High Park Wildfire, northern CO

[Strychnine]

Got these pics from a friend in Fort Collins yesterday. This fire started Saturday morning (looks like a nature caused start so far). They were out golfing and saw the first plume come up in the front range and since then they have just watched it get bigger and bigger.


Note from Saturday:

To say the fire exhibited extreme fire behavior overnight would not be giving the fire enough credit. Several very experienced firefighters have said the fire’s spread and behavior Saturday night and early Sunday were incredible. Typically a fire will lay down at night, moving much more slowly, but as a cold front passed through the area during the night the winds increased and shifted 45 degrees in direction, WSW to WNW. When the fire was mapped at 10:30 p.m. Saturday night by an infrared aircraft it was 7,400 acres. The MODIS satellite data shown in the map above captured the location of the heat at 3:20 a.m., and unless it was registering the heat in the smoke plume in addition to heat on the ground (which has happened in the past with infrared equipment on fixed wing aircraft when a fire was exhibiting extreme fire behavior), the fire more than doubled in size during that 5-hour period and ran approximately 6 miles. It will be very interesting to see a new fire perimeter after aircraft map it today with GPS equipment.

Zero containment, 90*F temps, high winds, and a dry spring. Expectations are for 100,000+ acres, which would make it the biggest in that area in decades.

These are pics from his house just off the front range on the east side of FoCo.

6am Saturday morning it was 2 acres.
10pm Saturday is was 8,000 acres.

The first estimate this morning was 20,000 acres, but the latest number is 36,930 acres with zero containment.

For reference Boulder, CO is 24 sq miles and Denver is 44 sq miles.
















We're going to go hike through the burned up area in a couple weeks and check it out... I'll update with pics later.

Last time we went up Grey Rock we went through part of the area burned by the 2004 Table Rock fire. This is what is looked like 7 years after.

[Sean88gt]

The haze is covering us up as well. A lot of this would be avoidable if the forest service would use insecticide against the bark beetles as well as allowing people/companies to harvest the wood, but access is constantly being reduced making it more difficult to get to areas. Estimates are nearly 4,000,000 acres have been hit by the beetles leaving massive amounts of dead trees that act as excellent fodder for fire.

[tribaltalon]

Um these fires have been occurring naturally for millennia. They are natures way of clearing out the garbage. I say let it burn.

[dee]

Nature's way of replenishing the soil but it can be some scary shit if It's close to you.

[Sean88gt]

Um these fires have been occurring naturally for millennia. They are natures way of clearing out the garbage. I say let it burn.

Not these kind. Naturally occurring fires are considered cool burns, we put those out and don't allow them to take their course. The burns that happen are hot burns that take out the live trees as well instead of the dead ones and ground cover. The man generated (by default) scorch everything, kill the seeds and so forth making regen really difficult.

[yellowstang]

Those fires are very close to where I grew up, luckily my parents moved further east. Still in Ft Collins, but several miles east of the area now. My Mom said there is ash on everything outside their house, like a dusting of black snow.

[Strychnine]

Um these fires have been occurring naturally for millennia. They are natures way of clearing out the garbage. I say let it burn.

Naturally occuring and naturally fueled fires have been happening, sure.

These aren't exactly "naturally fueled" though. Thanks to decades of bad land management and over zealous save-the-world types we've ended up with forests primed for conflagrations.

In the early 1900's wildfires were seen as a threat to the timber industry, and hence the economy. All fires were deemed hazardous, non-beneficial, and therefore they must be stopped at all costs. The US Forest Service was given $$$ to stop them all, and they even implemented a "10am policy" stating that any and all fires must be under control by 10am on the morning following its discovery.

Despite portly funding for fire suppression in the first half of the 20th century, massive wildfires continued to be prevalent across the landscape of North America. Natural resource professionals and ordinary citizens alike became curious about the ecological effects of wildfire. Ecologists were beginning to recognize the presence and ecological importance of natural lightning-ignited wildfires across the United States. Along with this new discovery of fire knowledge and the emergence of fire ecology as a science came an effort to apply fire to land in a controlled manner. It was learned that suppression of fire in certain ecosystems actually increases the likelihood that a wildfire will occur and increases the intensity of those wildfires

If you care for a good read go grab a copy of Fire Season by Phillip Connors.



A ponderosa pine stand in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana in 1909, 1948, and 1989. The increase in vegetation density was attributed to fire prevention efforts since 1895.

[Strychnine]

300 ft tall flames in spots, 15-20 mph winds with gusts of 40, emps in the 90s, single digit humidity, flames moving 20-40 ft / min.



Sean, here's the Larimer County fire & EMS feed: http://www.radioreference.com/apps/a...wp&feedId=7897

Yesterday vs today

[dee]

The terrain is a huge limit to fighting the fire in these areas. Pray for rain and calm winds is about all that can be done.

[Sean88gt]

The terrain is a huge limit to fighting the fire in these areas. Pray for rain and calm winds is about all that can be done.

There are a few days with 10% chance, but not looking great. Plus it has been fairly hot.

[Strychnine]

Now the 3rd largest fire in Colorado's recorded history (after just 2 days). Second place was in the 70k acre range and the Hayman fire in 2002 was ~130k acres.


View from the top of Long's Peak







Horsetooth Reservoir

[Sean88gt]

That's a motherfucker. Went to my chiropractor this morning, he lives in Ft. Collins, says there is ash everywhere, breathing is difficult, visibility sucks and so on. It appears to be spreading east, which makes it easier to fight, but I'm not sure on the progress west.

[motoman]

Just curious, when something like this happens, how many extra helicopters and airplanes will they fly in to fight the fires?

[80coupe]

I have some family friends in Ruidoso, new mexico where they are having a pretty bad fire right now also. missed the house by inches but got the shop and some other things.

first pic was taking from there backyard.

[Strychnine]

Just curious, when something like this happens, how many extra helicopters and airplanes will they fly in to fight the fires?

There are 5 heavy (multi-engine) tankers flying, many more single engine, who knows how many helicopters, and 400+ ground personnel right now.



edit:

Approximately 400 personnel on scene. Air resources on scene include: 5 heavy air tankers, 5 SEATs (single engine air tankers), 2 Type 1 heavy helitankers and 1 Blackhawk helicoper. Approximately 15 engines are on scene. A Type 1 Management Team has assumed command as of 6:30 a.m. Monday. Additional ground, air and engines have been ordered.

http://inciweb.org/incident/2904/