Wildfires

Well, with the Hayman fire still burning out of control, the possibility for personal loss for my family continues, as does possible huge losses for people on the outskirts of Denver. It's already the biggest fire in Colorado history, and shows no signs of being put out soon. Forcast this week is warm and windy. Right now, the fire sits about 8 miles from our land, and seems safe if it continues it's NW travel. But a major wind change could easially have the fire there in a matter of a few hours. (It hit about 2 miles per hour at one point this weekend). I keep watching the maps to see if it's close. And for me, it's not a house with all my personal items, but it is a place I grew up around, and watched the second cabin rise out of piles of lumber and cement blocks. It's land that my great grandparents bought, and now they are both burried there.

How have others delt with this threat? I know California has had some major files over the years. Right now it's the biggest thing on my mind, and nothing I do changes that. I keep seeing images of the road closure I saw on my way up yesterday, and also continue to see and smell the results here in Colorado Springs. I hope it ends soon one way or another. Knowing the end result would be so much better then constantly watching the evacuated areas, staring at maps for points of reference, and wishing for newer info.

And for an idea of the land mass this has consumed, check out this image http://www.osei.noaa.gov/iod.html

Our best wishes go out to you. I hope everything turns out OK.

Our town has been through its share of wildfires, too, so I know what you're going through. Just this last Sunday, a 1000+ acre fire flared up on a ridge near my house, and we watched it warily as the day wore on, listening to the radio as it told us "CDF has no estimates on containment". Fortunately they got it under control before it took any structures, and only a small section of one town had to be evacuated.

I have no advice to offer, unfortunately, other than the obvious "make sure your insurance is paid up, and be thinking about what you would want to pack up in case of evacuation".

hope everything is ok.. i put the best out to you. just try and stay calm, and everything will be ok.

I already took one of the more important things out of the cabin last night, the 6 log books kept of the building of the second cabin. It details with quite a bit of writing and photos the building process over the 2.5 years of construction.

If we do loose it, it will be missed, but probably rebuilt. It serves as a quick and easy vacation spot for the family year round, and offers quite a bit of things to do. The biggest loss will be the ability to relive memories. Walking into the first log cabin brings back memories of my early childhood. It still stands today, defiant of our guess that it would collapse 15 years ago. It ended up outlasting the people who built it.

I am glad in this part of the country we have never had to deal with wildfires. Watching them on tv is........... I don't really know how to put it into words. The loss of animals and birds and such must be horrible. I hope everything turns out well for you and your family.

I've never been near a wildfire, but maybe you could get all of your family and friends together and dig a ditch around your house. I don't know if it would work, but I think I have heard of it being done before. Maybe you could get your neighbors to help you and you could help them with their house. I don't know how much good it would do if there are a lot of trees around your house though.

maybe you could get all of your family and friends together and dig a ditch around your house.

The size of firebreak required to stop a wildfire is rather large. Your average family/friends group won't have the necessary equipment to dig a firebreak. A few people with shovels isn't going to stop a wildfire.

The CDF employs gigantic buldozers and other equipment to clear firebreaks, and even those are not always effective depending on the wind conditions.

If the news I saw was of the fire you're talking about, a ditch is only going to help if you want to sit in it while the fire passes overhead. Those flames were tens of metres high. You'd need to buldoze a strip hundreds of meters wide for many kilometres.

There were horrific bushfires in New South Wales at the start of this year. We even rented a helicopter from the US to help put it out. They caught a volunteer firefighter who was supposed to have started many of the fires too.


Hope you all stay safe.

Greetings!

I hope everything works out for you. I have been keeping track of the news, and it sounds rather grim. Please keep everyone here posted.

If I may drift off off topic for a second: I have been thinking about building a log home myself. I had some designs and land, but I needed to delay for personal reasons. I am still interested, though, and may still build some day, but I had a question about the effeciency of the home (heating / cooling). What kind of experiences have you had with log, positive and negative?

Yeah, that seems kind of ridiculous now.

Well just to clear things up a bit more, it's a family cabin, not a house.

Anyhow, even if we did try this, we would have to practicially cut down every tree, and clear enough dead underbrush away for about a city block to be on the safe side. And the cabin sits right in the middle of a very dense forrest on the side of a valley. And thats assuming a huge piece of debris dosen't catch the building on fire.

This fire is termed an extreme wildland fire for the fact that it can move quickly, is feeding on the explosive underbrush, and is so big. It's so dangerous that no firefighters are on the ground directly fighting it, due to the threat of them being trapped either from the fire enclosing a space, or moving above them. At this point, the best hope of anything happening is a weather change, and the publics help. This fire, just like a few others, was started by a campfire. This in an area with fire bans so severe that smoking outside may land you in jail. Because of people ignoring the previous bans, effective midnight last night, all access to the Pike National Forrest is restricted to people traveling through it to access either private land, or to get through it to go elsewhere.

