The Green Fire has been burning for several days in a remote area northeast of Shasta Lake, and poses some special challenges for firefighters. This fire is going to burn for a while, and could reach over 10,000 acres in size. Here is a link to our livestream for this article. Read the material below … Read more
{AI summary, edited lightly by Zeke} Zeke Lunder provides a detailed update on the Madre Fire in Northern California, which has grown to over 72,000 acres. Using satellite imagery and infrared data, he maps the fire’s progress, noting minimal growth between 11 AM and noon. The fire is most active near Caliente Mountain and has … Read more
{Written by a robot, skimmed by Zeke} Zeke Lunder discussed the active wildfires in Northern California on July 4, 2025. Key fires included 2 small fires in Butte County, the Green Fire near Round Mountain/Shasta Lake, the Horse Fire between Lakehead and Trinity Lake, the Helena Fire west of Weaverville, and the Summit, Butler, and … Read more
7/3/2025 California Fire Report Zeke Lunder discussed the current fire situation in Northern California, highlighting several active fires. The Green Fire near Round Mountain is 100 acres, the Horse Fire near Lake Shasta is 220 acres, and the Helena Fire near the North Fork of the Trinity River is in difficult terrain. The Madre Fire … Read more
This post and video were inspired by a Facebook post from our local congressman, Doug LaMalfa, in regards to the Forest Service reforming the 2001 ‘Roadless Rule’, which placed large contiguous areas which were still unroaded in 1979 into a protected status which prevents future roadbuilding in these areas. My reply: Rep. LaMalfa claims “The … Read more
It is wildfire season in Northern California, yet? I get this question a lot. As of the third week in June, 2025, my answer is ‘not really’. How can I tell? Didn’t we just have Red Flag Warnings last week? Hasn’t the grass been dry for over a month? I need to qualify ‘fire season’. … Read more
On 4/18/2025, Terra Fuego Resource Foundation crews conducted a 60 acre prescribed burn for the Butte County Fire Safe Council on land owned and managed by the Paradise Unified School District. This project used fire to reduce forest undergrowth, pine needles, branches, and logs in an area that has been thinned, masticated, and chipped over … Read more
In March we took a spring break trip to the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, and the Santa Lucia Mountains east of Morro Bay. We looked at wildfire hazards in the tiny, cliff-dwelling of a town my wife grew up in, and returned to an area where I worked in 2001 to look at … Read more
If you’ve followed our work, you’ve probably heard about my friend and colleague, Will Harling, who is a leader in bringing community-based prescribed fire back to the Klamath River after a century of fire exclusion and criminalization of native burning by local tribes. Locals on the River have been through a lot of fire, and … Read more
As the US Forest Service has lost internal capacity to get projects planned, awarded, and managed, it has become increasingly reliant on ‘partners’ – NGO agencies – to do a lot of the work Forest Service employees used to do. Until she was fired as a part of sweeping workforce reductions being carried out by … Read more
In a state as vast as California, there’s no single recipe for land management to reduce the risk of wildfires burning into neighborhoods. In Northern California, vegetation management in many cases involves thinning forests to reduce fuel loads and create fire breaks. In Southern California, the focus is often on managing brush around urban areas, … Read more
Current Situation The Hughes Fire started midday on 1/22/2025 east of Castaic Lake, California. It had grown to 9,000 acres by 6pm, and had spread vigorously to the west, driven by sustained NE winds and very low humidities. The winds are not severe enough to ground firefighting aircraft, and an enormous amount of water and … Read more
In this Lookout Livestream, we reviewed post-fire satellite imagery from Maxar and fire progression maps from Cal Fire Incident Management Team 2 to describe how the Palisades Fire spread, and the tactics used to contain it. The fire started near Skull Rock and quickly spread across Topanga Canyon Road and Palisades Drive. It advanced to … Read more
In this episode of The Lookout Livestream, Zeke Lunder and Michael Steinberg, a current CSUC pyrogeography student/storm chaser/videographer, reviewed mapping and on-scene videos captured by Michael during last week’s Palisades and Eaton Fires in Southern California. Steinberg documented the fire’s rapid spread, highlighting the critical role of embers and wind in igniting homes. He emphasized … Read more
We discussed the Palisades and Eaton Fires in Southern California, noting that both fires are mostly out despite ongoing wild weather. We highlighted the high-severity burn in vegetation-rich areas and the ecological benefits of lower-severity burning in the riparian zones. We talked about how the complex, bureaucratic post-fire cleanup process will roll out, based on … Read more
