More Monday Fire

[SBitz]

Some encouraging news, starting with this noon GOES low-res (but most frequently updated) InfraRed satellite view.

In terms of smoke, the fire detections (white squares) are bad news for the region because where the squares are bright and joined like the horizontal line in Ventura County the smoke is probably going high in a plume. More dim areas like around Carp tend to be wider areas of smouldering that have less heat to loft the smoke high. I've been seeing indications that the wind, though shifted, is still fairly calm. More to follow...

[SBitz]

Here's the composite fire map as of 12:30pm.

[SBitz]

When it comes to smoke on this noon forecast, we're "It."

Here's a more local forecast from 10am (I think - this site's in testing and a bit flaky).

Another more stable smoke site's forecast looks like this for 1pm (on left) and 3pm.

[SBitz]

Here's the 2pm 0-6 hour old fire detections from all IR satellites. This time the squares are for medium to high resolution detections with colors showing how hot they were when detected. The red dots are the centers of the typically most recent detections by the low-resolution GOES IR sat, set to show centers rather than the massive 4km squares depicting where the fire(s) detected could be within that area. This gives an overall impression of what the fire's been doing in the last 0-6 hours with the dots showing the very general area where the most recent detections could be.

So judging by the heat of the detections (red squares), most of the smoke (especially the highest stuff) is coming from the active burning in the Ventura County northwestern part of the fire. The greater heat would tend to send the smoke higher there. Earlier we saw some detections near Montecito but those aren't showing on this map that I've found to be most current and accurate so far, indicating that maybe they were false detections or small spot fires that were promptly put out hours ago.

[SBitz]

Here's how the low res GOES IR sat saw the fire at 2pm.

[SBitz]

The latest BC Pk view to the East doesn't tell us much other than that the smoke is going considerably higher than 4,300 feet, and it's thick on both sides of the ridge. The nearer smoke is obscuring any chance of seeing the actual fire plumes.

[SBitz]

The 3pm aviation wind forecast is showing relatively light and somewhat random surface wind; less than 18mph (probably a lot less) toward the SouthWest at 3,000 feetl and it looks like this up at 6,000 feet above sea level - quite light wind at that altitude.

Very good news in that it's the best aviation wind forecast we've seen in a week or so. Enjoy this, because the forecast for later is less happy times. If you're suitably somber now, I can add that although the monster high pressure area is finally forecast to move East there's a new one predicted to arrive. By this Friday it's looking like defeat for the low pressure South of the border that's been playing "gear" games with our high (described earlier - was it only yesterday?). Right now they're predicting the new high's arrival to our North will make high level winds blow toward the South rather than the recent West. We'll see. :(

[SBitz]

Here's the 2:30 low-res GOES IR sat. Lots of low-intensity detections all over the fire area. Possibly some of it from hot smoke, or thermal heating of blackened areas.

[SBitz]

3pm Air Quality from SBCAPCD, still about how it looks outside though the smallest and most dangerous particles (PM2.5 the kind you want an N95 mask for) are barely into the "Unhealthy" zone that starts at 150 as I recall. Really though, any intake of those small ones is the unwelcome gift of a lifetime because they go deepest into your lungs and can stay there a long time. We're sad to see people out exercising without masks, but have given up trying to tell them about the free distribution centers. At least everyone following this site and other news sources is sensible and safe, right?

[SBitz]

Now I'll take a moment to talk about air traffic. First off, SBA hasn't been much affected by all this smoke. The commercial planes have air filtration. Their pilots have fancy instruments and in-cockpit access to extensive data that budget pilots like me only dream of. So they can land and take off even when the air's very nasty. But even they have to obey the FAA Temporary Flight Restrictions like the ones over our SoCA fires outlined by the red shapes on this map. BTW, in case you're curious, those yellow shapes are the rough outlines of the brightest city lights as seen by pilots at night.

As you can see, the polygon outlined above our Thomas Fire is rather larger than those over the LA area fires still being mopped up. Ours prohibits all but authorized fire fighting aircraft in that big area from the surface up to 9,500 feet above sea level. Don't be discouraged by the fact our TFR's in effect thru 2/10/2018, because the FAA tends to block out airspace (don't get me started :)  Nobody else much wants to fly in smoke anyway, though it's tempting to join the news helicopters taking long telephoto photos and video from outside that monster TFR. I'd love to know what's going on in our County, but the TV news is often undated and usually with no location ID. But I digress...

Back at 2pm or so I took a look at air traffic at and below 13,000 feet (to exclude most of the airliners), and the only fixed wing aircraft working the Thomas Fire was a C130 (N402LC) working the less smoky area North of Santa Paula. That's its track in yellow (lower altitude) and green (over the fire area).

The helicopters are depicted like little bugs. Those inside the TFR (over our fire area) are only in Ventura County (nearest to us on this map is N718GH 1,900 feet above sea level over Lake Casitas). Why, you hopefully ask? Because this shows only the planes with a flight plan (seldom fire fighters) and those with "Next Gen" ADS-B Out transponders (many planes don't have them yet due to $$$ cost). The cool 747 fire jet we've been seeing on TV news for days hasn't worked our end of the fire at all from what I've seen, and the one drop on TV video was days ago. What about the dauntless choppers we all know are working our end? No ADS-B. So if you see or hear lots of helicopter activity or ANY fixed wing drops and can tell us where, please do.

[Pork Rind]

You might see more of the helicopters on my FlightAware feed as I'm doing multilateration on their Mode S transponders. Then again, my antenna is not high enough to see anything below and behind the ridge.

