Posted on 07/18/2007 9:24:59 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOISE, Idaho - International wildfire crews could be called to help fight blazes in the bone-dry West as U.S. officials on Wednesday boosted the nation's wildfire alert to its highest level.
"It's driven by a couple of things: The number of large fires we have, and also the fires are occurring in several states and in several geographic areas," Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center here, told The Associated Press. "The resources we have are being stretched thin."
The wildfire preparedness level was raised to five as dry lightning blasted and sparked dozens of new blazes in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah, where firefighters have been stretched thin by nearly 70 fires bigger than 100 acres burning in 12 states. National Guard units also could be mobilized under new level.
Since Monday, there have been more than 1,000 new fires reported across the West, Eardley said.
Eardley said dry, windy conditions, thunderstorms and temperatures reaching above 100 degrees were forecast to continue across most of the Rocky Mountain West through next week.
In Nevada, crews Wednesday battled more than two dozen fires burning across nearly 200 square miles of rangeland and timber in the northern part of the state. One threatened hundreds of homes on the edge of Reno.
The largest wildfire in Oregon, the Egley Complex near Burns in the southeast portion of the state, had grown to more than 200 square miles and was threatening a handful of homes, officials said.
And in Utah, two new large fires were reported, in addition to three already burning on about 640 square miles of grass, sage and timber. It was so dry there that some Utah communities banned traditional July 24 fireworks that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints normally shoot off to celebrate the 1847 arrival of Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake valley.
In Southern California, authorities were trying to stop a 43-square-mile wildfire from spreading toward about 50 scattered homes in Los Padres National Forest in the interior of Santa Barbara County. In Northern California, overnight drizzle helped firefighters battling flames that threatened more than 300 homes in and around Happy Camp near the Oregon border.
A firefighting pilot was rescued after his small air tanker crashed in northern Nevada while he battled one of the dozens of wildfires tormenting the West, officials said Wednesday.
The AT-802A single-engine tanker was fighting a blaze south of Winnemucca when it went down Tuesday evening, said Jamie Thompson, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The rescued pilot was pulled from the wreckage by firefighters, treated at a hospital and later released, he said.
"Other than being pretty well soaked with slurry and aviation fuel, he was OK," Thompson said. "They cleaned him up and sent him home."
Officials said the plane was under contract from Minuteman Aerial Applications out of Montana. An investigation team was expected to determine the cause of the crash, Thompson said.
National Interagency FiRe Center
http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/nfn.htm
National Incidents
http://www.inciweb.org/
I’m in Boise... there’s a weird hot wind blowing right now, and you could look directly at the sun for most of the day; there’s enough smoke in the air to make entire clouds out of just smoke and the sun was blood red. Not to mention that nasty rangefire smell... yuck.
MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program
USDA Forest Service
Large Incidents - July 18, 2007
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/
I just got back from Elko. Had to go up there to Schwab Tire to get a new 10.00-16 tire for a tractor.
There was fire all along the west side of Pine Valley, (west of NV-278) for, oh, about 20+ miles.
There are huge fires north of Elko, and there’s a pretty major one over the hills, south of Elko, where the South Fork Reservoir would be. There’s an even bigger one north of, oh, Dunphy (between Battle Mtn. and Carlin on I-80) that, if I’m reading the smoke plume correctly, is into some really heavy pinyon pine/juniper fuel on hillsides. Dark, thick smoke. Sagebrush/grass fires are light grey, almost a white smoke. When the fires move into the heavy PJ stands, they go from white/grey to black/brown in seconds.
When you see huge plumes of black/brown smoke two/three miles above ground level.... you know there’s some real heavy fuel loads at the bottom of that plume.
On the way into Elko, there was a large fire in the brush south of I-80 near the Hunter exit, just east of the Carlin tunnels. That was hammered down by a C-130 doing retardant drops.
There’s another fire southeast of Eureka, somewhere between us and Lund. By noon today, I was looking southeast and saying “Uh, that’s not a thunderhead, the cloud is too grey... oh, crap... it’s a fire.”
We’d been extremely lucky so far this fire season. Monday night, we had quite the squall line of t-storms come through the country, which probably started some small fires that might have burned themselves out if we were lucky.
Today, with the humidity down at 5% and winds out of the south/southwest gusting up to 40MPH, the luck ran out.
There’s an amazing amount of firefighting hardware in the area. Type-6 rigs and D-7’s on low-boys zipping up and down the highways. There was a Sikorsky Sky Crane converted to an air drop rig sitting on the ramp at EKO, with a 10,000 gallon fuel truck there to tend it.
Humidity that low makes it really tough to fight these kinds of fires unless you throw a lot at them.. and even then.. Thanks for the report.
