Watchful Wednesday Fire

[SBitz]

Today's the last chance for crews to stamp out all the remnants of the Thomas Fire before another evening bout of strong, hot, dry wind tries to revive it. Even in the short hour I flew over just the SB County end of a massive burn area Tuesday, smoking hotspots dwindled. I also heard a hi-tech aerial survey plane detecting hotspot details and locations. Will the perimeter hold? Will they chance any more planned fires (aka back burns) this close to the forecast wind danger? Will our "Terrible Tom" settle for being the second worst fire in California history? What's the chance we'll wake Thursday to clear blue skies in both Counties? Shall I post some zoom pix from yesterday's flight, showing more detail on how close it came to many hillside homes?

[Pork Rind]

I’m really hoping that there’s nothing exciting to hear on the scanner but talk of ongoing mop up activities. And please do post the photos of the proximity of the fire lines to homes. When I walked through the fire lines in the east end of Carp, the precision those crews worked with amazed me.

There was a particularly large house farther up the hil from where I took photos that looks like the fire was stopped literally at the windowsills. Unfortunately I got no photos of that as trying to shoot with an iPhone through binoculars is usually disappointing.

[Section Make8R]

On Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 2:57:21 AM UTC-8, SBitz wrote:

Today's the last chance for crews to stamp out all the remnants of the Thomas Fire before another evening bout of strong, hot, dry wind tries to revive it. Even in the short hour I flew over just the SB County end of a massive burn area Tuesday, smoking hotspots dwindled. I also heard a hi-tech aerial survey plane detecting hotspot details and locations. Will the perimeter hold? Will they chance any more planned fires (aka back burns) this close to the forecast wind danger? Will our "Terrible Tom" settle for being the second worst fire in California history? What's the chance we'll wake Thursday to clear blue skies in both Counties? Shall I post some zoom pix from yesterday's flight, showing more detail on how close it came to many hillside homes?

Great pics thank you for sharing them.  92% humidity down here, although the clouds are lifitng as Itypethis..... lets hope it stays this way for abit longer, let the crews do their work.

 

[topix]

Here's the spots (in red) that burned in the last 24 hours.  The last image shows the most active fire is along the northern edge (green is oldest, orange is newest).
The first image is a close up of the Gibralter Canyon area above Montecito and is the reason why today is Watchful Wednesday as tonight's winds could push the fire back into town.  But if the amazing firefighters keep working as well as they have for two weeks, we might wake up Thursday to a further round of lifting the vac orders.

A hi res version can be found at
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/photos/CALPF/2017-12-06-1102-Thomas-Fire/picts/2017_12_20-08.13.22.099-CST.jpeg

[SBitz]

I'm seeing some indications of a moderate spot fire on the County line, but it's probably surrounded by burned area. Maybe where those smoking spots were in my pic of that area posted in the other Topic from yesterday's flight. No signs of heavy smoke looking toward the NNE from 101@154 at or beyond the Gibraltar area.

[SBitz]

Here's the 1:30pm GOES low-resolution but most frequently updated InfraRed satellite image of our region. I've pumped the brightness up a little bit to make it easier for you to see the fire detections (light gray areas, brighter=hotter). The one I saw from 1pm image was brighter but has already dimmed in this one half an hour later.

[SBitz]

So far no clear indications of significant fire. Wind here (101@154) is relatively light for a sundowner, with only occasional gusts to perhaps 35mph. After several stronger sundowners in years past blew our stuff into neighbors' yards I secured some things to the house. This wind is "mild" by comparison. The clouds we're seeing on the ridge line are a good sign too, because cloud = 100% humidity basically. So air in the upper fire areas where wind is probably strongest, are likely to be relatively cool and moist compared with the hot 1% humidity that made Thomas into a raging beast earlier. There seems to be ash in the air in the Summerland/Carp area, but nothing that looks like a smoke plume anywhere. Maybe we'll get through this with no breach of the fire line?

[topix]

So what's up with the dark "clouds" coming over the ridge above Goleta?  Do folks have any info on whether it's rain or ash (from a fire this past summer) or a new hot spot (related to Thomas)?

I confirmed that the winds are bringing rain to the wine country, but none is expected for us.  Scanner-John reported that he saw his humidity drop from ~10% to 5% when the winds arrived an hour ago. So the clouds could be rain, and a little rain has dropped [green dots in the image below are rain sensors.  The numbers indicate how much rain has dropped in the last hour.  The dots without a number indicate NO rain (yet).]
Data are from https://rain.cosbpw.net/map/?sensor_class=10|60&view_id=5&view=8bc6e88f-eeab-4281-9d92-3d723016e945

[SBitz]

Bad news on the 2:30pm GOES IR sat, with a pretty bright hot spot in the Carp area. Anyone have eyes on there? Maybe it's changed by now, and the 3pm image should be out shortly.