The bad news is the update from 6am to 12pm today shows it moving south. The good part is that it's a slow move, so they may me able to contain the movement.

Wow thats really terrible! I hope everything works out for you.

Well Drakino, Santa Rosa, And Petaluma Fire departments are heading your way, Along with about another dozen departments from my area, so im assume it will be the likes with other sates and citys as well.. hopefully they can help out..

Good luck with your house. You're lucky that it's not your primary residence.

There was an interesting two-hour special on Nova a couple weeks ago about fires. The central thesis of the show was that fires are a natural part of the U.S. western landscape and have been there, historically, right up until the U.S. decided to start fighting the fires around the turn of the century. The lack of natural fires over the past century changed the nature of our forests. Where the forest once had tall, older trees with open grass between them, they now have a larger number of younger trees and a tangle of underbrush. The density of effective fuel is significantly higher than in its primordial state because of the lack of fire. This means that, when fires do happen, they're worse now than they ever were.

This sort of thinking has led, in the last several years, to the introduction of "controlled burns" (which are quite dangerous, in and of themselves). Apparently, there's still a lot of debate among the forestry people about the best way to manage fires.

One easy conclusion is that, if you do have a house in the woods, you really want to have a big clearing around it, because fires are inescapable. (Most forest fires are started by lightning, which can happen anywhere...)

Yep, sounds about right, it was declaired the top priority in the nation recently, due to the fact that in several ways it's worse then the Yellowstone fire. It's causing some health issues in Denver due to the massive amounts of smoke, it's not contained at all even after days of fighting it, and it's still as unpredictible as when it started. Hopefully it won't grow to the size of the Yellowstone fire, but unless something is done, it could easially be that way in a week or two.

Correction to my earlier post. Here's a BBC article on forest fires, focused on Australia, that discusses the role of fire in forest ecosystems. The article says that lightning is the major natural cause of fires, but that most fires are, indeed, caused by people.

Back in the late 80's/early 90's when I lived in AZ, there was a large forest fire that killed 10 firefighters that got trapped. When we went up to camp there a few months after the fire, my favorite area as a kid to go camping, we drove right through the burn area. I believe it burned or partially burned the famous Zane Grey cabin as well.
When we got to our usual spot, some shitheads left their campfire burning and threw all their trash, including lawn chairs in and were long gone. Amazing that the reminder of what happened less than a year prior surrounded them and they can be that inconsiderate...
Best of luck I hope your cabin makes it through. It is an interesting process to see a forest recover from such an event though.

Best wishes to you, I hope everyhting works out. I couldnt imagine the loss of something that had been in the family for that long.

Greetings!

Any more updates? The news reports were that more areas were being evacuated.

As of earlier this afternoon, Tom said the cabin still wasn't in any immediate danger although the fire was still moving towards it slowly.

I only have info up to 9:00 am, but as Tony said, it's fine for now, but south movement is worysome.

I'm heading to a meeting at 7:30 pm about the Teller County situation. The cabin sits in the north east corner of the county, so hopefully they will have more info for me. By what I know of the evacuations, it's more mountain towns threatoned by it's movement south.

Yep, several more areas were evacuated due to massive movements of the fire in a few places. The good news is that there hasn't been a huge loss yet. The media had some reports wrong. As stated before, there are quite a few new resources coming in, and the fire area has now been split in half, a north and south side. This should help, as part of the problems recently were due to needing to move crews around quite a bit, thus a spot could get out of control, and the firefighters may have been miles away.

Right now, the estimation on containment is grim. 70-90 days at best. Thats plenty of time to go in whatever direction it wants. The good part about the cabin location is that it's somewhat close to a small residental neighboorhood. But it's still far enough away, and burried in a thick valley, so it's hard to say.

The web site the forrest service maintains does have decent map updates. Unfortunatly they take quite a bit of time to compile, so technology at this point really has not helped wildland firefighting yet.

Interestingly enough, technocoly is begining to help in things like thils... I go to UC Berkeley, and one of the projects that they're using one of the supercomputers for is fire modeling to model an area and then predict where the fire will spread, and thus have a way to know where to best allocate the limited resources. This kind of modeling can use as much CPU power you can throw at it, so it's a good example of what supercomputers can be used for today.

I wish I could find a link to the article, as I found it interesting at the time... Good luck on your cabin. Natural disasters are dificult as there really is nothing you can do besides hope for the best.

