Forest Fires in the United States: 19 October 1999
Forest Fires in the United States
19 October 1999
The National Interagency Fire Center reported on 18 October 1999 that fire conditions in California remain extreme as warm temperatures, low humidities and strong winds persist. There are currently seven large fires burning throughout California, one of which destroyed 100 homes near Redding.
Several other western states experienced significant activity during the weekend as fires burned in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Texas. Also, very high to extreme fire conditions are reported from Oregon, California, Idaho and Utah.
Fire Weather Outlook
A red flag warning is posted this morning for parts of southern California, mainly in canyons and passes, for Santa Ana winds and low relative humidity.
Dry conditions are expected over most of of West today, with strong winds predicted for southern California.
Fig. 1. Large Wildland Fires in the United States, 18 October 1999
(National Interagency Fire Center)
For more information please refer to the website of National Interagency Fire Center.
Several active fire signals are recorded by OSEI with the NOAA-14 POES AVHRR HRPT satellite on 17 October 1999 in California.
Fig. 2. The image shows hot spots and smoke plumes from areas of fire burning in California.
(Source: NOAA http://www.osei.noaa.gov/)
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.
The latest IAMS image of active fires in Alaska is shown in a map of 5 October 1999.
According the INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SITUATION REPORT the current situation for 18 October 1999 can be quoted as follows:
“…
CURRENT SITUATION
Moderate initial attack activity was reported in California with minimal initial attack reported elsewhere. New large fire activity occurred in the Southern California and Southern Areas. Large fire containment objectives were met in the Eastern Great Basin Area. The National Interagency Coordination Center mobilized helicopters, infrared aircraft, engines, crews, and miscellaneous overhead. Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Oregon, California, Idaho, and Utah.
OUTLOOK:
A dry ridge aloft over the west continues, with a thermal surface pressure trough over California and Oregon. A strong surface high pressure which was over the Intermountain west is weakening and will generate less wind by early morning. Very dry conditions continue over non-coastal areas of California, Oregon, Idaho, southeast Washington, Utah and Nevada. An upper impulse that moved across Washington yesterday is now over 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 85 13,045 79,368 2,072,330
For detailed information regarding specified regions, please refer to the whole report.
