Long Valley Fire burns hundreds of acres on Calif/NV line north of Reno

Long Valley Fire, August 25, 2019
The sun rises on the Long Valley Fire, August 25, 2019. Photo by Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District .

(UPDATED at 9:42 a.m. PDT August 25, 2019)

At 8:37 a.m. PDT August 25 the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District reported that the Long Valley Fire had been mapped at 2,438 acres and all evacuations had been lifted.

HERE is a link to a map of the fire produced Sunday morning.


(UPDATED at 7:03 a.m. PDT August 25, 2019)

As the sun was rising Sunday morning the camera at Fort Sage looking south to the Long Valley Fire did not show any significant columns of smoke. The fire is north of Reno, Nevada between Highway 395 and Red Rock Road. (see map below)

Long Valley Fire
The Long Valley Fire, looking south from the camera at Fort Sage at 6:38 a.m. PDT August 25, 2019.

The Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District reported at 7:10 p.m. PDT Saturday that one primary structure and multiple outbuildings burned. At 8:38 p.m. PDT the District said the fire had burned about 1,500 acres and “at least 50 to 75 homes have been impacted” by the fire.

The closure of Red Rock Road was lifted by 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Electrical power may still be shut off in some areas.

At 12:31 a.m. Sunday the evacuation order was still in effect.

The video below shows a Very Large Air Tanker, a DC-10, making  a downhill retardant drop Saturday evening on the fire.


(Originally published at 6:49 p.m. PDT August 24, 2019)

Long Valley Fire
Long Valley Fire as seen from the camera at Fort Sage at 5:23 p.m PDT August 24, 2019.

The Long Valley Fire started Saturday afternoon north of Reno along Highway 395 about two miles south of the north end of Red Rock Road. Pushed by a strong wind it spread to the northeast toward Red Rock Road. The Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District is working to keep the fire west of the road.

Continue reading “Long Valley Fire burns hundreds of acres on Calif/NV line north of Reno”

Fire crews assist with extraction and rescue of accident victim

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Wells, Nevada

Nevada wildland fire crews assist vehicle accident
Photo: Wells Rural Electric Company

John Beinhauer of the Nevada Division of Forestry sent us this information about wildland fire crews assisting at an accident site earlier this week:

“On Tuesday, August 13, 2019, the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center received a request for assistance from the Elko County Fire Protection District for Federal resources to help with a traffic accident/rescue in difficult terrain near Angel Lake outside of Wells, Nevada.

“Task Force Alpha, on assignment at the Wells BLM Station, was dispatched along with a mine rescue crew from the Nevada Gold Mines – Long Canyon Mine. A single vehicle had rolled off the switchback road coming to rest approximately 400 yards from the roadway in steep terrain. Fire Crews assisted local personnel with patient extraction and transport to the waiting ambulance for transfer to the EMS helicopter.”

wildland fire crews assist vehicle accident
Photo: Wells Rural Electric Company

Goose Fire burning from Nevada toward Idaho

Little Goos Fire map
Map showing the location of the Little Goose Fire in Northeast Nevada at 1:36 p.m. MDT August 5, 2019.

A fire that was reported at 6:23 p.m. Sunday August 4 in the Northeast corner of Nevada has been burning vigorously on Monday. Heat detected by a satellite at 1:36 p.m. (see map above) showed it to be moving north and had spread to within a mile of the Nevada/Idaho border. In later satellite photos it appeared to have approached the border and was generating pyrocumulus clouds. By the time you read this there is a good chance it will have burned into Idaho.

The BLM reported at about 6 p.m. Monday that it was a full suppression fire and had burned 3,500 acres.

At various times it was called “Goose Fire” and “Little Goose Fire”. Just plain “Goose Fire” seemed to be winning out by late Monday afternoon.

At about 4:40 p.m. MDT FlightRadar showed four single engine air tankers from Twin Falls and Tanker 911, a DC-10 from Pocatello, flying in the vicinity of the Goose Fire. A NOAA research Twin Otter also showed up, flying a grid pattern — NOAA46 (N46RF), that was most likely analyzing the atmosphere over the fire. NOAA has a fleet of nine aircraft that conduct airborne environmental data gathering missions. Later after the first NOAA Twin Otter departed, another NOAA Twin Otter was over the fire, NOAA48.

Little Goose Fire map aircraft
Map showing aircraft near the Little Goose Fire in Northeast Nevada at 5:37 p.m. PDT August 5, 2019. NOAA46 (N46RF)

Four new wildfires break out in Nevada and Idaho

Two people were arrested for allegedly starting the Jasper Fire north of Reno by target shooting into an area with cheat grass

Jasper Fire north of Sun Valley, Nevada
The Jasper Fire north of Sun Valley, Nevada. Photo by Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, July 13, 2019.

Four new wildfires broke out in the Great Basin Geographic Area late Saturday, two each in Idaho and Nevada.

satellite four fires Idaho Nevada wildfires
The GOES 17 satellite detected four fires in Idaho and Nevada at 9 p.m. MDT July 13, 2019. The imagery is enhanced to show heat from the fires. Click to enlarge.

