Wildfire ‘25

[LongShortLong]

About wind forecasts. Where I live, the weather is pretty predictable, and the NWS forecasts wind only two days ahead. From watching various fire officials on YT, they need a week or more to establish a fire line, and burn it to black. Grand Canyon features desert, canyon, and mountain terrain, all known for frequent windy conditions. Looking at the local weather data for GCNP, the available weather stations (GC airport, Flagstaff, Winslow, Page) one shows 20mph winds on Sunday afternoon, from the northwest. 20mph northwest is consistent with the NWS text forecast from 36 hours prior. The long-term forecasts for the prior week expected monsoon conditions, but these kept getting pushed off as the days passed. Every forecast I looked at highlighted high fire hazards and warned to be careful not to start one. Ofc, those forecasts are for a broad region, mostly lower, hotter, and presumably drier than the north rim.

As a casual faraway observer, maybe it was reasonable to let a slow moving fire burn here. The forecasts showed monsoon conditions a few days off, which while bringing wind and lightning, also bring humidity that likely raises fuel moisture levels and further slows fire. Besides the small area of park infrastructure, there's very little else in that forest at risk or needing protection. Mitigating against that, defending the park infrastructure means driving a long single road access through the burning forest, the region is far from anything, national firefighting resources are historically underfunded, and the current administration has cut funds, cut employees, and added bureaucracy.

[LongShortLong]

Eta. "The Lookout" YT fire channel discusses Dragon Bravo fire that burned North Rim. Skip over Norcal fires to about 24 minutes to the North Rim fire.
https://youtu.be/F5IzSCsLx7Q?t=1457
Zeke is a fire professional in northern California. Kinda new to YT. His website has extensive fire resources, worth a look. He shows some of the Dragon Bravo fire management documents, including an early "fire pro" model that showed <0.2% chance the fire would reach the park buildings. Says the Kaibab forest and park have been extensively managed with fire. Comments that the lodge would not get fire insurance in CA. Also comments that a Cal-Fire inspector would issue numerous citations for poor defensive prep. Satellite imagery shows the fire has mostly been good fire for the forest.

Afraid to edit my earlier post with the current forum state.

[evdog]

Here is a trip report from a bikepacking trip I did 10 yrs ago. Much of what I rode on the first and last days has burned in the White Sage fire. Lots of mature pinyon and juniper forest. And pine forest closer to Jacobs Lake.


https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...Kaibab-Plateau

[claymond]

Thanks for posting that Lookout YouTube Longshortlong. I hope people watch it.

I have a few anecdotal additions and quibbles:

If me or my supervisors based our actions on computer models-with no effective backup plan-I wouldn't be alive.

The fire started on a flat plateau about a mile off a road. He mentions access being "hard". Really?

He says something like "when you get a bunch of lightning fires and can't put them all out you have to manage them". There's a big difference between prioritizing/triaging fires when you dont have and can't get enough resources to staff them all sufficiently vs purposely not suppressing a fire. That can't be used as an excuse if it's not true, because people will never believe you when it is actually true.

Which leads into why this bothers me so much. The NPS fire management didn't just risk their personal liability and a historic building by not suppressing this fire. They risked all federal fire resources credibility. Credibility we need- to have a fully staffed workforce, have funding for effective large scale prescribed fire, get the public to buy into managed fires and prescribed fires, believe agencies and Incident commanders when they say"we have to go big box". Public agencies need the publics trust. That trust was already cracking, mostly because of falsehoods and ignorance. This just widened that crack a bit more, for reasons that are very real.

[cat in january]

NWS predicts wind six days in advance here and most places I have looked. That’s just on the public side. I would expect fire management would have more resources than the public.

[Meadow Skipper]

Well, I’d want to see the weather forecasts that were issued to the people that were overseeing the incident before I made a judgement there.

What I’m curious about is the contingency planning that should be a key part of any “let burn” fire. That element was crucial in my day - sometimes forecasts are wrong and sometimes plan A just doesn’t work out on fires. A complete plan, including contingencies, for the burn is essential.

It’s been a while, but I used to be deeply involved in my federal agency's (not NPS) Rx (prescribed) fire plans and it seems to me this should have had a prescribed set of conditions - boundaries, weather (past, present, expected), fuel conditions, available resources, contingencies, etc. And I used to be somewhat involved in other wildland agency and orgs. (fed, state, native, etc.) Rx activities in the region. The reason I mention that is ideally the contingency planning should include protection procedures for adjacent or nearby things you don’t want to burn. Now, I’m wondering what the NPS had lined up for contingency resources - suppression forces if the fire gets outside the prescribed burn area. And I wonder if they provided protection clearing (hardening) and resources around the village - seems like maybe not, not enough anyway.

I have no idea what the Grand Canyon’s current staffing looks like after the recent administration’s cutbacks, nor do I know if the NPS was counting on their neighbors (nat’l forests, BLM, reservations, etc) to provide firefighting resources and whether those resources were available due to commitments to other incidents and/or cutbacks. But it’ll be interesting to see.

The reason I wonder these things is I was peripherally involved when the NPS screwed up a Rx fire and it burned into Los Alamos - the Cerro Grande Fire (and also some smaller incidents). A guy I know directed the investigation (and I bet there’s going to be an investigation of this one) and it boiled down to “did they have a plan, was it a good plan, and did they follow the plan.” We’ll see, but at Cerro Grande there was confusion and delays in getting additional resources and unexpected weather. The NPS people didn’t expect the problems they encountered getting additional resources they needed.

[Meadow Skipper]

NWS predicts wind six days in advance here and most places I have looked. That’s just on the public side. I would expect fire management would have more resources than the public.

Sometimes the NWS is wrong, and I hear their staffing was cut substantially recently.

[KQ]

Crazy number of fires going on in SE WA and SW OR.

My Watch Duty app has been pinging non-stop for the last two days.

[bodywhomper]

Stephen Pyne interview from last week. He talks a lot about the fire on the Grand Canyon North Rim

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000717808171