While many of the managers overseeing prescribed burns are former firefighters, there are others who take different roads into fire leadership. Claire Monahan is on one of those alternative paths. Claire has worked in increasingly complex roles as a prescribed fire practitioner and fire scientist on the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve. Claire was introduced … Read more
Will Harling and I are sort of like brothers from different mothers. Both of us were raised up by the long-haired wolves, timber fallers, mechanics, railroaders, gold miners, and other outlaws who populate the hillbilly sticks of far Northern California. First opening day fishing trip with the grown-ups, Mill Creek, California, 1985. Not surprisingly, as … Read more
Rain is coming, but will high winds spread the fire farther north before it begins in earnest? We take a quick look at IR mapping from the evening of 9/23/2023 and assess current fire spread and tactics. We also watch footage of a very low drop from a DC-10 airtanker on the NE corner of … Read more
Rain is coming! In today’s video, we look at weather satellites, assess the current lay of the Anvil and SRF Complex Fires, and talk about lighting large prescribed fires out ahead of weather systems. Also, we interview Rachel Smith, Klamath National Forest Supervisor. We couldn’t get a video interview, so had to use a puppet. … Read more
The Anvil Fire has been active, with drier, windier conditions over the past couple days. This fire has been burning for nearly a month just inland of Port Orford, Oregon. It spread slowly for the first several weeks, but over the past week, it has seen major growth in most directions. We look at the … Read more
Strong winds have pushed the Anvil Fire around a bit in the past couple days. This fire has been burning for about 3 weeks just inland of Port Orford, Oregon. It spread slowly for the first two weeks, but in the past several days, it has seen major growth. We look at the geography of … Read more
Today, weāre sharing an interview we recorded in the spring with Will Harling, who works to reintroduce prescribed fire and managed wildfire in Northern Californiaās remote Klamath Mountains. In the interview, we discuss some of the challenges weāre facing as a result of the way wildfires are currently managed, and talk about how we might … Read more
The Anvil Fire has been burning for about 3 weeks just inland of Port Orford, Oregon. It spread slowly for the first two weeks, but in the past several days, it has seen major growth. We look at the geography of the fire, and review detailed maps of its recent movements. We also look at … Read more
The Anvil Fire has been burning for about 3 weeks just inland of Port Orford, Oregon. It spread slowly for the first two weeks, but in the past several days, it has seen major growth. We look at the geography of the fire, and review detailed maps of its recent movements. We also look at … Read more
The Anvil Fire has been burning for about 3 weeks just inland of Port Orford, Oregon. It spread slowly for the first two weeks, but in the past several days, it has seen major growth. We look at the geography of the fire, and review detailed maps of its recent movements. ļ»æ” Thanks always … Read more
In mid-August, 2023, lightning ignited many fires across NW California. Several became large, but most have stayed fairly small by modern standards. Rain knocked most of these fires down over the first few days of September, but even before then, the majority of the fire effects on these fires were low-moderate severity and ecologically beneficial. … Read more
Not much new spread to report this morning on NW Ca. fires. After the rains 2 weeks ago, technical specialists on the incident management teams in NW California said we shouldn’t expect things to dry out enough to burn until right about now. In addition to relatively mild conditions, one factor affecting the lack of … Read more
Over the past 3 weeks, lightning has ignited many fires in NW California and Western Oregon and several have become large. Rain knocked most of these fires down over the first few days of September, and since then, though conditions have been slowly drying, there has been very little active fire spread. This video looks … Read more
Over the past 3 weeks, lightning has ignited many fires in NW California and Western Oregon and several have become large. Rain knocked most of these fires down over the first few days of September, and also prevented mapping using aerial infrared. New mapping was available on the morning of 9/4, and this video looks … 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
We sat down recently with Wolfgang (Wolfy) Rougle to talk about prescribed fire, and efforts she is helping lead to increase local capacity for citizen-led prescribed burning in Butte County, Califorina. The Butte County Prescribed Burn Association has been running for several years, and has helped landowners to safely burn on private property around Forest … Read more
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
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
I did an interview a couple months ago with Joanne BurgueƱo, 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
As things move slowly here during winter, I thought I’d take some time and share some of the materials that are out there about Good Fire. Here are a few worthy offerings. The first is a short video about fire-adapted forests in Oregon and a prescribed burning TREX in Oregon put out by The Nature … Read more