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willow wildfire

wind change this morning,now out of the south,good for southern folks, not for us north of fires starting point!!put in order for rain sunday still no joy.
no smoke here at rustic wilderness at 4:50 am,still hope of this area not turning to ashes.all aircraft departed monday to talkeetna,fires yesterday 10 miles north of us at montanna creek,no word this morning

jr. :sad:
 
stewartb said:
Cut trees around the structures. Especially spruce trees. Cut brush back as well. Anchorage hillside fire potential has driven lots of homeowners to remove trees and increase their fire buffers. But we like our little hobbit houses in the forest. I've got a bunch of beetle-kill spruce trees that appeared this year. Not a good summer for dead standing trees around the place.
Click to expand...

.....DITTO DITTO DITTO. As #1 son tells me (he's a crew boss Wildland Firefighter often acting as Deputy IC, so I tend to listen), the first trees to go around a structure should be the spruce. After spruce is removed, clear out the miscellaneous fuels on the ground (dead branches, general "duff", etc). A hot, steady fire will burn whatever fuel is handy, but a fast moving wind-driven fire will likely just singe the non-spruce trees on the way by, possibly not burning the structure as it passes.

All the spruce is removed from around my cabin....but that's as much due to convenience (spruce makes great outdoor winter bonfire fuel) as it is to planning.
 
I have been flying BLM Fire Service today, at any momentI could count at least 3 fires, most of the time a half dozen. West of Fairbanks is nuts. 10 tankers I counted working through Ladd. They are completely swamped. We saw constant smoke, thunder and lighting, and new starts.

The be sad part is people are out doing silly stuff. Be FireWise.
 
Here's a great clip of an MD-80 fire tanker and what appears to be a marker plane in the lead? [video]https://www.facebook.com/TheAlaskaLife/videos/vb.376477915717612/977001045665293/?type=2&theater[/video]
 
SB. Yes the AFS uses lead plane for the MD80. Notice smoke mark of where to start drop then they follow track of lead plane.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 
Be interesting to see the retardant coverage on the ground. Wonder if those higher drop speeds end up taking more passes to build line.

The fires seem to be getting worse. Fairbanks is getting smoky(er) and the Villages of Nulato and Tanana are in real trouble with people having to leave. Last week the fires north of the AK Range where kind of limited to a triangle Tanana, Allakaket, and Ruby. Now everything is burning. Numerous fires around Fairbanks, Clear, Delta.....

I landed in Fairbanks after being out on the Arctic Coast, and New TFRs are popping up fast around FAI, crap. Watch Out.
 
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Wow that map is unuseable so many boxes and triangles, too much. Hunting season this year will be like going to Indian Valley Meats, smoked meat ready to pick. Poor critters losing habitat.
 
In three to five years the moose habitat will be incredible!

Hope folks listen up and stay safe out there. At some point these fires are going to converge. Eek!
 
I do not know about the moose, but with legal mary jane, and now the new burns for mushroom growing the hippies are going to be in heaven.
 
stewartb said:
Here's a great clip of an MD-80 fire tanker and what appears to be a marker plane in the lead? [video]https://www.facebook.com/TheAlaskaLife/videos/vb.376477915717612/977001045665293/?type=2&theater[/video]
Click to expand...
Very interesting. It sure shows how little that I know about firefighting. It appears that all of the retardant is dispersed before getting to the ground leaving me to wonder how it can possibly do any fire prevention when a large blaze comes roaring through. It must be effective or "they" would not be spending all of that money just for flying toys?
 
mghallen said:
Wow that map is unuseable so many boxes and triangles, too much. Hunting season this year will be like going to Indian Valley Meats, smoked meat ready to pick. Poor critters losing habitat.
Click to expand...
With the speed of these fires I'd think the habitat is losing critters, too. I don't know how wildlife managers estimate fire mortality for game animals but there must be a fairly significant loss of population associated with this fire season.
 
stewartb said:
With the speed of these fires I'd think the habitat is losing critters, too. I don't know how wildlife managers estimate fire mortality for game animals but there must be a fairly significant loss of population associated with this fire season.
Click to expand...


No argument from here, the numbers will be roughed up a bunch I bet.

Nature is good at repair, so after five or so years when all of that area is lush, we should see a great rebound in numbers. The other part is usually the burns are so terrible to travel through for a normal person that animals in there are safe from hunters. I tried to traverse through a 20 year old burn on my snowmachine last winter... that was a mistake! Animals in there were laughing at me.

Not many upsides to our state being on fire. Sometimes you have to look to find a positive.
 
another fire starting today....(not the one by Talkeetna either..)

you can see the wild fire on the Knik weather cam at http://avcams.faa.gov NorthEast camera... wind is blowing towords chugiak & eagle river, smoke is starting to stack against the mountains some, you can smell it here...
 
It's hard to miss while flying. The density of the smoke over the fire is surprising. The wind is blowing pretty good in the Yenta Valley. It must not be as windy at the fire. I hope not for the fire fighter's sake.
 
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