Wildfire ‘24

Cal Fire has a reputation for always getting things done including securing resources.

Seems like it's an election year and no one can agree about anything so the Feds shut down funding.

I can't imagine what the asset loss would be if they lose Sunriver. Astronomical.

I will say we had a fire threaten the northeast side of Bend and they annihilated it with air support. So, maybe there's just a proximity threshold that hasn't been met yet. I've spoke to some folks that have been evacuated so I suppose it's threatening structures.

180 aqi in SLC currently. Flanked by three new local fires since this late morning.

Glorious steady soaking rain here in west central Montana.

The smell is fainter now as the scrubbing continues, but man, someone pissed on the campfire

The smoke lingers on our window screens for a long time.

According to FEMA’s morning ops report, almost 42k people are evacuated in SoCal. The SanBerdu Co FD has already put out a video describing the success of the evacuation of the mtn high community, and along with defensible space around many structures, allowed them to successfully keep most of the town from burning down two nights ago.

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Originally Posted by evdog

The Santa Ana mtns can't catch a break ...3 fires in 7 years. First one set by a crazy guy who wanted to burn out a neighbor he was fueding with and then apparently went after responding firefighters with a sword. Second fire caused by explosives as CDFE worked with marines to blow up old check dams that inhibited steelhead movement. On a red flag day of course. The Airport fire was started by OC county works moving boulders to prevent illegal access by dirt bikes. Also on a red flag day. You'd think they would learn?

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Wasn't the plan to finally start getting Holy Jim reopened? And now it is burning again, ffs...

Just got off the line at the Davis fire. Thankfully on days. They put us up in hotels as we were told there are no available shower or sleeper trailers, all committed to incidents. Now it’s So Cals turn to burn. We got real lucky the Davis didn’t do what was predicted. First 48 hours were spicy.

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Originally Posted by 406

Wasn't the plan to finally start getting Holy Jim reopened? And now it is burning again, ffs...

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Yeah they just had a public comment period for rebuilding Trabuco and West Horse thief. Holy Jim opened last year then they closed it again this summer to re-build the bottom and get it away from the stream. I think that work was pretty much done, apparently it was really nice. Emphasis on "was".

For some reason that no one can figure out, the Northeast is burning this November.

The Times oped linked here is not cheery:

https://archive.is/wya9C

For some reason that no one can figure out, the Northeast is burning this November.

The Times oped linked here is not cheery:

https://archive.is/wya9C

^ Yep, I saw a newscast of some New Jersey or New York municipal firefighters being amazed at how different it was fighting wildfires - humping hills, away from the road, lasting more than 4 hours…

And there aren’t many experienced wildfire people that don’t believe in climate change.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ex-powderbroker

For some reason that no one can figure out, the Northeast is burning this November.

The Times oped linked here is not cheery:

https://archive.is/wya9C

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Attachment 505132

Drone video of volunteer fire fighters battling a standing wheat fire in Walla Walla county

https://youtu.be/6BTBFK6ZrQM?si=kndxxWrVuMmrP9wn

Racing the head with a tractor!

Stephen Pyne, friend to Meadow Skipper (right?), wrote an essay on the history of WF in New England. Pretty interesting. https://mailchi.mp/historynewsnetwor...nd-burns-again


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bodywhomper

Stephen Pyne, friend to Meadow Skipper (right?)…

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More of a confrère, or a “hey, how ya been?” and swap some stories/info.

Interesting article, thx for the link. Timely.

Got it!

Fascinating article. 4-5M ac WF in New Brunswick and Maine! Bison in Pennsylvania?


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up here the old fucks on FB who are probaby as old as the Mars are bemoaning the end of the Martin Mars water bomber, if you read the posts its like the fucking old piece of shit put out all the fires whereas the reality is the plane could barely make it to the job site and right now it can't even make it to the museum in arizona

^ heh. Old fire fucks, livin’ in the past. I’m an old fire fuck and I can’t stand to listen to them complain about how ‘we did it better back in the day.’ That Mars was the Spruce Goose of the fire aircraft world. Cool looking, but I would never have gotten into it for a flight.
Attachment 507394

Yeah in real life the fire service really does not want the Mars, even if they did you can't fill it on just any lake, you can't land it anywhere but a big lake, it has to stay in the water, it takes a huge crew, a lot of fuel, they have to work on them constantly and no spare parts unless you make them, but majestic to watch

what the fire service really wants is the airtractors I've seen them sortie out of the local airport cuz i think they need to fuel 4 times a day, I thot i was tripn when i see the same craft fly by 4 times but it was just a flight of 4 doing the go round till they could form up . Post mission they fit the whole crew mayeb 7 guys around a double bar table at the local craft brew for the toast

the Mars can't go away fast enough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_iuAT2oxqE

https://burnbot.com/technology

There's an article on Page 7 here...

https://www.trpa.gov/tahoe-in-depth-december-2024

^ Kind of limited to relatively level and treeless lands. More for prescribed fire prep than suppression. Like they say, around structures and developments…just gotta get it there, and get all the stuff it needs to run. Wonder what it cost to build.

I kind of flinched at their use of the phrase “…because there’s no risk of escape fire…” Hope they’re right.

SoCal ain’t getting no relief.

Reporting that the Getty Villa is on fire. What an absolute shame.

We had hiked out of the Highlands on Friday, one of my first comments to my wife when we got home was that it was primed for a fire up there. It’s wild to me that so much development was approved with only four lanes of non-gated egress.

Attachment 509529

https://www.foxla.com/live

https://ktla.com/on-air/live-video-feed-1/

LA helis are grounded because Biden is in the area.

https://ktla.com/on-air/live-video-feed-1/

https://www.foxla.com/live

The severe winds are just starting now. With another fire kicking off above Altadena. Unfortunately, the likely downwind trajectory are lots of built out cities.

Pyne wrote an essay on fires and LA for a German architecture mag that coincidentally came out today: https://www.stephenpyne.com/blog