2020 Wildfire Season

[bodywhomper]

Are you sure that’s not ozone?

Purple air shows pm2.5 aqi much higher in centralish idaho.

[~mikey b]

AQI pushing 500 at 7000’

[Sharon Needles]

Our neighbors are having to treat horses with a nebulizer. ☹️

[altasnob]

To answer KQ's question about whether bees flee if there is fire, apparently not. Pics from my friends bee farm. The ash piles are burnt hives. Mriaculously, some of the hives were untouched. And the ones that survived still had bees. My friend was actually very happy to find some of the bees had survived. He assumed all the bees on this property were a total loss.

[LongShortLong]

To answer KQ's question about whether bees flee if there is fire, apparently not. Pics from my friends bee farm. The ash piles are burnt hives. Mriaculously, some of the hives were untouched. And the ones that survived still had bees. My friend was actually very happy to find some of the bees had survived. He assumed all the bees on this property were a total loss.

Good pictures for the logging prevents forest fires crowd.

[~mikey b]

[KQ]

Our neighbors are having to treat horses with a nebulizer. ☹️

[TBS]

This is incredibly beautiful - and fucking terrifying

[LongShortLong]

Holt Hanley Weather
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGj...7EGiYKA/videos
Covers dailyish update and forecast for CA wildfires. San Jose State Fire Lab

[~mikey b]

I like this kid

[KQ]

Edit: This has been contained.


NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9/16/20, 4:45 PM
New Fire: 117 Fire

(Sandpoint, Idaho) – Idaho Department of Lands firefighters are battling a new fire near the western shore of Lake Pend Oreille by Talache Landing and the 117 trail. The initial size up described the fire as 5 acres with structures threatened.

Early work by a Type 1 helicopter helped reduce the threat to structures but the helicopter has since set down due to heavy smoke in the region. No evacuations were needed. Currently the road that is at the beginning of the 117 trail is open to residents only.

While dozer fire line is being dug a hose lay is also being installed around the fire to continue suppression efforts. Resources currently on the fire are 4 engines and 1 dozer. The fire boats of Sam Owen and Selkirk Fire came out to assist but have since been released. Bonner County Sheriff, Avista Power, and a fire investigator are also currently on scene.

# # #
CONTACT:
Public Information Officer Jonathan Luhnow
208-334-0233, fireinformation@idl.idaho.gov
About IDL Fire: 10 Idaho Department of Lands Forest Protective Districts and two timber protective associations are responsible for fire prevention and protection on more than 6 million acres of state and private forests and rangelands in Idaho. IDL fire suppression efforts focus on initial attack. The work of the IDL fire management program helps protect and preserve important endowment timber assets as well as millions of acres of private forestland. The program also enhances forest and rangeland management on state endowment trust lands by utilizing fire as a management tool, and protects local communities from wildfire by reducing fuels.

[buttahflake]

Crazy weird orange sunshine sunsets out here on the east coast, never seen it like this. You could look right at the sun, bizzarro

[yeahman]

Crazy weird orange sunshine sunsets out here on the east coast, never seen it like this. You could look right at the sun, bizzarro

Apparently the smoke is spreading all the way to Europe.

[gravitylover]

This is the third time in recent history that we've had smoke make it to the east coast but this has been the most severe and longest of them. It's been so significant that it has blunted the morning temp rise after sunrise and some of the coolest temps we've seen (in my area) have been an hour or so later in the morning than usual due to the smoke muting the heating from the sun.

[Conundrum]

Idaho is just getting rolling. 3 20k+ acre fires going with not a ton of containment yet. Rain supposedly this weekend.

[Meadow Skipper]

The crews, incident management teams, pilots, and logistical support folks etc. have to be getting fucking exhausted around now.

[TBS]

Apparently the smoke is spreading all the way to Europe.

This is the third time in recent history that we've had smoke make it to the east coast but this has been the most severe and longest of them. It's been so significant that it has blunted the morning temp rise after sunrise and some of the coolest temps we've seen (in my area) have been an hour or so later in the morning than usual due to the smoke muting the heating from the sun.

