File photo of a law enforcement officer patrolling the waters in the Columbia River adjacent to the Williams Flats Fire, August 10, 2019. InciWeb.
On August 6, 2019 a hobbyist drone temporarily shut down helicopter water drops on the Williams Flats Fire in northeast Washington. After the incursion was reported by a Safety Officer, the Air Tactical Group Supervisor diverted a large Type 1 helicopter that was en route from the helibase until the air space could be cleared.
A law enforcement officer patrolling the adjacent Columbia River discovered the drone was operated by a person on a houseboat. After discussing the dangers of flying a drone over a fire and the potential fine associated with it, the officer decided not to ticket the operator.
Atmospheric scientists regularly take note when satellites detect thunderheads rising above columns of wildfire smoke. These “fire clouds”—experts call them pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) or cumulonimbus flammagenitus—are caused when fires loft enough heat and moisture into the atmosphere to produce thunderstorms.
On August 8, 2019, a team of atmospheric scientists got an exceedingly rare look at these clouds as they were forming. NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory passed directly through a large pyrocumulonimbus that day as it was rising from a fire in eastern Washington. The flight was part of a joint NOAA and NASA field campaign called FIREX-AQ. Scientists are studying the composition and chemistry of smoke to better understand its impact on air quality and climate.
August 8 photo by David Peterson (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory).
David Peterson, lead forecaster for FIREX-AQ, was in the cockpit of NASA’s DC-8. “The views were absolutely stunning,” said Peterson. “Very few photographs of large pyroCbs are available, especially from the air.”
The photograph above, shot from roughly 30,000 feet (9 kilometers), shows the setting Sun shining through thick smoke at 8 p.m. Mountain Time. Particles in the smoke reflect light in ways that make the Sun appear orange. The photograph below shows the smoke plume (gray) that fed the pyrocumulonimbus cloud (white).
The flight was the most detailed sampling of a pyrocumulonimbus in history, explained Peterson. A second research aircraft flew over the plume a few hours earlier in the day, and mobile labs on the ground also made detailed measurements.
August 8 photo by David Peterson (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory).
“PyroCb are like large chimneys, transporting a large quantity of smoke into the lower stratosphere,” explained Peterson.
When smoke does reach the stratosphere, it tends to spread globally and remain high in the atmosphere for longer periods—months or even years—than smoke that stays in the lower troposphere. One recent study concluded that the largest fire clouds can even lift quantities of smoke aerosols into the lower stratosphere that are comparable to a moderate-sized volcanic eruption.
An early morning thunderstorm ignited the Williams Flats Fire on August 2, 2019. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired a natural-color image of the blaze (at the top of the page) as it approached the north bank of the Columbia River on August 7, 2019. The image is natural color (OLI bands 4-3-2), overlaid with the infrared and shortwave infrared signature of actively burning fires.
A crew on the Williams Flats Fire, August 6, 2019. InciWeb.
The Williams Flats fire in northeast Washington was very active Wednesday and Wednesday night, spreading to the east an additional one to two miles and reaching BIA Road 11 less than half a mile from the Columbia river on the east side of the fire
The Incident Management Team released information about a new evacuation order at about 7 p.m. Wednesday, but unfortunately no map was provided:
The Level 1 Evacuation has now been elevated to a Level 3 Evacuation Notification – “Leave Now” by the Colville Tribes Emergency Services and the Ferry County Sheriff’s Office.
While homes are not immediately in danger, the only road out may be cut off by fire. Now is the time to evacuate. Anyone who remains in the area may not be able to leave once the fire reaches the Nine Mile-Hellgate Road.
The evacuation zone is as follows: From the intersection of Little Nine Mile Creek with the Nine Mile-Hellgate Road, draw a straight line west to the Whitestone Lookout. All areas south of that line are now at a Level 3 Evacuation —-”Leave Now”. All residents of the area are advised that for their own safety, they need to leave now.
Map showing the location of the Williams Flats fire in northeast Washington. The red line was the perimeter determined by a fixed wing mapping flight at 11:53 p.m. PDT August 7, 2019. The white line was the perimeter 26 hours before. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 4:18 a.m. PDT August 8, 2019.