Matthew

The problem is that the technology is still mostly stuck in the labs, or used as a test at small fires around the development area. I've seen some things on Fresh Gear recently that would be incredibly useful here, but it's nowhere to be seen. I suppose cost is still an issue, it's sad to think we can put a value on our public lands and the liveleyhood of it.

The area that needs the most research is definitly controlled burns. Areas need to be looked at, and burns set up from time to time to help mother nature. It's only a matter of time before a major dry season hits another area like this, and starts another massive wildfire.

Anyhow, the latest update:
Over 100,000 acres now and still burning, containment is at 35%. Though that number could quickly change. Yesterday they thought they had it at 60%. But small winds changed it.

Right now the cabin is safe, but is behind the roadblock now. The fire seems to be moving south at it's western edge the most, but if it moves south on the eastern edge, it could easially take a residential area, and the cabins up in the valley where ours is.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/fire/hayman/maps/perimeter3d_06_15.jpg

On that map, the cabin is north and slightly east of the Manitou Park, about a mile away.

And http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/fire/hayman/satellite.htm contains some amazing satelite photos of the mess. (So I guess some technology is in use finally :-)

I can't really stand to watch the national coverage on it anymore. While they have gotten better in their facts, they still report some false things. Initially, everyone was worried about Denver from the reports it was heading right that way. It still had a long way to go before even coming close to metro Denver, though it did have Sedalia on standby for a bit when it moved NE quickly the first few days. Of course, the national news media always called Littleton a small, rural town. It's Metro Denver, and feels the same as the rest of the city.

Ugg. I can't wait for it to be over.

Greetings!

Unbelievable! I just caught on the news that they arrested the person who started the fire: it was a worker for the forestry service on patrol to enforce the fire ban!

Wow, human stupidity at it's best. "Go ensure noone is starting fires of any time, you knwo how dangerous it is". "Ok, I'll just go start a fire to roast my marshmellow while I make sure the campers aren't smoking outside of safe areas".

Grr.

I personally think the fine should be 10% of the firefighting cost. Right now, that would be a touch over the maximum fine, around $670,000.

The punishment should include a prison sentance. That amount of devestation is not excusable. Maybe put them in stocks in the city square.

Nah, make her plant trees for 20 years! That will make her think twice next time!

Nah, make her plant trees for 20 years! That will make her think twice next time!

Didn't work the first time, she was doing forestry work the past 18 years. Jail and a fine seem to be her punishment, and partly for not telling the truth from the start to investigators.

Naah, Make her sit 'cuffed in front of her house whilst someone sets light to it.

Jail and a fine seem to be her punishment, and partly for not telling the truth from the start to investigators.

Not telling the truth to investigators should be punishable, I agree. But surely, in arid timber ecosystems, wildfires are natural? Certainly in Australia (or was it Africa? or both?) there are trees which cannot propagate except just after a wildfire.

The punishments should be meted out to the developers and realtors who sell housing land in places where natural "disasters" are virtually bound to happen sooner or later. In the UK, where some regions (including near Cambridge) have had three nominally "25-year" floods in eighteen months, insurers are starting to refuse cover to people in obviously flood-plain areas. Two hundred yards from the Empeg office, by the river Cam, is a playing field that's been under a foot of water (pics 9, 10) three times in two years. Now they're going to build houses on it. That's criminal.

Peter

But surely, in arid timber ecosystems, wildfires are natural?

Yes, but there is a difference here. She started it by burning paper during an absolute fire ban, and it quickly got out of hand. Out of all the wildfires in this state this year, only a few have been natural. The Hayman fire is a huge mess due to it being a really windy weekend when it started. Most of the fire spread happened in the first two days, the days it was up to around 1-2 miles per hour. Had it been natural, it would have probably been started by lightning, something that area hasn't seen for weeks.

Sure, it's going to be a while before that particular land area burns again, but due to her actions, the fire ban turned into a closure of all the parks in the area, and it will probably last the entire summer. It also caused firefighting resources to be strained in the state, instead of a natural fire happening at another time. Had she not stated this one when she did, the coal seam fire would probably be out now, and more resources could be dedicated to the one burning out of control in the south western part of the state.

One of the worst fires that our hometown ever saw (several years ago) was known as the "49er fire" and it claimed a lot of acreage and some structures.

It was started by a homeless person who lived in the woods in a nearby area. He was burning a pile of used toilet paper.

I actually knew who this guy was. I mean, not personally, but I'd seen him around and spoken to him. I worked at a jewelry store at the time, and I would go out in the front of the store in the mornings before it opened and wash the windows. This guy used to come around to all the businesses in the area and offer to wash the windows as a way of making money.

Just a general update, a few days ago the fire surged east, putting towns near Colorado Springs on standby, and raising fears it could do even more damage. A third team is now in place to protect Woodland Park and metro Colorado Springs from damage.

