The 416 Fire. North of Durango, San Juan NF

[Garth Bimble]

Buffalo Mtn Fire is contained.

All those resources should be returning to 416... or I guess Moab is burning too now.

Temps should drop 10+ degrees with rain by Saturday!

Intellicast is saying a high of 68 with 1.4 inches of rain in our little burg. We're about 15 miles east of the 416.

[Garth Bimble]

Not sure if this has been posted before, saw it on the news last night. It's not being used here though. Apparently it costs 66% more than the standard tankers.

[adrenalated]

Good, thank you. A map on CNN marked one major fire just north of Breck. I question their accuracy.

That's probably the fire on Buffalo Mountain in Silverthorne. With the ant farm like condo developments right next to where it started, they jumped all over it like buzzards on a gut wagon. It's probably out already.

Yeah, CNN wasn't inaccurate, Buffalo Mtn was a major fire in the sense that it started extremely close to and upwind from a densely populated area. If it has jumped the existing fire break, it would have created serious threat to human life and property.

As such they threw the kitchen sink at it almost immediately (multiple aircraft, a hotshots crew, and basically every fire department in the area on deck within hours) to get it under control.

This is the problem with national news coverage of wildfires - everyone hears there's a couple "major fires" in Colorado and they assume the whole damn state is burning up and cancel their vacations. It has a huge impact on our tourism industry. I mean, Buffalo Mtn is a 90 acre fire with an interstate highway, a 3000+ acre reservoir, and a major town between it and Breck, yeah it was scary for residents of two particular subdivisions but the impact on tourists should be near zero.

[Danno]

Buffalo Mtn Fire is contained.

All those resources should be returning to 416... or I guess Moab is burning too now.

Temps should drop 10+ degrees with rain by Saturday!

It's contained? A Summit Cty friend of mine who is usually in the know on these things said it just quieted down overnight, hasn't grown, but is not yet contained at all.

[skaredshtles]

It's contained? A Summit Cty friend of mine who is usually in the know on these things said it just quieted down overnight, hasn't grown, but is not yet contained at all.

This somewhat official site has no containment info at all: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5841/

Seems odd, especially if it *is* contained...

[ASmileyFace]

Air quality index from this morning. Ooof.

Also the city and county closed all of their open spaces/trails yesterday too.
https://durangoherald.com/articles/2...-spaces-closed

I'm leaving Durango for a while as soon as I can get my last checks from work and my deposit from my apartment. Hopefully Bud is our buddy and saves our asses.

PS: If you're on the Facebook and want good updates from a local source, check this page out. https://www.facebook.com/416Fire/ The daily posts are excellent and tell you everything you need to know. The firefighters who are fighting this are awesome.

Also, https://www.facebook.com/DurangoSnowLovers/. Jeff is awesome and posts great stuff in the winter too. I think he might be gone this weekend unfortunately but he has been more reliable than the local news for sure.

[Meadow Skipper]

This somewhat official site has no containment info at all: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5841/

Seems odd, especially if it *is* contained...

The Rocky Mountain Area coordination center, which should be reporting on the Buffalo fire, is either overwhelmed or asleep at the wheel. The daily Morning Intelligence Report is supposed to be updated daily by 0800. At 1026 today, yesterday’s (6/12) report was still up, with no mention of the Buffalo Fire:
https://gacc.nifc.gov/rmcc/predictiv...ing_report.pdf

Maybe check on that link later to see if they got their shit together.

[summit]

It's contained? A Summit Cty friend of mine who is usually in the know on these things said it just quieted down overnight, hasn't grown, but is not yet contained at all.

OK containment is a technical term relating to an established perimeter that would keep it from spreading. You can have a raging billowing fire that is 100% contained. Or you can have what we have, a fire that barely burning but is 0% contained while still being hot, dry, and breezy.

What I should have said is the "the fire is basically out with a few tiny spots still burning and hot spots, but it is 0% contained meaning that if it restarted it could be bad." There are plenty of crews up there and the 2 helos are still dumping water. But there's almost no smoke. Things are fine as far as no houses are about to be burned down and there isn't pillars of fire and billowing black smoke plumes... fine unless suddenly shit goes bad then its game on just like yesterday.

