Fire Status

Click to enlarge panorama

Day 328: A number of people have asked me for a status report on the Alder Lake Fire, given that we've had cool temperatures and some substantial precipitation. You might assume that was what the firefighters were hoping would happen, but in fact, the opposite is true. You see, the fire is burning in inaccessible terrain where the forest duff is eighteen inches to five feet deep, creating a bed of smouldering debris which could reignite at any minute until it burns itself out of fuel. Since the fire cannot be combated on its own turf (bad pun, I know), the firefighters want it to come to them. They want it to progress to the fire lines they're creating with bulldozers and saws. Only then will it be "contained," i.e., walled off inside a "big box" of fuelless ground. The precipitation has prevented the fire from advancing, but that is quite a different matter than putting it out. Even a heavy fall of snow might fail to extinguish it completely. It's not unheard of for a fire to rekindle a year later. In fact, that happened during one fire on the Olympic Peninsula.

As you can see from this 11-panel panorama, not much has changed in the last several days. The fire still stands at 280 acres, and crews have it 17% contained. With drier weather and warmer temperatures coming toward the end of next week, fire behaviour is expected to increase. While this may please the firefighters who, it must be said, are probably anxious to see the end of this so they can go home to their families, it means that we're liable to get smoky again.

In related news, Public Information Officer David finished out his tour, but before he left, he came up with a solution to the map issue. I hope the new PIO continues in the same vein.