Fuel Friday Fire

[SBitz]

Today might be about fuel (and smoke). Fuel in the sense that many people will prudently fill up their vehicles in preparation for what forecasters have been saying about this weekend. More generally though, it's about the firefighters working so hard to clear big "black" gaps of fuel from around the fire. They're chewing it up with big machines, hacking it out by hand, and almost certainly again today burning it where they can. We'll see if they activate the plan to burn a gap some distance to the West of the current burn, from the foothills up to the ridge.

Having finished preparatory packing and planning in case we evac in 16 hours or so, I've just taken more time pondering the aviation wind forecast. My own untrained sense is that the sundowner feared Friday into Saturday may not be strong as feared. Right now there looks like more chance Saturday into Sunday, but even that's not clear to me. I'm not seeing the organized monster high pressure area that was going on when Thomas got going. There's definitely a pretty big one coming, but to me it looks a little disorganized with winds above and below the center not lined up. Maybe we have a chance of dodging the bullet if the winds aren't severe below 1-2,000' on the slopes, and they're able to interrupt the fuel path or even (dare we hope) knock it down by afternoon.

I'm going offline soon, but first a lineup of my usual suspects starting with the 1:30am GOES IR low-resolution satellite fire detection (white squares).

Only a whisper of one faint detection on the coast, but Fillmore is fairly hot. Thinking of that noble fireman who gave his all near there Thursday. :(

[SBitz]

Broadcast Peak night camera looking East (with brightness pumped up as with the prior GOES pic) shows that the smoke has thinned a lot. City lights (even before brightening) are brighter than during most of this fire, and there are even some stars peeking. The heavier smoke plume from Fillmore is far enough East that we can see stars over and city under it, but I don't like the look of that closer small flare and plume. Back burning by firefighters maybe?

[SBitz]

HMS forecast created sometime late yesterday, for how they thought it would look now.


NOAA forecast for surface smoke now.


Fire and wind plot from CalTopo 2:30am.


1am USN wind plot from observations NAWCWDmugu with inset of color legend for wind speed in knots (looks like about 10kt on our coast = about 12mph).


OK, hope the fuel equation works out in our favor and everyone has a safe and fun Friday.

[SBitz]

Fewer helicopter runs from Salvar Bridge ("to nowhere") over Hwy.154@Foothill this morning, and this 10am GOES low-res InfraRed satellite shows less fire detection than in the wee hours last night.

[SBitz]

Still plenty of smoke in the air, but SB County is still dodging most of it. This GOES visible sat with brightness pumped up from 10am shows the edge of the heavier smoke passing over Carp headed out to the islands. Lots of smoky days over the islands lately!

Air quality in SB is about the same though, due to all the tiny invisible toxic particles still lingering and keeping us in those N95 masks. The 10am AQI forecast map shows us still generously sharing it with much of CA too.

[Section Make8R]

....helicopters all morning, probably trying to tamp down the Montecito canyons before the next round.   Backside of Camino Cielo must be burning pretty heavily, as its red/brown all behind.  Little SW wind flow down here.  The slightest breeze shakes loose the ashes in the trees here.   Im trying to be positive, so I changed the filter in the wet/dry vac and am doing some cleanup!!! 

  Harvest Buoy report does indicate some strong NW winds pumping up the ocean, hopefully it stays NW or West, and doesn't swing around to NE as is the normal chain of events after a NW push.

 

[SBitz]

Section Make8R wrote:

....helicopters all morning, probably trying to tamp down

Yes, that's what SBCFD reported on KEYT at 11 and they've not yet decided about that preventive burn as I recall. Helicopters seem to me less frantic this morning, and I thought they'd even taken a pause but just heard another one here 101@154. Here's the 1:24pm air traffic below 12,000' (most of the detectable fire aircraft):

Two spotter planes over our area and few helicopters, so maybe they're planning to call in some larger fixed wing PhosChek drops in a while?

Backside of Camino Cielo must be burning pretty heavily

It wasn't showing up when I checked earlier, so I've just nabbed this latest (12:30pm) GOES IR:

Most or all hotspots (white squares) in V.County, but that horizontal line of light gray in SB back country could be something that was building an hour ago.

Thanks for more of your great eyes on reports! I'm going to post this and see if you've done more while I've been futzing with it on the least-capable of our antique computers.

[SBitz]

GOES IR 1pm - new moderate hotspot at that time in SE SB County:

[SBitz]

Here's the GOES sat for "aerosol" depth (smoke) at 1pm:

Looks quite different from the prior smoke forecasts, but it's presumably measuring reflectivity at a specific light spectrum. I've found it tough to get accurate timely smoke detections, even for routine flight planning. During fires it's a little easier because the smoke's so thick. Anyway, one more vector. :)

[SBitz]

A look East from Broadcast Peak at 2pm with lovely blue skies above, relatively thin smoke over SB, and plume in the distance probably over the Fillmore area.