[summit]

0% contained now


0% contained 22hours ago

[Meadow Skipper]

Maybe it would have been better to say that it isn't moving or spreading right now.

[raisingarizona13]

It might look a little different to you if you were to read input and comments from the public or attend meetings during the planning phase, or if you were to answer the agency phones and letters during burns, and/or if truly landscape-scale Rx fires were being conducted. ‘Some’ little Rx fires here and there aren’t going to fix the overall problem.

I believe you that you and your circle of friends/acquaintances/neighbors ‘live with it’ (and I give you major props for that) but my experience as a fire manager and as an involved citizen after I retired showed me that there is a sizable contingent of the public that actively opposes large, landscape-scale prescribed fire or anything that drifts smoke into town. There’s a lot of resistance to pile-burning and smaller Rx fires as well, again IME.

Absolutely. People here in Flag seem to get it for the most part but this is serious ponderosa country so I think it's more vulnerable than other areas so awareness might be a little higher but still, when the smoke drifts down in to the Verde Valley you should hear the Sedona residents complain about prescribed burns.

A thought I've had is even though we are doing large scale thinning projects and prescribed burns how will those areas be managed from there on? I mean, if low intensity ground fires were once a natural part of forest health are the land managers going to allow those to happen? If they don't it might not take too long to be right back where we were.

Meadow Skipper, how fire resistant are the Oak that take over?

[Garth Bimble]

416 fire should be fully contained by July 31, so we've got that to look forward to...

https://pinerivertimes.com/articles/66312

[Meadow Skipper]

A thought I've had is even though we are doing large scale thinning projects and prescribed burns how will those areas be managed from there on? I mean, if low intensity ground fires were once a natural part of forest health are the land managers going to allow those to happen? If they don't it might not take too long to be right back where we were.

All that remains to be seen. It's a volatile situation (heh) in that politics and funding are as important as science and needs.

Meadow Skipper, how fire resistant are the Oak that take over?

Gambel oak? It depends on the weather. In more-or-less normal years it's pretty resistant to fire. But if drought or late frosts or an underburn cause leaves to die it's very flammable. That famous (in the fire world anyway) 1994 Colorado disaster fire - the South Canyon/Storm King - where 14 jumpers, hotshots, and helitack died in a burnover happened in Gambel oak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Canyon_Fire
https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_journa...fmann_m001.pdf

[ASmileyFace]

416 fire should be fully contained by July 31, so we've got that to look forward to...

https://pinerivertimes.com/articles/66312

I really have no idea how they can have that kind of timeline yet. There has been absolutely no mention of a expected full containment date in any of the 416 fire's updates or videos.

They just released today's update. Here. Apparently talks are beginning about letting some people in the subdivisions to the east of the fire having evacuations lifted. We'll see today I guess.

[Danno]

Question for Meadow Skipper or any other knowledgeable forest fire folk. Many people talk about all the beetle kill and how much of a fire threat it poses, which certainly seems intuitive. I have also heard folks say that particular danger is overstated, that those dead trees don't provide the kind of fuel needed for a devastating fire. Which is correct?

[summit]

Forestry guy told me beetle is kill is worst when it still has all the dead needles on the limbs.

[Meadow Skipper]

Question for Meadow Skipper or any other knowledgeable forest fire folk. Many people talk about all the beetle kill and how much of a fire threat it poses, which certainly seems intuitive. I have also heard folks say that particular danger is overstated, that those dead trees don't provide the kind of fuel needed for a devastating fire. Which is correct?

Like Summit pointed out, the real danger is when the dead needles are still on the limbs.

The important notion here is that fine fuels (needles, grasses, twigs, and brush) are key in determining the rate and intensity of spread, which is important in determining how devastating a wildfire can be. Fine fuels carry fire over longer distances much more rapidly and need less heat to ignite - it's a surface area to volume ratio thing. And fine fuels need air around them to be especially flammable - matted grass or compacted needles on the ground will not carry fire as quickly as standing grass or needles on the limb. So, where I'm going with this is that fire spread potential drops considerably when needles fall off the dead trees, because there won't be the much-feared crown fire when there are no crowns. And resistance to control efforts will drop significantly, until the dead tree trunks fall over. When that happens, fire may not move that quickly, but burning trunks have a lot of heat and are difficult to extinguish. So, once the needles are down, the potential for rapid fire ignition and spread drops considerably.

