Above: An air tanker drops on the Bar Fire in Santa Barbara County, November 12, 2019. Photo: Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
A prescribed fire that was expected to be a three-day project escaped on day one Tuesday, burning an additional 10 to 20 acres in Santa Barbara County in Southern California. The BarM Ranch Vegetation Management Burn was planned to occur November 12 through 14 on the Bar M Ranch east of Vandenberg Air Force Base 4 miles southeast of Los Alamos along Highway 101.
Multiple fire engines and aircraft were brought in to stop the spread after it jumped control lines at about 3:45 p.m.
The burn was conducted on private land with the long range goal of reducing old growth vegetation and improving rangeland, while minimizing the impacts of smoke on population centers as it was being carried out.
The Bar Fire, caused by an escaped prescribed fire, burned an additional 10- to 20 acres. Photo: Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
The fire destroyed over 1,600 structures and burned nearly 97,000 acres north of Malibu, California
Above: A CL-415 super scooper air tanker drops water on the second day of the Woolsey Fire, November 9, 2019. stonebrookphotography
When the Woolsey Fire started at about 2 p.m. on November 8, 2018 the humidity was five percent and the wind was gusting out of the north and northeast at 40 to 50 mph. At 5:15 the next morning it jumped the 12-lane 101 freeway and before noon ran for another six miles to the Pacific Ocean, a distance of about 15 miles from the point where it started 22 hours before.
It ignited in Woolsey Canyon on the Santa Susana Field Laboratory property, a complex of industrial facilities owned by Boeing above the Simi Valley near the Los Angeles/Ventura county line in southern California.
Two other major fires had already started earlier that day, drawing some of the firefighting resources that could have been used on the Woolsey Fire. The Camp Fire started early that morning wiping out much of Paradise in northern California before noon. Then the Hill Fire ignited at about 1 p.m. south of Thousand Oaks 13 miles southwest of where the Woolsey Fire began an hour later. The Hill Fire eventually burned over 4,500 acres and required the evacuation of 17,000 residents.
An After Action Review released in October by Los Angeles County listed some of the issues that affected the management and suppression of the Woolsey Fire that destroyed over 1,600 structures and burned nearly 97,000 acres.
Progression map of the Woolsey Fire, November 17, 2018. Perimeters produced by the Incident Management Team. Adapted by Wildfire Today.
The fire has burned 2,534 acres 21 miles southwest of Red Bluff, Calif.
Map of the Ranch Fire November 8, 2019. CAL FIRE map cropped by Wildfire Today.
10:58 a.m. PST November 8, 2019
Firefighters working on the Ranch Fire have completed a control line around almost half of the perimeter (see map above). Satellites have not detected very many large sources of heat on the western three-quarters of the incident for a couple of days.
The fire is 21 miles southwest of Red Bluff, California and one mile east of the Mendocino National Forest.
Evacuations are still in effect along Colyear Springs Road from Red Bank Road to the Mendocino National Forest Boundary.
CAL FIRE reports that the fire has burned 2,534 acres, which is a reduction from 3,768 acres due to more accurate mapping.
Resources assigned to the fire include 65 fire engines, 10 water tenders, 36 hand crews, 5 helicopters, and 13 dozers for a total of 1,123 personnel.
Two strike teams—Team 3 from Linn County & Team 10 from Clackamas County, who have been at the 3,768-acre #RanchFire near Red Bluff, California—have been demobilized & are returning to Oregon today. @OSFMpic.twitter.com/ODpfh5G1IN
#USFS has 366 people (firefighters, handcrews, pilots) and 35 resources (aircraft, engines, dozers) actively assisting our local and county partners with ongoing fires. We’re ready to add 632 people and 53 resources if needed. #OneTeamOneFight#CaliforniaWildfirespic.twitter.com/Vj5D6rGEjQ
Overnight photos from our crews on the #RanchFire. They are doing well & working hard as they work the fireline. They are working with another Cal Fire strike team as they hold a line at the creek bottom & chase spot fires throughout the night. pic.twitter.com/pyOnVYJehw
And in what sounds like it is from The Onion, the CEO of PG&E gives advice about refilling refrigerators after they had to be emptied during power shutoffs.
