Forest Fires in the United States: 14 September 1999
Forest Fires in the United States
14 September 1999
The National Interagency Fire Center reported two new large fires from Nevada and Oregon on 13 September 1999. Two new large fires were reported from yesterday. Although wildland fire activity is moderate, extreme fire conditions exist in the Great Basin, Oregon, South Dakota, Indiana, and Georgia.
Fire Weather Outlook
A RED FLAG WARNING has been posted in:
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western Washington for the Willapa hills along the eastern slopes of the Olympic mountains, the western slopes of the Cascade mountains
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western Washington for gusty east winds and low relative humidity south of Mount Rainier
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for the Cascade range of northwest Oregon and the extreme northwest coastal region for strong east winds and low relative humidity.
Fig. 1. Large Wildland Fires in the United States, 13 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, 13 September 1999
(Source: BLM – Alaska Fire Service )
According the INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SITUATION REPORT the current situation for 13 September 1999 can be quoted as follows:
“…
CURRENT SITUATION
nitial attack activity was minimal. New large fire activity was reported in the Western Great Basin and Northwest Areas. Large fire activity continued in California, the Northwest, the Great Basin and Southern Areas. The National Interagency Coordination Center mobilized helicopters, infrared aircraft, a caterer, a shower unit, telecommunications equipment and miscellaneous overhead. Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, South Dakota, Indiana and Georgia.
OUTLOOK:
Surface thermal low pressure along the coast will set up a strong easterly gradient for winds and low relative humidity in the coastal mountains of Oregon and Washington. A weak upper low along the California coast will move inland and bring limited moisture for a slight chance of afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms to southern California, Nevada, southern Utah, Arizona, southern Colorado and New Mexico. Dry conditions continue across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
… .”
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 83 3,049 72,566 1,872,474
For detailed information regarding specified regions, please refer to the whole report.
