Tag: target shooting

It is an early start to the fire season in the Tucson area, or, the 2009 fire season actually never ended. Here is an excerpt from an article at azstarnet.com:

Fires in winter mean we need a mind-set like summer

That’s the message from area forest managers, who say warm, dry conditions in our wild lands make it necessary to adopt fire-season behavior early this year.
“Here we are in the middle of winter and we’re still seeing active fire, so it’s important for people to … take personal responsibility and not be the ignition source,” said Heidi Schewel, a spokeswoman for Coronado National Forest.
Kristy Lund, fire manager for Saguaro National Park and the Coronado’s Santa Catalina District, said, “Fire behavior is nothing like it should be at this time of the year.”

Fires are spreading rapidly and burning through the night, she said.

Five fires have started in Southern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest this year, including two still burning in the Nogales Ranger District.

Coronado officials say the 800-acre Black Peak Fire, 10 miles south of Arivaca, is 40 percent contained and not expected to grow much bigger. Acreage on that fire was reduced when officials flew its perimeter Wednesday.
Crews began attacking the nearby Apache Fire on Wednesday. That 300-acre fire is 20 percent contained, and most of its growth came from backfires set to keep it from spreading.

Pete Schwab, deputy fire manager for the Coronado, said early fires tax the Forest Service’s ability to respond. Seasonal firefighters can’t be hired until April, and no aircraft are on standby.

About 100 firefighters from several agencies along with one rented helicopter were used to fight the two most recent fires.

All five fires are believed to be human-caused and are under investigation. The four fires in the Nogales district occurred along smuggling routes, and the Five Fire near Molino Basin started in an area often used by target shooters.

Thanks Dick

In July, Wildfire Today covered the Telegraph fire. The fire was north of Mariposa, California and west of the El Portal entrance to Yosemite National Park. Thursday David Craig Mosher, 29, of Merced, was sentenced to three years of probation and 60 hours of community service for starting the fire which burned 34,000 acres and destroyed 30 homes.

He will also pay a $500 fine and may one day be told to pay restitution for some of the costs of suppressing the fire. But the judge did not make a decision about the restitution, saying that will happen “no time soon”.

Mosher told investigators he was firing steel-jacked bullets in a Bureau of Land Management area when one of the bullets struck a rock, sparked, and started the fire. Steel-jacked bullets are legal, but are banned in some shooting areas because of the fire hazard they present.

Mosher pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor counts for starting the fire and for having two unregistered assault weapons. As part of his sentence, the two SKS rifles will be destroyed.

Telegraph fire map, July 31, 2008

Eight residents of the Santa Barbara, California area have been banned from all National Forests for one year after they pleaded guilty to violating fire restrictions last month.

They received fines ranging from $200 to $300 for the violations in the Los Padres National Forest. Five of them pleaded guilty to building a campfire near Upper Oso and Cachuma campgrounds, while three pleaded guilty to illegal target shooting at the Arroyo Burro shooting area.

Update@ 2:00 p.m. PT, July 27:

In a July 27 12:30 PM PT update, CalFire now says the fire is 18,150 acres and is 0% contained. The fire has destroyed 8 residences and 7 outbuildings. It is burning in the Merced River drainage, on both sides of the river, with a rapid rate of spread in multiple directions. There are accessibility problems due to steep and rocky terrain.

As of their 12:30 update, the fire had not spread a great deal over the previous 12 hours, however, as of 2:00 p.m., satellite photos show a large plume of smoke from the fire being pushed by a wind out of the south. This would indicate that additional acres are most likely being consumed on the north side of the fire, east and southeast of Coulterville. This corresponds with the thermal imagery in the map below.

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A fire that started Friday afternoon in Mariposa County in California is now well over 16,000 acres and growing. CalFire reported that acreage figure Saturday night, but at the rate it is spreading, it is probably much larger now. CalFire said that 2,000 residences are threatened in the communities of Midpines, Mariposa, Greeley Hill, Coulterville, Bear Valley, and Mt. Bullion Camp.

The fire is about 8 miles west of El Portal, one of two entrances into the west side of Yosemite National Park. Electricity was turned off in a large area, including the park, to protect firefighters working near the lines.

There have been no recorded fires in the area for over 100 years, so the fuel loading is very heavy. CalFire is planning a large burnout ahead of the fire in an attempt to slow it down. A spokeswoman said the cause of the fire was “definitely target shooting,” but she would not elaborate.

Some excellent photos are at GoldRushCam.

HERE is a link to a web camera in Yosemite from Turtleback Dome looking west. Turtleback is about 12 miles southeast of El Portal. It is pretty hazy there, but there appears to be smoke in the distance. The site also provides air quality information and shows a large increase in particulate matter over the last 48 hours in the park.

The map below shows heat, in red, orange, and black, detected by satellites, with the red areas being the most recently burned. The yellow line is the latest perimeter uploaded by the incident management team. The green areas are national forest, and the purple is Yosemite National Park. Click on the map to see a larger version.