SAN FRANCISCO—With blazes engulfing Sonoma County and smoke-filled skies blanketing much of the Bay Area, officials in California announced Friday they would attempt to mitigate any further spread of wildfires with a mandatory shutoff of oxygen to thousands of the state’s residents. “In order to eliminate factors that could contribute to the fires’ growth, we will cut the flow of oxygen in high-risk areas throughout the northern part of the state,” California Public Utilities Commission president Marybel Batjer told reporters, explaining that the rolling “air-outs” would last 12 hours on average and residents would need to plan accordingly. “If each Californian can learn to make do without oxygen for just a day or two, we could avoid much of the devastation caused by wildfires. We understand this is a hardship, but it is simply too dangerous to allow open oxygen in fire-prone areas. Those requiring emergency supplies of air will be allowed to offset the shortage by cultivating hundreds of plants inside their home.” Batjer later confirmed that oxygen would continue flowing to all businesses deemed vital, including the headquarters of every major tech giant in or around Silicon Valley.
This satire is a takeoff on the fact that in recent weeks Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison cut power to millions of Californians over multiple days to prevent the companies’ dangerous and inadequately maintained infrastructure from starting more wildfires during strong winds. About 1,400 schools serving more than 490,000 students lost power for at least one day during power shut-offs between Oct. 24 and Nov. 1, according to Scott Roark, spokesperson for the California Department of Education.
Noyes: “What do you say to people who just can’t afford to restock their fridges and are losing all this food they’ve had in their households after these shut offs?”
Johnson: “These events can be hard on people, really hard on people, particularly people who have struggles anyways and there are community-based things you can do, food banks, these kind of things. But for us, you know the main thing is we didn’t cause any fires, we didn’t, for these people we didn’t burn down any houses, the Kincade fire is still under investigation, I got that, but one of the things we did was give them the opportunity to actually refill their refrigerator ’cause their house is still there.”
The effects of shutting off the electricity rather than harden their infrastructure has far-reaching repercussions, including traffic lights not working, businesses having to close, difficulty in finding functioning gas stations, air conditioning and heating unavailable, parents looking for child care when schools close, and many others.
Some cell phone systems do not have robust emergency power supplies, in fact some have none because the FCC does not require it. This can make the situation even worse for those without land lines who can’t call 911 for emergencies or receive evacuation notifications when endangered by a wildfire. It also makes it impossible for cell phones to receive earthquake warnings from the system that is being rolled out in California. In Marin County 57 percent of cell towers were down on October 28, for example.
The severe Diablo winds and fire weather in Northern California last month further proved how fragile our phone networks can be in a long, persistent power outage: 57% of cell towers in Marin County were down; Sonoma County saw 27% of them out; Napa, 19%. https://t.co/7ZZfZaw3PPpic.twitter.com/hi3ziSDBAl
Map showing heat detected by a satellite on the Ranch Fire at 1:06 p.m. PDT Nov. 4, 2019.
UPDATED at 6:42 p.m. PDT Nov. 4, 2019
CAL FIRE reported Monday at 6:25 p.m. that the Ranch Fire 21 miles southwest of Red Bluff, California has burned 1,308 acres. Early Monday morning it was 550 acres.
The fire was very active Monday afternoon as firefighters on the ground were assisted by numerous air tankers and helicopters.
The fire was originally reported at Colyer Springs Road and Raglin Ridge Road in Tehama County.
The weather forecast for the fire area on Tuesday calls for moderate fire weather; 77 degrees, relative humidity of 20 percent, and winds from variable directions at 6 mph. Early in the morning the wind will be out of the northwest but will shift throughout the day, becoming southeast by sunset. Similar conditions are expected on Wednesday except the wind will be 6 to 10 mph out of the north after 9 a.m.
Sensors on the GOES-17 satellite detected heat and smoke from the Ranch Fire at 3:06 p.m. PDT Nov. 4, 2019.
The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must “clean” his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers…..
..Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states…But our teams are working well together in…..
….putting these massive, and many, fires out. Great firefighters! Also, open up the ridiculously closed water lanes coming down from the North. Don’t pour it out into the Pacific Ocean. Should be done immediately. California desperately needs water, and you can have it now!
The president’s assertion that California’s forest management policies are to blame for catastrophic wildfire is dangerously wrong. Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography. Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another one-third under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California…
It is unclear what Mr. Trump meant when we wrote, “You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states.” Below are stats for fire suppression costs and acres burned in California vs. the 11 western states.
On average from 2003-2012, California wildfires had 44 percent of all reported suppression costs in the western 11 states (based on fiscal fire years, October 1 – September 30). Only 24 percent of acres burned were in California, on average, over the same time. Click image to enlarge. Credit: Climate Central.
(Note: if you would like to comment on this article by citing facts or expressing an opinion about wildfire and forest management in California, great, but please remember that at Wildfire Today we avoid political arguing, partisan stereotyping, and personal attacks. More information.)
