Larimer County released this map of the Galena Fire which has burned 1,348 acres on the west side of Horsetooth Reservoir west of Fort Collins, Colorado. Below is their update from this morning:
The Galena Fire is now estimated at 1348 acres. There has been minimal growth in the fire and the higher estimate is based on better mapping.
Containment is at 75% but is expected to be higher by the end of the day. 130 firefighters are still on scene with two Type 2 helicopters flying today if conditions permit. No structures have been damaged. There have been two minor injuries. Both firefighters were treated and released at a local hospital.
Fire crews will be completing and securing fire lines today as well as doing some mop-up. Crews have constructed approximately five miles of lines which given the early season limited resources is extremely good. Incident Commander Tony Simons says crews are working hard and have a positive attitude.
Winds will still be a big factor today and will cause increased smoke in the interior of the fire.
The investigation into the cause of the fire is close to being complete. The fire has been determined to be human caused but was NOT a result of a campfire, a controlled burn or a prescribed burn that escaped. Details will be made available as soon as the investigation is complete.
Pre-evacuation notices remain in effect today due to concerns about the wind.
Below is video from a news conference conducted about three hours after the fire started on March 15.
Red Flag Warnings for enhanced wildfire danger have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas in New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska.
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The map above was current as of 1:00 p.m. MT on Monday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts. For the most current data, visit this NWS site.
Portions of New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado are under Red Flag Warnings today.
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The map above was current as of 2:20 p.m. MT on Sunday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts. For the most current data, visit this NWS site.
Evacuations lifted — Larimer County officials distributed this information within the last hour:
All evacuations for the Galena fire will be lifted tonight at 8:00 p.m. Residents in the affected area will be allowed to return home at that time. No credentials will be needed. Those residents will remain on pre-evacuation status and should be prepared to leave if necessary.
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UPDATE at 11:50 a.m. MT, March 16, 2013:
The Galena fire west of Fort Collins, Colorado, now managed by a Type 3 incident management team, was fairly quiet overnight and did not have any significant movement. Larimer County authorities are estimating the size at 750 to 1,000 acres but have not accurately mapped the perimeter. The fire is partially confined by last summer’s 87,000-acre High Park Fire on the west and north sides and Horsetooth Reservoir on the east, but there is still potential for fire movement on the south side. (map of High Park fire)
Mandatory evacuation notifications were sent yesterday for the area west of Horsetooth Reservoir and those evacuations remain in effect today. As of last night all residents of the Soldier Canyon Estates area were allowed back into their homes.
The weather forecast for the area predicts a 30 percent chance of precipitation on Saturday. As this is written, radar is detecting scattered showers east, west, and south of the fire. The relative humidity should bottom out in the mid-thirties today and the winds should be 5-10 mph gusting to 20 late in the afternoon. Sunday is a different story, however, with a forecast for 10-26 mph winds gusting to 40 with a 24 percent relative humidity.
Resources assigned to the fire today include one Type 2 helicopter, four hand crews, and an assortment of engines.
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Originally posted at 11 p.m. MT, March 15, 2013
The Galena Fire west of Fort Collins, Colorado forced some residents to evacuate as the fire burned near Horsetooth Reservoir and Charles A. Lory State Park on Friday. At 4:30 p.m. Larimer County officials estimated the fire had burned about 800 acres.
As of 8:40 p.m. the spread of the fire had slowed. Hand crews were actively working the north side of the fire and parts of the west flank. Engines were assigned to the south side near Inlet Bay.
Firefighters requested air tankers and helicopters but none were available except for one small helicopter, according to The Coloradoan, but strong winds on Friday may have made it difficult to operate any aircraft over the fire. The relative humidity in the area has been extremely low, with the maximum humidity early Friday morning only reaching up to 22 percent. Friday afternoon it got as low as 15 percent while the winds gusted in the mid-twenties.
Saturday’s weather will be more in favor of the firefighters, with a minimum relative humidity of 41 percent, moderate winds of three to seven mph, and a 30 percent chance of light rain.
Friday afternoon firefighters contained a second smaller fire near Eddy Lane in the community of LaPorte.
The map below shows the approximate location of the Galena fire west of Horsetooth Reservoir, and the smaller fire near LaPorte, north and west of Fort Collins. The red areas represent heat detected by a satellite.
CAL FIRE expects to fully contain the River Fire on Thursday which has burned 407 acres east of Lone Pine, California. Thick brush and winds measured at 25 mph challenged the 500 firefighters that initially fought the blaze after it started on Sunday. Remaining on the fire Wednesday morning are 234 personnel, 11 engines, 6 crews, and 2 water tenders. CAL FIRE is calling it 85 percent contained.
Oregon may regulate exploding targets and sky lanterns
A bill has been introduced in the Oregon legislature, HB 3199, that would prohibit the use of sky lanterns (or fire balloons), exploding targets, and tracer ammunition on land within the boundaries of a forest protection district. (UPDATE: the bill was signed by the Governor and will take effect January 1, 2014.)
“Concealed carry is a right, target shooting is not”
Those were the words of Utah state senator Margaret Dayton who resurrected her bill that would give the state forester the authority to ban target shooting on state lands during periods of enhanced wildfire danger. Earlier she withdrew the bill after it received criticism from some shooting enthusiasts. The bill passed the Senate this week along with another that would allow firefighters to access water on privately owned land to aid them in fire suppression efforts.
