Fires July 27, 2018, 09:38:27 am There are a number of large fires burning throughout the west and in California right now. Prayers to all the first responders, residents, and travelers who are affected. Safe travels to you all! 5 Likes
Re: Fires Reply #1 – July 27, 2018, 10:38:29 am The fires can also play havoc with route planning. I-5 at the CA-OR border was closed a while back for one.I use the InciWeb site for tracking the various fires."InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident information management system. The system was developed with two primary missions: Provide the public a single source of incident related information Provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public Affairs community"For California fires non involving federal lands there is the CalFire Incident Web PageThe Sacramento reload base has opened on a permanent basis at McClellen field and has provided over 2,000,000 gallons of retardant so far this year. The global supertanker, a B747-400 with a capacity of 20, gallons seems to be summering there. Last week it dropped on fires from the Oregon Border to Idyllwild CA.Drive carefully and thank a firefighter. 5 Likes
Re: Fires Reply #2 – July 27, 2018, 10:46:22 am Joel, if you like InciWeb, then you'll love the new fire/smoke modeling system developed by the US Forest service:WebSky v1Note that you can change various parameters, including regions, time, run stats, etc. Have fun - it's pretty addictive.PS I cancelled a hiking trip up between Bishop and Mammoth since I knew the smoke would terrible. Check out these cam views:
Re: Fires Reply #3 – July 27, 2018, 10:51:32 am And for the most shocking of all, the Yosemite valley (which was closed on Wed):
Re: Fires Reply #4 – July 27, 2018, 11:48:49 am My brother and SIL live in Idyllwild and have been evacuated for two days.If their house survives, they should be OK for years as most of the forest will have burned off i this fire and the last big one, five years ago.The area has terrible bark beetle damage, with millions of dead trees. Many dead trees have been removed over the last five years but the incredibly dry and hot conditions allow even healthy trees to explode into flame.What has save the majority of the town so far is the major effort to spread bands of Phos-Chek around the town, forming chemical fire breaks. So far, so good.Gotta love the DC-10 aerial bomber. DC-10 Air Tanker - WikipediaThis last year has been unbelievable with the Santa Rosa, Thompson, Yosemite, Cranston and now the Redding area fires.So much destruction in a single year. And so much more acreage waiting for its chance to burn.Larry
Re: Fires Reply #5 – July 27, 2018, 12:32:21 pm Apparently, a century's worth of fire prevention has now come home to roost. Turns out Smokey the Bear was wrong. It's like the old Fram advertisements: fire now, or fire later. That is, no fire at all is not an available option.If you suppress natural, normal fire progression, you simply allow overgrowth to develop over the ensuing decades. The result is crowding, with unhealthy trees subject to beetle damage, and countless square miles of dead, bone dry trees ready to burn. Once a wildfire starts under these conditions, the resulting temperatures are orders of magnitude greater than smaller, periodic fires.That's what's happening with the Carr fire in Redding right now. Like the Dresden/Tokyo fire storms, fires of this magnitude create their own weather, and are basically impossible to stop. I'm wondering if the state will have to decide to try and create some kind of fire break in Redding, like what occurred during the SF earthquake & fire in 1906. 3 Likes
Re: Fires Reply #6 – July 27, 2018, 12:59:40 pm We are seeing the effects from the fires in the southern Sierra here in the Tehachapi Mountains. Air quality has been fairly bad. On a positive note, it makes for some interesting sunrises and sunsets!We almost had to evacuate two July's ago when a fire near Hwy 223 threatened to go over Bear Mountain and down into our community but the firefighters were able to stop it in the nick of time. There is a lot of fuel that remains up here so we are ever alert!Part of Hwy 223 closed in fire response | KBAK
Re: Fires Reply #7 – July 27, 2018, 03:39:48 pm Quote from: snerf - July 27, 2018, 12:32:21 pmApparently, a century's worth of fire prevention has now come home to roost. Turns out Smokey the Bear was wrong. It's like the old Fram advertisements: fire now, or fire later. That is, no fire at all is not an available option.If you suppress natural, normal fire progression, you simply allow overgrowth to develop over the ensuing decades. The result is crowding, with unhealthy trees subject to beetle damage, and countless square miles of dead, bone dry trees ready to burn. Once a wildfire starts under these conditions, the resulting temperatures are orders of magnitude greater than smaller, periodic fires.That's what's happening with the Carr fire in Redding right now. Like the Dresden/Tokyo fire storms, fires of this magnitude create their own weather, and are basically impossible to stop. I'm wondering if the state will have to decide to try and create some kind of fire break in Redding, like what occurred during the SF earthquake & fire in 1906.Since the great fires of 1910 there has been a militarized approach to fires that were considered the enemy. The reality is in the arid climate of the west fires are supposed to burn through an area every fifteen years or so which cleans out the underbrush and smaller weed trees. The result was a stand of big and widely spaced fire resistant species like Ponderosa Pine. Fighting every fire that pops up for well over a hundred years now has led to overstocked forest with lots of dead wood on the ground for a ladder fuel to get into tree tops. Our forest average two hundred trees an acre where historically the average was twenty trees an acre. This is a recipe for a catastrophic stand obliterating fire and that's what we are seeing. Then there's the anti logging mania of recent decades that kept these overstocked stands from being thinned that added fuel to the fire, pun intended. People have become used to a sea of trees on a mountain side and think that's natural when it isn't and if loggers reduce it to historical levels all hell breaks loose so here we are with every last tree burning up instead. 2 Likes
Re: Fires Reply #8 – July 27, 2018, 03:47:17 pm We’re planning on going to the Eastern Sierras. Does anyone know how the smoke situation is up there, now?
Re: Fires Reply #9 – July 27, 2018, 04:01:34 pm Try these sites:https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=topics.smoke_wildfiresCalifornia Smoke Information
Re: Fires Reply #10 – July 28, 2018, 06:04:43 pm Right now, the Eastern Sierra in or near the Tahoe region is smoky and has been for weeks. We are on target to break heat records, as well. Air currents bring any smoke from the greater Yosemite/Sequoia N. P./ Kings Canyon N. P. right into our beautiful Carson Valley as well as Carson City and the Reno/Sparks area. There have been fires around Mammoth and Lone Pine, too. Even the smoke from fires at Clear Lake has found its way to us. I'd suggest checking with the immediate area where you want to visit for up to date info. I suspect smoke from the Carr fire (Redding) is probably making its way east into the northern Sierra. We're praying for rain, not just for us but for the fires. Once the fires are out, our skies will clear. I agree with Sawyer on the fuel load, particularly in the Sierra. Several years ago, there was an excellent multi-part program on PBS about fire danger/suppression directly related to allowing the forests to become too overgrown. In the greater Sierra region, the land can support 15 - 20 trees per acre. That's not what people want to see. When the forest appears to be full and mysterious, it's too crowded. Lake Tahoe finally woke up several years - and fires - ago and different agencies have been working at reducing the fuel load before we have the predicted fire storm. Everybody loves the forest but it's easy to love it to death. JuliWMinden, NV'06 26.5 RB 1 Likes
Re: Fires Reply #11 – July 28, 2018, 07:13:52 pm Quote from: JCT - July 27, 2018, 04:01:34 pmTry these sites:https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=topics.smoke_wildfiresCalifornia Smoke InformationAnd this.Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product - Office of Satellite and...Larry
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