Long Distance Spot Fire Ignition
I was speaking to a friend yesterday that lives in the Sierra foothills close to where Hubby and I used to live. Her husband was on the same small town volunteer FD my Hubby was on. He has some internet sources that I haven't had up to this point. I'm going to start checking and bookmarking those sites when I get time. I want to give you the source of this info and not just spread a rumor. What her husband read was that a "skateboard sized piece of lodgepole pine bark" fell from the sky in the area a briefing was being held 14 miles north of the Creek Fire." Hubby related reports of long distance spotting to me after hearing them from other firefighters on large fires he took Type I engines to on mutual aid. He also heard such reports from Cal Fire folks as we had one of those FD's that had a Cal Fire battalion chief supervising them. My impression is 5 mile spotting occurs and is documented, but has been unusual until 15-20 years ago. A CDF friend of ours was in Yellowstone in 1988 and said they confirmed 5 miles there. Over the hill from us in Mono County in 1992. the Rainbow Fire of 1992 was reported to have spotted 8 miles ahead of the fire front. 2-3 spot fires were reported a mile or two north of the main lodge area of Mammoth Mtn. Ski Area. Hubby and I drove there about 6 weeks after that fire. The fuels are sparse and the soil mostly pumice up there. This was the longest credible report of spotting we had heard of. Other reports of 10 mile ignitions were not as credible. Last summer, while in Mammoth, I heard the same report from a more direct source.
This 14 mile report happened at a shift briefing for a fire, I'm not sure if it was at the ICP for the Creek Fire. I need to followup to pin this down. Keep in mind that the witnesses to this are experienced firefighters. This large piece of bark was not reported as a fire brand, but was "smoldering" upon impact with the ground. In the right fuels a spot fire could have started.
I've gone into detail here because I'm beginning to hear wildland fire people express concern that as the years pass they are observing unprecedented fire behavior of increasing intensity. These are informed observers, not like the rest of us who read and watch media coverage and form opinions based on such. To carry a skateboard sized piece of bark 14 miles requires a very strong convection column, a major pryocumulus cloud. Also noted is that this occurred when the fire was around 12 hours from the time of its 1st report. Last summer I was in Mammoth Lakes for nearly 3 months fixing up a condo a late uncle of mine had owned. Someone in an adjacent condo is retired from the U.S. Forest Service and studied fire ecology beginning when he was still in high school, then in college where he got a B.S. - Forestry, during his 3 decade career and now into retirement. He was on over 100 wildland fires in his career, most as a "groundpounder, grunt type" as he described it. He was actually a qualified crew boss and strike team leader- crew. He related that increasing intensity is being documented from numerous data sets.
Just a thought I wanted to pass on. I don't intend to sound apocalyptic, rather to connect the dots on things I've been hearing.