8:10AM....We have rain here in Western Washington, Oregon, & up in Canada. How much rain will drop in Eastern Washington, Oregon & say Calgary? Looks like the Canada rains will help against the wildfires most. Portland is getting rain, but looks like the rain won't get to much of Eastern Oregon, especially Southern Oregon, even less than Eastern Washington. Nothing in California at all. PS, 9:25AM....The radar showed fairly narrow clouds sending rain into WA state. But, its been raining for nearly 2 hours now. Really hope the rain gets on the wildfires! But as I said, California isn't getting rain & I don't think Southern & Eastern Oregon is getting any rain.... neither is Spokane, WA. On YouTube, Scott Manley, usually showing & teaching Astronomy views from telescopes, took his airplane up to see & show the Park Fire pyro-Cumulus clouds. Staying out of the Aircraft Fire Zones, so the fire-fighting aircraft aren't interfered with, the clouds are absolutely massive. Scott speeded up his camera playback by ten times(like 1400 MPH), & still the clouds appeared to move slowly by. He showed some Satellite views from the GOES-WEST SATELLITE. Again, in speed up, he showed the Fire as it developed. Also, he showed radar reconstructions, that put the radar information in motion. Very cool.
6:05PM.....The US has 4 & a quarter million acres burned so far in 2024, with long months to go in this fire season. The Park Fire, California is now the fifth largest California fire ever, & is in an area that has four of the top 10 wildfires ever in California. One citizen now has lost 2 homes to two different wildfires. I assume as wildfires increase in quantity & size because of Global Warming, that more citizens (& already have?) will lose multiple homes to multiple fires. Yeah, Global Warming is well on its way & can no longer surprise people.
8:35PM.......Here's an excellent video of a wildfire near Lyons, Colorado in Boulder county, shot hours ago. What's cool is soon after the fire started, already multiple airtanker aircraft (at least one jet) are dumping fire retardant to gain control of it before the fire blows up. The big problems are some homes are in the area & already have burned up. PS.....It appears that wind shifts towards Lyons & high temperatures cause this fire to threaten the town & possible evacuations are on-going & now started for the town, also. Acreage burned is well past 1500. PS, 9:15PM.....The Lyons fire has now grown to over 5000acres & some people have even evacuated from Loveland.
7-24-24: Level 3 evacuation orders were given 3 days ago for Stehekin residents. Initially, 96 residents did NOT evacuate. The fire has grown to 33,000+ acres. Also, the Big Horn Fire towards the Tri-Cities on the Washington-Oregon border is 50,000 acres. Oregon itself has passed 1 million acres burned. In one day, US burnings have increased one fifth million acres to a total 4,449,282 acres.
9:22AM....78degF on its way to about 87degF. Wenatchee may get to 107degF, in the mid-area between the large forest fires on Lake Chelan & down on the Columbia River Washington/Oregon border. Just in time tho the Columbia River Washington Big Horn fire has been brought under control. https://columbiabasinherald.com/new...washingtons-largest-fire-now-fully-contained/ Excellently amazing! Still bad fires round-about. The Shoo-Fly Fire, which is closest to my area, but still in Eastern Washington & burning for 25days, has been limited to 105acres, which is also great. Our 3 hours of rain we got some days ago, has kept Western Washington fires low & even non-existant. But it WAS only for that 1 day! PS, 2:25PM.....Clouding here & possible clouding in Wenatchee. We're getting close to our top predicted temperature. But, Wenatchee's top temperature may be 2+ degF cooler than predicted. PS, 6:40PM....Whether Wenatchee got near its predicted high temperature or not, at this time its still 104degF. Oh, that's only 21degF warmer than our temperature here in Western Washington. PS, 6:55PM....As for California in 2024 at this date, the state has had 29 TIMES more acres burned than last year.
8-2-24: 4:30PM....Wenatchee to 98degF now & is 10degF warmer than our present Western Washington area temperature. In mid-August, Wenatchee is predicted to get to 106degF. The last similar predicted Wenatchee high temperature ran into an unexpected cooling, which missed the Wenatchee prediction by 2 or 3 degF. We'll see if the Wenatchee predicted high temperature continues or runs into another "cooling system".
I wonder, if the strong increase of wildfire acreage has decreased somewhat by the firefighting efforts, specially due to the excellent use of the wildfire fighting aircraft? Several of the big fires have been decreasing in their ravenous appetite of burning & some even getting controlled. Saying that tho, several wildfires got out of control, that as far as I can see, didn't get major numbers of aircraft water & retardant treatments very early in their burnings.