Have to wonder if all this smoke will have a short term effect on temperature.
When Mt Tambora blew in 1815 summer didn't come for three years

And yea, fire crews have been at it, short-handed, for as much as a month for some crews in OR and CA

[KQ]

To answer KQ's question about whether bees flee if there is fire, apparently not. Pics from my friends bee farm. The ash piles are burnt hives. Mriaculously, some of the hives were untouched. And the ones that survived still had bees. My friend was actually very happy to find some of the bees had survived. He assumed all the bees on this property were a total loss.

Thanks for this. Been noticing a lot less bee activity on flowers. Been a week now since this heavy smoke came and blotted sun, dropped the temps and fouled the air. This will be having an impact on end of season crops.

[Toadman]

Not sure of this was already posted. But what a crazy survival story.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he...id=mailsignout

[bodywhomper]

another red flag warning has been issued east of the sierra crest, south central and SE oregon, most of idaho, and west utah. wow!

we've been receiving forecasts in the sierra foothills for the past two days that our AQ will be improving that day due to forecasted wind patterns, but, in reality, the AQI they've basically been fluxuating from unhealthy to worse. hopefully, that'll change with the newest pattern and we won't see more fire growth or new fires (seems unlikely!).

During the PG&E prophylactic power shutoffs, my area goes into a public telecommunication spiral of failures, which can be a big problem if there's an emergency of any sort, but especially if there's calls for a fire evacuation. For those that have connectivity to cell towers (not an option in most of my neighborhood), some of those towers go offline and the general congestion is really bad. For those with cable, the service provider often is unable to have adequate backup power to provide service. For most landlines/dsl, the signal typically goes through a powered "remote terminal" (RT). The RT's are in neighborhoods and are tied to the electric grid with a battery backup. The backup batteries are old and some will only provide a few minutes of backup before landlines and dsl lines go down. The phone company has been deploying super loud diesel generators to those RTs after they lose power. Last week, it took about 4 hours for the generator to be deployed to RT in my hood. there are a few pure copper lines available in the areas that pass through the RT's but are unaffected when the RT's lose power. one of the phone lines at my home is tied into one of those copper lines, but most of my neighbors are not. the phone company is not maintaining those copper lines or replacing the RT batteries. its a nuanced shitty situation that could have some very bad consequences.

[KQ]

Wheat harvest on The Palouse amid smoky skies

[GoldMember]

^^ That's actually a pretty cool picture. Looks like a sepia from a long time ago.

[telehacker]

Dear Meadow Skipper

Lots of fire on the ground in MANY states. GACC's are not letting folks leave, The sawtooth NF has 1 fires 40,000 with 1 IHC and 1 type 2 IA Badger. Planning level 5 . Most of the great basin IHC crews are timing out in less that 2 week.

LONG season Covid planning started March 15, with a whole new set of rules to figure out.

Little rain coming .10-.30 scattered....

I feel sorry for all the large fires in Cali, Washington, Oregon, lots of time left until the season ender comes.

Stay safe folks.

[KQ]

Check out this DC-10 dropping fire retardant:

https://www.facebook.com/rlpetitt/vi...20812523240120

[KQ]

Hey Oregonians - heads up:




Lane Electric Cooperative
·
We are aware of an incoming weather event that will pose a threat to our system and we have begun to prepare our system for this event.

At this time, we are not planning to de-energize our entire system or perform what is called a ‘public safety power shutoff’. The temperatures and relative humidity readings appear to be much less significant than they were a week ago. We will continue to follow the weather and update you if this changes.

We have set our substations to their highest sensitivity settings to ensure instantaneous power shutoff, should a foreign object come in contact with our system. This increases safety significantly but also increases the likelihood of an outage.

***Please use this time to prepare for an outage now***

We will be back out in the morning, after the event concludes, to address any outages that have occurred. We do not foresee extended multi-day outages resulting from this event but will post our assessments after we have had a chance to survey our lines.

Stay safe and never approach downed power lines. Always assume they are energized.
*Thanks to KEZI for the Image.