Wildland Fire
No sparks, please
SW Idaho is Red Hot Dangerous
Wildfire danger is at its highest in Southwest Idaho and a red flag warning from the National Weather Service is flying high. It could drop to orange as early as Friday, but critical fire conditions are the status quo.
Put together the heat, low humidity, strong winds and possible lightening storms and the potential for sudden and explosive fires is very high.
UPDATE: Just an hour after this was posted, a fire in the Boise foothills broke out suddenly and crept toward Hillside Jr. High before being put out. Fire investigators said it was caused by the spontaneous combustion of some rags a man had been using to stain his deck. Just some oily rags sitting around, minding their own business.... everybody go check the garage.
Last summer’s fires in Idaho and Montana started under similar conditions.
Thunderstorms with gusty winds are supposed to move through today, with the chance only 20% for Friday.
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resort and 90 homes evacuated
Cascade Fire Nears Red Lodge Ski ResortWind has helped the Cascade Fire, burning near Red Lodge, grow to 9,411 acres, an increase of about 3,000 acres from yesterday, said Marge McCarty, a fire information officer.
The fire, now 5 percent contained, has advanced on its northeast side and come to within a half to a quarter mile of Red Lodge Ski Resort, which along with about 90 homes in the Grizzly Peaks area, have been evacuated. But the West Fork drainage of Rock Creek, where the fire was first reported July 26, has not seen much advancement, McCarty said.
About 600 people are working on the fire. Helicopters continue to drop water today after dropping 15,000 gallons on the fire yesterday. Dozers and hand crews are making fire line. Structure protection is taking place near the ski resort and residential areas.
The Billings Gazette is regularly updating their coverage and have more details on the fire here.
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Expensive Air Shows
The Business and Politics of Firefighting
With fires raging in many parts of California, the Los Angeles Times is running a big series on the growth in wildfires and the cost of containing them. Part one provides lots of interesting detail on just how much those fire camps - a familiar site in Rockies these days - cost to operate. (We're pretty sure that most firefighters aren't sleeping in air-conditioned trailers with chamber-maid service, but some are, apparently.)
Part two is even more interesting, alleging that choppers and air tankers ore often deployed for political reasons, against the better judgement of fire commanders. Last year's Sun Valley blaze is cited as a prime example of a fire where political pressure trumped firefighter judgement.
What's a reasonable amount to spend fighting wildfires? That, ultimately, is the policy question at hand, and kudos to the LA Times (my one-time employer) for providing a lot of solid reporting that helps inform the issue. We look forward to the rest of the series.
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wildfire
Montana Looking Good on the Fire Front
A year ago in Missoula, it was another 90-plus degree day during a July that saw 30 of them, and the weather turned Western Montana into a tinderbox. Today, it's raining and a refreshing 68 degrees.
And so there's not much fire activity around the state to report on, save a few that have popped up here and there.
The Cactus Fire, nine miles west of Whitehall, is mapped at 518 acres and 65 percent contained. A Monday evening thunder cell brought strong downdraft winds on the fire and created a half-acre spot, said Terina Mullen of the Bureau of Land Management.
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wildfire
Indreland Fire Northwest of Missoula Contained, But Not OutA 100-acre grass fire that ignited northwest of Missoula Sunday night near the railroad tracks at Indreland Road, off Highway 93, has been contained, but is not out.
Eight to ten firefighters from Frenchtown and the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) will continue to mop up the fire throughout today. It will most likely be a few days before it is declared totally out, however, because the fire crew has to walk the area to ensure none of the grass is still smoldering, Cindy Super, fire prevention coordinator for the DNRC said.
The fire, started by sparks from a passing train, was reported at about 6 p.m. by a homeowner in the area who called 911. It spread quickly through dry grass, but no homes were damaged.
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From The New West Blog
What is “Wise” When Managing Wildfire?
Mark Finney, a scientist with the Forest Service's Fire Science Lab in Missoula put it pretty clearly when talking to Matthew Frank at NewWest.Net:
"It's the paradox of fire: the more you suppress them, the worse they get," Finney says. By fighting every fire, "we end up destroying the very thing we're trying to protect."
As fire season begins in the Rockies, the relative quietness of the season has given reporters a breather from chasing evacuation numbers and allowed them to focus more on policy in their stories and the latest from the Idaho Statesman's Rocky Barker and Heath Druzin is a perfect example. The story, in Sunday's paper, is a detailed report on how we manage fire and what the costs of that -- financially and ecologically -- are.
Barker and Druzin found some just fascinating numbers to back up what Finney was talking about when explaining the need for scientific modeling to help fire managers figure out what to fight and what to let burn. Here's just one set:
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guest commentary
Severely Burned Forests: One of Nature’s Best-Kept Secrets
As summer wildfire season begins in earnest throughout much of the West, it's important for the public and policymakers to recognize the important role that severely burned forests play in maintaining wildlife populations and healthy forests. Severely burned forests are neither "destroyed" nor "lifeless."
From my perspective as an ecologist, I have become aware of one of nature's best-kept secrets -- there are some plant and animal species that one is hard-pressed to see anywhere outside a severely burned forest.
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wildfires
The New Crystal Ball for Firefighters
Mark Finney mouses around a computer screen and up pops an elaborate map of where the Carey Fire in Northern California is burning. Overlaid in splotches of color, he sees, more importantly, where it's likely to grow.
"What we can do here and what it'll show you is mind-blowing," he says. The map is the product of the Forest Service's innovative computer-modeling program called Fire Spread Probability (or FSPro), a program Finney began developing in 2005 "to take a more strategic look at fire management." Today, its predictions are informing fire managers on how -- if at all -- to suppress hundreds of blazes around the country.
Tools like Finney's are becoming increasingly important for fire managers dealing with two big shifts in firefighting that can seem contradictory: The first being the recognition that some fires are good for the forest ecosystem and therefore, not every fire should be actively controlled. The second being the push to aggressively suppress fires to protect the ever-increasing number of homes sprouting up in the Wildland-Urban Interface.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Wildfires: House Passes Proactive (Really?) FLAME Act
It's been 20 years since the devastating Yellowstone fire, the cataclysmic event that pushed wildfire into the national psyche. In those 20 years, sustained drought, shifting weather patterns, diseased forests, and decades of forest mismanagement have combined to give us one horrific fire season after another. The costs of fighting these fires has been compounded not only because of the volume of them, but because more and more people are moving into wooded areas forcing agencies to protect life and property. Already this year, the National Interagency Fire Center reports more than 2.1 million acres have burned in nearly 37,000 separate wildland fires--that's as of June 30.
Fire has eaten up more than just acreage. Fully 48 percent of the Forest Service budget in recent years has been consumed by fire. Last year, the Forest Service spent $741 million more than budgeted and Interior spent $249 million more than budgeted for emergency wildfire suppression, or a total of nearly $1 billion
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mopping up
Mount Sentinel Fire Snuffed Out
The throngs of gawkers are gone, but crews remain on Missoula's blackened Mount Sentinel, mopping up a 390-acre blaze that eclipsed the city's 4th of July fireworks.
The fire is now 100 percent contained, said Cindy Super, the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation's fire prevention coordinator. "It didn't do much overnight, even with really strong winds on it" -- 30 to 40 mph.
It was the first headline blaze in this young summer in western Montana. "We were able to put all of our systems through a test, a real life test," Super said. "Everything went well."
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