In this photo from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Crew 8-1 awaits an airborne ride during an excellent southern California sunset after a training session.
Tag: California
Monitor near-real time Red Flag weather conditions in LA area
The National Weather service has developed an excellent site for monitoring the near-real time weather conditions in the Los Angeles area, and how those observations from weather stations “flirt with” or meet the criteria for Red Flag conditions. It is a very useful site, refreshing automatically every five minutes. It includes the following parameters: RH, wind speed, gusts, duration for meeting the Red Flag criteria, fuel moisture, temperature, and elevation.
When you visit the site, hovering your mouse pointer over a station brings up the last 12 observations at that station.
Other areas in the country should develop similar sites. If you are aware of more, let us know in the comments below.
Wednesday morning one-liners
*The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has published a report on a BIA engine that rolled over near Warm Springs, Oregon, July 18, 2014. Two people were injured, one seriously. The LLC says more than 50 fire vehicles have rolled over in the last 10 years.
*A Colorado artist has created a work consisting of rectilinear pillars suspended from the ceiling, each measuring nine feet tall, meant to convey the idea of a wildfire.
*A man spotted running from the 50-acre Foothill Fire in Ventura, California was arrested on suspicion of setting the blaze.
*Fire officials in Washington state suspect an arsonist is responsible for igniting 23 fires in less than two weeks. Most of them have been vegetation fires.
*A firefighting vehicle in Australia has been outfitted with drop-down steel wheels so that it can follow a steam-powered train, putting out wildfires started by the steam engine.
*In other news from Australia, a Senator gave a speech, titled, Thank you For Smoking, praising nicotine fiends for their $8 billion a year contribution to the economy. He said he did the math: Last year smokers cost the health care system $320 million and another $150 million in bushfire control.
*Researchers have found that “recent (2001–2010) beetle outbreak severity was unrelated to most field measures of subsequent fire severity, which was instead driven primarily by extreme burning conditions (weather) and topography.” Unfortunately, to read the article, researched and published by government employees, it will cost you $10 for two days of access. If the researchers, Brian J. Harvey, Daniel C. Donato, and Monica G. Turner, are going to hide the results of their taxpayer-funded research behind a pay wall, what’s the point in hiring researchers? Support Open Access.
*Firefighters are on alert in the Philippines for wildfires that may start from an eruption of the Mayon volcano.
*Firefighters are on lessened alert in the Black Hills after the area received two to five inches of rain over the last few days.
*California has burned through its wildfire-fighting budget — $209 million — just as it faces what is historically the worst of the fire season.
More details emerge about the fire shelter deployment on the King Fire
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on More details emerge about the fire shelter deployment on the King Fire An article in Vertical Magazine, a publication for the civilian helicopter industry, adds more details about the incident that occurred on the King Fire east of Placerville, California where 12 firefighters deployed their fire shelters in front of advancing flames.
On September 15 we live blogged about the deployment while listening to the radio traffic, and the Arizona Republic interviewed the crew boss for an article published on September 29. The story in Vertical, published on September 30 and written by Dan Megna after interviewing the crew boss and the helicopter pilot, recounts what happened, with more details about the aviation side of the story. It, like the first article, is worth your time. It cleared up a few questions I had, such as who programmed the GPS coordinates into the helicopter’s navigation system (it was not a “Command Staff” person), the handoff from the Bell 205 to the Helicopter Coordinator for directing the crew to safety, and specifics about the extraction of the crew from the landing zone.
Below is an excerpt from the Vertical article:
…Within minutes of [dozer] 1642 arriving and beginning work to access the flames, the atmosphere over the fire began to change, and very quickly. Light breezes turned to hot upslope winds as the inversion layer lifted, allowing the smoke to billow up out of the trees.
The clearing visibility through the trees now revealed a much different — and far more menacing — scenario. Fleming and the dozer operator immediately determined they would be unable to hold what was now apparently a large front of fire.
The dozer operator quickly began to back the machine back up the hill, and Fleming ordered his crew back to the designated “safe zone.”
As Fleming began walking up the hill to join his crew, he heard the sound of the dozer accelerating to what he believed to be full throttle, and the tractor’s track squealing to grab traction.
“I turned around to look, and saw sustained independent crown fire [fire jumping tree to tree in 100-foot-plus tall timber] coming right behind him,” Fleming said…
Enhanced wildfire danger in southern California Thursday through Sunday
The National Weather Service is predicting a mild Santa Ana, or offshore, wind for southern California Thursday through Sunday. The wind will not be strong, but the relative humidity in some areas will be in the single digits along with temperatures around 100, at least in the Riverside area.
The new Santa Ana Threat Index that was rolled out September 17 only lists some “Marginal” to “Moderate” Santa Ana conditions on Thursday and Friday. That could change, of course.
