Wildland Fires and More (Mono County)

[SCPD]

The wind is really blowing hard on the east side of the Sierra. Here is a list of the incidents listed on the Inyo NF's dispatch log:

1. Unknown sized wildland fire has burned into the residential area of Paradise located near the Mono/Inyo County line on old 395. Fire name: "Round" (Round Valley is located to the immediate south of Paradise). Mandatory evacuation now in progress, and the Sheriff's Department IC is a deputy that used to work for the Forest Service with me prior to my retirement. A single IC, both fire and LE does not exist at this time. Report of a vehicle explosion somewhere in the subdivision. Multiple utility poles going down in the area. Unknown fire IC with limited traffic on Cal Fire San Berdo Local 3, Silver Peak repeater. Some mention of helicopter availability. This is a human caused fire that apparently started outside the community. Engines ordered from as far as Carson City, NV and Kern County. Evacuation center being established at the Crowley Lake community center.

2. Unknown sized wildland fire south of Bridgeport, the county seat, that has burned the SCE distribution facility for Bridgeport. Fire name: "Point Ranch." Power outage for entire town, including the county's 911 and communications center, which is now on generator power.

3. Wildland fire near the east side of the Mammoth Airport knocked down at about 1/2 acre. Fire name: "Airport." Units still on scene.

4. Multiple powerlines down near the west side of the Mammoth Airport.

5. Powerline down near Mono City, north of Lee Vining.

6. Overturned FedEx truck, unknown location.

7. Overturned 5th wheel trailer, unknown location.

8. U.S. 395 closed north of Walker, CA. Large cottonwood trees immediately adjacent to the highway have fallen into the roadway.

9. New fire start near the community of Swall Meadows, north of Paradise, located a mile off old 395 and south of the Tom's Place area.

U.S. Forest Service is staffing up as many apparatus as they can however, 4 Type III engines down for mechanical, presume for annual inspections. Lousy contracted mechanical service is likely causing multiple engines to be taken on at the same time. When the Forest Service had their own mechanic only one engine was taken down at a time.

BLM has 3 engines on the Round Fire, two Type III and one Type VI.

Interagency frequency use for command does not appear to be well coordinated. S.O on theirs, Cal Fire on their own, Bishop FD has Round Fire traffic on their Silver Peak repeater (located 12 miles northeast of Bishop), USFS with some traffic on theirs and the Mono County Fire Net and some use of the county's mutual aid repeater system being used by the SO for tactical evacuation traffic. Dispatchers doing a lot of relaying between agencies. This is sad given that with the exception of CHP and Caltrans, everyone else in on VHF-High and all those agencies have all the frequencies of the other agencies in their radios.

Some type of overall area coordination is needed, possibly by the Mono County Sheriff. This sheriff has been in office about a month now and is a retired LAPD officer who held many tough command and management positions such as SWAT and others.

Precipitation is expected this evening, with rain below 8,000 feet and 8-16" of heavy wet snow predicted above that. Winds in Mammoth have not been that high and seem to be calming in spite of a wind warning that doesn't expire until 0400 Saturday.

 

[SCPD]

Updates:

--The Point Ranch Fire near Bridgeport is now 150 acres in size. BLM is taking command. The power distribution/transformer facility for Bridgeport is a total loss so the power outage will be long term. I'm not listening to the SCE system as keeping up with everything else is a bit challenging. Update: SCE estimating it can restore power by 1200 on Saturday. No doubt there will be a number of people working in rain and wind all night long to accomplish this feat. SCE troublemen are heroes in rural areas.

--Swall Meadows Fire knocked down at 1/2 acre.

--Overturned big rig on U.S. 395 near Crowley Lake.

--Cell and landline phone service down in Mammoth. Internet service down in some portions of town. Phone service in the Bridgeport area, including Mono 1 (PSAP/County Dispatch) is off and on. I'm not sure of the cause, other than most of the phone system is above ground and some of the poweline poles have phone on them as well, but only in limited locations and mostly within towns. Internet is carried on a high capacity buried fiber optic line into towns, but most of it is distributed on above ground power/phone/cable lines.

--Radio systems performing well, except for a problem with the BLM's Potato Peak repeater east of Bridgeport. Inyo NF comm center attempting to establish contact with the Point Ranch Fire via the BLM Sweetwater repeater.

--Wind in the Mammoth area has not been enough to shake my house so I would call it an average pre-winter storm event. Mammoth weather is usually far different than other parts of the region.

--Wind began to calm in the Mammoth area about 30 minutes ago and activity on the scanner began to calm at about the same time, with the exception of the overturned big rig near Crowley Lake. Traffic from the Round Fire is now infrequent. It is currently estimated to be 100 acres. With the sun down humidity recover is probably laying down wildland fires.

