Skykomish Bolt Creek Forest Fire

Clouds are evenly lighted & low here, even in the valleys. Up toward Skykomish, it looks like they must be fogged(?) in. But, checking the forecast for Highway 2 around Skykomish, rain is still not predicted, so the fire continues. At this time, the Bolt Creek fire is 12,000+ acres(about 4.3 miles by 4.3 miles).

PS…..Tomorrow & later in early October, parts of our western Washington state are predicted to go into the 80’s.

 

Over 2 weeks since last post, the Skykomish Bolt Creek continues now to 14,000 acres, along with many other fires on the West Coast of the US. The Bolt Creek fire with light winds, may be moving gradually north into the Wild Sky wilderness area. Also continuing is the lack of rain, & now increasing dry deciduous biomass from falling leaves & soil dryness. One other fire, Loch Katrina, 20 miles east of Carnation, Washington has been burning since September, but much smaller than Bolt Creek. The mayor of Duvall, Washington, surrounded by woodlands, now considers his town & extended communities vulnerable to fire. Of course, the huge amounts of western Washington biomass threatens many score other towns. Pollution levels over much of the Salish Sea(Puget Sound) region have risen, way into unhealthy & very unhealthy levels. Not only are particularly sensitive children & adult populations at threat, general health problems for any citizen can be expected. The lack of rain AND wind keeps smoke particles in the local area, the local area now defined as all of Northwestern US. Of course, fires in eastern Washington & other states continues amok.

 

Today, I went for a drive. The fire air pollution was so bad, I returned home quickly. The entire eastern Salish Sea (Puget Sound) is facing the western front of the Cascade Mountains, which are buried in some unhealthy but mostly VERY unhealthy air. A few pollution points are quadruple the level of unhealthy air. I think, people, instead of going on their normal walks around the neighborhood, are staying at home. The fire smoke is oppressive, & I clear my throat quite a bit & cough once in a while. Supposedly, we will have substantial rain on Friday. Till then, this air is deadly.
The Bolt Creek fire has grown to nearly 15,000 acres. The Loch Katrina fire is now about 2000 acres.
Truly bad deadly air extends from BC, Canada to mid-Oregon onto California.

The other day, watching our Seattle Mariners playing their last game in their play-offs, the long centerfield camera viewing the pitcher, batter, catcher & umpire showed the fire smoke in the air. If the Mariners were playing today in Seattle, the polluted air would have been much worse.

 

Apparently, containment is the strategy. Let it burn otherwise. I understand and agree with mitigating the risk to the firefighters, but c'mon, this is cramping litesong's epic drives.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/why-haven-t-firefighters-put-out-the-bolt-creek-fire

 

The terrain is so steep & smokey, you MIGHT be able to put firefighters on a slope, but you ain’t gonna recover them. & if a wind did come up, you’ll have burned up firefighters. Again, the terrain is so steep,rugged,& smokey, you can’t get airplanes to accurately fight the fire without severe percentage of piling a fire-fighting plane into pinnacles & outcrops. In all the smoke, your turbo-prop engines wouldn’t last very long, either.

PS…..Was on highway 2, but still outside of the mountains, when a bit of rain started coming down. I was really happy. However, I drove another mile & the rain stopped. Oh, well. Supposed to be a good rain coming tomorrow.

 

The rain is HERE! Couldn’t see the mountains yesterday, due to the smoke. Can’t see the mountains now, due to rain & clouds. Alright-EE!! Rain should have already put the fires out!

 

This thread has come to an end. Let’s see if Wayne’s accidental deletions have effected some of these threads.

PS……Well…it appears this thread is still around. How about some of the other threads?

 

With the notoriety of the Bolt Creek forest fire 2 years ago in Western Washington, I figured here would be a good place to bring news of our continuing forest fires in Washington state. Of course, WA state has had much worse fires, but they were in Eastern Washington. Any future breaking Western Washington forest fires will be the effects of Global Climate heating. Most certainly Global warming has led to vastly increasing numbers of World forest fire damages.
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July 15, 2024, 8PM.....We have forest fires appearing in our Washington state, but so far "controlled". Many more forest fires are in Oregon & California has had 30,000+ acres burned. A "small" 120acre bush fire near Eugene, Oregon has already had evacuation orders given.