A ranger station sign warns of the extreme fire danger near Augusta, Mont., Tuesday, July 17, 2007. The wildfire in the Bob Marshall Wilderness grew to 7,000 acres and burned closer to an area with about 65 summer homes as Montana's dryness and heat persisted Tuesday, and the state remained in forest-fire emergency status declared by the governor. (AP Photo/Great Falls Tribune, Robin Loznak)
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A skycrane helicopter fills its tanks before returning to fight the Marge Fire at Maggie Creek Ranchh, near Elko, Nev., Wednesday July 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Elko Daily Free Press, Ross Andreson).
Under these conditions, actually, all the fire crews can do is stand off a respectable distance and cut firebreaks. It is literally suicide to get anywhere near a fire with that much wind, on this hot a day, with this low a humidity. Folks who have not seen what trees and sagebrush do under these conditions are usually amazed at how the volatile natural oils in the plants are “cooked off” and ignite into flaming balls well off the ground. These balls can then leap out in front of the front edge of the burning material on the ground by quite a little ways before settling back down into the fuel load.
In Pine Valley, I saw no fewer than three D-6/D-7 sized machines cutting firebreaks at the base of the hills on the west side of the valley. It looked pretty obvious that these fires were started by cloud->ground strikes from the storms of Monday and last night. A rig the size of a D-6, with a multi-angle blade and a cab would be the perfect tool in cutting firelines in this situation.
Sadly, the enviro’s have made use of these machines a last resort. We’d see much faster containment of fire if the dozers and road graders could be put on the firelines much faster than they are now. Sure, they make a mess. It is a much smaller mess than hundreds of thousands of acres turned as bald as your palm. I suspect the reason why the D-6’s are deployed so quickly in Pine Valley is that much of the land is privately owned — it is in the railroad checkboard area of the Union Pacific line that parallels I-80 (20 miles on either side of the RR line is 50% private).
That’s exactly the unit.
The Maggie Creek area was the area near the Hunter exit I was talking about. I try to use Interstate exits and road references, because I reckon most folks outside the area won’t know creeks, draws, springs, mountains, etc. In this case, Maggie Creek is the area covered by ranches along the Humboldt River just west of Elko, east of the Carlin Tunnels.
From looking at the first pic, the helo is re-filling from the Humboldt River.
Hey, Dave! I’m in Elko, too. This is starting to look like 1999.
BTTT
The Hawkens fire, 2900 acres so far, just west of Reno is laying smoke and ash across the city. About 400 homes are threatened if the wind chages direction. At 6:00 am it will be raised to a CLASS ONE fire, the top grade which means more assets can be designated to fight it. Here’s hoping we don’t have a wind change or an increase in wind strength.
Yes, I agree, with the only caveat being that in 1999, I think the fires really blew up at the very end of July. So in comparison, I think we’re about a week or 10 days ahead of 1999.
I heard on the AM radio (1340 out of Elko) that the Elko County Commissioners declared the rest of the 2007 fire season a county-wide disaster today. Smart move on their part. If we have a big blow-up in Eureka, I think we’d be smart to do the same. One of our county commissioners owns one of the ranches burned in Pine Valley, so I know she’s looking at a personal hit from these fires today.
-ccm
We had more than 32 fires going. They grouped the larger ones into the China Back comples and the Elk Creek Complex near Happy Camp. A good rain yesterday helped the China Back and it has slowed down considerably (12 miles from Yreka - county seat.) The Elk Creek is still moving.
The article states: “In Northern California, overnight drizzle helped firefighters battling flames that threatened more than 300 homes in and around Happy Camp near the Oregon border.”
Yesterday we got a great surprise. The US Forest Service announced that it would no longer defend the 300 homes from the wildfire. Under “Unified Command” (NIMS,) that is now the responsibility of the local tiny volunteer fire dept. When it was explained that they did not have anywhere near the capacity or equipment to defend that number of structures, they were told they could call in mutual aid from the even smaller volunteer hose companies in Seiad and Salmon River - 30 min to an hour away. The County has no fire department.
Now you may recall the southern California fires. The state CalFire (formerly CDF) called departments in from all over the state to help defend communities. We are told that these areas are in the “SRA-State responsibility area.” The Happy Camp area is the “FRA- federal responsibility area.” This means that the state has supposedly signed an agreement with the Forest Service for them to provide service. But it is not the same at all. Our area is being abandoned without support - even though we have declared a local County emergency, we are told that we are not the state’s responsibility. Fire departments will not be rushing in to defend our homes, even though we went to southern California to defend their homes. Talk about second class.
I hope this does not end in tragedy.
If somebody knows how to operate a dazer, go see if you can borrow one. If not rent one. Rent a tank truck. Is there any retired firefighters in the group? For chrissakes do not lay down and die just because the Feds say they won't help you!
Correction; If somebody knows how to operate a dozer.