A bill is speeding through the Colorado Senate that would add safeguards to prescribed fires conducted in the state. Senate Bill 13-083 would:
Establish control over prescribed burning within the Division of Fire Prevention and Control in the Department of Public Safety;
“Prescribed Burn Managers” must be certified by the Division for prescribed fires occurring on state lands or conducted by state agencies on private lands. This does not apply to “burning conducted by an agency of the federal government”;
A Prescribed Burn Manager must be on site during a prescribed burn “until the fire is adequately confined to reasonably prevent escape”;
Allows the Division to collect fees for providing training and certifications.
Getting manufactured crisis fatigue?
While the people we send to Washington to conduct the nation’s business have not passed a federal budget in four years, and they propel us from one manufactured crisis to another, some of us may tire of the hype as we reel from one ridiculous deadline to another. Unfortunately the impacts on the land management agencies from the budget cuts required by the sequester will be significant unless they are reversed within the next few weeks.
On October 13, we first wrote about the sequester, which will require federal wildland fire programs to be cut by at least $218 million, or 8.2 percent.
Here are some excerpts from an article at the Union Democrat with examples of impacts on the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service in California:
The Associated Press obtained a Park Service memo Friday that detailed some of the planned Yosemite cuts. Staff reductions would end guided ranger programs at Wawona and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, eliminate a program in which 3,500 volunteers provide 40,000 hours of activities and mean less frequent trash pickup due to loss of campground staff.
Park administrators fear that less frequent trash pickup would potentially attract bears into campgrounds.
Seasonal road closures like that of Tioga Road may be extended later than usual because there will be less staff available to clear snow.
“The reductions would limit the National Park Service’s ability to sustain a full complement of seasonal employees needed for interpretive programs, maintenance, law enforcement and other visitor services as we are preparing for the busy summer season. Local communities and businesses that rely on recreation to support their livelihoods would face a loss of income from reduced visitation to national parks.”
In the Stanislaus National Forest, cuts could reduce funds available for fuels reductions that help prevent catastrophic forest fires. About $134 million in lost wildland fire management funds would lead to as many as 200,000 fewer acres treated nationwide, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wrote in a letter dated Feb. 5 to U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Forest Service is also prepared to close up to 670 of 19,000 developed recreation sites nationwide, such as campgrounds, picnic areas and trailheads, according to Vilsack.
Webinar today: Debunking Myths in Wildland Fire
Today from 1 until 2 p.m. MT:
Sarah McCaffrey will present findings from recent research on social issues of fire management with particular emphasis on the accuracy of various accepted truths about the public and fire management and the variables that actually are associated with approval of different fire management practices.
Tanker 48 dropping on the Fern Lake Fire in Colorado, Dec. 4, 2012. Photo by Paul Filmer
The Fern Lake Fire created problems for firefighters in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park from the minute it started on October 9, 2012. At first it was the steep, inaccessible terrain, but very soon the 9,000-foot altitude and especially the low temperatures became another foe to deal with as the fire kept burning into November and December. The order for the Type 1 incident management team that was placed December 1 has to be one of the latest orders for a Type 1 team ever put into the system, although there have been some December orders a few times in southern California during Santa Ana wind conditions.
Today a guest author who was there will tell us what it was like at that winter fire in Colorado. Rae Brooks worked as a public information officer with the Type 1 team in December at the Fern Lake Fire. Her background is in journalism.
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ESTES PARK, Colo. — Sweltering heat and long summer days are the usual operating theater for wildland firefighters. At the Fern Lake Fire in northern Colorado, firefighters entered a new world of winter firefighting, where pumps freeze, dip lakes ice over, darkness descends early, and fire prediction models say nothing should be burning at that time of year anyway.
Most firefighters had long ago packed away their gear and turned their attention to skiing or Christmas shopping, when the call came in early December for hundreds to come to Estes Park to help battle a persistent blaze in Rocky Mountain National Park.
“This is definitely a first for me, much less at 9,000 feet,” said veteran firefighter Kevin La Bella of Palmer Lake, Colo., a safety officer on the fire. “I’ve lived on the Front Range for 30 years and I’ve never heard of a major fire here in December.”
Early in the Fern Lake fire, Forest Canyon blow up. NPS Photo
The New York Times called the nearly 3,500-acre blaze “perhaps the most unusual sign of the nagging drought” currently plaguing the United States. The Fern Lake Fire, The Times reported, is burning “on peaks that should be covered in snow right now.”
Although winter fires remain atypical, it is clear that fire seasons in the United States are beginning earlier, ending later and burning more acres annually. Six of the most destructive fire seasons have occurred in the past nine years. More than 9.3 million acres burned in 2012, the third highest since record-keeping began more than half a century ago.
The disconnect for many firefighters began while driving to Estes Park, listening to Christmas carols on the radio. Strains of “White Christmas” and other holiday standards also wafted around the incident command post, which, in order to escape the cold, was located in a hotel convention center. More typically, schoolyards, agricultural fairgrounds, or yurts hastily assembled in cow pastures serve as fire headquarters.
After 70 mile-per-hour winds caused the fire to double in size on Dec. 1, forcing the evacuation of more than 600 homes, a national Type 1 incident management team was deployed to handle the fire. Type 1 teams manage the nation’s most complex emergencies. Continue reading “Fighting fire in the Colorado winter”
