YouTube video above and post below have different material in them, but lots of overlap too. The McKinney Fire burned very actively through yesterday afternoon, growing about twenty thousand acres in 12 hours. In the afternoon, heavy smoke obscured the fire and thunderstorm outflows pushed smoke and fire in many directions. These following maps are … Read more
By Zeke Lunder The McKinney Fire burned very actively through the night, spreading across tens of thousands of acres. It was pushing up a big column by 10am this morning. These following maps are made with public aerial infrared mapping data from FIRIS (Funded by California OES). Having near real-time access to taxpayer-funded fire intelligence … Read more
By Zeke Lunder July 29, 2022 at 6pm Scroll for updates. The McKinney Fire on the Klamath National Forest is establishing on the south side of the Klamath River, east of Horse Creek. @FIRIS perimeter from about 5:20pm. Since mapping, fire has spotted over McKinney Creek Road. There is not a lot of large fire … Read more
OAK FIRE – July 28, 2022 By: Zeke Lunder *Lookout fire maps are high resolution. Click the maps to open them in a separate window, where you can zoom and scroll. This can be helpful for viewing our maps on cell phones* Action on the #OakFire has narrowed down to a couple very rugged miles … Read more
My friend Paul Price runs Paul Component Engineering — a world-class manufacturer of high-end bike parts, here in Chico, California. After the Dixie Fire, I did an interview for his newsletter and they asked some funny questions that let me run wild with a fantasy of how things could be different in our relationship with … Read more
We have been covering the Graham Fire for past two days and this video gives an overview of the challenges that arise wile managing wildfires in the almost one million acres of the “Lassen Foothills,” bordered by Red Bluff and Cohasset Ridge and the Sacramento Valley and Lassen Volcanic National Park. There … Read more
What does a metalwork have to do with wildfire? It takes a lot of welding and wrenching to run a mobile wildfire mapping operation, and I built up a pretty good shop during the years we started and ran Deer Creek Resources. When I sold DCR to Firestorm, in 2017, I kept the shop. The … Read more
I did an interview a couple months ago with Joanne Burgueño, a photographer who helps run the Dixie Fire Stories page on Facebook. They have been running multi-part interviews, with photos, with people who went thru the Dixie Fire in one way or another. Here it is: My name is Zeke Lunder. I’m a geographer … Read more
A Conversation with Eric Knapp and Yana Valachovic Eric Knapp, of the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, and Yana Valachovic, from UC Cooperative Extension, came by The Lookout in November to talk with me about their new paper on home losses in the Camp Fire. Our talk is live on Amanda Monthei’s Life … Read more
Lassen Hotshots, 1977. Zeke: Okay. We have a visitor today, Sue Husari, legendary wildland firefighter, one of the first female Hotshots, and leader in American wildland fire with a fire career spanning 5 decades. Welcome to The Lookout, Sue! When did you know that you were going to have a career in fire? Sue Husari: … Read more
HR.5631 – The Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act is moving through committees in the House of Representatives. This is an extremely important piece of legislation for Federal wildland firefighters, who are actually not classified as being firefighters at all. Most of us who have worked for Federal agencies have been classified … Read more
In this video we talk with Danny Cluck about factors that influence the survival of conifer trees that have been damaged by wildfire. I first got to know Danny in the mid-’90s when we were both working for the U.S. Forest Service. I was on a tree-marking crew and he was a biologist who would … Read more
Here are images of the Alisal Fire based on an infrared overflight at 9:30pm on on October 13. The fire spread about 2.5 miles to the west since it was mapped 24 hours earlier on October 12. Yellow shows scattered heat, in areas that are generally cooling off. Orange/red fill shows areas which were burning … Read more
We are covering the Alisal Fire in Santa Barbara County. If this is your first visit to our site, please check out the About The Lookout page. This site provides wildfire intelligence and commentary. We are not affiliated with any organized fire department — this is unofficial information collated from public data sources. If you … Read more
Here is an updated virtual tour of the #FawnFire for September 26. This shows heat mapping from September 25 at 9:45pm. The fire was active yesterday on the north flank, backing down toward Shasta Lake. Southern parts of the fire did not spread.
