Six Rivers Lightning Complex, north end. The red shaded areas were the perimeters at 8:32 p.m. Aug. 6.
Saturday night at 8:32 a fixed wing aircraft mapped four of the eight fires on the Six Rivers National Forest that comprise the Six Rivers Lightning Complex of fires. The three closest to Willow Creek and east of Highway 299 at that time were the Bremer (213 acres), Campbell (1,526 acres), and Cedar (250 acres).
As can be expected when a dozen fires all start at about the same time in rugged country, there has been some confusion about the names of the fires. We did the best we could to sort that out, but the names on these maps could be subject to change.
Six Rivers Lightning Complex, south end. The red shaded areas were the perimeters at 8:32 p.m. Aug. 6. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 3:07 a.m. August 7, 2022.
The Type 2 Incident Management Team 11, led by Incident Commander Christopher Fogle, will assume command August 7th at 6:00pm.
Six Rivers Lightning Complex. The red shaded areas were the perimeters at 8:32 p.m. Aug. 6. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 3:07 a.m. August 7, 2022.
Updated at 8:13 p.m. PDT August 6, 2022
Satellite photo showing smoke from the Six Rivers Lightning Complex of fires at 7:21 PDT Aug. 6, 2022. NOAA.
Updated at 8:02 p.m. PDT August 6, 2022
Campbell Fire, part of the Six Rivers Lightning Complex, taken from Lilys Thai Kitchen by Basho Warson Parks, Aug. 6, 2022.
The Six Rivers National Forest is calling the fires near Willow Creek, California, the Six Rivers Lightning Complex. They released the following information and map on Saturday.
We cannot stress this enough- This is a VERY ACTIVE INCIDENT and is emerging and changing rapidly. Please don’t take notifications lightly and stay informed.
WATERMAN: Approx. 75 acres. Fire is located northeast of Willow Creek on Waterman Ridge Road 7N02 Forest Route 4.
CEDAR: Approx. 80 acres. Fire is located near Waterman Fire.
BREMER: 15 acres. Fire is located northeast of Willow Creek on ridgetop above the Bigfoot Subdivision.
FRIDAY: Fire is located south of Willow Creek ½ mile up Friday Ridge Rd from Hwy 299.
OAK: 200 acres. Fire is located south of Willow Creek. Near FS Road 5N31 and 6N20.
CHARLIE: Contained. Located south of Willow Creek near the Oak Fire and along FS Road 6N20.
CORRAL: Fire is located northeast of Willow Creek on Tish Tang Ridge.
CAMPBELL: Due to fire activity, the Bravo and Campbell fire have merged and is now being called the Campbell fire. Approx. 150 acres. Located south of Willow Creek on the west side of Campbell Ridge above Campbell Ridge above Campbell Ridge Road.
The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation posted an excellent video of air tanker 914, a DC-10, dropping retardant on the Matt Staff Rd Fire.
DNRC’s County Assist Team has assumed command of the Matt Staff RD fire. Great progress was made thanks to the efforts of firefighters, aircraft, and calmer weather conditions. Here’s a video of an airtanker working with crews to slow fire progress. #mtfire#fireyear2022pic.twitter.com/YpiIrgZQY1
The fire has burned 1,538 acres 13 miles east of Helena, Montana between Canyon Ferry Lake and US Highway 287.
All evacuations on the fire were lifted at 8 p.m. Friday, August 5th. Matt Staff Road is still closed to the public. Montana’s County Assist Team assumed command of the fire at 12 p.m. on August 5th. The cooler temperatures and brief rain Saturday morning were beneficial to firefighting efforts.
The drop
The terrain seen in the video is not extreme, but appears to be outside the parameters NASA expected for a very large air tanker such as a DC-10.
Here is an excerpt from the NASA report issued March 2, 2009, titled “USFS Very Large Air Tanker Operational Test and Evaluation.”
The analysis suggests that for level or gently rolling terrain where level to slight descents (< 6-7%) are required, VLAT-class aircraft could probably be employed with few restrictions as long as they remained above 300’ AGL during the delivery.
Check out the video below posted by Kevin Osborne showing a DC-10 making a downhill drop in 2012 on the Goff Fire on the Klamath National Forest in Northern California.
Names of fires
On a related subject, here is my plea for initial attack and dispatcher personnel to keep the names of fires simple. Fires are usually named after a nearby landmark or geographical feature. One word is preferred, but certainly no more than two. Think about how many times the name will have to written, spoken, and typed into forms. Will spelling be easy, or will it be misleading, such as “Camp Fire”, or Road vs Rd?
Aerial ignition by unmanned aerial vehicle on the Moose Fire in Idaho, August 2, 2022. By Mike McMillan for the USFS.
Here is a quick two-minute review of wildfires over the last week, produced by the National Interagency Fire Center August 5 2022.
Currently there are 32 large uncontained fires in the United States that are being fully suppressed. Another 39 are not being fully suppressed: 17 in the Alaska Geographic Area, 3 in the Southwest, 5 in the Great Basin, and 4 in the Northern Rockies.