As of now, Washington state has had 3 weeks of rainless weather & predictions continue to show July is heating badly. It's amazing how quickly forest fires appear, after only a few weeks without rain.

 

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/07/16/california-wildfire-acreage/
Total 2024 California acres burned is up to 207,000 acreas now, about 20 times more than in 2023.
"We are not just in a fire season, but we are in a fire year," ......Joe Tyler, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire),
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On top of that, Lakes Mead & Powell have quite good levels of water, altho not near Full Pool, of course. Great decreases are expected now for nearly the rest of the year.

PS, 7-17-24, 10:15AM.....Little chance of rain east of the Salish Sea(Puget Sound) to the end of July, altho 7-28 is predicting 24%, with decreasing chances to the end of the month. We'll see.

 

Next few days will be in the 80'sdegF. After that should be some cooling for days, as low as low 70'sdegF. There is an increased chance of rain on 7-28, but only to 30%. I don't expect much rain.

I love to watch the dangerous fire fighter Air Tanker water drop operations on YouTube. In particular, the Bombardier(Canadair & now Viking) 215, 415, & 515 aircraft maneuvers have been spooky & dangerous(yes, 30 planes have crashed....deaths, too)! One of the large wide-body jet water tankers almost crashed, also. Very expensive to operate such aircraft, even when they don't crash. But Global Warming is proving that only Air Tanker operations have a chance to help curtail increasing forest fires in the future. Such operations must continue & increase in quantity. In Europe & California lots of forest & mountain fires occur right next to & even in cities. Fighting forest fires with Air Tankers next to cities is the future & already necessary step to combat increasing Global Warming.

 

Oh, oh. The "cooling" will now be only down to the mid-70'sdegF.

 

From 7-18-24:
....... in the 80'sdegF. After that should be some cooling for days, as low as low 70'sdegF......
Later in the day: Oh, oh. The "cooling" will now be only down to the mid-70'sdegF.
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7-19-24, 5:10AM.....The latest predictions state that only a few days will go as low as the mid-70's, but most days will be in the upper 70's.

There appears that most early temperature predictions are under-estimates. These most recent long & short term predictions are considerably different from one another. As days close in on the dates of predictions, later predictions are elevating. I have no idea if Global Warming is affecting the longer term errors or not. But the weather service might take notice of the error of their long range predictions, which they must be doing already.
Of course, I do NOT have long range comparisons myself. I've noticed long & short term prediction variations only recently, because I'm trying to get a handle on forest fire hazards for this year's Pacific Northwest forests. & THAT handle was only very recently.

 

https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/bi...cle_e5a1d6ea-486e-11ef-9f0e-871a2142e368.html

The Tri-Cities of Southeastern Washington state on the Columbia River has the Big Horn wildfire burning, threatening hundreds of buildings & now up to 15,000 acres.

Between Washington & Oregon, 621,000 acres have already burned & half a million people are under RED FLAG warnings. In the US since mid-July, over 3 million acres have burned, 3.75 times more than "normal" fire years, to date. Altho, much of North America has had above normal fires up to the beginning of July, California has had more than normal rainfall. Thus small portions of California have had under normal numbers of fires. However with August approaching, California's increasing fires have eliminated that "advantage".

There are three hundred forest fires in British Columbia, Canada & 1000 fires in all of Canada! Twenty five thousand people are being evacuated from 4000+ square mile Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada due to wildfire blowing ups. Safety directors ask help from people who may know how to contact relatives & friends caught in Jasper Nat'l Park back country, who may not know the extent of the fires.

A few Air Tanker & fire fighter crews have been sent to Canada to battle their 1000 fires. But the US has its own rapidly increasing fires to fight.

