Tag: Shirley Fire

(Information about the Way Fire that started August 18, 2014 north of Highway 155 near Wofford Heights and Kernville, can be found HERE. The article below is about the Shirley Fire, of June, 2014))

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(UPDATE at 8:47 a.m. PT, June 17, 2014)

Below is an update on the Shirley fire near Wofford Heights, California, provided by the Incident Management Team at about 8:30 a.m. PT Tuesday:

Excellent progress made over the previous 24 hours on all areas of the fire perimeter has enabled firefighters to raise containment to 75%. Burning operations used yesterday to widen lines in Division Y, held throughout the night. A wind advisory issued for the Kern Valley and will remain in place until Tuesday afternoon, wind speeds are expected to reach up to 45 MPH. Crews will be cautious of the possibility of blowing embers causing spot fires outside the line as they work to improve containment. Safety remains a concern as steep rocky terrain, tree snags and rolling material from the fire are in all areas of the fire. Last nights community meeting was attended by approximately 120 people and was streamed live to another 1100 viewers and can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf4hf0WRj8g

Today, crews will continue to hold and improve containment lines and mop up interior to the perimeter. Demobilization of resources will begin today as firefighters return home to prepare and train for the additional wildland fires to come.

The official size is 2,646 acres.

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(UPDATE at 9 p.m. PT, June 16, 2014)

A community meeting for the Shirley Fire was broadcast live on YouTube Monday night. It started at 7 p.m., and got off to a slow start with a long speech from the Kern County Fire Chief.

Incident Commander Jeanne Pincha-Tulley came on and said they have a line around the entire fire but they are not calling it contained yet.

They said the fire has burned 2,646 acres. The Incident Management Team is calling it 75 percent contained. All evacuations for the fire have been lifted.

Incident Commander Pincha-Tulley in attempting to answer a question about where the three homes that burned were located, said she knew the general area where the losses occurred, but not being from the area, she did not know how to describe the general location to the audience. She said she was not being flippant.

Broadcasting the community meeting live on YouTube was a great idea, at least in concept. On our end, there were quite a few interruptions in the video with a lot of stopping and buffering, while we watched the circle of dots go around and around. Viewers could leave live comments on the website, and many others confirmed that they too were affected by the interruptions in the video.

It was odd that there was no organized attempt to provide a general briefing to the community members about the status of the fire. After they opened it up to questions, one of them, about 30 or 40 minutes into the meeting, was how many acres had burned and how much of the fire was contained. And no one was prepared to answer a question from the audience of where the three burned homes were located.

There may be a recording of the video available later on YouTube, and hopefully it won’t have all of the buffering interruptions. If so we will add the link to it here.

UPDATE at 9:20 p.m. PT, June 16, 2014: A recording of the meeting can be seen on YouTube. In the video, the meeting actually starts at about 48:30. After preliminary information from the host and the Kern County Fire Chief, the meat of the meeting begins at 1:02:33 when the local USFS District Ranger makes a brief comment just before the Incident Commander comes on.

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(UPDATE at 7:42 a.m. PT, June 16, 2014)

The Shirley Fire west of Wofford Heights was very active on Sunday, growing by over 1,000 acres primarily on the north side but it also expanded on the southeast side. This brings the total area burned to 2,600 acres according to the map and information we have received, but the Pincha-Tulley Type 1 Incident Management Team reported at 8 a.m. Monday that the fire had only burned 2,200 acres. They are calling it 10 percent contained. New information from the Team has been rather sparse, but the National Interagency Fire Center reports that two structures have been destroyed. It is unknown if they were residences or outbuildings.

The fire is being fought by 1,176 personnel, with 73 engines, 4 helicopters, and 29 crews at a cost so far of $4.2 million. Air tankers, including one of the DC-10s flying out of Santa Maria, also were busy over the fire on Sunday. Night-flying helicopters from the Kern County Fire Department have also been used after sunset when the other aircraft are grounded.

As the fire spreads to the east it moves from conifers above 5,000 feet to lighter vegetation below 4,000 feet. In the lower elevations the fuels transition to brush and grass, conditions under which the air tankers and helicopters working with the firefighters on the ground can be more effective.

On Sunday the firefighters were faced with winds gusting up to 27 mph. The forecast for Monday is somewhat better, but not great, calling for 5 to 9 mph winds out of the west in the morning, becoming stronger by late afternoon at 15 mph gusting to 21 from the west and northwest.

This photo was sent to us by one of our viewers, Brian Adams, from Wofford Heights overlooking the #ShirleyFire pic.twitter.com/LiO6iqA1Rc

— KBAK/KBFX TV (@bakersfieldnow) June 16, 2014

One of the structures lost in the #ShirleyFire. Locals tell us nobody lived here. pic.twitter.com/OVJUii3ZKY — Clayton Sandell (@Clayton_Sandell) June 16, 2014

The cameraman in the above photo is wearing an interesting combination of clothing — what appears to be a fire resistant Nomex shirt or jacket, and shorts.

Continue reading “Shirley Fire, near Lake Isabella, California”