Forest Fires in the United States: 8 September 1999
Forest Fires in the United States
8 September 1999
The National Interagency Fire Center reported on 7 September 1999 that 9 large fires in Alabama, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas are burning an area for a total of 85,883 acres (34,755 ha). Seasonal wildland fire activity continued throughout many western states, with reports of new fires in the Southern Area as well. Four large fires continue to burn in northern California, three of which are complexes ignited by a lightning storm that passed through the state nearly two weeks ago. Nearly 8,300 firefighters are fighting wildland fires and are supported by 574 engines, 73 helicopters, 4 airtankers, and 1,560 support personnel.
Fire Weather Outlook
A fire weather watch is posted for southwest Oregon for east winds and low relative humidity.
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Fig. 1. Large Wildland Fires in the United States, 7 September 1999
(National Interagency Fire Center)
For more information please refer to the website of National Interagency Fire Center.
The BLM – Alaska Fire Service Initial Attack Management System (IAMS) is suite of computer applications developed by BLM/Fire to aid dispatchers and fire managers. IAMS Maps is one of these applications and provides graphical representation of various kinds of geographic data. Maps has been modified to produce output to a Web site to allow internet access to the data that IAMS stores. Dynamic data such as lightning (available May – September), fires, etc. are updated at the homepage of the BLM – Alaska Fire Service (select Maps / AFS IAMS Maps Viewer) every 15 minutes during the fire season.
Fig.2. IAMS image of active fires in Alaska, 7 September 1999
(Source: BLM – Alaska Fire Service )
Several active fire signals are recorded by OSEI with the NOAA-15 POES AVHRR HRPT on 7 September 1999 in California.
Fig. 3. The image shows heat signatures from areas of fire burning in northern California, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada.
(Source: NOAA http://www.osei.noaa.gov/)
According the INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SITUATION REPORT the current situation for 7 September 1999 can be quoted as follows:
“…
CURRENT SITUATION
Initial attack activity was minimal in most areas. New large fire activity was reported in the Western Great Basin and Southern Areas. Large fire activity continued in the Northwest and Northern California Areas. The National Interagency Coordination Center mobilized infrared aircraft, helicopters, an airtanker, telecommunications equipment, crews, smokejumpers and miscellaneous overhead. Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, South Dakota, Wyoming, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas.
OUTLOOK:
An upper level trough will be exiting Montana and Wyoming into the Great Plains. A surface cold front will move through eastern Montana and Wyoming, bringing breezy to windy conditions east of the Rocky Mountains. Surface high pressure building into Washington and Oregon will bring breezy east winds to southwestern Oregon and northern California, west of the Cascade Mountains. Only isolated showers over northern Montana are expected with this System. Mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 70’s and lower 80’s throughout the northern tier of the western United States.
An upper level high pressure center will build over the southwestern states with dry conditions over the Great Basin, Arizona and California. Minimum relative humidity readings will be 10 to 20 percent over southern California, southern Nevada, southern Utah and western Arizona with a few single digit readings over southern Nevada. Inland high temperatures will be mostly in the 90’s to 111 in the hottest deserts.
Tropical moisture will bring rain to south Texas, with scattered thunderstorms in the remainder of the state and eastern New Mexico. High temperatures will be in the 90’s.
… .”
Following basic fire data describe the fire situation in the United States:
Number of FIRES in the last 24 hours HECTARES burning in the last 24 hours FIRES
YEAR-TO-DATE HECTARES
YEAR-TO-DATE 98 7,943 70,949 1,794,858
For detailed information regarding specified regions, please refer to the whole report.