Jasper Fire

The Jasper Fire was reported at about 3 p.m. north of Sun Valley, Nevada. The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office asked for voluntary evacuations in the Sun Valley area as the fire reached Eagle Canyon Drive. The Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District reported that the fire burned about 800 acres. By Sunday morning the blaze was producing very little smoke, but at least one outbuilding was destroyed Saturday.

Jasper Fire north of Sun Valley, Nevada
The Jasper Fire north of Sun Valley, Nevada. Photo by Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, Saturday evening July 13, 2019.

Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said Alex Javier Arias, 23, and Jorge Arias, 22, were arrested for starting the fire by target shooting into cheat grass. They could be charged with destruction of property caused by fire through gross negligence which is a felony, Sheriff Balaam said.

Air tankers and helicopters assisted firefighters, including at least one air tanker, Tanker 88, from CAL FIRE.

A Type 3 Incident Management Team, Sierra Front with Incident Commander Stephenson, was scheduled to in-brief at 6 a.m. Sunday, according to @GreatBasinCC.

Ridgeline Fire

As of Saturday evening the Ridgeline Fire, 5 miles northeast of Albion, Idaho had burned about 1,000 acres and was running and spotting in juniper and brush. It was being fought by firefighters on the ground assisted by four Single Engine Air Tankers and a DC-10.

The impressive video below of a DC-10 dropping was tweeted by @BLMIdahoFire July 13, 2019 but they did not say when or where it occurred. It may have been at the Ridgeline Fire 5 miles northeast of Albion, Idaho the same day.


Elk Fire

The Elk Fire burned about 30 acres south of Winnemucca, Nevada.

Canmay Fire

The Canmay Fire, 8 miles north-northwest of Mountain Home, Idaho started on Bureau of Reclamation land eight miles northwest of Mountain Home, ID. Saturday evening it was running, flanking, and creeping through brush and short grass and had burned about 2,000 acres.

The weather forecast

The weather forecast for Sunday on the Jasper, Elk, and Canmay Fires are all about the same —  temperature in the 90s with wind speeds over 10 mph. It will be a little cooler on the Ridgeline Fire with the temperature in the 80s, and winds less than 10 mph.

Red Flag Warnings in Nevada this week

fire weather red flag warning
Red Flag Warning

A Red Flag Warning is in effect for areas of Western Nevada and Northwest California from 11 a.m. Wednesday until 1 a.m. Friday. The forecast calls for southwest winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts at 40 to 45 with relative humidity levels at 8 to 10 percent. A Fire Weather Watch is in effect for Southern Nevada for the same time frame and similar weather conditions.

(Red Flag Warnings can be modified throughout the day as NWS offices around the country update and revise their weather forecasts.)

 

Minden Air’s BAe-146 air tanker program suspended

(This article was first published at Fire Aviation.)

Minden Air Corp aircraft BAe-146 T-46 T-55
Left to right: Tanker 46, a second BAe-146, and Tanker 55 (a P2V) at the Minden Air Corp facility at the Minden, NV airport. Photo: Google Street View, April, 2015. Tanker 55 was damaged in 2012 when it landed with only partially lowered landing gear possibly due to a hydraulic system failure.

For more than 15 years Minden Air Corp has been working on the concept of transitioning from their Korean War vintage P2V air tankers to a jet, the BAe-146. They acquired two or three of them and had nearly completed their work on what was going to be Air Tanker 46 when they ran out of money. Problems with hydraulic systems led to landing gear failures on two P2Vs, T-48 and T-55, taking out Minden’s last two operational air tankers, which no doubt affected their incoming revenue stream. Thankfully there were no serious injuries reported in those two accidents, unlike the crash of the company’s T-99 on October 3, 2003 that killed the two pilots, Carl Dobeare, 54 and John Attardo, 51. A lookout staffing a fire tower saw that P2V fly into a cloud bank as it was preparing to land at San Bernardino. It did not emerge and shortly thereafter they saw what appeared to be smoke at the top of the cloud. The NTSB described it as “controlled flight into mountainous terrain”. The two pilots had a combined total of more than 15,000 flight hours.

In October AvGeek filmed a report about Minden Air Corp at the Minden Airport 45 miles south of Reno, Nevada.

Tim Cristy, Flight Operations for Minden, said in the video when explaining why the conversion of T-46 came to a stop, “We ran out of money. Well, the engineering got expensive as all get-out”.

We attempted to call Mr. Christy and Minden’s CEO, Len Parker, to get more information but the number we had used before no longer works.

The T-46 project had progressed to conducting a grid test, which involves dropping retardant over a grid of more than 3,000 cups on the ground. In the video Mr. Cristy said the test went well. We are not sure if the aircraft ever received a Supplemental Type Certificate from the FAA which is a major hurdle to overcome in addition to approval from the Interagency Airtanker Board. After that they would have had to deal with the bewildering and unpredictable Forest Service contracting system before they ever received a dime from their large monetary investment.

retardant tank inside Minden's T-46 air tanker
The retardant tank inside Minden’s T-46. Screenshot from the AvGeek video.

The video below, published June 17, 2014, shows T-46 making its first test drops of water and retardant.

minden air corp bae-146 p2v air tanker 46
Tanker 46, a second BAe-146, and Tanker 55 (a P2V) at the Minden Air Corp facility at the Minden, NV airport. Photo: Google, June, 2018.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Brian.
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