I can’t locate the maps of the surviving homes at the Angora fire but they were the people who broke the TRPA laws and cut 100 foot fire breaks around their homes. They made sure that there was nothing next to their homes that would ignite from flying sparks, they watered down their wooden decks and roofs, they cleaned up under the trees and got rid of the pine needles, they cut those pretty bushes next to the wooden siding of the house. Get busy, you still have time!
Last summer the air was filled with smoke almost all the time. The sunsets were blood red. I don't run an air conditioner. When the outside air is filled with smoke, I don't have a decent way to drive the hot air out of my house. Last night I went to Lowe's to purchase a new storm door with a roll down screen for the front door. That will finally provide ventilation sorely missing on the first floor. I can't just open it up because I have 3 Rat Terriers and 2 Maine Coon cats prowling the house.
The bad news is that the door won't arrive for 2 weeks at the store and I'll wait another 2 weeks for the installer. By that time the peak heat will be past for the summer. Smoke filled air will certainly make the ventilation undesirable.
Rain today in Moscow (one of my colleagues is in the middle of replacing his roof) but there was lightning last night and a couple of dozen little fires are being chased in the area and points south. Up to a couple of weeks ago it had been a fairly cool, damp summer. No more.
I don’t live in their fire district, but I am in the political chain trying to get this fixed on the state and federal level. I know Klamath River Fire already bumped heads with the Forest about using a bulldozer to cut a line around homes. (It was not approved. The homes abut the National Forest and approval is “required.”)
The big political issue is that the Forest Service is tired of paying millions upon millions of their budget to fight fires on the Forests they have mismanaged and allowed fuels to accumulate at a tremendous rate in order to “protect habitat”. So they are trying to shift the burden of community defense lines onto local government. We just don’t have the resources to do this.
I am sure there are folks who will try and take care of their area. They have had fire safe councils in place for several years and have been able to do some work. But with fires as hot as these the fire brands go hundreds of feet and a crown fire moves quickly and won’t be easily stopped by a fire break. Our trained fire fighters are just a handfull - intended to fight a one structure fire or control spot fires. They won’t be able to handle this. If the Forest Service has abandoned them, then the state CalFire must step in.
The last thing I would do is to allow someone who refuses to promise me that they will protect my home from fire tell me that I can’t cut a break with a D-10. And as the fire got close enough to where I knew that it was coming straight at my house, I would light a backfire. They could take the laws and stuff em where the sun don’t shine.
Crown fires will jump right over your house if there’s nothing that is readily ignitable down there and ground fires burn around if they don’t have fuel leading to the house. Clean up the ground and cut the breaks now. Apologize later.
There were people in Tahoe that “illegally” removed the pine needles laying on the ground around their homes....and saved them. The folks that followed the letter of the law lost everything.
I dont know the difference between an SRA or FRA....other than I remembered Burbank was relieved when the big Harvard fire here hit state land, so they knew they were reimbursed for calling back all the firefighters to duty, and better yet, that CDF would take over command of the fire (BFD was in over their heads)
That said...during the Cedar and Old fire....a lot of those CDFers would drive up to homes, and those that hadnt cleared brush, or had propane tanks adjacent to the structure, they passed them by as indefensible. They concentrated their efforts on those homeowners that took steps to clear their property.
I would also like to add that a lot of those areas in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties were primarily served by CDF...
There were some assets from LA City and the Verdugo fire departments that were sent to Indendence for structure protection....and in the past LA City sent 100 engines to defend San Luis Obispo....LA City and LA County do not have wildfire engines, other than minimal brush patrols...althought Ventura, Santa Barbara and Orange County do.
As of today, the Forest Service has agreed to continue its strategy to protect the communities in the Elk Creek Complex Fire. Cal Fire has agreed to provide resources, but the generally then send the bill to the Forest Service. The dispute is down to money now and who will have to pay the final bill - the Forest Service, tiny Fire District or the State. Since the Fire District wll have exhausted its financial resources within and hour or so, looks like the state and feds will wrestle over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the County, which does not supply fire service, gets a portion of the bill.
This is not just a problem here. The Forest Service now has a policy not to provide structural protection anywhere - nor to pay for same. This is like having a bad neighbor with overgrown grass. The overgrowth burns, comes onto your property and threatens to burn up your house. The fire department is called and you get sent the bill.
As of today, the Forest Service has agreed to continue its strategy to protect the communities in the Elk Creek Complex Fire. Cal Fire has agreed to provide resources, but the generally then send the bill to the Forest Service. The dispute is down to money now and who will have to pay the final bill - the Forest Service, tiny Fire District or the State. Since the Fire District wll have exhausted its financial resources within and hour or so, looks like the state and feds will wrestle over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the County, which does not supply fire service, gets a portion of the bill.
This is not just a problem here. The Forest Service now has a policy not to provide structural protection anywhere - nor to pay for same. This is like having a bad neighbor with overgrown grass. The overgrowth burns, comes onto your property and threatens to burn up your house. The fire department is called and you get sent the bill.
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