Saturday, July 14, 2012

Blowin' In The Wind

Thank God! Those "triple digit temperatures" from mid-week are just a memory. I'm reminded of them when I walk by a mirror and see my bright redneck! I missed a few spots with the sunscreen spray...fortunately it's only colorful...not painful.

I'm pretty much religious about safety glasses, ear plugs, sunscreen and sports helmets...

I was chatting this morning with a new Facebook friend who lives in the California foothills, the Robbers Fire is burning some seven miles southwest of her place, as the crow flies. I watched some reports on the fire on Friday night's local 11 O'clock News. Evacuations and road closures were in effect, and a few hundred homes are threatened.

This morning, I made a point of watching the Trainwreck News stream for a Robbers Fire Update. There's good news! Though humidity is still very, very low, the temperature trending down for the next several days. Plus the wind direction has turned away from inhabited areas and the smoke is blowing away from the foothill towns now. The CalFire website has the latest details on the firefight...The Devil you say...I hope it's not an omen...the Robbers Fire is Incident #666!

I took a look the the Reno AFD. There's some of the Monsoonal moisture scudding up the eastern side of the Sierras, and afternoon thunderstorms and those troublesome outflow winds are likely south of Interstate 80. Fortunately these aren't widespread enough to meet Red Flag Warning criteria.

It occurs to me that a Wildland Fire Toolbox would come in handy going forward. I'll work on that and post it here so my Foothill and Sierra Nevada friends can keep tabs on wildfires near them or their friends.

When I'm a the DaveCave and there's a wildfire nearby I fire up my Police Scanner. Unless the fire is in my neighborhood, you can't hear the fire crews on the air, but you hear dispatch, the aircraft and their controllers, and the remaining Fire Lookouts. During Fire Season listening to the Forest Service's 8AM Radio Report is very instructional and includes a detailed Fire Weather Forecast for the area.

It still goes without saying, let's be fire safe out there!

2 comments:

  1. Foresthill always burns! It's a landscape created by fire over the millenia. The chaparral covered hills adapted to this kinda torture. And the steep American River Canyon drainage doesn't help any.

    Thing is, people build their domiciles in these fire landscapes and then want to be protected when a fire event occurs. Just like building on a flood plain, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of protection.

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  2. Temps down, humidity up today...winds up too. sadly. Fire is a mile from Iowa Hill, and moving that way.
    Iowa Hill is an old Gold Rush town, right?

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