[SBitz]

Yay!! 2pm GOES IR sat looks good, even w/brightness pumped way up.

[SBitz]

Gusting to 20mph from the North at Gibraltar Peak a few minutes ago. No wind gauge here (101@154), but it seemed to me we had some much stronger gusts from the NW about then.

Still not seeing any smoke from 101@154.

[SBitz]

Wind has slowed and steadied enough that a skycrane just came in over the ridge from SY Valley, did a snorkel dip at Salvar Bridge ("to nowhere"), and is climbing toward Gibraltar area.

[SBitz]

That helo just did a PhosChek drop on the ridge just above the Gibraltar Pk area transmitter towers.

[SBitz]

3:30pm GOES IR sat (brightness all the way up) still doesn't show any significant fire detections. Saw a fixed wing farther East and North of the ridge that looked low enough to be working the fire, and the helo is back inbound for a refill. Some busy firefighters out there!

[Section Make8R]

On Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 3:43:29 PM UTC-8, SBitz wrote:

Gusting to 20mph from the North at Gibraltar Peak a few minutes ago. No wind gauge here (101@154), but it seemed to me we had some much stronger gusts from the NW about then.

Still not seeing any smoke from 101@154.

I can see south to about Divide PK ridges?   right above Rincon...looks like ash clouds...gray and dispersed, same as what appears to be swirling down Gibraltar into Cold Springs area.  Every ground from Carp to Gibraltar looks pretty quiet, no clouds, (nothing brown at least, lots of wispy gray stuff milling about)  It is interesting to see landform features now that were previously covered with brush....

 

[SBitz]

Helo just reloaded and headed back. I almost got a pic of the drop, but here's one just after. It was just on the other side of the ridge somewhere between the two pairs of powerline towers.

[SBitz]

Don't see or hear the helo anymore, but the clouds have cleared enough to get this view East from Broadcast Peak right now. Does look like smoke far in the distance on the South side of the ridge (center of pic), but hard to tell in the reddening evening light.

[SBitz]

Nearly calm here (101@154), clouds barely moving across the ridge, and no sign of fire detection on this 4pm GOES IR sat, so maybe we've dodged the chance of a rerun here on the West end at least.

[topix]

The community briefing at 4pm was very optimistic.  The fire team spent the day working on Gibralter Canyon and other west flanking areas.  Officials think they are prepared for the wind event and will be able to keep the fire from growing. They are so optimistic that they are not planning any more community briefings.  Here's hoping they are totally right !

[SBitz]

Ventura County may still have concerns about the NE area around Rose Creek, judging by their 4pm update:

Here's where that is in their overall fire perimeter map.

[SBitz]

Aviation wind forecast shows fairly strong surface level N-NE wind over the fire area, especially the V.County portion, and very strong up at 3,000' above sea level over the mountains all along the coast. This goes until a little after sunset tomorrow. Maybe wind speeds will be revised downward in a future forecast? The KSBA 6pm airport weather reported North wind at 12mph gusting to 25mph. Their airport region (Terminal Area Forecast) predicts NNW surface wind at 17-23mph, with 40mph North wind up at 1,500' above sea level from now until midnight. Then they anticipate that 1.5k' altitude North wind reducing to 29mph until 4am. Still not seeing any hotspots though, so wind might not be a problem.

[SBitz]

Actually, wind might be a blessing. Air Quality forecast shows no (zero!) smoke going forward, and only this dust (presumably ash) for 7-8pm tonight.

Tomorrow might be a brand new day. Our first nice day since Thomas hit town. (not our friends and family named Thomas - just the fire :)

[SBitz]

Wind still a problem for some in the region though, judging by this SCE outage map. :(

[Section Make8R]

On Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 6:40:55 PM UTC-8, SBitz wrote:

Wind still a problem for some in the region though, judging by this SCE outage map. :(

 

getting some gusts here, switching to calm in between......NW swinging to NE  peak 20 but 5 otherwise.

Here's to Tranquil Thursday!!!

 

 

[SBitz]

I've been checking on sleepy Thomas occasionally, and saw him stir earlier with a brief fire detection near the NE SB Co. line. Saw a glow in the BC Pk night camera there at that time too. But now he seems to be having only the faintest of dreams about fire. This near IR GOES satellite image is the only sign of faint heat detections in that area at the moment. My guess is we've survived the wind events and are entering the mop up stage. Soon we'll transition to damage and flood risk mitigation. Maybe life can start returning to normal in our region at last, and we can hustle ourselves into the holiday spirit?