News and opinion about wildland fire
Yesterday the National Interagency Fire Center released their monthly wildfire potential outlook for the next four months. They predicted that in July the areas with the highest potential will move from the Southwest to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, California, and northern Nevada.
These charts show the National Weather Service’s outlook for precipitation and temperature for June through August, 2018.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized6 Comments on More information released about near miss on Horse Park Fire Above: The truck that became stuck as the driver attempted to turn it around. The report describes it as “fire damaged”. Photo from the report.
The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have released more details about the near miss that occurred on the Horse Park Fire May 27 in a remote area of Southwest Colorado. The report disclosed that in addition to the two firefighters that had to flee from a stuck truck, a lookout in another location also fled on foot and ignited an escape fire at a potential fire shelter deployment site as the fire approached. According to the information released there were no injuries.
Below is the narrative from the “72 Hour Preliminary Report”:
“Two crew members were scouting a road for a potential burnout operation when their truck became stuck. They were unable to free the truck before the fire began to overtake them. The crewmembers made the decision to abandon the truck and take their gear with them. They fled back down the road and away from the fire. One crew member ran ahead and made it safely back to the other vehicles. The other crew member dropped his pack, keeping his fire shelter and radio with him. An additional crew member came up the road on a UTV to help him escape. The pair drove to the parking area where the other crew members were waiting in the vehicles.
“Meanwhile, the crew lookout was forced to flee from the lookout position by the same advance of the fire. Given the fire behavior, the lookout did not feel it was possible to outpace the fire and make it back to the vehicles, so instead moved down and away from the fire. The lookout dropped their pack, but kept the fire shelter, a tool, and radio. At some point during the escape, the lookout realized that the antennae was no longer attached to the radio and there was no way to communicate with the crew or other resources. After moving a considerable distance down a drainage, the lookout found a grassy spot that appeared suitable to deploy a shelter, and began lighting the fuels in the area. Before deployment was necessary, aerial resources located the lookout, who was picked up and flown back to the parking area to rejoin the crew.
“There were no injuries as a result of this incident. An Interagency FLA team, is in place and reviewing the incident.”
Videos recorded during the incident show firefighters hurriedly moving to safety while a radio conversation can be heard referring to the firefighters who escaped and the vehicle that was damaged.
All articles on Wildfire Today about the Horse Park Fire.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom.
Typos or errors, report them HERE.
The Ute Park Fire in Northeast New Mexico expanded to over 27,000 acres on Friday according to a mapping flight at 11 p.m. Friday night. It had the potential to become much larger but it may have been slowed when it spread into the scar from the 2002 Ponil Complex of Fires. In addition, the wind speed recorded at Cimarron on Friday, 9 mph gusting at 22 to 28 out of the southwest, was less than the prediction of sustained 25 mph southwest winds gusting between 31 and 36.
After sundown Friday the wind decreased to 3 mph with a variable direction, which allowed the fire to spread on the southwest side, probably adding one or two thousand acres to the 27,000 mapped at 11 p.m. But firefighters were able to keep the fire out of Cimarron.
#UteParkFire in relation to the 2002 Ponil Complex that burned ~91,400 acres in early June that year, including a significant portion (~28,000 acres) of Philmont’s North Country. #NMFire pic.twitter.com/VEilwjec6W
— NWS Albuquerque (@NWSAlbuquerque) June 1, 2018
Saturday’s weather forecast for Cimarron is for 84 degrees, relative humidity in the mid-teens, and 12 mph winds out of the northeast in the morning switching to the southeast in the afternoon. The variable wind direction could be problematic for firefighters.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized2 Comments on Satellite sensor reports fire that is 142 miles long Obviously, this was an error
The sensors on satellites that detect fires can be extremely useful, showing us the general location and extent of wildfires.
But as proven again today, they are not perfect. As imported into Google Earth, a VIIRS I 375 meter S-NPP sensor on one of the satellites reported at 1:47 p.m. MDT on Friday that there was a fire 142 miles long stretching across half the width of New Mexico. I feel confident in saying this is incorrect.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized4 Comments on Video of driving through the Ute Park Fire Above: screenshot from the video below.
Apparently these people survived driving through the Ute Park Fire in Northeast New Mexico. As a wildland firefighter for decades, I have never driven through that much fire for that length of time. One of the many disastrous things that can happen is that the fire consumes so much oxygen that there is not enough left to support burning the gasoline in the vehicle’s engine — it can quit and the vehicle will stall, probably in the most intense part of the fire.
All of our articles about the Ute Park Fire can be found HERE.
(Originally published at 1:27 p.m. MDT June 1, 2018)
On June 1 the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for June through September. The data represents the cumulative forecasts of the ten Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.
If their analysis is correct, in July the areas with the highest potential will move from the Southwest to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, California, and northern Nevada.
Below are:
“Preexisting drought conditions along with continued drier than average conditions across the Southwest allowed for a normal progression of the western fire season across the Four Corners Region and West Texas in May. By month’s end, the focus of activity began to shift westward into Arizona and Southern California. Northern Minnesota and North Dakota experienced above average fire activity as drought conditions took hold. Alaska experienced a slight uptick in fire activity as fuels began to dry. However, the occurrence of periodic precipitation events allowed for a gradual entry into its fire season. Concerning precipitation trends were emerging across California, Oregon, and Washington as most locations received 50 percent of average precipitation or less during May. In the East, many locations across the Southeast, including Florida, received more than 300 percent of average precipitation during the month.
“The combination of deepening drought and the carryover of fine fuels from 2017 is expected to lead to a continuance of Above Normal Significant Large Fire Potential across western portions of the Four Corners Region and Southern California during June. Late June through early July are the peak of fire season across the Southwest and Alaska. During July, activity begins to spread west and north with the drying and curing of the fuels. The Southwestern monsoon begins and reduces fire activity across the Southwest while wetter patterns across Alaska become better established through the month thus drawing its season to a close. These climatologically normal transitions are expected to occur this year as the Western fire season begins to expand and intensify northward.
“Areas of heightened concern will be locations shown on the maps to the left that have both a significant carryover of fine fuels from 2017 and a normal growth of fine fuels this year. In addition, winter snowpack in the higher elevations along the West Coast was well below average, except in Washington State where it was near normal. However, a drier than average spring may offset the average snowpack and melting rates. This should allow for fuels in the mountains to become critically dry by mid-late July. Further inland, the Northern Rockies experienced a very snowy winter, and snowpack is melting at an average rate. However, a wet spring has promoted the growth of a very healthy, continuous crop of fine fuels that should become receptive to fire in the lower and middle elevations by mid to late July.
“August is the peak of the Western fire season. Seasonal transitions focus the fire activity over the northwestern quarter of the country, though California also continues to experience significant activity. With significant carryover of fine fuels from last year and average grass crop growth this year, elevated fire potential is expected through August and early September across many of the lower and middle elevations from the central Great Basin and California northward to the Canadian border. Higher elevations in the mountains may also see elevated fire potential as well should warmer and drier than average conditions develop as expected.
“Typically, a weather event occurs in mid-September that brings moisture to regions experiencing significant fire activity which allows for the western fire season to begin to decrease in activity. Anticipated trends in long range weather data suggests this to be the case this September as ENSO Neutral conditions begin to shift toward El Niño for the fall and winter months.”
Continue reading “Wildfire potential, June through September”
