Predicting Wildfire Spread Predicting wildfire spread is a difficult task, and current approaches often fall short in reliably describing fire behavior during severe conditions. We covered our experimental use of the Pyrecast fire spread forecasting models in depth with this article on 8/27. Since we ran the model 2 days ago, the large-scale weather forecast … Read more
Today’s Livestream aired at 8am. Lightning has ignited many fires in Western Oregon and several have become large. This video provides an overview of the largest fires, the Tyee Ridge Complex, the Chilcoot Fire east of Roseburg and Glide, the Lookout Fire, near MacKenzie Bridge, and the Camp Creek Fire, in Portland’s water supply, the … Read more
Today’s Livestream aired at 7am. Lightning has ignited many fires in Western Oregon and several have become large. This video provides an overview of the largest fires, in the Tyee Ridge Complex, the Chilcoot Fire east of Roseburg and Glide, the Lookout Fire, near MacKenzie Bridge, and the Camp Creek Fire, in Portland’s water supply, … Read more
We use many different tools and models to evaluate upcoming threats of major fire spread or conditions which could allow rapid growth on new starts. I’m working as an evaluator on a project which is building new fire behavior forecasting tools for the California Energy Commission. This work is being supervised by the Spatial Informatics … Read more
Today’s Livestream aired at 8am. Lightning has ignited many fires in Western Oregon and several have become large. This video provides an overview of the largest fires in Oregon, in the Tyee Ridge Complex, the Chilcoot Fire east of Roseburg and Glide, the Lookout Fire, near MacKenzie Bridge, and the Camp Creek Fire, in Portland’s … Read more
Lightning has ignited many fires in Western Oregon and several have become large. This video provides a quick overview of the largest fires, in the Tyee Ridge Complex and east of Roseburg and Glide. We’ll look at how other recent large fires in the area may affect potential spread on the new fires. Heat satellite … Read more
About 10 days into a regional lightning bust across the Klamath and Siskiyou Mountains, the fires on the Smith River, near Gasquet, east of Crescent City, have emerged as the largest and most complex. This video talks about how large fires are fought, using the Smith River Fires and smaller fires in the Klamath Mountains … Read more
Hi Folks, here’s the report for today, 8/19/2023. I won’t be reporting tomorrow due to a prior commitment to go up into the mountains. I’ll be back Monday morning most likely. Take care this weekend.
Wildfire reporting for 8/18/2023. NorCal and Oregon in separate videos. Getting ready for hurricane-induced winds. I don’t always have time to do videos of fires in Oregon, Idaho, Canada, etc. But since things have been relatively quiet, I did this short video. (And how could I not cover the Lookout Fire?) –Zeke
Welcome back to the Lookout! Yesterday’s lightning bust produced a number of fires throughout Northern California and the show’s not over yet. We’re expecting to see more thunderstorms rolling in today and throughout the week, mostly in the Sierra, Cascade, and Coast Ranges. There are a number of fires that have taken hold and have … Read more
Let’s talk lightning! At least once a decade in California, a few hours of abundant and widespread ‘dry lightning’ (no rain) turn an average wildfire season into an exceptional one. Thousands of wildfires start, some in remote areas, and many will burn until fall rains come. Unlike human-caused fires, which grow quickly when they ignite … Read more
September 13 at 10am: Forecasted to have less smoke hanging around the fire today. Inversion could lift early and increase fire behavior. Data from last night’s infrared flight was spotty due to heavy smoke and not worth interpretation. Overnight, firing operations were completed between Buckeye Peak to the American River. The fire was most active … Read more
New heat maps for the Mosquito Fire, near Foresthill and Georgetown, California. We also look at the overnight spread of the rekindled Mountain Fire, northwest of Mt. Shasta (no new mapping, just webcam imagery). There was no overnight IR, so we are skipping the Cedar Creek Fire in Oregon this morning.
