2018 Wildfire Season

[KQ]

Might as well start a thread since it appears well under way.

Things are going from bad to worse with the Substation fire (The Dalles OR). Been having a lot of wheat fires here in W2 - multiples per day. Had one due north of me this afternoon.

Current evac for the gorge:

[John_B]

Tanker planes flying over Winthrop. Seems to have died down a bit since 6pm so hopefully it's under control. Ugh.

[KQ]

The Substation Fire in Oregon is currently the nation's top priority wildfire. The fire has burned over 50,000 acres in two days.
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5963/
Photo: Substation Facebook page

[Flyoverland Captive]

We drove through Biggs on 84 around 4pm on Tuesday; the plume was already huge. Scary.

Fire season here in central OR started about a month ago; Madras is still listed as an active fire, and the Medford area has a dozen or more. Gonna be a long season.



https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/information/firemap.aspx

[S_jenks]

Uh-Oh.

Was going to post that MT has been spared so far, but then open inicweb to this: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5954/

Fire season is officially started here now... hold on.

[Flyoverland Captive]

Wow... 50,000 acres and growing. Might be arson.

https://www.ktvz.com/news/substation...rity/770539037

[Meadow Skipper]

That Ferguson fire near Yosemite has a lot of potential:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5927

From a fire geek POV it’s interesting that as of this AM, all the busy geographic area coordination centers and the national CC are only in Preparedness Level 3 (out of 5).
https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf <-changes daily.

That means there’s not too much competition for resources, PLs are a pretty good gauge of how much shit is hitting the fan. I’d bet that sooner than later the Ferguson fire is gonna soak up resources like a sponge.
https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireinfo_prepLevels.html

[zartagen]

Depending on what map you look at, it looks like the Ferguson fire jumped the Merced.

[mecc69]

Yup:

http://wildfiretoday.com/2018/07/21/...-merced-river/

[Meadow Skipper]

From a fire geek POV it’s interesting that as of this AM, all the busy geographic area coordination centers and the national CC are only in Preparedness Level 3 (out of 5).
https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf <-changes daily.

That means there’s not too much competition for resources, PLs are a pretty good gauge of how much shit is hitting the fan. I’d bet that sooner than later the Ferguson fire is gonna soak up resources like a sponge.
https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireinfo_prepLevels.html

Of course, right after I posted that the National PL went to 4:
http://wildfiretoday.com/2018/07/21/...l-5-this-year/

[Kenny Satch]

Never was near any wildfire situation at all but
October 20th 2007 I flew into LAX and saw the huge cloud of smoke that's had blanketed the skies west of the grand canyon to almost the coast. Just massive. Did not enjoy the view. Terrifying

[capulin overdrive]

The Substation Fire in Oregon is currently the nation's top priority wildfire. The fire has burned over 50,000 acres in two days.
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5963/
Photo: Substation Facebook page

Well, as long as you have insurance, fire cuts wheat cheaper than a harvest crew.

[KQ]

Got my modest crop of soft white wheat harvested last week. If it isn't the lack of membership in the TPP (thank-you current admin) giving wheat farmers heartburn it's fire stealing the crop before you can even try to sell it. Heard that Oregon has lost over half it's wheat crop with this fire.


Oregon fire crushes hopes of wheat farmers during harvest

Well, as long as you have insurance, fire cuts wheat cheaper than a harvest crew.

Insurance helps but as with any type of insurance it doesn't cover everything (you buy insurance based on what you think you'll get. In a bad year you may make out in a good year like this year you could lose) and a farmer would rather harvest and sell than lose to fire esp. if that fire was intentionally set.

As Tom said (from linked article):

“There’s some years when you wouldn’t mind your wheat crop burning, but this isn’t one of them. I don’t know how much crop has burned and it’s still burning,” said Tom McCoy, who lost 300 acres overnight.

this was a good wheat year.

[capulin overdrive]

Probably right about the good year vs bad year? And the insurance target price.


We buy fire insurance on top of crop insurance, and have had one decent wheat crop in the last 20 years. So i sure we'd be better off. Getting the ground back to wheat and not blowing out would be a deferent story.

