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
Today’s Livestream aired at 7:30am. This video provides an overview of the largest Fires in Northern California and Oregon. We look at firing operations and talk about how the fires have behaved over the past 24 hours. Aerial infrared and heat satellite data in these videos is current as of the morning of 8/30/20223. … 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
Lookout maps and commentary by: Ryan Cowper Stephens Table of Contents: Smith Complex Happy Camp Complex SRF Lightning Complex There are a number of fires burning in far Northwestern California and now we’ve got maps to prove it. Due to a mechanical failure on the plane used to map these fires up north, we’ve had … Read more
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
So wildfire season is finally starting to take off in Northern California. Here is a thread on why it has taken this long, and what it takes for us to have large fires in California: California has so many fire suppression resources it is hard for fires to escape initial attack unless at least one … Read more
UPDATED 4/2/2023. I’ve been watching the floods progress on the satellite. LANDSAT orbits every 8 days, and Sentinel goes over every 5. These views are at the mercy of cloud cover, but you get the occasional peek at the big picture. Here is a progression of satellite images starting 3/13/2023. 3/13/LANDSAT Color Infrared – The … Read more
Stay informed and keep out of trouble! As a community-focused news source, our top priority is to keep our readers informed. While most of you know of The Lookout through our coverage of wildfires, we also have decades of professional mapping experience on water-related project here in California, and a large library of mapping data … Read more
We’ve been pretty busy in past 6 weeks with interviews, burning, planning work, and some blacksmithing. Here are some of the projects we’ve been working on: An interview with Tim Chavez: I sat down with my friend, Cal Fire’s legendary Tim Chavez to talk about the science of wildfire prediction, and why it is so … Read more
Things got a little squirrelly yesterday on the east side of the fire, but this morning’s top story is RAIN! Mosquito Fire – September 18, 2022 Maps & Intel: Ryan Cowper Stephens As we saw on the McKinney fire this year, rain over a wildfire creates new hazards. An extreme example of this … Read more
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
Six Rivers National Forest Lightning Complex Fires and the McKinney/Yeti Fires – August 7, 2022 Maps and captions: Ryan Cowper Stephens Table of Contents: Zeke’s Video Briefing on YouTube Six Rivers National Forest Lightning Complex Fires McKinney and Yeti Fire Weather Forecast McKinney Fire Yeti Fire Six Rivers National Forest Lightning Complex Fires … Read more
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 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
OAK FIRE – July 24, 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
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
Another nerve-wracking day on the Dixie, waiting for Westwood to burn. And it did not. I mainly concentrated on the Westwood Sector today, and took it slow after being up late last night. We got an IR flight at 5:20 pm, but much of the fire activity took place after that – some portions of … Read more
The fire burned actively today on the fronts which are still hot. Things seemed to be most active around 4:00 pm. Smoke limited visibility on the webcams. This intel sleuthing means working with all the tools we have, and the platforms that update the most often are the ones that have the coarsest texture. Even … Read more
Good evening. The fire continued to burn actively on the north flank between Swain Mountain and County Road A-21, and on the east flank north and east of Moonlight Peak. The fire did not spread as far today as yesterday in these areas. Several spot fires crossed A-21. I don’t have any intel yet on … Read more
Not a lot to report since last night. Read last night’s post here. Main update is overnight IR showing spread of the 2 problem areas discussed in last night’s post. 1. East of Swain Mountain toward County Road A-21. 2. East of Moonlight Peak in the 2007 Moonlight Burn. The fire continued to spread east … Read more
Good evening. It was an active afternoon on two portions of the fire today. The smoke cleared out a little and northern and eastern flanks of the fire started to become active about 12:30 today. Most of the rest of the fire had relatively minor spread. Two areas of concern: 1. The northern edge made … Read more
Heavy smoke is in the forecast for some time, now. Morning AQ is at apocalyptic levels, though we aren’t under the Martian sky like we were last September. Looking for some info on a longer-term forecast and how that will affect smoke dispersion, will update when I have better info. The forecast below says a … Read more
I do not have a lot to report about the Dixie Fire today. Heavy smoke blanketed the fire all day. This, coupled with mild winds, helped moderate fire behavior. Looking at the big-picture weather satellites, it looks like the fire spread on its edges, to the west and east, but not very far. Fires need … Read more
Good morning, everyone, I hope people got some sleep. What’s new on the Dixie? Here is an overview updated about 6:30 am on 8/6/2021. At 11:45 pm last night, IR was showing a 7 acre spot fire at Lone Rock, 4 miles NE of the main tip of the fire out in the middle of … Read more
8/5/2021 – 8:00 pm. Well today was a harrowing day, and from afar, in Chico, it’s hard to have any idea what is going on up in the hills. My brother called from Quincy after bailing out of Taylorsville early afternoon and said it was very calm there, and that he was glad. We don’t … Read more
Well, things are really going to hell on the Dixie Fire. The forecast frontal passage is starting to affect the fire, winds are shifting to out of the west. 8/5/2021 – 4:30 pm. What this means, basically, is as the front passes, we are going to get radical wind shifts, and the potential for thunderstorms … Read more
Got a chance to talk with Carly Gomez at Channel 10 about the Dixie Fire. Check it out, here: https://www.abc10.com/video/news/raw-video/california-wildfires-river-fire-near-colfax/103-84482b9e-ca96-4e38-9c1a-30d6444d0873
