Forest Fires in the United States: 27 September 1999
Forest Fires in the United States
27 September 1999
The National Interagency Fire Center reported on 24 September 1999 that wildland fire activity increased in several states and four new large fires were reported from Idaho, Montana and Washington. Weather conditions were expected to change during the weekend, bringing strong winds to the northwestern states as a dry cold front moves through the area. Strong, gusty winds are anticipated in several states causing concerns for wind-driven fires.
Fig. 1. Large Wildland Fires in the United States, 24 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, 26 September 1999
(Source: BLM – Alaska Fire Service )
According the INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SITUATION REPORT the current situation for 26 September 1999 can be quoted as follows:
“…
CURRENT SITUATION
Initial attack activity was moderate in the California and Southern Areas and minimal elsewhere. New large fire activity was reported in the Northern Rockies, Northwest, California and Eastern Great Basin Areas. Large fire activity continued in California, the Northwest, Northern Rockies and Southern Areas. The National Interagency Coordination Center mobilized an airtanker, an infrared aircraft, a lead plane, small cargo transport aircraft, helicopters, radio equipment, crews, and miscellaneous overhead. Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas.
OUTLOOK:
High winds will continue across a large portion of the northern two thirds of the West at 15-25 MPH, gusting to 35 MPH. The cooler temperatures behind the front will kick off scattered to widely scattered rain and snow showers across many of the mountains of the northern third of the West. Minimum relative humidities will be at 10-20 percent.
The Gulf states will have scattered to widely scattered showers and thunderstorms from Texas east through Florida as gulf moisture is pulled into the area. Minimum relative humidities will be at 40-50 percent.
… .”
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 188 5,461 74,960 1,931,381
For detailed information regarding specified regions, please refer to the whole report.