Here is a guest photo essay from Darin McQuoid. He saw a post we did last week on the fires in the Southern Sierra where we mentioned tree mortality, so he sent us these great photos. We welcome submissions like this. Thanks, Darin! December 12, 2015: Tree mortality from bark beetle. Castle Rock and Paradise … Read more
Good morning, Our latest intel from the Fawn Fire is infrared mapping flights from 9:40pm on September 23. The white line is where fire was at noon on September 23. Yellow line is 1pm, first red line is 6pm, and outermost line from 9:40pm. Here are still images of the same information from the video. … Read more
Here is information on the Fawn Fire, burning northeast of Redding. General Fire Location The fire slowed down significantly this afternoon under a heavy aerial attack that had at least 12 tankers working at the peak of the firefight. Here is an update from NorthOps — the regional fire coordination center at the Redding … Read more
9/20/2021 at 6am Briefing Map KNP Complex – Maps by Ryan Stephens, with commentary by Chuck Ervin. Below are maps of the KNP Complex burning in Sequoia National Park made from infrared data captured at 2306PDT (11:06pm) on September 19. IR Interpreter Alex Pincus log: Significant growth in the NNW section. Perimeter slightly grew to … Read more
9/19/2021 at 7:30am – Maps from Ryan Stephens Below are maps of the KNP Complex burning in Sequoia National Park made from infrared data captured at 2350PDT on September 18. IR Interpreter Alex Pincus log: -Imagery shows the fire advancing to the East NE and has reached the Wuksachi Lodge and crossed Clover Creek in … Read more
6:00am 9/18/2021 – Chuck Erwin KNP Complex KNP Complex IR this morning shows a major extension of the Colony Fire (both fires are well joined at this point) up through Marble Canyon. Then over the Generals Highway, impacting Red Fir and Wuksachi. Ash Mountain RAWS shows that the usual down slope, down canyon winds – … Read more
Here is a great map made by our friend Peter Hansen showing the Dixie Fire‘s spread across Lassen Park. As we have discussed in length on previous posts, the 2012 Reading Fire was a managed wildfire that escaped control and burned out of the park. Nine years later, the Reading played a major role in … Read more
09/17/2021 – 8pm update from our correspondent, Chuck Ervin. Div A is clearing Paradise Ridge towards General’s Highway (as reported this morning). Shepard Saddle Roads being improved as well with dozer and retardant line, courtesy of CALFIRE. Structure protection is ready as far up as Grant Grove, down to Three Rivers and out to Silver … Read more
The fires burning in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks and on the Tule River Indian Reservation are a bit outside our territory, but as Caldor and Dixie Fires wind down, we have some bandwidth to post the heat maps. I (Zeke) am a Northern Sierra kid and not familiar with this part of the world … Read more
UPDATE: 9/15/2021, 1:35pm Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Sacramento CA 134 PM PDT Wed Sep 15 2021 .SYNOPSIS… Chances of moisture (not a bunch) increasing with best chances on Sunday. Cooling definitely on track with coolest day Sunday. Some gusty winds possible early next with temperatures slowly rising. && .DISCUSSION… The cooling trend has … Read more
Getting the Wildfire Story Wrong We have been hearing a lot of people express concern about the amount of acreage burned in Lassen Volcanic National Park during the Dixie Fire. Part of this is the fault of sloppy reporting and articles by nationally respected publications that are getting the story wrong. This is common. Our … Read more
Good morning. The Dixie and Caldor heat maps showed no significant new growth overnight. Caldor, mapped at 11pm on September 12, had minor spread to the north near Kirkwood and some heat in Upper Strawberry Creek. Operations maps for today are show the south side of Echo Lake as being fully contained. At 8pm on 9/12/2021, … Read more
Hello everyone! I got pulled into a long day in the field for an in-depth story about the Dixie Fire, so our Caldor Fire coverage took a hit. I do post brief updates on Twitter @wildland_zko when I don’t have time for a full post here, so give me a follow there. Thanks to our contributor … Read more
We got into the burned area of the West Zone of the Dixie Fire on September 10, right after about a half-inch of rain. We looked at some of the ways the fire has affected the forests. The two videos below show what we saw on our trip. This first video shows post-fire forest conditions … Read more
9/9/2021 at 3:30pm Here is IR mapping of the northwest corner of the fire, from 12:18pm on September 9. Some heat showing outside of yesterday’s spot fire near Butte Lake. EARLIER: 9/9/2021 at noon Here is the 10:30am 9/9/2021 perimeter for the northwest corner of Dixie, near Old Station showing spread since 8pm on September. … Read more