Smoky Saturday Fire

[SBitz]

Our power has been glitchy and Cox internet went down a few minutes ago so I'm going to limit posts until it's back up to save my low data bandwidth. Just wanted to check in with a little info. Here's the 1pm low-res IR sat.

Not looking good for the Carp area.
I looked at air traffic over the fire a few minutes ago, and the air attack was only over the Fillmore area including a C130. Presumably too much smoke over our end, though the helicopters might brave it occasionally. The view from BC Pk is grim, with heavy smoke on both sides of the front range (SY Mt Range) ridge. The only somewhat good news I have at the moment is that surface wind is predicted to shift more offshore in an hour, so the smoke and ash fall might both lessen. Not so good is that the basic wind pattern is forecast to stay much the same through Monday. :(
Here's the 1pm AQI.

We're staying in today, and hoping that you can find one of those masks and limit your smoke exposure. I'll check back here occasionally in case anyone wants to sign up for notifications so you'll know when anyone posts more info, but probably won't post much unless/until our Cox internet is back up.

[SBitz]

Here are two perimeter maps, starting with the composite map I've been posting, with the IR detections turned off. The "Fire Progression" one from VCFD colored by day shows growth on the East end. Both are apparently not recently updated.

[SBitz]

Here's the composite map again with some of the older IR fire detections turned off for more clarity.

[SBitz]

Here's what we're breathing right now, viewed from BC Pk to the East.

[SBitz]

Aviation surface winds are currently showing a gentle offshore flow, but it shifts back toward the WSW in two hours, so the smoke would get thicker in and over the SB South Coast if it does. :(

Up at 3,000 feet they're already stronger and blowing WSW. As the night progresses they're forecast to get even stronger and even nudge toward WNW.

Getting up to the limit of where we can fly without pressurized cockpit or oxygen, at 12,000 feet right now you can see our somewhat triangular "Goliath" high pressure area (clockwise rotation) being feebly attacked by a low pressure area that's out off Baja. The line where they meet is inching up the coast as Gol blunders slowly toward the East apparently unaware of our attacking champion's attempted rescue.

[SBitz]

ps-Up where the jets zip around that pink gets redder with wind speeds up to 220mph.

[SBitz]

Here's the 4:30pm local time low-res IR sat that updates every 30 to 60 minutes. I've pumped up the brightness so you can better see the low temperature detections where there's presumably smouldering. Again these detection areas are quite large, so any hotspot within one of those square blocks could be just one relatively small fire. Does look like there's an East-West line of active fire just NE of Carp, with a smaller and cooler area North of that.

[SBitz]

Here's a map of all IR sat fire detections in the last 6 hours as of 5:30. Note that the various sats have different resolutions, so the dots may overlap and several dots could indicate the same spot fire in different locations due to lower accuracy in some sats (like the 30-60 minute updated GOES I've been posting). Anyway, this gives a fairly good sense of what's going on out there in the dark where firefighters are working so hard on our behalf.

[SBitz]

Here's essentially that same map of all 0-6 hour IR satellite fire detections in 3D looking to the East. Carp is off the bottom-right edge, and the SB County line is that green one that tunnels thru the mountain.

[SBitz]

Well, it's not Saturday anymore but I'm posting once more in this Topic as you can see. I saw a news report that Thomas had crossed into our County so I logged in to check. The 11:30pm low-res sat was a little equivocal, but this midnight one not so much.

So I went back to do another check of all available IR sats with fire detections from 0-6 hours ago. No doubt now.

This time I've changed from center dots to display of the square area within which each detection might be. So in case you wondered, the fire's not burning neat squares in the mountains. The squares that overlap could be the same fire detected by different satellites, or two detections of a fire hotspot that's moved in the 6 hour period. Here's another version of the 3D map looking East with Carp at bottom-right, Jameson Lake bottom-left, and that lonely hotspot North of Santa Paula in the far distance. I wasn't able to turn off the red center dots and the rectangles turned white in 3D, so please accept my apology for having them come out looking like Japanese flags.

Anyway, this is bad news for our watershed, especially if crews weren't able to stamp them out. They're fighting a tough foe up there, even though surface winds are below 15 knotts as depicted in this latest midnight aviation wind forecast.

That blue blob predicts winds from 15-20 knotts over the Ventura County fire area, blowing SSW down-slope. Sleepless crews in that area have their hands full tonight on rough terrain in the dark. But there's more. Up at 3,000 feet well below the ridge lines near Jameson Lk winds are to the West and stronger. This is what I've been fearing with every visit to the wind forecast.

As you've guessed, it's even worse up at 6,000 feet showing how good the chances are that an ember will rise just above the surface and get whipped to the West ahead of the fire line. People on the ground would be at serious risk for being trapped, surely being cautious and unable to take a stand to stop the advance.

This is a heroic fight. If it gets established in the watershed, long range forecasts hint that it could move quickly West and maybe even catch the gentler down-slope wind and head more slowly toward the ocean. If we wake in the morning to see little or no fire progression, we'll have the exceptional work of regional fire crews and those in from far away to help.

In case you're among those understandably wondering why we've not seen the 747 or other fixed wing aircraft (and not even many helicopters) attacking the fire, a few words. First, the visibility where they'd need to drop for effective suppression can be a mile or less.  In case you'd like to check my math, many of the planes can somewhat safely fly "slow" at a minimum of 150mph or more and some double that.  So 150mph/60minutes=2.5 miles per minute so if they spotted something a mile away they'd have 60 seconds / 2.5 = 24 seconds to react and wrestle their way out of danger.  Fire pilots are exceptionally skillful and courageous - not suicidal.  Then add in the turbulence in those gusty mountain winds, where even a steady wind goes over that rough terrain like the CO River over boulders.  The up and down drafts can easily overcome the capability of the very best planes and pilots, as we saw when Steve Fossett went down in mountain turbulence near Mammoth.  To close out this explanation, here's the midnight turbulence forecast at 5,000 feet.  None=white, Mild=blue, Moderate=Orange, Red=Severe.  Mild is scary for most non-pilots.  The worst I've flown edged above Moderate, and I have no desire to repeat the experience.  Especially over rough terrain in smoke.  Guess I'm opinionated. :)

I've taken so long to write that, aided by a total power failure, that I can now add the 1am low-res IR sat.  I wonder if anyone else is awake worrying about this fire and everyone working on it for us.

[Pork Rind]

Thanks for the update. The county-wide emergency alert that just blasted me out of bed got clarified as not being applicable to my area but I’m suddenly not so sleepy anymore and this gives me better detail than I can seem to find elsewhere.

[Mike H.]

> I wonder if anyone else is awake

Some of us definitely are, after having been awoken by an evac order on our phones a short while ago :-/. I'm in Santa Barbara – not sure why we got the notification here. Anyway, thanks for all this detail.

[Pork Rind]

SB County OEM just tweeted that the message was mistakenly sent to the whole county. I just got a clarification emergency message too.

[SBitz]

Bad news is there are some IR sat fire detections again, good news is they're faint and at the Eastern edge of SB County. Here's the 8:30 image with the brightness pumped up some.

No rest for the weary.