--The clouds to the west of Mammoth Mountain are very black, signifying the arrival of the front and some period of precipitation to come. This explains the wind calming.

--U.S. 395 closed from Bridgeport to the Nevada state line due to unsafe conditions. It is also closed from CA 120 to CA 182 due to the Point Ranch fire. Taken together 395 is closed from Lee Vining to the Nevada state line.

Commentary (optional reading):

Changing many seasonal positions to permanent year long appointments in the BLM and Forest Service about 10-15 years ago was done to retain experienced and talented firefighters as well as addressing increasing winter prescribed fire and fuel management workloads. Engine, water tender, patrol (fire prevention) and additional sub superintendent hotshot and fire use crew positions are now yearlong permanent appointments as well. Fire season, over the entire country, has increased by a whopping 78 days since 1970 and this is another cause for increasing the permanent workforce.

The response from the USFS and BLM for these current incidents is many times greater than it would have been 20 years ago. The Forest Service responded 2 water tenders as well. At that time there weren't any yearlong engine captains or engineers. Now each position on every engine are yearlong permanent positions with one lead firefighter on a "18/8" appointment as well. This is 18 pay periods full time and 8 call when needed for a 26 pay period year. With those 3 positions each engine can be staffed with its 3 person minimum.

Engines and water tenders used to be stripped of gear/hose, winterized with antifreeze in the pumps and stored outside in Bishop. Now each is kept intact and parked in heated engine bays at their regular stations, with some of those being new constructed. We had a a station or two on the Inyo that were built by the CCC (depression era) designed to hold pickup trucks and getting Type III's into them was nearly impossible. .

Fire season is evolving to a yearlong situation and so is the workload and staffing for wildland fire agencies.

 

[K6CDO]

Thanks for the sitrep and update.

 

[Progline]

Tried listening to the Mono County online scanner, but just hearing ski resort radio communications (plus audio levels are awful). Did the rain/snow take care of the fire(s)?

 

[SCPD]

The latest update for the Round Fire is 7,000 acres burned and 40 structures and outbuildings destroyed. Of that total I'm not sure how many of those are outbuildings, but this morning the count was 20 structures and 1 outbuilding so the 40 number could be pretty bad news. I've lived in Mono County for over 30 years and I believe this is the greatest loss of homes in the county's history.

The other notable disaster since I've been here was the Walker River flood of New Year's Day in 1997. There weren't more than about 5-10 structures lost in that one and many more damaged.

One of my former co-workers and her husband lost their home in Paradise due to an electrical fire two years ago. They just completed rebuilding their home. I'm not sure if this second home is standing. Most of the damage seems to be up at Swall Meadows, which is a few miles north of Paradise. We know many people who own homes in Paradise and Swall Meadows and haven't heard what their situation is. I know their is going to be a large community response to this with raffles, clothing and house ware contributions and benefit dinners. The contractors in Mammoth and a few other businesses are incredible when something like this happens and they are already involved. They provide heavy machinery and people to help clean up and make minor repairs.

Power has been restored in Bridgeport and the Walker-Coleville areas. Verizon cell and landline service is down. Our phone provider is the TV cable company so we don't have landline problems, but we have Verizon cell phones.

This incident is providing incentive for my wife to get her tech ticket and for me to get my general license. I have a good HF base set and need to figure out an antenna that will be relatively low impact in our condo project. I've always told people that they can't depend on their cell phones to work when disaster strikes and that repairs might take several days. I've been poo-pood, but am now vindicated.

 

[Progline]

Thanks for the update, i'll leave a message for the mono county streamer that his audio levels are over-driven and distorted. Not sure why there is no fire radio traffic?

Also see there is now an Inyo County stream! It's got buzz on the audio, but at least there is one on-line now.

 

[Eng74]

Nice time of year to break a fire up there. Kern County sent a Type 3 strike team up there on Friday night.

 

[SCPD]

Nice time of year to break a fire up there. Kern County sent a Type 3 strike team up there on Friday night.

I heard radio traffic concerning apparatus ordered and for quite some time it involved departments from Lone Pine to Bridgeport. Then I heard that strike teams had been ordered from Kern County and Carson City, NV. At that point I knew that this was a very serious incident.

So far we know 3 couples who have lost their homes. We know 5 others that did not lose their homes. We haven't heard from 2 others that we are quite concerned about. A local woman started a fund raising effort on GoFundMe with a goal to raise $10,000 in a month. It hasn't been a week, but $56,000 has already been raised. Response from businesses and individuals has been incredible with huge contributions of clothing and household items. Home Depot in Ridgecrest sent up a semi with free pallets of exactly what people needed.