[donutlynx]

We dodged a potential big big So. Oregon fire with the human-caused Klamathon a few weeks ago just across the border in NorCal. Wind shifted and drove it back on itself. Still a threat, and there was an early fatality. Large amount of lightning a few days ago in So. Oregon led to hundreds of small fires. Some complexes are pretty active with a week-long heat wave coming up real quick.

Glad we're on a month-long road trip away from the new normal. Stay vigilant.

[MiddleOfNight]

Not my pics .. Lake Christine Fire, CO. Not being much of a heaven or hell guy - this sure looked and felt like hell.

Negligent human caused.
10,000 acres and counting, containment dropping...

Vibes to everyone else effected by fire. Thank you to all the wildfire crews - be safe out there.

[Garth Bimble]

Not my pics .. Lake Christine Fire, CO. Not being much of a heaven or hell guy - this sure looked and felt like hell.

Negligent human caused.
10,000 acres and counting, containment dropping...

Vibes to everyone else effected by fire. Thank you to all the wildfire crews - be safe out there.

Heard it was idiots using tracer rounds at a gun range. Brilliant. The first fire of our season in May was started by a guy shooting at a private range. Another Einstein. Fortunately the weather cooperated and the fire fighters got on top of it quick. Not so lucky with the 416. They think the Durango/Silverton train started it and I believe it. Mrs. Bimble and I did the tourist thing last week and took the train. We're sitting in an open car near the end of the train and we're being blanketed by ash/cinders from the coal fired locos. All along the rails, sitting on what's now slightly wet brush are big chunks of spent coal, which I assume were hot when they landed there. For the whole trip we're shadowed by a chopper carrying one of those huge buckets full of water, just in case and apparently there are crews that trail behind a bit to put out fires also. Most of the fire restrictions have been lifted in SW CO now but this thing was running when we were at stage 2...WTF? 6 weeks without the train and Hwy 550 closed on and off has really fucked up Silverton. Everybody left when there was no work and now the places that are still open don't have enough help. A lot of places are closed and almost everything is for sale.

Note, we spent the night in Silverton but couldn't get back on the train the next day, heavy rains hit the 416 burn scar and washed out the tracks. Oh well, I was pretty much over it by then anyway. Bus trip was much quicker.

edit: +++++Vibes+++++ to all in the affected areas. It's no fun for sure.

[skiballs]

Drove through a couple of recent burns.
La Veta Pass in Co and the Ute park in NM.
I've seen big fires from a distance, but can't imgane being close to something like that. I think I would need a garden hose.

[2FUNKY]

Carr fire in Nor Cal. 2k acres and 0% contained. Damn thing went from 200 to 2k in just over 3 hrs. Dad lives in French Gulch and was evacuated 4 hrs ago and said the fire was less than a mile from his house. We’re thinking it’s gone since the fire was moving up the drainage towards the town of French Gulch, he lives a couple miles below town.
299 closed both ways near Whiskey town as well as the top of of Buckhorn pass.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incid...ils/Index/2164

[2FUNKY]

Carr fire is now 29k acres and 10% contained with over 2500 people under mandatory evacuation. Fire is moving into old Shasta and west Redding. Good gawd this thing is nasty.

[Flyoverland Captive]

Jebus that is massive.

[Meadow Skipper]

The explosive growth of some of these fires is...noteworthy.

[2FUNKY]

Not mine.
Whiskey Town lake
Oak bottom Marina resort burned to the ground. Over 40 boats gone. So far no counts on loss of homes. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

[yeahman]

Carr fire in Nor Cal. 2k acres and 0% contained. Damn thing went from 200 to 2k in just over 3 hrs. Dad lives in French Gulch and was evacuated 4 hrs ago and said the fire was less than a mile from his house. We’re thinking it’s gone since the fire was moving up the drainage towards the town of French Gulch, he lives a couple miles below town.
299 closed both ways near Whiskey town as well as the top of of Buckhorn pass.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incid...ils/Index/2164

Vibes man. I hope your dad's house was somehow spared.

[2FUNKY]

Vibes man. I hope your dad's house was somehow spared.

Thanks brother. The crazy thing is that his house as well as the others around his were spared. Massive effort by helicopters and ground crews were able to keep his place from burning. Mad props to the fire crews for that effort.