Long range spotting on Mt. Bolton Fire in Australia

Looking at this tweet and the video, Nicholas McCarthy is saying embers from the Mt. Bolton Fire in Victoria, Australia caused a spot fire five kilometers (3.1 miles) away from the main fire.

Mr. McCarthy is working on the Bushfire Convective Plume Experiment based out of the University of Queensland studying extreme fire weather with portable radar.

On February 23 the researchers shot the following time-lapse video of the smoke plume from the Mt. Bolton Fire.

The fire was burning furiously while the video was being filmed, but in a day or two it ran out of heavy fuel and was corralled by firefighters.

Below is a photo showing shorter-range spotting on the Mt. Bolton Fire.

Mt Bolton Fire Victoria CFA
Mt Bolton Fire. Photo by Victoria Country Fire Authority.

Spot fires at the Mt. Bolton Fire in Victoria

Mt Bolton Fire Victoria CFA

Above: an Aircrane helicopter battles spot fires on a bushfire near Mt. Bolton in Victoria, Australia. Photo provided by the Country Fire Authority.

On Tuesday we had some photos and information about smoke plume research going on at the fire near Mt. Bolton in Victoria, Australia. The Country Fire Authority recently distributed this photo. There’s a lot going in that picture. It looks like that Aircrane has its hands full. I wonder if it was able to pick up that spot fire across the road, but the structures on the right side were probably a higher priority.

Later the CFA said the fire had been contained. A satellite photo of the fire’s location showed that it was in a hilly forested area surrounded by treeless pastures  and agriculture fields.