In 1997 the northern Mono County community of Walker was hit by a flood on New Year's day. Homes were flooded and then the debris froze inside of them and on their porches. Each Saturday and Sunday people met at 0730 in Mammoth to coordinate among themselves and drove to Walker to help cleaning up and repairing everything that needed it. U.S. 395 was closed for 5 months for "repairs," actually complete reconstruction for about 50% of the distance. Contractors brought heavy equipment and other specialized tools to help. Some of it was parked up there for 2 months. When U.S. 395 reopened in May south county folks drove to look at what happened. They then drove around the small town, ate at the restaurants and spent money in other businesses. Some people even made a weekend of it and spent the night so they could help get some money flowing into the community once again.

A few years back a fire hit the west side of Big Pine and the response was similar. Inyo and Mono Counties, although forming an area over 200 miles long, north to south, is close knit. If people have a large problem, such as someone with major and expensive health problems or loses a home to a fire, fund raisers; raffles with prizes donated from businesses, dinners in restaurants that contribute the meal and even sporting events such as runs, bicycle rides, etc. I know this happens almost everywhere, but it seems more prevalent in less populated areas.

As far as I know this is the largest number of structures lost in a wildland fire in Mono County's history, possibly Inyo County's as well. It's a real shame that it happened in early February when fewer resources are available. Cal Fire had a helo or two available in southern California, but the winds were too high for their use. Not too long ago there wouldn't have been a helo available in the whole country during February.

 

[BirkenVogt]

How did the transformer station manage to burn down? Usually I imagine a facility made mostly of rock, metal, and porcelain.

 

[SCPD]

How did the transformer station manage to burn down? Usually I imagine a facility made mostly of rock, metal, and porcelain.

I haven't heard. It is located near the edge of the huge meadow at the valley bottom that Bridgeport is located in. Even in the summer there isn't a lot of fuel around it. In the winter the grass is normally short as it is grazed down in the fall. My speculation is that the fire was caused by some sort of electrical problem related to the high winds. Power lines were being blown over and conductors were touching the ground in many locations county wide. Power lines to and from this station are overhead and perhaps this was a factor. I know that electrical distribution systems have redundant protections including multiple relays in many locations along each line (circuit) that shut power off when problems occur. During the winter when we get our highest winds we get frequent, what Southern California Edison calls "R & R's (relay and reset), where power is interrupted momentarily.

The wildland fire may have been caused by the transformer fire. Official press releases by the Inyo National Forest stated that the station was destroyed in the fire (speaking of the wildland fire) and this would cause an extended power outage. As it turns out power was restored sometime the next day or evening.

Down in Mammoth we had wind gusts in town of 70 mph. This is not unusual for the town, as Mammoth Pass is just southwest of town, however, the winds over the rest of the county were higher and more widespread than I've seen in my 33 years in Mono County. The eastern Sierra, especially those areas from Bridgeport (the northern terminus of the "High Sierra) south to Olancha (south of Lone Pine and the southern terminus of the "High Sierra") get high winds in the winter due to the lee side effect. Winds blow up slope on the west side of the Sierra a distance of 70 miles, reach the Pacific Crest, then blow down slope, a distance of ten miles and less, compressing and increasing in speed as they move down slope to a lower elevation. In the Mammoth area this distance is 3 miles from town and at the end of a wind funnel formed by Mammoth Pass, a relatively (9300 feet) gap in the High Sierra. Winds and storms move up the upper San Joaquin Valley and get pushed over Mammoth Pass, which is surrounded by 11,000 to 13,000 foot peaks, thus forming the funnel. This is why the Mammoth area consistently experiences more wind and why Mammoth Mountain receives so much snow.

For whatever reason, winds during this storm were higher in the other portions of Mono County than Mammoth Pass. This caused explosive fire conditions and the fires did not lay down after sunset. This event is similar to Santa Ana winds in southern California.

Our two weekly papers in the county come out today and perhaps more details will be included in an article.

**EDIT** I just read a report on Facebook that a gust of 91 mph was recorded in the town of Bridgeport during the storm. A gust of 76 miles per hour was recorded at the Mammoth Airport. A hurricane is classified as a Category I at 74 mph. The humidity on the Round Fire, both during daylight and long into the night was in the single digits.

 

[SCPD]

In our local weekly newspaper today: the transformer/distribution station was damaged by the fire, not destroy it. The fire burned to the station and the station did not start the fire. The cause of the has not been determined yet.