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Fire Update
May. 21st, 2024 10:51 pmI think we're fairly safe, but we're still taking precautions. There's been some spread, but not major. It's currently listed at 96 acres, I think that's fairly accurate after a full day and a half now, and it's now listed at 12% contained.
As of this morning's report, they said they had a fire line around 80% of the fire and it maintained during the night due to low temperatures and higher humidity, they expected to complete the add'l 20% today at which point they would be charging lines (running water). I kinda got the feeling they were setting up unmanned monitors to just spray water in high arcs to saturate the area, but what do I know. They had two bulldozers, and the air fleet consisted of a helicopter, two small air tankers and THREE(!) large ones! So we had quite the resources going after it, possibly because of how close it is to a village of over 700.
We have a fire evacuation system called ReadySetGo, where if a fire is announced you're supposed to get ready (Ready stage), if they tell you that you might have to get ready to evacuate, you get your go kit loaded or check it if it's already loaded (Set stage), and if they tell you to Go, well, you go! They have two evacuation locations: the Cloudcroft high school gym, the school is out for the summer so that's convenient, and the County Fair Grounds at the bottom of the hill.
They had gone to Go for certain areas around the fire and Set for others, but they've since downgraded to Ready and people can return. They also re-opened the highway as of 8pm tonight. Which, had I been thinking, I could have maybe gone out and got some pix! Maybe tomorrow night.
I moved some irreplaceables off to an allegedly climate-controlled storage locker: our lockbox of papers that has our wedding license and my passport, my cameras, my dad's wood bowls. I'm going to move some more stuff tomorrow. I packed up two weeks of my antibody meds and a small reserve of respiratory meds and moved them off to my office at the library. I have a backup running of my iMac running right now, that'll be off-site when I go to work tomorrow. But all in all, unless the wind starts coming from the east and with great vigor, I think we're reasonably safe. I'll be happier to see a great increase in that containment percentage in the morning.
And I also picked up two cases of water and six 6-packs of Gaterade, each pack a different flavor, and dropped them off at the fire station up here. I should have grabbed some protein bars, too. Oh, well. I'll probably do another run Thursday or Friday, they'll still be fighting it. This is in relative terms a fairly small fire, it'll take some weeks to extinguish fully.
It started as a crown fire, in the top of the trees. I think all that aerial bombardment knocked it out of the tops into a more conventional ground fire, which moves a lot more slowly - as a rule! So that was a decided benefit. We'll just have to keep an eye on it.
Speaking of which, I have an app recommendation. I assume it's available for Android, doesn't make sense for it to be iPhone-only but you never know. It's called Watch Duty, it will tie into your phone's GPS and does a good job of pulling reports from Forest Service sources and showing you what's happening. Of course the problem is that a lot of fires only report once or twice a day, which can be a bit nerve-wracking. But that's the way it is.
If you want to see some really cool videos, search for 'aircraft hanger foam fire suppression test'!
As of this morning's report, they said they had a fire line around 80% of the fire and it maintained during the night due to low temperatures and higher humidity, they expected to complete the add'l 20% today at which point they would be charging lines (running water). I kinda got the feeling they were setting up unmanned monitors to just spray water in high arcs to saturate the area, but what do I know. They had two bulldozers, and the air fleet consisted of a helicopter, two small air tankers and THREE(!) large ones! So we had quite the resources going after it, possibly because of how close it is to a village of over 700.
We have a fire evacuation system called ReadySetGo, where if a fire is announced you're supposed to get ready (Ready stage), if they tell you that you might have to get ready to evacuate, you get your go kit loaded or check it if it's already loaded (Set stage), and if they tell you to Go, well, you go! They have two evacuation locations: the Cloudcroft high school gym, the school is out for the summer so that's convenient, and the County Fair Grounds at the bottom of the hill.
They had gone to Go for certain areas around the fire and Set for others, but they've since downgraded to Ready and people can return. They also re-opened the highway as of 8pm tonight. Which, had I been thinking, I could have maybe gone out and got some pix! Maybe tomorrow night.
I moved some irreplaceables off to an allegedly climate-controlled storage locker: our lockbox of papers that has our wedding license and my passport, my cameras, my dad's wood bowls. I'm going to move some more stuff tomorrow. I packed up two weeks of my antibody meds and a small reserve of respiratory meds and moved them off to my office at the library. I have a backup running of my iMac running right now, that'll be off-site when I go to work tomorrow. But all in all, unless the wind starts coming from the east and with great vigor, I think we're reasonably safe. I'll be happier to see a great increase in that containment percentage in the morning.
And I also picked up two cases of water and six 6-packs of Gaterade, each pack a different flavor, and dropped them off at the fire station up here. I should have grabbed some protein bars, too. Oh, well. I'll probably do another run Thursday or Friday, they'll still be fighting it. This is in relative terms a fairly small fire, it'll take some weeks to extinguish fully.
It started as a crown fire, in the top of the trees. I think all that aerial bombardment knocked it out of the tops into a more conventional ground fire, which moves a lot more slowly - as a rule! So that was a decided benefit. We'll just have to keep an eye on it.
Speaking of which, I have an app recommendation. I assume it's available for Android, doesn't make sense for it to be iPhone-only but you never know. It's called Watch Duty, it will tie into your phone's GPS and does a good job of pulling reports from Forest Service sources and showing you what's happening. Of course the problem is that a lot of fires only report once or twice a day, which can be a bit nerve-wracking. But that's the way it is.
If you want to see some really cool videos, search for 'aircraft hanger foam fire suppression test'!