The bad news? The eastern surge was right in the direction of the cabin. I have not heard anything yet about it because it did stop short of the highway, but flying embers have been a problem for the residential subdivision nearby. If the fire races east again, it will most likely take the cabin, and hit the trigger point for evacuations of Monument and Palmer Lake, two towns just minutes north of where I live on I-25.

The good news is that it did stop, and yesterday was a calm day. They expected similar conditions to the two other fore growth days, and it didn't happen. Last I knew, they were going back over that area on the eastern edge and trying to widen the lines they made to try and contain it. So far, it looks like the last uncontrolled part is now the north western corner, where it runs the risk ot going into steep (up to 11,000 feet) terrain, and areas where no roads exist. This will make it troublesome to fight, but does mean there is little risk of more structures being lost.

Hopefully this huge mess will be over. But with huge fires all over the western US now, it looks like the only time the firefighters will see a day of rest is when summer is over.

The Rodeo fire in Arizona is consuming the area that we used to go camping while I was growing up. And my sister has land and a summer home 30 miles east of Show Low which was partially evacuated over the weekend. The fire has not reached Show Low yet. No sign of containment on this fire yet. I know what you're going through. Hope for the best. Here's a great website for the Rodeo Fire info

Greetings!

Any more updates?

Oops, last update looked a bit grim didn't it :-)

All is well right now, I was able to actually go sit on the hillside and enjoy the area again on Saturday. The cabin and surrounding areas are fine, and for the most part the fire is contained. It's only active now on the north west edge, and will probably continue to burn there for a while. It's only burning unoccupied and rough terrain, and firefighters will probably just set up a massive fireblock on the other side to stop it. Access to the area is limited, (barley any roads whatsoever plus steep mountain terrain), so fighting it any other way would be dangerous. The good news is that almost noone is on mandatory evacuation anymore, and life is slowly returning to normal for the residents of the areas affected. Signs of it will probably be around for a while though. On my ride up, it was clear the area was close to the fire, as the highway has huge ditches dug by bulldosers on each side near the cabin exit.

The forest remains closed, and probably will for quite some time. But for the most part, it's wrapping up. Smoke still lines our skies, and is bad enough at times to block the sun. I'll have to post a geocache picture of the ash in the air once I get it off my camera.

Now hopefully the resources freed up here can be used on fires like the Missionary Ridge or Rodeo fires.

It's very pathetic to know that both the Colorado and Arizona fires were started by people who were supposed to protect against fires. They should hang both of them from a burning tree and leave them to fate. The amount of destruction and death they both caused is enormous.

Yeah, what she said.

Sometimes I get a little bloodthirsty. I think the whole legal system is pretty much ineffective, a slap on the wrist or a little jail time doesn't seem to stop people from committing crimes. They need to fit the punishment to the crime And this one is at the top of my list of horrible crimes.

I definitly agree with you on this one.

And out of the 9 major wildfires burning right now in Colorado, 4 were caused by humans, totaling 222,845 acres. That right there is a fourth of the normal average in a year including lightning caused fires for the entire nation.

At almost 3 million acres this year so far, it's definitly going to be an expensive year for firefighting. It's costing about 7.39 million a day right now.

Oh, finally remembered the Geocache photo. This was taken a bit after sunset, when a friend and I were searching still. The amount of ash the flash caught is amazing.

Greetings!

I am glad that things are finally looking up, and that the recovery has begun. It will be amazing to watch how the land recovers from a fire this severe.

Meanwhile, as to punishing the guilty. I agree they should be punished. Especially the guy in Arizona - starting the fire to make money as a part time firefighter. That was deliberately done, and he should be (insert favorite terrible fate here). As to the woman who started your fire - she lied about it, it was stupid, she knew better, but it was still an accident. She should be tried to the fullest extent of the law, and given plenty of time (preferably on the order of a few hundred years) to think about it: the damage she did, the people she killed (weren't a number of firefighters killed in this fire?).

weren't a number of firefighters killed in this fire?

Not that I know of. Due to the incident up in Glenwood Springs a few years back where 14 did die, their ground fighting was much more cautious. I know of at least one incidental death, of an older woman in Denver who passed away from health problems relating to the smoke and ash though.

Wasn't there a plane lost? I don't remember which fire, but a plane dropping that red fire prevention slurry got caught in a sharp updraft and sheared the wings.

Ahh yes, a commercial (ie older) one in California. Story here

Then theres the crash of a van that killed firefighters on their way to help, story is here.

And lastly, the death due to the smoke, was actually in Colorado Springs. More here.

But no deaths yet of on the job firefighters at ground level.