Since last night, the Palisades Fire has been quite active on the NE corner, between Topanga and the 405 corridor. Also, there have been active firing operations along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains between Topanga and San Vicente Mountain Park. Tonight’s Lookout Livestream looks at today’s major events on the Palisades Fire, and … Read more
Destructive Fires Are Not A New Thing in SoCal! We just wrapped up an interview with my longtime friend and colleague, Tim Chavez, about the history of large, damaging Santa Ana wind-driven wildfires in Southern California. Some areas around Malibu have burned 5 times in the past 60 years! A summary of the interview and … Read more
8pm, 1/9/2025 We just finished our evening livestream. It covers today’s fire activity. Tonight, after covering today’s basic fire action, we did an interview with journalist Susie Cagle about ways communities work together after major disasters. A summary of the fire situation and our interview follows the video, below. Summary Lookout Director Zeke Lunder, a … Read more
UPDATED 10:20pm, 1/8/2025 The Palisades and Eaton Fire were both active today. Both fires made major advances last night, and throughout the daylight hours, today, and with the exception of some growth to the north on the Palisades Fire, the fires largely burned out previously unburned areas and consumed structures within their morning footprints. Lookout … Read more
The Shoe Fire is burning in timber on Fenders Ferry Road, between McCloud River and Pit River, north of Lake Shasta. It has been building steadily since about 1:45pm, in an area with very little fire history, poor access, and heavy fuels. Webcam here: https://ops.alertcalifornia.org/cam-console/15596 Area Fire History The Bagley Fire burned to the north, … Read more
8/14/2024 – 6:30am. In yesterday’s post we talked about the high potential for the Boise Fire to cross Boise Creek and make a big run up the north fork of Boise Creek. That happened yesterday evening. We’ve also been talking on the Livestream about how some locals have been pushing for the incident management team … Read more
Here is a video that was posted recently to YouTube by a user who goes by Brandon Beans. It includes a sporty flight over Upper Park, and some slower views of the area where the Park Fire was ignited. The video shows mixed severity fire effects in Upper Park. Many of the blue oak trees … Read more
We have been using the Boise Fire as an opportunity to talk about the social aspects of fire management in the Klamath Mountains. If you missed those stories, you can watch them in the two videos embedded at the end of this post. 5pm UPDATE: The maps below show the fire’s location at 2:40pm, today, … Read more
Good morning! Cal Fire’s latest IR flight for the Park Fire shows a major firing operation off of roads and dozer lines adjacent to Mill Creek Resort and cabin area, and along Highway 172 toward Childs Meadows. Note north arrow in upper right of following images: 2021 Dixie Fire burn in blue, dozer lines in … Read more
Here’s today’s Park Fire intel summary for August 5, 2024. Things really went to hell today on the Mill Creek portions of the Park Fire. It blew up around noon, and a huge column remained over the fire for almost eight hours. As of 10:30 pm, it appears the fire has pushed as far east … Read more
Today the European Space Agency’s Sentinel Satellite went over the Park Fire. This satellite passes over every 5 days, and has sensors which can see through smoke and detect heat. We use Sentinel data a lot in my day job for vegetation and fuel mapping, but during wildfires, especially on fires as large as the … Read more
Good morning, Here are updated maps for the #ParkFire, flown about 2am, 7/26/2024. The white line represents about 8 hours of fire growth. Interpretation in the individual photo captions. Today’s weather forecast is really not great, with high atmospheric instability and strong SSW and SW winds. We’ll do a livestream tonight, and a quick one … Read more
Here is a really rough map of where the Park Fire might be at midnight, 7/24/2024. Red lines are camera azimuths, where heat was apparent. Crosses in the red lines are potential places the fire has reached. The red, yellow, and orange squares are satellite heat detections, and the blue polygon is Cal Fire’s (6,000 … Read more
If you live in an area with high wildfire hazard, understanding the factors that raise or lower fire risk on any given day can help you live in better harmony with your surroundings. In the Sacramento Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills this week, hot and windy conditions have prompted a red flag warning for … Read more
Zeke recently went to the 10th annual International Fire Ecology and Management Congress where he gave two separate talks, one of which his only instruction was to “be provocative.” Zeke was happy to deliver a talk that centered on the radical idea that towns that burn down need to be reconfigured so that they are … Read more