From the Cresson Volunteer Fire Department, August 3, 2022
“This afternoon we sent 3 trucks to help on a wildfire reportedly started by welding north of Tolar. While working with a group of other trucks in a clear area extinguishing spot fires one of our trucks stalled and lost mobility. Seeing that the fire was approaching, our crew left the truck on foot and retreated to a safe area. Another truck picked them up and our firefighters were evaluated by EMS. One of our firefighters did inhale some smoke and had burns on a small portion of his face and arms. He was flown to Parkland, and his evaluation is excellent. We don’t know yet, but he may be released without even spending the night. These are dangerous fires for all of us, and our guys’ training and decision making kept a bad incident from getting worse. UPDATE: just received confirmation that our firefighter is being released and heading home from the hospital.”
Smoke from Oak Fire, seen from Mariposa Co. Fairgrounds, July 23, 2022. Photo, Daniel R. Patterson, USFS.
This weekend we are continuing an occasional weekend feature we started a few weeks ago. This post can serve as the beginning of an open thread where our readers can talk about issues that we have, or have not, gotten into yet. This is literally an off-topic thread. You have the floor.
The usual rules about commenting apply. And remember, no personal attacks or politics, please.
Let’s enjoy a wide-ranging conversation!
(Oh, and send us pics of staging areas — date, location, and photographer’s name would be nice.)
One manufacture said shelters ordered today will be shipped in March, 2023
Fire shelter, with one side removed to show the position of a firefighter. USFS.
Anyone attempting to purchase a new wildland fire shelter may find that many retail fire equipment suppliers do not have any in stock. Of the eight online suppliers we checked, five had them on back order. The three that estimated when they would be available said it would be four to eight weeks.
I called Anchor Industries, the larger of the two companies that make fire shelters, to find out why. I asked John Montrastelle, Government Sales Manager, why there was difficulty in keeping them in stock at retailers.
“Most dealers buy from me,” Mr. Montrastelle said. “We are in our second year of another record fire shelter season. I mean, it is ginormous. My lead time right now on fire shelters is March 3, 2023. If a dealer was to order today, it’s March 3. I have got thousands of fire shelter orders in house here, and we churn out 500 a week. We need to be making twice that just to catch up with the demand. Just two years ago, my lead time, no matter the quantity, because I had a decent amount of inventory, was usually five days or less.”
“We just have a high demand for them right now, which has created a longer lead time from us,” Mr. Montrastelle said from his office in Indiana. “It’s not so much the raw goods, it’s more of a labor problem. We just need to figure out how to add a second shift and get another 15 people that are good workers that will stay with us. And sometimes it’s not just the money. It’s crazy.”
Why are there shortages?
Mr. Montrastelle thought the increased demand was partly due to more firefighters being hired and an increase in acres burned.
Another likely reason is the advisory issued March 16, 2022 by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Equipment Technology Committee. It reported that in reviewing shelter deployments in 2020, it was determined that shelters made prior to 2006 “function as intended” but may experience greater delamination between the silica cloth and aluminum foil when deployed.
The scary looking two-page advisory document, surrounded by yellow and gray slashes, appeared to indicate it was an urgent concern. But surprisingly, there was no recommendation in the NWCG advisory. It didn’t say to replace the pre-2006 shelters. It took the timid step of “providing technical information to support agency-specific decision-making regarding replacement of fire shelters manufactured prior to 2006.”
However the meeting notes posted online by the NWCG Equipment Technology Committee after their meeting of November 2-3, 2021 had been more definitive, and used clear text:
“Recommend discontinue the use of shelters made prior to January 2006 via an equipment advisory.”
But that got watered down in the March 16 Advisory.
The “new generation” of fire shelter first became available in 2003 and since then there have been revisions in addition to those made in 2006. For example, meeting notes from the October 28, 2021 NWCG Fire Shelter and Personal Protective Equipment Subcommittee mentioned that “Fluorine and phosphorus tested too high in recent materials test, concern about off-gassing inside the shelter.” Toxicity thermal testing was scheduled at University of Alberta, Canada. Production of the shelter was paused, and by the January 27, 2022 meeting manufacturing was moving forward again.
At that meeting it was mentioned that “State programs have responded that they may not be able to quickly get [the pre-2006 shelters] out of circulation.”
We asked agencies if they had shortages
In light of the statement above that states will have problems replacing the pre-2006 shelters, we did some checking, and called several agencies on the west coast to ask if they were having difficulty acquiring fire shelters.
Thomas Kyle-Milward, a Communications Manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, told Wildfire Today that they have decided that they need to upgrade to the latest version of the shelter. Like many state and federal land management agencies, they order their shelters from the Defense Logistics Agency, which which is one of the 282 fire-related items handled by the DLA. Mr. Kyle-Milward said 900 shelters have been on back order at the DLA for a couple of months.
We also checked with the US Forest Service. “We are not experiencing a shortage of fire shelters,” said Stanton Florea, Fire Communications Specialist. “The inventory of fire shelters in the National Interagency Support Caches is close to maximum levels used for planning.”
Jessica Prakke, Public Affairs Officer for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said, “ODF does not have a shortage of fire shelters. Our fire cache and districts work diligently during the off season to stock up on supplies so that when we are in fire season, our ordering is minimal to avoid potential shortages. Hopefully, the projection of a March 2023 fulfillment of current orders holds true.”
A spot check of a couple of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection regions found no shortage of shelters.
Update at 9:51 a.m. EDT August 6, 2022. One of our readers told us that the warehouse manager in North Carolina reached out to let them know that they we were down to eight new shelters and were unable to stock up. Some other southern states also have shelters on back order.
