Fire Behavior

Six Rivers Lightning Complex and the McKinney/Yeti Fires – August 8, 2022

by

Six Rivers Lightning Complex and the McKinney/Yeti Fires – August 8, 2022 Maps and Captions: Ryan Cowper Stephens   Table of Contents: Zeke’s Video Briefing on YouTube Six Rivers Lightning Complex Fires Six Rivers Lightning Complex Weather Forecast McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast McKinney Fire Yeti Fire —Six Rivers National Forest Lightning Complex Fires— … Read more

McKinney and Yeti Fires – August 6, 2022 – WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF MASSIVE FISH KILL ON KLAMATH RIVER

by

McKinney and Yeti fires Maps and Captions: Ryan Stephens and Zeke Lunder Yeti photos and on the ground Yeti fire info: Jamie Allen WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF MASSIVE FISH KILL ON KLAMATH RIVER   Table of Contents: Zeke’s Video Briefing on YouTube Debris Flows and Fish Kill McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast McKinney … Read more

McKinney and Yeti Fires – August 5, 2022

by

     McKinney and Yeti fires Maps: Zeke Lunder Captions: Ryan Stephens Yeti photos and on the ground Yeti fire info: Jamie Allen Table of Contents:   Zeke’s Video Briefing on YouTube McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast McKinney Fire Yeti Fire McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast: —McKinney Fire— To better understand what’s … Read more

McKinney and Yeti Fires – August 4, 2022

by

McKinney and Yeti Fires Maps: Zeke Lunder Captions: Ryan Stephens Table of Contents: McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast McKinney Fire Yeti Fire    McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast: —McKinney Fire— To better understand what’s happening around the fire and in our maps, Click here to watch the Thursday morning August 4 McKinney … Read more

McKinney and Yeti Fires – August 3, 2022

by

McKinney and Yeti fires Maps: Zeke Lunder Captions: Ryan Stephens Table of Contents: Mckinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast McKinney Fire Yeti Fire Mckinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast:   —McKinney Fire— McKinney Fire Behavior Forecast:   McKinney Infrared Lookout Maps: Areas shaded Yellow are where the fire is cooling down. Red to white perimeter … Read more

McKinney Fire – August 1, 2022

by

Video briefing: Blog briefing: Per August 1, 2022 Facebook fire behavior briefing from Dennis Burns: Portions of the fire got rain last night. This, along with higher relative humidities and good cloud cover is helping moderate fire behavior, allowing crews to go direct in many places, including in the 2014 burn scar north of the … Read more

McKinney Fire – July 31, 2022

by

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

McKinney Fire – July 30, 2022

by

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

Oak Fire – July 25, 2022

by

OAK FIRE – July 25, 2022 By: Ryan Cowper Stephens *Our Lookout fire maps are high resolution. Click the maps to open them in a separate window, there you can zoom and scroll around the map to take a closer look around the fire. This is especially helpful to know while viewing our maps on … Read more

Interview with Veteran Wildland Firefighter Jim Klump

by

Zeke sat down with Jim Klump, a veteran wildland firefighter and old-school Redding smokejumper who was the District Fire Management Officer on the Plumas National Forest for 25 years. They talked about the intersection of fire and forestry, land management, people, leadership, and history. The interview took place in May 2022.

 

They also talked about PTSD, firefighting tactics, landscape-scale backfiring operations, climate change, immigration, the culture of the Forest Service from the 60s to the present, and the survival prospects of our wildfire-threatened rural communities.

This video features Google Earth map animations, historic aerial photos, historic photos from UC Davis and Chico State and aerial video from the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center.

 

 

New Mexico Fires – May 14, 2022

by

Hermits Peak and Cerro Pelado Fires May 14, 2022 Maps and Captions: Ryan Cowper Stephens Satellite Images and interpretation: Zeke Lunder Detailed New Mexico fire updates may also be found at: https://nmfireinfo.com/ https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/ *Our Lookout fire maps are high resolution. Click the maps to open them in a separate window, there you can zoom and … Read more

NEW MEXICO FIRES – May 6th, 2022

by

New Mexico Fires A detailed fire update for May 7th is available here: https://nmfireinfo.com/2022/05/07/hermits-peak-and-calf-canyon-fires-4/ May 6th, 2022 – Ryan Stephens Weather Update Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire Cerro Pelado Fire Bear Trap Fire Cooks Peak Fire Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire Severity *Our Lookout fire maps are high resolution. Click the maps to open them in a … Read more

Echo Lake & the Caldor Fire

by

Zeke sat down with Junet Bedayn, from the Echo Lake Environment Fund to talk about the 2021 Caldor Fire, and it’s landscape-scale effects on the forests it burned across. Junet grew up spending summers at cabins on Echo Lake, located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just south of Lake Tahoe, and she … Read more

Dixie Fire Stories Interview

by

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

Full Interview with Daniel Swain, PhD

by

  Daniel Swain, PhD is one of the world’s foremost experts in the interactions between climate, wildfire, and flooding. He joined Zeke at The Lookout to talk about the Dixie Fire specifically and how weather affects wildfire in general. He also had some interesting things to tell us about the Marshall Fire, flooding and climate … Read more

Structure Losses in the Camp Fire

by

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

A Conversation with Sue Husari

by

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

Alisal Fire – 10/12/2021

by

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

Guest Photo Essay – Southern Sierra Forests

by

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

Southern Sierra Fires – 9/24/2021

by

KNP COMPLEX Commentary by Chuck Ervin  *****  Maps and Captions by Ryan Stephens   Overview Map – IR Flight – September 23 – 11:11pm: Overview of 24 hour fire growth looking east. MAP LAYERS: Giant Sequoia Groves are Shaded GREEN. The area between red and white lines around the perimeter of the fire show roughly … Read more

Fawn Fire – 9/24/2021 Morning Update

by

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

Southern Sierra Fires – 9/21/2021

by

9/21/2021 at 6am KNP COMPLEX Today’s Briefing Map IR Interpreter’s log Jeremy Hurd: Minor growth to perimeter, with the most significant in the SSW areas. Center of the perimeter continues to show some isolated heat sources as the scattered heat continues to withdraw toward the outer perimeters. Below are maps of the KNP Complex burning … Read more

Southern Sierra Fires – 9/20/2021

by

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

Dixie Fire in Lassen Park – Animation

by

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

Lassen Park and Caribou Wilderness Fire Severity – 9/11/2021

by

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