I may have dodged a bullet, and other stories

Lowell Fire OutlineWhat “not seeing the retardant until it’s too late” looks like.

It appears that I may have dodged a bullet.  I am hesitant to write this for the obvious reasons — “so what happens if.  .  .”  Never piss into the wind, and never tug on Superman’s cape.  More on that in a few moments.

Now, the bulk of the threat is diminished and CalFire estimates the Lowell Fire is roughly 75% contained.  As per their site:

July 31, 2015 at 7:33 AM

Acreage remains unchanged but containment up to 75%.

July 31, 2015 at 7:00 AM Morning briefing is starting.

WEATHER: Partly cloudy. Afternoon cumulus build ups east of the fire with t-storms closer to the Sierra Crest. About a 5% chance that a cell could move over the Lowell Fire. Will need to monitor for outflow boundaries or any stray storms that may try and approach the incident.

Of interest: Observed weather on Thursday was high of 101 with relative humidity at 13% at the Secret Town mobile fire weather station.

Most divisions are starting the suppression repair phase of the fire.

Of concern are the creeping thunderstorms (without much rain at all), embered fires, increased winds and unseen/unaddressed hot spots.  The open flames are predominantly suppressed.

With that, my unabashed thanks go to the young men and women of CalFire who walked the fiery front lines working spades, shovels, chainsaws and primitive hand tools.  Then came those running the bulldozers, tanker trucks, grass rigs and numerous forms of fire apparatus.

Next were the brave aviators flying helos, twin-engine and four-engine fixed wing aircraft, whose pilots braved winds created by the open roaring flames of the naked, dry forest — an event known to create its own singular weather patterns of deadly and unpredictable turbulence.

Kudos to the big boys of the DC-10, whose pilots take a mostly unmodified commercial airframe and make it do what no sane civilian captains would otherwise command: fly the nap-of-the-earth only a few hundred feet above hills and mountains, flaps down and nose-up, through canyons and barely above the searching flames of wildfires, in order to effectively and accurately drop retardant upon the necessary prescribed areas so tactically designated.

The story of the DC-10 air tankers.

Above, the Air National Guard — flying C-130s — drops retardant; cockpit view.

Aerial firefighting is not without its dangers; from 2002.

I submit that most all of those people above clank when they walk, the women included.

And finally, combing the news, I found one rather distressing note, involving Superman.  DC comics has decided that Superman punching cops is now de rigueur.

From FoxNews.com:

Superman fights the police in new comic paralleling Ferguson riots

by Brian Henry

The latest issue of Action Comics finds Superman battling a foe on the streets of Metropolis, but this time he isn’t taking on his rival Lex Luther. Instead, he’s battling the police, which has some people outraged.

“There’s some fans that are alienated, a portion of the older fans,” said Dimitrios Fragiskatos, the manager of Midtown Comics in New York City. “[But] younger fans seem to be embracing it.”

Of course the Millennials are eating it up.  The entire United States is corrupt.  Just ask them.

Ladies and gentlemen, don’t we have anything else to do besides trash the nation in which we reside?

BZ

 

Update on Lowell Fire

Lowell Fire, Gold RunFor reference, please see my last post.

From Yubanet.com:

Lowell, Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit, Cal Fire. IMT 1 (Zombro). Two miles west of Gold Run, CA. Timber. Extreme fire behavior. Evacuations, road, area and trail closures in effect.

July 26, 2015 at 9:42 AM

CAL FIRE: Investigators are no longer looking for the vehicle of interest in connection with the Lowell Fire in Nevada Co. Thanks for all the tips!

July 26, 2015 at 9:20 AM

Air Attack just placed the resource order for today. Those are resources available to the incident. Helicopters will placed on the head on the fire, together with the DC 10. There is a strong potential to keep the fire confined in its current footprint due to calmer winds, higher humidities and sufficient resources. Air Attack recommends attacking the head of the fire hard and attempt to keep it from spreading further north.

4 S2 Tankers (the same type as the tankers positioned at Grass Valley Air Base)
1 VLAT Very Large Air Tanker
1 HelCo (Helicopter coordination)
2 Type 1 tankers
3 Type 2 helicopters
3 Type 1 helicopters

July 26, 2015 at 8:54 AM

CAL FIRE Update: Fire Behavior calmed down a little throughout the night, but there is still a major concern at the head of the fire. The fire is burning rapidly in a northerly direction in the Steep Hollow Creek Drainage. Access to the fire is very challenging, but hundreds of firefighters are actively battling the fire in the air and on the ground.

KC-10 FIRE TANKER 1The best news?  They’re bringing in the KC-10, a huge converted commercial jet aircraft with a massive retardant capacity.

SacBee.com now indicates the fire is smaller than originally estimated, as an aircraft was able to accurately scan the fire’s size via infrared mapping.  The fire now appears to be heading west, which is generally away from my town.  If it decides to turn, however, and go northeast up the canyon, I could be directly in the path.

More information as available.

BZ

 

Saturday’s fright, Sunday’s plight

Lowell Fire 1As some of my readers may know, I have a cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains about 91 miles from where I once worked.  I was in Sacramento in the early afternoon when my cell phone received a fire alert from a local newspaper.  You can see the incident I am referring to above, and via this story.

My wife and I drove both our vehicles up to my cabin and frenetically began loading in anticipation of an evacuation, which was already in progress about four miles away.

This is what we faced when we got up here: in five minutes, determine what your most valued treasures are.  How could you decide in that time frame?

At this point it is 8:30 PM and light is fading rapidly.  Both our vehicles are packed with what we triaged.  Our neighbor, who watched the entire incident from the overlook of a friend’s house, said he saw plane after plane after plane pour retardant with great efficacy, knocking down what he typified as “at least 100-foot flames.”  He has since told me CalFire has knocked the blaze down, though there are some areas burning towards a more populated town called Grass Valley.

But I haven’t stopped loading the cars and I won’t now.  I’m actively monitoring the news and the CalFire site.  I’ve finally gotten my most valued treasures loaded.  I’m not taking any chances.  They are now going down the hill.

More information to follow.  The night always tends to recede a fire, and the morning tends to make things grow again.  The wind appears to be on our side, for the time being.  More information at Yubanet.com for those in the area.

Officials now think the fire may be man-made.  There have been no thunderstorms in the area and I believe it was due to human activity, a campfire, carelessness:

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said officials are looking for information on a vehicle seen leaving the area near where the fire began. It was described as a 4×4 white Jeep Wrangler with a black roll bar and without a top or front doors. The vehicle was seen near Gold Run and Dutch Flat about 2:30 p.m. Anyone with information can call the Placer or Nevada county sheriff’s departments.

Talk about water-tight.

A few prayers sent our way wouldn’t hurt.

BZ

Lowell Fire, Nevada County Lowell Fire, Base Lowell Fire, Gold Run Lowell Fire, Ridge