West Coast Fire Thread

[RZehr]

Really smoky here. Biggest fire is Durkee at 270,000 acres, 0% contained.
Fire map: https://www.frontlinewildfire.com/oregon-wildfire-map/

[Ernie]

Recreation for me is learning something new.

Today I learned about "fire clouds" or pyrocumulus clouds and the dangerous pyrocumulonimbus cloud.

https://apnews.com/article/science-fire ... 0f212ac98e

[RZehr]

Oregon is now at the top of the national list for wildfire priority. In terms of large fires, the state has nearly as many as Washington, California and Idaho combined.

"A large fire is anything more than 300 acres on grass and more than 100 acres on timber. Oregon got hit really hard, and we know there's probably more. We're trying to catch up with our reporting, so there will probably be more in the coming days," Carrie Bilbao with the National Interagency Fire Center said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 31 reported large fires raging throughout the state, putting Oregon at the very top of the national priority list.

[Ken]

I was helping my oldest daughter move to Wyoming over the weekend and drove back via I-84 on Monday. LOTS of smoke in eastern Oregon and now I read that I got through just before they closed I-84. Would have been a long way around with the freeway closed.

Not a whiff of smoke on this side of the Cascades. I guess the winds are blowing to the east this time.

[RZehr]

I was helping my oldest daughter move to Wyoming over the weekend and drove back via I-84 on Monday. LOTS of smoke in eastern Oregon and now I read that I got through just before they closed I-84. Would have been a long way around with the freeway closed.

Not a whiff of smoke on this side of the Cascades. I guess the winds are blowing to the east this time.

Yes, the valley rarely gets the smoke we do in C.O.

[Ken]

I was helping my oldest daughter move to Wyoming over the weekend and drove back via I-84 on Monday. LOTS of smoke in eastern Oregon and now I read that I got through just before they closed I-84. Would have been a long way around with the freeway closed.

Not a whiff of smoke on this side of the Cascades. I guess the winds are blowing to the east this time.

Yes, the valley rarely gets the smoke we do in C.O.

We got absolutely hammered a couple years ago with the big fires in the Cascades but I guess some of those were on the western side. Usually by late August we get lots of days with smoke in the air around here. But maybe it is coming in through the gorge when it hits us in the Vancouver area.

Either way, Oregon really seems to be on fire at the moment. As does northern Canada: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/us ... ,40.6,4.1z

[RZehr]

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alberta (AP) — A fast-moving wildfire in the Canadian Rockies that had prompted 25,000 people to flee roared into the near-deserted town of Jasper overnight with flames higher than treetops, devastating up to half of its structures, officials said Thursday.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, following a mass evacuation of the picturesque resort and a neighboring national park earlier in the week, but Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said in a letter on the town’s website that the wildfire “ravaged our beloved community.”

“The destruction and loss that many you are facing and feeling is beyond description and comprehension, my deepest sympathies go out to each of you," he said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/park-rangers ... 20873.html

[RZehr]

Was at the prison Bible study tonight, and one inmate said that he heard that this year is the worst for a few years. The big fires we got in August/September are this year happening early July.

Today the weather is great though. Cooler. Air is clearer. Wind is blowing the smoke a different direction. Guard figured the high diffused smoke may be making it cooler today.

[RZehr]

A tanker plane that disappeared in eastern Oregon while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states has been found, and the pilot on board is dead, authorities said Friday.

A Grant County Search and Rescue team located the aircraft Friday morning and confirmed the death, said Lisa Clark, a Bureau of Land Management information officer for the Falls Fire. The single-engine tanker, a small and nimble plane that looks like a crop duster, was located in steep, forested terrain on Friday morning after the search was suspended at nightfall the day before, Clark said.

The plane had already dropped its load and the pilot was returning to Burns Airport for reload, Clark said.

The body was transported to John Day in a processional.

The plane contracted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management went missing Thursday. The Falls Fire, near the town of Seneca on the edge of the Malheur National Forest, has grown to 219 square miles and is 55% contained, the government website InciWeb shows.

https://www.centraloregondaily.com/news ... 0449c.html

[Szdfan]

We’ve been having air quality warnings in SE Colorado for the past few days. Drove up to Fort Morgan today and there was a smoky haze the entire way.