News and opinion about wildland fire
The National Weather Service has issued Red Flag Warnings for areas in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and California. A Fire Weather Watch is in effect for a portion of eastern Idaho.
The map was current as of 8 a.m. MDT on Monday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Update on the Alamo Fire east of Santa Maria, Calif. Above: Map of the Alamo Fire east of Santa Maria, California. The red line was the perimeter at about 10 p.m. PDT July 9. The white line was the perimeter about 22 hours earlier.
(Originally published at 9:11 a.m. PDT July 10, 2017)
On Sunday and Sunday night satellites did not find a great many large heat sources on the Alamo Fire east of Santa Maria, California. However they did detect a fair amount of heat on the south end and on the east side near the fire’s edge.
CAL FIRE is calling it 28,926 acres. Technically, that is an increase of about 5,000 acres over the previous 24 hours, but some of that could be due to more accurate mapping.
Portions of Highway 166 and Twitchel Canyon Road are closed. Mandatory evacuations are in effect for Tepusquet Canyon.
A sea breeze on Monday will moderate conditions to be more in favor of the firefighters. The prediction for the fire area is 80 degrees, a minimum relative humidity of 46 percent, and winds out of the west at 7 to 10 mph gusting up to 15.
Above: Whittier Fire, looking west from Santa Ynez Peak at 5:53 a.m. PDT July 10, 2017.
(Originally published at 6:25 a.m. PDT July 10, 2017)
The Whittier Fire was very active all day Sunday and into the evening and as of 10:30 p.m. a mapping aircraft observed intense heat along most of the perimeter. The exception was the north side near Lake Cachuma and the lower slopes along San Marcos Pass Road.
Sunday night after midnight the relative humidity at Santa Ynez and Los Prietos climbed into the 60s and 70s and by dawn some of the cameras on Santa Ynez Peak captured what looked like either fog or smoked trapped in a valley inversion.
The Incident Management Team announced Monday morning the fire has burned 10,823 acres. Evacuations are still in effect and San Marcos Pass Road, Highway 154, is closed.
The weather forecast for the fire area on Monday is moderate by fire behavior standards. Temperatures on the north side of the fire near Lake Cachuma should be in the low 80s, the relative humidity in the low 40s, and a sea breeze will be southeast to southwest at 7 to 9 mph with gusts up to 14.
All of the articles we have written about the fire are tagged “Whittier Fire” and can be found here, with the most recent at the top.
Cameras on Santa Ynez Peak nine miles northwest of Goleta recorded these images Sunday between 10 a.m. and 2:21 p.m. PDT. As you can see the fire burned up to the peak which has many electronic sites, various radio repeaters, transmission towers, and cell phone facilities. The fire caused the commercial electricity to be interrupted at the site, but the tower these cameras are on and probably others are being powered by emergency generators.
The cameras are operated by the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN), a University of California San Diego partnership project led by the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
All of the articles we have written about the fire are tagged “Whittier Fire” and can be found here, with the most recent at the top.
The National Weather Service has issued Red Flag Warnings for areas in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota, and California. A Fire Weather Watch is in effect for a portion of eastern Idaho.
The map was current as of 9:50 a.m. MDT on Sunday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts.
Above: A camera on Santa Ynez Peak captured this image of the Whittier Fire at 11:11 a.m. PDT July 9, 2017.
(Originally published at 8:35 a.m. PDT July 9, 2017)
(Updated at 5:51 p.m. PDT July 9, 2017)
The Whittier Fire has been spreading very rapidly through very old, decadent, thick brush since it started at about 1:45 p.m. Saturday near Lake Cachuma six miles southeast of Santa Ynez in southern California.
Sunday morning’s National Situation Report said 20 structures have been destroyed, and the resources assigned include 7 hand crews, 32 engines, and 11 helicopters, for a total of 400 personnel. These numbers, probably assembled Saturday evening, may be a little behind the power curve for such as rapidly spreading wildfire.
The Southern California Geographic Area Coordination Center reported Sunday morning that it had burned 7,800 acres.
The weather forecast for the fire area is not extreme, by fire weather standards. It predicts, depending on the elevation and the proximity to the coast, temperatures in the high 80’s to low 90’s, humidities in the low 30’s, and south to southwest winds of about 7 mph gusting to 11.
This is one of two wildfires burning in Santa Barbara County. The other is the Alamo Fire about four miles east of Santa Maria.
According to Inciweb late Saturday night, mandatory Evacuation Orders have been issued for:
Hwy 154 is closed from State Route 246 to Foothill Road.
Mark Von Tillow’s Type 1 Incident Management Team has been dispatched and should arrive at the fire Sunday.
All of the articles we have written about the fire are tagged “Whittier Fire” and can be found here, with the most recent at the top.