I'm offline for a while now, but again if anyone has something please post it. I'm liking the signs and portents at the moment, and it's great having more info and eyes on reports thanks to everyone who's chipping in.

[topix]

Good news, bad news. The fire is holding in San Ysdro Canyon but there is a wind event predicted for tonight that demands vigilance for the next 24 hours.  In the caltopo.com map below, you can see the estimated wind speeds for 4AM.  The yellow dashes are a NE wind of 20+ mph over the mountains, while the green dashes indicate light 10+mph near the coast.  The concern is that the upper and surface winds will line up, causing the winds to strengthen and push the fire into residential areas above Montecito and the Riviera (Hot Springs Road esp.).

Per the public briefing (at 4pm, Friday), the fire line is currently being held in San Ysidro Canyon due to the heli phoscheck bombardment.  For those wondering, "There has been NO largescale backfiring ops on the western edge today" according to the officers.

Stronger and southerly winds are expected tonight, and the period of greatest concern is 2am-10pm Saturday.  One of the officers (Bill Brown) noted that for those who live in Montecito/Riviera in the voluntary evac zone, you should be prepared for a mandatory evacuation in the middle of the night (2-4am).  Hundreds of engines are staged on the 192 in case the fire makes a run into the residential areas.

The fire behavior expert warned that this fire is behaving in weird ways, making predictions hard.  First, we are at an all time record for fire potential (see the chart on energy release component (ERC) I posted on Wed around 8pm for details).  Second, the expert saw this fire moving INTO the wind in the backcountry yesterday, burning 1500 acres...something he has never seen a fire do.

On Sunday, we expect to return to conditions from earlier in the week (light winds) but should expect to see more smoke in SB from the active back country fires.

[SBitz]

We got up for a brief flight just before sunset and I've sent a video clip to KEYT, though they probably won't have time to get it on air tonight. Here's a still that might help everyone get a sense of where the burning was. Open flame in at least three or four places in SB County. We watched (from authorized airspace safely far above) a flock of large fixed wing aircraft and helicopters dropping PhosChek and water, got a bunch of pix and a few videos, and I'll post more when time permits. Right now I'm offline for a while, but will be back in a few hours. Right now the airport forecast is for a four hour 29mph sundowner down to 1,000' starting at 4am. :(

[SBitz]

Don't know if it's already been on KEYT, but since I have a sec I've attached a smaller version of that video clip I sent them. It's an H.264 MP4 video that will typically play on most anything.

[topix]

Great shots, SBitz !!! ...well, except for the whole forest-on-fire thing.

[SBitz]

Here's another video angle on the fire at sunset.

[SBitz]

Just looked at the KSBA airport aviation weather forecast and it's been changed to this: 10pm-4am light variable surface wind; NNW 29mph up at 1,000' above sea level.
4am-10am surface wind N 8mph; N 40mph up at 1,000' above sea level. Earlier and stronger than the prior forecast. :(

[SBitz]

Edhat has a great collection of info and links plus some helpful comments on their Thomas Fire page. Now for a surprise - I just nabbed this 10:30pm GOES IR sat and ... well, look!

Not a hint of fire detection an hour ago! First time I've seen this since it all started. Amazing that fire crews were able to knock it down this completely given the large areas of open flame we saw flying over it at 4:30! Truly impressive work!!

[SBitz]

The night camera view East from BC Pk right now seems to still show a fair bit of smoke, apparently blowing more toward the SW at least up at the level where it is (well above BC Pk's 4,300' feet or so. But absent any apparent plume, maybe it's cloud? The light on whatever that layer is might be reflected from fire crew work lights, or maybe it's fire that popped up after the latest GOES IR sat.

The only sat view I've found that somewhat shows cloud at night is this aviation one that shows airports as color coded (by weather) circles. The latest, from 11:15pm does show streaks of cloud in that general direction.

[SBitz]

The 11pm air quality report also seems to indicate low fire activity, with the lowest SB number I can recall since the smoke arrived.

[SBitz]

I was beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with the trusty GOES IR sat when this 11:30pm image reassured me with a faint gray fire detection in Ventura County.

Has this fire really been knocked down in SB County and stayed down in whatever wind is trying to revive it? I'm going to wait for the midnight GOES and then maybe get some sleep, having imagined being up all night watching a firestorm. wow.

[SBitz]

Here it is - the midnight GOES IR sat with not a hint of fire detection. I'm literally shaking my head in amazement that they've even managed to knock down that gasp of flame earlier. This hasn't happened since the fire started.

BC Pk looks quiet too, though this 12:35am night camera shot with brightness pumped up does show what looks like a small plume lit up in Ventura County. Maybe that will show up again on the 12:30am GOES, but I'm not waiting for it. I'll start the Saturday fire topic, post one of my fav smoke pix from our sunset flight over the fire, and then log out.