 

Forest fires in British Columbia, Canada have leaped to 433 & 176 in Alberta, many around the oil sands hub. The Trans Mountain Pipeline is trying to be protected. Alberta, Canadian Jasper Nat'l Park is emptying out, but also the residents of the town of Jasper itself have been evacuated. Much of the town has been destroyed. Forest fire first responders, not only have had to evacuate their first base in Jasper, but now have had to evacuate their second base in Hinton. The forest fire has expanded to over 35,000 acres.
In Washington state, the forest fires on the ridges above the wondrous Lake Chelan have blown up over 30,000 acres. The towns of Stehekin & Manson are close to evacuation orders. Stehekin can only be evacuated by boat via the lake or by hiking. Hiking of course could be deadly if the fires over-run hikers.
The Durkee Fire, Oregon has burned 400square miles(quarter million acres). Other Oregon fires have burned 400,000+ acres. Communities in California, Northern Rockies & the Great Basin are under evacuation orders.

PS, 7-25-24, 2:30AM.....As stated, wildfires are over(well over?) 3 million acres across the US. Just in Washington & Oregon, wildfires are approaching a total of 1 million acres. Already the two states have reached their yearly average of wildfires with with the fire season, not half finished. Lightning storms are setting off hundreds of burns while it is the hottest time of the year, with no rain in sight.

 

The Durkee Fire is sweeping the region between Oregon & Boise, Idaho, moving at an average of nearly 2 miles per hour. Spot fires are moving even faster pushed by high winds. Beings are burning & dying. Some ranchers if they can't evacuate their cattle, have been cutting fences to allow their cattle to move away from fires. But on large, steep terrains, the ranchers haven't been able to reach all their cattle to free them. The ranchers themselves have to evacuate, leaving as many as 300 cattle behind.

Spot rains have fallen in some areas. One set of TV reporters were reporting from inside their vehicles, not necessarily to escape the fires, but just to have a dry place in some of the rain storms. Still, it is debatable if the rains will be enough to defeat the raging fires. & as stated, lots of lightning in those storms to start fires.
Here on the eastern Salish Sea, Western Washington Everett area, we have had our 2nd spot of rain in a day, altho rain chances are at most 10%. Its enough to dampen the parking lot, not enough to really wet things down. Some clearing blue sky right now, with bits of sunshine.

 

The Alberta, Canadian Jasper Nat'l Park & town have gotten half to 2/3rds of an inch of rain, which will help fire-fighters to curtail wildfires that have emptied the Park & devastated the town. But, the fires still may NOT be totally controlled.
Meanwhile videos show that at least 30%, & possibly 50% of Jasper has burned.

It is stated that nearly 1000 wildfires are burning in Canada.

The present largest wildfire in California, 164,000 acres & deliberately set, is expanding at 6.25 square miles per hour(equivalent to a square 2.5 miles by 2.5miles)! This is similar to other fires that travel at over 2 miles per hour.

 

After a day's loss, a fire-fighting pilot has been found dead with his plane in Eastern Oregon. The fire he was fighting is near Burns in Malheurs Nat'l Forest & has grown to 219 square miles(approaching 1 million acres). Oregon's total fires have grown to the size of the state of Rhode Island! Tho the pilot's plane was small, the plane was carrying over 3 tons of fire-fighting retardant, which is nearly half of the weight of water carried by the much larger Bombardier 415, which carries 6.5 tons of water.
https://kpug1170.com/news/297792-si...ires-continue-to-burn-in-parts-of-washington/

 

7-26-24:

The California purposefully started Park fire is blowing up to 350,000 acres, now is the US's largest wildfire & accelerating its growth to 8 square miles per hour(5120 acres per hour). The Park Fire has burned over double the area of Chicago!

Meanwhile, the Durkee Fire in Oregon, that was the largest fire, has had some rain that reduced its growth, to under the California fire.
The National Interagency Fire Center states that the US has had 27,000 fires this year, totaling 3.712 million acres. Canada has had 3700 fires, totaling 5.12 million acres.

 

Less than one day later, Park Fire is up to 370,000 acres.