low ERI values possess some combination of rugged terrain and dense vegetation, thus making the designation of suitable escape routes difficult or even impossible.
(Above: photo by Idaho State Fire Marshal’s Office)
During the last week of August, the Idaho State Fire Marshal’s Office, along with other experts and investigators from around the Pacific Northwest participated in scientific testing of exploding targets and their propensity for igniting wildfires in the forest environment.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Steve. Typos or errors, report them HERE.
The red dots represent heat on the South and Red Bank Fires detected by a satellite at 2:54 a.m. PDT September 6, 2019. Some areas of the Red Bank Fire are burning in light vegetation which can burn and then cool quickly before the next satellite overflight and therefore are not detected by the sensors. This means the fire is probably larger than indicated here.
(UPDATED at 11 a.m. PDT September 6, 2019)
The Red Bank Fire that was reported at 8:19 a.m. on September 5 was active Thursday night according to heat detecting sensors during a satellite overflight at 2:54 a.m. PDT Friday morning. (see map above)
CAL FIRE, in their new shortened incident reporting format, said the fire had burned 6,500 acres. The Red Bank Fire is being suppressed by CAL FIRE, while another fire, the South Fire four miles to the southwest, is the responsibility of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
Overnight at the Cannon Road weather station the relative humidity increased to 63 percent and recorded a minimum temperature of 64. Between 8 p.m. Thursday and 2 a.m. Friday the wind was out of the southeast at 8 to 13 mph with gusts of 20 to 25, but then shifted to come out of the northwest at 1 to 3 mph, a 180-degree change in direction.
The weather forecast on Friday calls for 89 degrees and 22 percent RH. The slight northwest wind should continue until 11 a.m. when it will then be from the east-northeast at 5 mph. Beginning at 2 p.m. the wind should be out of the southeast at 8 mph.
Variable winds make it very difficult for firefighters to safely and effectively fight a fire.
(Originally published at 7:56 p.m. PDT September 5, 2019)
Map showing the location of the Red Bank Fire 20 miles west of Red Bluff, California at 2:36 p.m. PDT Sept. 5, 2019.
The Red Bank Fire spread quickly after it was reported Thursday afternoon 20 miles west of Red Bluff, California. (see map above) Another fire seven miles to the west was reported by aircraft working the fire. Both fires are east of the Mendocino National Forest and mandatory evacuations have been ordered.
Air Attack reported at about 7:45 p.m local time Thursday that the fire had spread 7 miles to the northwest from the fire’s location shown on the map above at 2:36 p.m.
The fire has approached structures in some places but due to the fire behavior, not as many aerial resources as they would like, and smoke limiting the visibility of aircraft, firefighters in some cases had to withdraw.
The Red Bank Fire as seen from the Nevada Seismo Lab Eagles Nest camera at 7:05 p.m. PDT September 5, 2019.
The Incident Commander has placed orders for a large number of ground and air resources, including eight air tankers for Friday.
Friday afternoon the Cannon Road weather station recorded a high temperature of 93 degrees, 17 percent relative humidity, and 10 to 13 mph winds out of the southeast gusting at 18 to 25 mph.
The weather forecast for the fire area on Friday calls for 88 degrees and 23 percent RH. The wind direction will be variable but will be 6 to 8 mph out of the southeast after 2 p.m.
By Thursday afternoon it had burned almost 2,000 acres
The red dots represent heat on the Tenaja Fire detected by a satellite at 2:30 p.m. PDT September 5, 2019 .
About 24 hours after it was reported at 4 p.m. PDT Wednesday the Tenaja Fire west of Murrieta in Southern California flared up again requiring additional evacuations and commitments of firefighting resources.
The blaze started near the intersection of Tenaja Road and Clinton Keith Road in the La Cresta community. (see map above) Spreading quickly in the high temperatures, thunderstorms played havoc, causing the wind direction to shift causing erratic fire behavior. Air tankers, helicopters, and firefighters on the ground kept it to about 1,400 acres Wednesday night as the rate of spread slowed.
Thursday morning there was still very little containment of the fire perimeter. It was fairly quiet until early afternoon when the activity picked up considerably. Rapid spread toward dense complexes of homes in the Murrieta and Wildomar communities triggered more evacuations and large orders for additional firefighting resources.
Smoke over the Tenaja Fire at 1:39 p.m. PDT September 5, 2019. HPWREN.
The fire came very close to a number of homes, some of which were painted red by fire retardant drops. Good work by firefighters on the ground and in the air prevented it from moving into residential areas.
Tenaja Fire. Screenshot from ABC7 video.
At 5:30 p.m. the spread had been at least temporarily stopped, and in places where there was no fireline the vegetation was red from multiple air tanker drops. Fire officials estimated it had burned 1,974 acres. There were no reports of homes burning.