California Wildfires – September 9, 2022 Mosquito & Fairview Maps and captions: Ryan Cowper Stephens Table of Contents: Mosquito Fire Fairview Fire Mosquito Fire UPDATE 10:30 am FIRIS inferred imagery: MAP KEY: RED perimeter to YELLOW perimeter is about 12 hours fire growth between 11pm last night and 1030 am today. GREEN boxes are structures … Read more
California Wildfires – September 8, 2022 Mosquito, Fork, Radford & Fairview Maps and captions: Ryan Cowper Stephens and Zeke Lunder 9/8/2022 Lookout Livestream Evening Update 9/8/2022 Lookout Livestream Morning Update Table of Contents: Mosquito Fire Fork Fire Radford FIre Fairview Fire Mosquito Fire Maps were updated three times on 9/8/22. UPDATE: 4:45 pm, 9/8/2022 FIRIS … Read more
Mosquito Fire – September 7, 2022 Maps and captions: Zeke Lunder and Ryan Stephens The Mosquito Fire started last night in the Middle Fork American River Canyon, at Oxbow Reservoir. It is growing rapidly today and will become a major fire. Under current conditions, firefighting will not control the head of the fire, and the … Read more
From Zeke:
New heat maps for the Mosquito Fire (near Foresthill), Fairview Fire (near Hemet) and Radford Fire (near Big Bear). Also, we look at potential power grid impacts of current fires, and talk about wildfire history, burn severity, and mapping tools we use to analyze fire effects.
Here’s Zeke’s edited live stream from today. He covers the Mill Fire, Mountain Fire and Rum Creek Fire. This is not the original live stream because Zeke had a layer on one of the fire maps that wasn’t supposed to be there. So we took down that live stream and put this fixed version back up. The Mill Fire update is on second video.
Zeke is planning on doing another live fire update around 7am tomorrow morning, September 5, 2022. Go to our YouTube channel and subscribe to catch it. Also, follow Zeke on Twitter, he usually puts some updated maps up in the afternoon if any of the fires have made any big changes.
Mill Fire update:
Happy September everyone. Zeke did a long video today and we’ve posted a transcript below. Zeke is livestreaming every morning at 7am Pacific Time on YouTube, unless otherwise noted on Twitter. He’s covering Rum Creek Fire and Six Rivers Complex every day at this time. Don’t miss his videos, subscribe to The Lookout’s YouTube channel. … Read more
We talk about new growth on the Six Rivers Lightning Complex and Rum Creek Fire. We also talk about how large fires are managed and supervised.
In today’s livestream, we talked about new developments in the use of drones for monitoring and backfiring during wildfires. This is part of a longer daily update video on firing ops on the Six Rivers Lightning Complex and new growth on the Rum Creek Fire.
More information on the drone being used click here.
More talk about the firing operations on the Six Rivers Lightning Complex and new growth on the Rum Creek Fire.
In today’s livestream, we talk about firing operations on the Six Rivers Lightning Complex and new growth on the Rum Creek Fire.
We talk about firing ops on the Six Rivers Lightning Complex, new growth on the Rum Creek Fire, and look at two fires being managed for resource benefits in Yosemite National Park. Also, an overview of some of the intel websites I use.
We look at fires on the Six Rivers and Rogue/Siskiyou National Forest, check progress on firing ops, and look at what might be coming next.
In today’s video, we take a quick look at the growth of the SRF Lightning Complex fires on the night of August 22, 2022 and then talk about the enormous wildfires of fall 2020.
Here’s Zeke’s latest video from the morning of August 22. He’s answering live chat questions at the end of the videos these days, so if that appeals to you, he’s streaming on YouTube at 7am Pacific Time during the week. Catch the live broadcast.
From Zeke:
We look at the growth of the fire on 8/21/2022, and look for patterns in historic logging and fire severity around the SRF Lightning Complex Fires near Trinity Village, Salyer and Willow Creek, Trinity County, California.
We also talk about fire severity mapping and the limitations of using satellite imagery.
Hi everyone! Here’s Zeke’s latest video on the SRF Lightning Complex with an exciting live Q&A with viewers during the last eight minutes of the stream. He looks at historic logging around the SRF Lightning Complex Fires near Trinity Village, Salyer and Willow Cree in Trinity County, California. He also looks at the Kennedy Fire, … Read more
The Six Rivers Lightning Complex Fire continue to be affected by heavy smoke which is suppressing intense fire behavior.
The Six Rivers Lightning Complex Fire continue to be affected by heavy smoke which is suppressing intense fire behavior.