Posted on 09/17/2006 12:57:10 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Last night, the Day Fire exploded, burning 50,000 acres and traveling 11 miles west.
from AP
Sep 17, 2006 11:48 am US/Pacific
Day Wildfire Explodes Westward, Threatens Fillmore (AP) CASTAIC, Calif. Offshore winds are fanning a huge wildfire burning in the Los Padres National Forest, prompting voluntary evacuations for portions of Fillmore and a group of homes along a highway connecting Santa Paula and Ojai.
U.S. Forest Service officials say that since yesterday afternoon, winds have pushed the so-called Day Fire about 10 miles west and have burned several thousand new acres.
It has scorched more than 125 square miles and is 15 percent surrounded.
The fire is threatening northwest Fillmore -- a city of about 14,000 people, located 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Mandatory evacuations have not yet been issued.
Winds out of the north and northwest are expected at up to 25 miles per hour today, and a Red Flag warning is in place through tomorrow morning.
Even to my south? Wow.
A roller coaster is seen at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006, in Valencia, Calif., as a huge column of smoke rises out of the west from the Day Fire, which has been burning in the Sespe Wilderness Area of the Los Padres National Forest. (AP Photo/Mike Meadows)
Ash sits on the tennis courts at the Ojai Valley School Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006 in Ojai, Calif., as the Day Fire burns north of the city. (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtm0rv-Jdsc incredible video
Strike Teams from across California are pouring into the Ventura County area for the 25 degree temp increase and 65 mph winds forecast for the weekend. The fire is now over 105,000 acres, and has the potential to burn to the sea. There are now two Command Posts, Ventura County Fair Grounds and Castaic, with 3000 FFs expected.
The fire jumped the dozer line a little while ago...aircraft are all grounded due to high winds....
Lockwood Valley looking dubious.
Lockwood's on the flank, they have a triple line in and part of it's cold, still...anything's possible. From the looks of the fire weather report, I wouldn't be surprised to see it make a run across the 150 this afternoon.
Scheideck's looking a bit iffy, too.
The wind is a consistent 20 mph out of the northeast, way up near Edwards AFB, so I presume they must be pretty bad over in the Los Padres.
There's a new map over at http://www.inciweb.org/incident/475/
I don't want to hotlink it again -- it's running pretty slow over there. 116,971 acres; cause: human; growth potential: extreme
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/mwmap.php?map=la&limit=1&list=1
there is the wind chart...temps and gusts....the lines represent where the wind is blowing from....
some of them said 65 and 70 earlier
apparently Fox News showed the DC-10 tanker drop live today.....12000 gallons of retardent....the 747 will be dropping next week
WOW. Missed that.
how goes the fire?
The gang at http://www.ojaipost.com were raving about it today. That little run the fire took to the northwest yesterday afternoon covered three and a half miles. The thing that gives you kind of a reference for the enormity of this thing is the fact that they're still talking about building fifty miles of dozer line.
Seen seven miles from the fire line, a former American Airlines DC-10 airplane converted for firefighting drops a 12,000-gallon load of fire retardant, ten times the amount the common firefighting aircraft can carry, on the southwestern flank of the Day Fire, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006 near Ojai, Calif. According to California Department of Forestry officials, the DC-10 was able to knock down a portion of the line of the fire that was threatening Upper Ojai and Santa Paula.
That's a preemptive drop in low risk terrain, a good choice for that monster. It's not a 1 for 1 trade, because some of it just wouldn't be done that way without the DC10, but it does help free-up some of the S2's for the trickier stuff.
In my youth, I was on the edge of a drop zone a few times. I'd hate to be under fifty tons of falling retardant.
Oh, and... they've hyped the caption a bit. Day's a Forest Service Fire. Their SP2's carry 2000 gallons, and their C130's carry 3000. Still, even at four times the load, the DC10'll be be a help.
Here's an interesting page on FS aircraft:
http://www.scancolorado.com/airtanker.htm
The 747 goes into service this week....not sure if they will use it on this fire.
The VC Sheriff's website provides some interesting insight to just how flakey this thing is. Four hours ago, they posted that they were gradually lifting restrictions in the fire area. Looks like the first area impacted in Lockwood will be around the Dalton Trumbo ranch, if you're familiar with that.
http://www.vcsd.org/day_fire.html
I was going to say...it was pretty warm today nonetheless.... a FF was injured tonight, went to Ventura hospital via ambulance. More NIFC (fed) frequencies in use tonight...surprising I can hear them in Burbank...but I imagine they set up some temp repeaters.
Fire jumped Lockwood Valley Road...KCAL SKY 9 is overhead....I am watching on CNN Pipeline....
Near the Boy Scout camp, or Trumbo ranch?
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