The National Interagency Fire Center statistics show that as of Aug. 5, 2024, 29,132 fires have burned almost 4.75 million acres. The year-to-date (YTD) number of wildfires is below the annual average of 35,691, but the yearly acres burned is above the 10-year YTD average of 3.8 million acres. ///////// I was wondering if the great number of large wildfires this year, might scew the ratio of "burned acres/number of wildfires". & it appears that it has, as total wildfire acreage approaches 5 million.
Days ago there was a large landslide(nearly 52arcdeg latitude) at Farwell Canyon & Farwell Creek, as high as 30 meters on the Chilcotin River in British Columbia, Canada blocking the river completely. After days of rising river water, the river rose till it has broken through the blockage. Water has rushed downriver, carrying much debris. The Chilcotin River enters the larger Fraser River. People have been warned not to travel on the debris-filled rivers or be on the river banks, themselves. Further landslides may occur. Also, it appears that Salmon ready to travel up-rivers to spawn, will have major impediments to their journeys. The Salmon have been trying to recover their numbers since a last landslide from years ago. Now the Salmon have a double dose of trouble. Some people may ask why I'm putting this news in a thread spotlighting forest fires. It appears that a lot of the generated debris & landslides(yes, more than one landslide) have occurred after forest fires from years previous. The burned dead trees no longer had growing root systems that stabilize the river banks. First Nation tribes question if the present BC & Canadian governments had been fully cognizant & acting to mitigate all the future damages from the forest fires.
Lest we bemoan the wildfires of the U.S., Russia is having a treacherous 2024 wildfire season. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-battles-forest-fires-amid-another-hot-summer-2024-07-18/ From the article: The Earth Touches Everyone, an independent environmental group, said in a statement that official data showed that 8.8 million hectares (21.7 million acres) had been destroyed so far this season as of July 17. //////// Much of the unchecked blasts of russian wildfires is due to lack of fire fighting aircraft, due to the destruction of russian equipment in Ukraine. Looks like russian wildfires may match the devastations of the Australian fires of a few years ago, which amounted to 35(?) million burned acres.
Altho I've mentioned aerial water tankers that can travel over lakes & large bodies of water to scoop water & deliver that water as the best wildfire fighting resources we have, there are better applications in the future. The below article unveils the great promise of Artificial Intelligence, coupled with satellites & drones, BOTH with AI, as major steps forward to Wildfire extinguishing. https://alaskabeacon.com/2024/08/08...s-more-threatening-experts-are-turning-to-ai/
Oh, "sign of the times": A local article in one of the small distributed papers asks the question, "Are we wildfire ready?". Our County Executive here in Western Washington, states we can't ignore the increasing risk of wildfires in our county & asks citizens to fill out the survey on the internet. The article mentioned the local Bolt Creek Fire. In passing it mentioned warming weather, tho it did NOT mention Climate Change, which is a fatal mistake in the article.
Oregon has had 1.4 million acres of 2024 wildfires, setting the most acreage on fire since reliable records started in 1992. https://www.opb.org/article/2024/08/09/record-wildfires-oregon-acres-burned/#:~:text=PORTLAND, Ore.,9, 2024 2:57 p.m. Its like a square, 47 miles on each side, burned! That is almost half the acreage that used to be the total yearly burn(or less) for the U.S. back in the 1970's & 80's. Now the US has fire burns 5 to 10+ million acres per year. AND those big acres burned, is despite the wonderful deployments of excellent Water Drop & Scoop Aircraft. Global Warming is having its say, due to our neglect.
Well, our Western Washington was cloudier & cooler. BUT, what wasn't good, is some of the clouds made it to the fire-prone Eastern Washington, NOT dropping rain, but LIGHTNING & THUNDER.
Nationally, 2024 wildfires are now 5.2+ million acres burned, about a million acres ahead of the ten year, to date average.
I mentioned Artificial Intelligence as the future of reductions of wildfires. Well, this article already states the future is here: https://www.ktvb.com/video/news/loc...ires/277-91b244c0-65ac-428a-96a5-f6a5a499cc9f Already, a small fire has been extinguished in Idaho with the use of AI, that might NOT have been detected till hours later.
Sixty wildfire fighters from Australia & New Zealand are now here in the U.S. & been assigned to the Pacific Northwest. Thank you Australia & New Zealand!
Three small wildfires are burning in the Cascade Mtns. in one of the loveliest areas, where I used to do a lot of hiking. One is controlled & they are fighting to contain the other fires.
