General Wildfire Discussion
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
Heard there was a two mile line to pick up the Air filter units at the Barn and all units gone by 3:00 today.
Also heard units were hand delivered to businesses in Winthrop.
If the APs have an on off switch for an ion unit might want to leave it off. These type ion filter additions omit ozone which is a toxic molecule.
"Ozone is a toxic gas with vastly different chemical and toxicological properties from oxygen. Several federal agencies have established health standards or recommendations to limit human exposure to ozone.May 26, 2021"
https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality- ... r-cleaners
Also heard units were hand delivered to businesses in Winthrop.
If the APs have an on off switch for an ion unit might want to leave it off. These type ion filter additions omit ozone which is a toxic molecule.
"Ozone is a toxic gas with vastly different chemical and toxicological properties from oxygen. Several federal agencies have established health standards or recommendations to limit human exposure to ozone.May 26, 2021"
https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality- ... r-cleaners
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Free air purifiers for those in need only please
When I first heard about this program I was wondering why it was a general Valley wide giveaway and not being handled by charity organizations and APs only given to those in need.
I pictured a long line of new SUVs and trucks lined up at the barn. I thought that if you owned a business in Winthrop or Mazama do you really need one?
I thought about getting one and driving it to the Walmart to hand it to someone in need.
Well it seems that MVCC is doing the right thing and sent out this notice.
Quote:
"Out of the 2,000 purifiers donated, roughly half have already been set aside to be distributed to those most in need through organizations such as Methow at Home, Room One, The Cove, the Lookout Coalition, Family Health Center, Fire District 6, AeroMethow, the Towns of Twisp and Pateros"
"Those with the least resources often are those who suffer most from environmental health impacts such as wildfire smoke. We ask you to consider this if you already have a HEPA air purifier or some other way to effectively create clean air in your home, or you are able to buy a HEPA air purifier on your own."
I pictured a long line of new SUVs and trucks lined up at the barn. I thought that if you owned a business in Winthrop or Mazama do you really need one?
I thought about getting one and driving it to the Walmart to hand it to someone in need.
Well it seems that MVCC is doing the right thing and sent out this notice.
Quote:
"Out of the 2,000 purifiers donated, roughly half have already been set aside to be distributed to those most in need through organizations such as Methow at Home, Room One, The Cove, the Lookout Coalition, Family Health Center, Fire District 6, AeroMethow, the Towns of Twisp and Pateros"
"Those with the least resources often are those who suffer most from environmental health impacts such as wildfire smoke. We ask you to consider this if you already have a HEPA air purifier or some other way to effectively create clean air in your home, or you are able to buy a HEPA air purifier on your own."
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
Thanks. Doesn't look good. What I/we have to remember is that just because they have a good handle on the fires up here, doesn't mean it's over.
I hope not, but there could be new fire starts here as it is still so dry. However that may change with cooler temps and some moisture.
We are ever vigilant here in the Methow.
I hope not, but there could be new fire starts here as it is still so dry. However that may change with cooler temps and some moisture.
We are ever vigilant here in the Methow.
Pearl Cherrington
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
Could be smoke from new fire south shore lake Chelan near 25 mile creekWhat's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
Cedar Creek and Delancy Fires 2021
Thank You to the Communities of Methow Valley from Great Basin National Incident Management Team 1
https://www.facebook.com/MazamaFires202 ... 5216395349
Thank You to the Communities of Methow Valley from Great Basin National Incident Management Team 1
https://www.facebook.com/MazamaFires202 ... 5216395349
pasayten
Ray Peterson
Ray Peterson
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
NO PILOT CAR!!!
SR 20 Both Directions - On SR 20 North Cascade Highway between milepost 144 and 171 there is a reduced speed zone of 35 m.p.h. due to ongoing fire response activity in the area and near the roadway. Travelers should expect longer than normal travel times. Do not attempt to pass other vehciles or pull over on the side of the road within the reduced speed zone.
Last Updated: 8/10/2021 7:57 AM
From milepost 144 to milepost 171
SR 20 Both Directions - On SR 20 North Cascade Highway between milepost 144 and 171 there is a reduced speed zone of 35 m.p.h. due to ongoing fire response activity in the area and near the roadway. Travelers should expect longer than normal travel times. Do not attempt to pass other vehciles or pull over on the side of the road within the reduced speed zone.
Last Updated: 8/10/2021 7:57 AM
From milepost 144 to milepost 171
pasayten
Ray Peterson
Ray Peterson
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
That WP article did a very good job explaining the risks we face here staying in the Valley in our "new normal".
I believe in communicating those public health and safety concerns to those we employ to make the decisions that affect public health and safety.
Whenever our activities create risk (which is just about everything we do) those risks have to weighed against the rewards gained by taking those risks. In many cases those risks can be reduced ( mitigated) with proper planning.
One risk vs reward calculation is of course tourist dollars now that our air quality has improved enough for tourist even want to come here.
To that end, early on in the closure, I had been writing the WSDOT explaining the need to open the hwy ASAP based upon the need for Valley residents (those that can't afford to leave) to escape the unhealthy air, extreme heat and stress while still being close enough to keep an eye on our homes.
Opening the hwy does that and of course the pilot car reduces the risk to anyone working near the highway.
In my letters to the WSDOT, and because they say they partner with the ICT to make public safety decisions, I did ask them to advocate for hepa filtered air conditioned temporary shelters for firefighters.
Sure it might cost some money, but it's money well spent to reduce their risk of future health complications as they work now to save lives, property and natural resources.