Think of your fireplace. Fine fuels like newspaper and then kindling ignite easier and the flames spread faster than splits or logs do. But the logs burn longer and are harder to put out. Hold a match to a pile of crumpled newspaper and it takes off. Hold a match to a split or a log, and you're gonna be there for a while.

All this ignores the roles of weather and terrain in determining fire behavior, but hey...

[Danno]

Thanks, that helps.

[Garth Bimble]

I really have no idea how they can have that kind of timeline yet. There has been absolutely no mention of a expected full containment date in any of the 416 fire's updates or videos.

They just released today's update. Here. Apparently talks are beginning about letting some people in the subdivisions to the east of the fire having evacuations lifted. We'll see today I guess.

They were probably being pressured by the powers that be to come out with something and based on current conditions, weather forecasts, etc. 7/31 gave them plenty of wiggle room. If they do it sooner even better, which is probably the plan.

It would be nice to see some of those folks go home. I rode my ATV to the top of the neighborhood yesterday on a rough road with no builds and somebody was camping there. One of the vehicles said "Glacier Club" on the side.

[Meadow Skipper]

I really have no idea how they can have that kind of timeline yet. There has been absolutely no mention of a expected full containment date in any of the 416 fire's updates or videos.

They were probably being pressured by the powers that be to come out with something and based on current conditions, weather forecasts, etc. 7/31 gave them plenty of wiggle room. If they do it sooner even better, which is probably the plan.

Estimated date of containment is a SWAG based on current and forecasted weather, projections of fire spread, the fuels and terrain ahead of the fire, firefighting resource availability, and experience/good ol' common sense. It's SOP for any Incident Management Team to develop that estimate while they're looking at those factors and figuring out how long it could take (and cost) and how long they'll be holding the resources committed. They have to figure out logistical needs and head-sheds at the coordination centers are always looking ahead to the next fire, so it makes sense to try to figure out how long the current ones are gonna last. Plus, the public wants to know.

IMTs have a whole planning section for just that sort of thing.

[ASmileyFace]

Great picture showing the growth of the fire day by day.

[Alpinord]

On Facebook, here is an interesting GIF of the the fire spread. Each day he has been updating the fire spread.

6/13:

[Meadow Skipper]

On Facebook, here is an interesting GIF of the the fire spread. Each day he has been updating the fire spread.

6/13:

It really ripped when it came up out of Hermosa Creek, didn't it?

[Alpinord]

Yeah and the winds that have been going on for months have compounded the dryness and fire. There are burnouts going on too. I'm not sure how big other than trying to be proactive along the southern end to protect Falls Creek among other residential areas. All the area on the GIF at the top (NW) and left (west) is SJNF.

FTR the Missionary Ridge fire lasted 39 days and burned 72,000 acres and around 80 homes and structures. The Animas Valley fire also burned a bunch of homes in Falls Creek and the western side of the Animas Valley, included a couple of my projects.

[Alpinord]

Boy, I hope so!

From Durango Snow Lovers (a great resource):

The EURO as of 6 am this morning was predicting event totals of 1.1 inches in town, with up to 1.8 inches over the fires. The GFS is probably overdoing this with 1.4 inches in town, 2 inches over the 416, and 3 inches over the Burro. Be wary of huge totals you see floating around out there, I am probably more in the EURO camp for now, but I would back off the totals slightly to allow for that feedback. Here are the projected totals ending Sunday night.

6/13/18 2:40 pm Ooops
I forgot to add the bad news.
I was anxious to get the last update out and I forgot to add something important The bad news is if we hit totals even less than the models are predicting, we are going to be dealing with the potential for dangerous flash flooding and debris flow in the recently burn-scarred areas. I am already hearing that NWS is going to be issuing flash flood watches before the end of the week.