We've already had 2 small ones, and neither were in the usual places. That's a bit ominous.
Fire
- Thread starter Gologit
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I saw they had Red Flag Warnings south of the Ward Fire, too. The Wildfire Hotlist has a pretty long thread about Fire Season Potential. It got derailed a bit when Fire was compared to war, but too many people need something to do. I got all of our Red Cards in my e-mail last week, we're ready to go. Only had to run three separate sessions of the class to get everybody through, that's a good year.
It is a different situation down here. While snowpack levels reached 4% of normal this year our rainfall totals are not any better. Because of this grass will be short and bunchy. Fire won't run as well and there may be fewer starts than normal. The big problem is extremely low fuel moisture levels. 1000 hour fuels will be looking like 100 fuels. We will likely be looking at larger, more intense fires. Hopefully mother nature has a wildcard up her sleeve. like maybe rains will begin early. If not then we will have to move to Warshington so we can water the sidewalks.
Only watering I do is the garden. Grass is SUPPOSED to turn brown in August. No sidewalks with 5 miles of my place, but it is time to power wash the green skunge off of the vinyl siding.
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
Had one over 1k acres last month in southern MT.
Not a good sign.
We usually have snow into April, sometimes June.
We had several in March, but then April turned off entirely normal. I suspect that help is going to be hard to come by, I think that the population of California is going to expand. Of course, the eastern half of the country will have people available to help. Wasn't it a slow year in Montana last year?
SliverPicker
ArboristSite Guru
We've got fire restrictions in place in some areas already. On Tuesday there was a red flag warning up to 9000 feet. Now that is freakish. Mid april in northern Colorado and there is a red flag to 9000 feet. Sumthin' just ain't right there!
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
NW Montana was slow, not southern MT. They're hurting fir moisture.
RH was 20% today but a few miles south in the Salinas valley they had 10%
A California inmate firefighter died of a heart attack today on a training exercise. Sad.
wildfiretoday.com has a short video showing eastern fire fighting using "brush busters", surplus military trucks converted to wildland fire fighting. There is some great chainsaw work being done and some cool footage of a brush buster burning. Oh and some footage of fat firefighters wearing bunker gear on a wildland fire. Those eastern boys seem unable to walk very far.
wildfiretoday.com has a short video showing eastern fire fighting using "brush busters", surplus military trucks converted to wildland fire fighting. There is some great chainsaw work being done and some cool footage of a brush buster burning. Oh and some footage of fat firefighters wearing bunker gear on a wildland fire. Those eastern boys seem unable to walk very far.
Really young, too, only 36. I hope he felt some redemption with his work as a firefighter. I work with inmate Fire crews quite a bit, they are the only inmates I have ever heard own up to the fact they are there because of their mistakes. Most prisons are full of "innocent" people, except for Fire crews.
I think I saw a slopping back cut stump in the fire lane.
Thanks Patty.
Here's another YouTube video, NIFC Predictive Services 2015 Fire Season Outlook:
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
She didn't get the late season snowpack she was hoping for.
Well, you know... There's always next week. Yeah, probably not. We're supposed to be pushing record highs tomorrow, then clear for most of a week with a transition to cooler and wet near the next weekend. Looking at the CPC 6-10 Day and 8-14 Day forecasts, they see wet in their crystal ball. But they also call for warmer than normal. Warm and wet may wash away all the snowpack gains we have made over the last two weeks...
Water is discussed nearly every day in the fish wrapper. Illegal grows apparently are large consumers of water and we have tons of those.
Ha! Soon to be legalized, then they will use even more water!
