Well folks...it's been another one of those summers in the Northwest...Fires all over, my friends in Kamloops, and Kelowna in the same situation as I was in just last week with forest fire evacuations. We pray for the best....and yet let mother nature tell us who's boss. And, there is still a month or more of the fire season still left...since it got a month head start.

Anyway..I posted my first evacuation about 4 weeks ago...well after a week of calm...and a productive fishing vacation in Alaska, August 13 in Glacier Park, Montana, proved to be another "one of those days" Afternoon winds out of the south were an unfortunate 20-30 knots, and spot fires formed across the road serving as a fire line. Eventually far too many spots formed and the last one they reached was 200 acres...and then it was off to the races. The below photos were taken from 7pm to 12am along Lake McDonald inside Glacier...approximately 1.5 to 7 miles from my house. This nights run burned 12,000 acres on Howe Ridge on the Northwest side of the lake. We were then evacuated off the lake along with everyone else (including fire personel) and allowed back the next day.


I took about 130 pictures...this is just a sample. Following that, is an excerpt of the OBS flight taken the next day to survey the extent of the burn which now accounts for 44,000 acres and continues to be a threat as snowfall will be final containment. Overall, major fires within/around the park total 120,000 acres plus and growing. My fellow TA's in BC, Washington, Oregon, Ariz, Cali, Idaho and Overseas know what this can be like.

Also, if you look at the issue of TIME magazine with Ahhhhnold on the cover (2 weeks old)...there is a great full page photo of a CL-215 (Water Tanker Plane) on Lake McDonald. Note the boat in the background...I have lots of time in that thing...

God Bless all involved fighting or in the path of these fires.

(Images are 1/4 original size...thanks for your patience in loading)


















Current NW Montana Fire Map:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/fire/ciimt5..._082403_144.pdf

Resources/National Local Fire Info/Webcams:
www.nifc.gov
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/fire/ciimt5/ac/
http://www.nps.gov/glac/whatsnew.htm

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"I'd like to buy a techno song."

yeah, i hear you, i live in kamloops! it's been hard to breathe for like 3 weeks, crazy.

30,000 people are evacuated from kelowna, only a 2 hour drive from here.

here was the kamloops about a week or two ago:


click here for more pics, this is a friend of mines site.

http://www.wickedsix.com/fires/index.html

it's tragic, but some of the picture are so beautiful, it brings tears to my eyes thinking what is happening to my poor earth!

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wow John....I hadn't seen the Kamloops pics ... only heard about those. Yeah it is awe inspiring...the heat...the sound...and it sucks at the same time.

Here are the Satellite Photos of the Fires around...along with pages and pages of other cool satellite photos
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Sensors/Terra/MODIS.html

Impressive none the less.

we start flying to Kamloops December 15.

___________________

"I'd like to buy a techno song."

Last edited by PhloTron on Aug-25-2003 at 05:44

That last pic from the first post, just made me realize: poor trees!

AHHHHHHHHHH, itll take forever to grow back like that.

Well console yourselves with the fact that this is the natural order for the lodgepole pine in the rockies. Their cones are activated by heat and are spread by the winds the fire creates. One reason that the fires are so bad is that they've been surpressed for too long. I know Jasper and Banff have started doing controlled burns in order to fix this problem (one of the fires in Jasper I believe was actually a controlled burn that got out of control .. doh!). Yea, right now it looks ugly as hell, but 2 years from now that will probably be covered in long grass and shrubs, then the trees will slowly once again take over.

Of course for those whose backyards these new wastelands are in I'm sure this is little consolation.

yea I know about the whole natural process thing (I'm one of those kids who watched Discovery Channel from the first day it existed, back when it had it's demo week or whatever, looping the programming constantly).

but still, you won't be seeing trees that high for a while, in a huge total surface area.

In Glacier, over the last 10 years now...basically the entire Northwest side (250,000 acres) has burned. The oldest of these burns (Red Bench, 1988) has fantastic growth, green green green with standing tall dead trees around...it's facinating...the cycle.

Our HUGE burns were in 1967, and biggest burn (400,000 acres) in 1923. So, these fires were due...but in many cases magnified by the fact that small(er) fires in the past were surpressed. Our best fire line to the north on this fire was the 2001 Moose fire scar. And logepole trees litterally explode when they burn hot...it's wild...kind of like their cones which open up to intense heat and start the process over again...while the big ponderosas and larch....well they make for a erie mosaic of 400 foot flames. Give it 2 years and the under growth will be nice and green....15 years nice 15 foot trees..and when you are retired...there will be noticable snags...but it will be look like it did today...where the dead tree from 1967, is the tree of 2003.

As far as old growth...the way these forests get that way...and stay protected naturally is to be naturally thinned. Fewer trees per acre, and when trees have more room they get bigger and more resistant. When fires come through less dense growth, ground fire is usually what it is...cleaning the forest floor and the trees live...unless crowning/torching occurs...which is evident in hot fires.

Today with supression tactics...and structure support, these forests don't develop very well this way...they become thick...thicker and thickest, and when they start on fire...they are hot dry fires. Proper management of forests around communities/towns could prevent these mass, uncontrollable fires around populated areas. THere is a fine line between how and where it should be done...both environmentally and economically. Besides the fact that the definition of a "healthy forest" varies on a given day. (This article is in the same TIME magazine I mentioned in the opening post)

It's a natural process...it just sucks to be in the way.

___________________

"I'd like to buy a techno song."