This feed also incorporates 978UAT transponders, but I have no idea if any of the helicopters are using that.

http://184.189.223.251:8080

[Pork Rind]

I'm currently seeing these aircraft apparently working our fire:

N17085 - DC10
N130FF - C130 (Coulson)
N417SH - King Air
N4717V - Rockwell Commander

[Pork Rind]

N402LC, also a Coulson C130

[SBitz]

Great info PR! Thanks so much for sharing it! I love knowing the DC10 is up there, and hope that's helping the ground crews get some containment before wind picks up. Just got back online, so I'll be checking soon and will post anything that might be of interest.

 

[SBitz]

KEYT live vid on Montecito now, if you miss it try channel 3.2 at 8:30 in case they repeat it there.

[SBitz]

Here's a screencap of the TV video. A very long zoom shot from Montecito Upper Village. They hastened to add FD sez no danger because it's far away and they're all over it.

[SBitz]

Most recent GOES low-res IR sat is this from 7:30pm (so I'll probably post an update in a few minutes).

[Section Make8R]

Just drove over to Summerland hills from my house at San Ysidro.  Fire is in back of Summerland running up ridges. Fire to east of Summerland appears  lower down the ridges. Hard to tell scale. 

  Planes flew right over San Ysidro at 5pm did a couple of drops to the east.   I thought I knew the tricks to driving around here, but there were people EVERYWHERE going out to get a look. Biggest danger was a traffic collision

[SBitz]

Sorry folks, I'm excited about PR's post so this post will wax way Nerd for a moment. Just smile and skip to the next, and I'll try to behave. ;)

> my FlightAware feed as I'm doing multilateration on their Mode S transponders. ...also incorporates 978UAT

Finally got a minute to look at this a bit. So I guess PiAware is running on a Stratux type setup with 2 SDRs to get this great collection of info? I like! :D

> my antenna is not high enough to see anything below and behind the ridge.

Yes, so the UAT won't pick up their 1090 unless something nearby triggers it and that's less likely in the TFR.

> no idea if any of the helicopters are using that.

Seems like many more fire air crews finally have ADS-B, but many still don't. If/when I have time, I'll be hooking up my cheapo SDR to use the Android HIZ app that feeds the open source Avare app I help out with and use in flight. With that I'll have something similar on my tablet that works happily if power or internet decide to go out again. Thanks again for sharing your link that I've bookmarked in the hope you'll keep it going.

[SBitz]

> Just drove over to Summerland hills from my house at San Ysidro.

Thanks for the eyes on report PR.

> Biggest danger was a traffic collision

I know what you mean about traffic!  We were out on long-postponed errands and saw three kinds of drivers: 1. Emergency mode, cautious and alert; 2. Emergency mode, "Get outta my way!"; 3. Texting. In cat 3 someone merged onto 101 right into the blind spot on the side of a big rig! Luckily the trucker was alert, there was nobody in the middle lane, and the trucker courteously moved over.  Don't know if the texter ever even noticed.  I'm looking forward to blue skies and calmer people.

[SBitz]

Here's the somewhat alarming 8:30pm low-res GOES IR sat, showing hot detections near (4km or more) the coast. Guess this is what PR drove out to see and report on for us?

I'll try to do an update post on the "all IR sat" map.

[SBitz]

Got distracted by some projects, so I've not yet done an "all IR sat" lookup. Meanwhile here's the 11pm GOES low-res IR sat, brightened a little for better viewing of the weaker detections.

[SBitz]

Here's the midnight aviation wind forecast from the surface (top), 3,000 feet above sea level (middle) and 6,000 feet (bottom). Winds over our area are 18mph or less at 3,000 feet and lower. Up at 6,000 feet above sea level winds are up to 36mph (darker of the two blue areas), but with the fire not burning hot we're OK. Hot fire would loft big cinders up into that wind and could drop a live one ahead of the fire line, so if you're up in the mountains and hear strong wind please let everyone know. Most likely we're fine for the night because crews seemed to be making good progress on initial containment earlier. Wind forecast looks OK too, with only the 6k' staying strong until noon. 3k' and below is <18mph other than a small spike at 10am or so. Maybe tomorrow we can see light at the end of this week-long tunnel (and over our heads).

[SBitz]

At last, here's the "all IR" map, but I've only selected GOES low-res (4km) because few (none?) of the others are current. There's no intensity info available right now either, and as mentioned yesterday that's probably because all the people who assemble and process the raw sat data are sleeping more soundly than many of us will tonight. As you can see by the fire "detection" out in the water off Carp, though updated frequently this isn't the most accurate of our IR sats (the latest ones are getting pretty darn good, but science funding is a bit tight these days). That one in the water might actually be a fire detection on-shore, or simply a blip in the data. The ones in a row are probably real, but of course the accuracy's still sub-optimal.

[SBitz]

Here are a few parting words for the night. This is the most optimistic I've felt about this fire since first paying attention to it when the SB power went out. Smoke is light enough that I can clearly see work lights of several crews fighting for us on the front range. To my unscientific ear the tone of the firefighters seems to have shifted toward the hopeful. Our winds look better than they have in days. My sense earlier was that at least some of the fire and smoke we saw, especially in the evening, was helping to establish and widen containment lines one way or another. If crews (and hopefully fixed wing aircraft up to and including the 747) can cool down those containment lines we have a shot. If winds don't go crazy for another day or two while ground crews continue knocking down embers and spot fires, we may see the end of this nightmare.

Followup note: a few minutes ago I heard what sounded like one of the fire choppers flying by. It would be great if they're flying water drops with IR goggles and/or doing IR fire spotting to help tell ground crews where spot fires are hiding.

Anyway, all this said I dearly hope anyone with helpful info of any kind who's already signed up as a Member here, will take a moment to respectfully post any and all information. This has been my goal, and I greatly appreciate the others who've chimed in.

See you in the morning. :)