California Update

The fire situation in California is calming down -- sorta. The ignitions are down, but those still burning are cranking. Most of the ones we're tracking and mapping are in Northern California and on the NW part of the state (Siskiyou, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity, Klamath NFs). They've got a ton of land still on fire kicking up tons of smoke. The problem with the smoke up there is that they get inversions -- the smoke just settles down in all the valleys and makes mapping even part of the fire nearly impossible.

We've been asked to not only map all the USFS fires (like we usually do), but all the state fires in California, too. We set up an informal agreement to support the needs of CALFIRE in addition to the Forest Service. It won't add too many fires to our to-do list, but it is additional work.

I've now mapped about 45 fires this year -- 25 in California alone. I still haven't completely mapped the two largest fires yet: Basin Complex and Indians, both just south of Monterrey, CA. We're awaiting cloud-free imagery now that the fires are out. That's about 200,000 acres of burned lands.

We had a fire up City Creek Canyon here in SLC this week. It burned about 120 acres and it really helps to put things in perspective when thinking of a 200,000 acre fire. Crazy!

The LA Times put together a series of articles on wildfires. I found it very interesting, especially the business of fire part. This page highlights some of the costs and uses the example of the Zaca Fire -- another fire I mapped last year.