Southern Sierra Fires – 10/6/2021

KNP COMPLEX By Ryan Stephens ***10:30am on October 6 – Operational update reported slopover near North Fork Drive in the area of Advance. Looking southeast toward Advance (lower left) and Three Rivers (center right).   Today’s Ops Map   ***10:00am on October6  – Today’s operational update video from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. ***9:50pm … Read more

Southern Sierra Fires – 10/4/2021

KNP COMPLEX Maps and commentary by Ryan Stephens *** 7am on October 4 ~ IR interpreters log book appears to have inconsistencies. Time and date for the flight last night is unreliable/unknown. Overview looking northeast over the KNP Complex: The Key in the upper left corner of the map explains color shading in regards to … Read more

Southern Sierra Fires – 10/3/2021

KNP COMPLEX Maps and commentary by Ryan Stephens Overview looking northeast over the KNP Complex: The Key in the upper left corner of the map explains color shading in regards to heat intensity within the KNP Complex perimeter. Red dots show isolated heat. White perimeter line around the fire was yesterday’s fire perimeter. Giant Sequoia Groves are … Read more

Southern Sierra Fires – 10/1/2021

KNP COMPLEX Maps and commentary by: Ryan Stephens ***Noon on October 1  ~ KNP Complex Weather Update by Incident Meteorologist Jason Straub Watch the weather update here. ***10am on October 1 ~ Morning briefing video from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Watch today’s briefing here. ***9:30pm on September 30 ~ Sequoia and Kings Canyon … Read more

Southern Sierra Fires – 9/22/2021

Windy Fire – September 22, 2021 Let’s take a look at today’s briefing map: _______________ Maps and Captions by Ryan Stephens with commentary by Chuck Ervin Ryan Stephens: IR was back in the air last night and today we have the maps to prove it! So far, the fire has reached into five giant sequoia … Read more

Dixie Fire in Lassen Park – Animation

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

Dixie Fire – Firing Operations

8/31/2021 – 5pm. What’s going on up north of Westwood on the Dixie Fire? Three DC-10 tankers are flying there today. Also, what’s going on at Lake Davis? This post is all about firing operations. We are going to talk about why we do them, how we do them, what it takes to pull one … Read more