The Pickett Fire grew significantly this afternoon, driven by steady winds, low humidities, and hot temperatures.
The fire is not currently posing a threat to Middletown or Angwin, as far as we can tell.
Here are maps captured at 10:30pm, tonight, showing the fire’s spread since 8 am (white line). North arrow in top-right. Areas where the white line is on the edge of the red had no growth in past 14 hours.
There was a little new spread on the west side of the fire, north of the Palisades, at the head of Swartz Canyon.
The new fire spread in Dutch Henry Canyon was mainly filling in between two fingers of fire which burned in past two days.
After making some ‘slope-reversals’ in Swartz Canyon, yesterday afternoon and evening, the fire finished burning out the rest of the canyon, today.
Most of the growth on the fire occurred in the NE corner, around Aetna Springs. In much of the area east of Aetna Springs, it appears the fire has consumed most of the fuel readily available to it, and is starting to run out of gas in vineyards. West of Aetna Springs, the fire is well-established and pushing toward Aetna Springs Road. Map view is to west.
The fire backed actively down to the east, toward Pope Valley Road. It will have less fuels if it moves farther east, hitting vineyards along Ink Grade Road.
The fire has mainly been burning across areas burned in 2020, shown in blue, below, but portions of the fire near Aetna Springs had crossed into areas which have not burned in recent memory, last night, and these areas burned intensely, today.
While this fire has had steady growth, at 6,500 acres after 3 days of burning, it has by no means been an extreme event, by Napa/Lake County standards. The 2020 Glass and Hennesey Fires have removed much of the heavy fuel in the fire area, and the fire has had few opportunities to gobble large, contiguous areas of mature brush. For comparison, let’s look at the progression of the 2015 Rocky Fire.
2015 Rocky Fire Progression
Forecasts/Outlook
The next 3 days are forecast to be hot and dry, though not as dry as the past 3 days. Conditions look to be easing a little about 3 days out. The main poit of concern is the continuation of steady, mild, SW winds in the afternoons. These have been pushing the fire through the hottest/driest portions of the day, after the fire has been marinating under smoke for most of the morning and early afternoon.
Firing operations may happen tonight to try to hold the fire at Aetna Springs Road on the north end of the fire, but, even though this area mostly burned in 2020, there are areas of heavy fuels between the fire and Butts Canyon Road, and there is still potential for the fire to grow in this area if it is not held at Aetna Springs Road.