I believe in communicating those public health and safety concerns to those we employ to make the decisions that affect public health and safety.
Whenever our activities create risk (which is just about everything we do) those risks have to weighed against the rewards gained by taking those risks. In many cases those risks can be reduced ( mitigated) with proper planning.
One risk vs reward calculation is of course tourist dollars now that our air quality has improved enough for tourist even want to come here.
To that end, early on in the closure, I had been writing the WSDOT explaining the need to open the hwy ASAP based upon the need for Valley residents (those that can't afford to leave) to escape the unhealthy air, extreme heat and stress while still being close enough to keep an eye on our homes.
Opening the hwy does that and of course the pilot car reduces the risk to anyone working near the highway.
In my letters to the WSDOT, and because they say they partner with the ICT to make public safety decisions, I did ask them to advocate for hepa filtered air conditioned temporary shelters for firefighters.
Sure it might cost some money, but it's money well spent to reduce their risk of future health complications as they work now to save lives, property and natural resources.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
SR 20 Both Directions - On SR 20 North Cascade Highway between milepost 165 and 178 (approximately 15 miles west of Winthrop) there is a reduced speed zone of 35 m.p.h. and pilot car to move traffic past ongoing fire response activity. Crews continue to be present on the roadway. Travelers should expect significant delays. Do not attempt to pass pilot car or pull over on the side of the road. Cross-state travel is available and recommended on US 2 and I-90.
Last Updated: 8/9/2021 9:01 AM
Last Updated: 8/9/2021 9:01 AM
pasayten
Ray Peterson
Ray Peterson
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
Spotty snow in several areas of the Sawthooths. The area that was lite up by sun in that picture was perhaps along Snowshoe Ridge. So Eagle Creek drainage.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
I would think if they are doing a pilot car, they would do it in batches. Not with a big long string of cars. Have them wait, in a safe area, then take a certain number. A big long line would not work as well. Having no highway road pilot experience at all, I do have common sense. I was a flagger at one time here in the Valley, so I guess I have a bit of experience.
Chris, what mountains were those with the snow on top?
Pearl
Chris, what mountains were those with the snow on top?
Pearl
Pearl Cherrington
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
To answer you first question, of course not. The ICT and WSDOT would not likely open the hwy under the (raging fire) conditions you describe.mister_coffee wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 10:05 amSo you are telling me you would be okay sitting for a long period of time in a long line of vehicles in an active wildfire zone with no good way to escape to safety?
Consider what might happen if they have to turn vehicles around in an emergency.
Consider that the likely "pilot car zone" would probably be from around the Mazama Junction to near Lone Fir Campground (around 11 miles). So you'd realistically be talking about delays of more than one hour. Those long backups might well be halfway to Winthrop, so people living here would be caught in them even if they didn't even want to go over the pass.
That is why I would have liked them to communicate the "goals" that need to be achieved before opening the hwy.
What ever the goals there were, it sounds like they have just about been met.
According to a FB post by the ICT command the hwy will be opening, using pilot cars on Monday if all goes according to plan..
Fire crews and fellers have been doing lots of clearing brush and logging big trees for the fire break that ties into one of the avy paths off of Vasiliki Ridge. (As reported by ICT).
I know that terrain well.
ICT earlier stated that they didn't need us driving by at 60 miles an hour. That of course is true, when any type of road work is underway. A pilot car certainly mitigates that risk
I have no doubt it will be safe enough where the rewards are worth what ever small risk there might be.
I'm guessing that it will be safer than normal driving activity would be , especially in heavy traffic or driving on holidays.
Edit spelling.
Last edited by Fun CH on Mon Aug 09, 2021 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
Washington Post Front Page Article...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... ashington/
Climate and Environment
In a summer of smoke, a small town wonders: ‘How are we going to do better than survive?’
Wildfires are burning across the American West, with smoke stretching across much of the nation. In Winthrop, Wash., residents are used to the haze.
Smoke lingers in the Methow Valley near Winthrop, Wash., on Aug. 5 as the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires burn. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
By
Joshua Partlow
Yesterday at 12:25 p.m. EDT
143
WINTHROP, Wash. — On the worst days, and there have been many, one can see nothing but white — a hot, suffocating fog bank that smells of burning wood and blots out the sun. Hours tick by in a disorienting haze to the whir of air purifiers and box fans. Doors stay sealed, stores are closed and the normal summer bustle in this bucolic mountain town is snuffed out.
For much of the past month, Winthrop and its neighbors up and down the Methow Valley in Washington state have lived under an oppressive blanket of wildfire smoke. On certain days air quality has been the worst in the country — and possibly in the world — according to the National Weather Service, which described it as “almost off-the-charts hazardous.”
The mayor runs three air purifiers around-the-clock in her house and leaves a box of free N95 masks on a bench outside town hall. The town’s marketing director is considering enrolling her children in school in Oregon. A family doctor treats patients struggling to breathe and others knotted with anxiety, uncertain whether to stay or go.
“It’s all people are thinking or talking about,” said Jesse Charles, one of the few doctors in the Methow Valley. “This cloud that’s over everyone.”
It is another summer of smoke in America, as dozens of wildfires rage throughout the West and Canada. A historic drought and record heat waves worsened by climate change have crisped and yellowed the landscape, priming it for massive blazes. The wildfires burning in the West and in British Columbia have produced enough smoke to muddy the skies across much of the United States this summer.
Firefighters order food from East 20 Pizza in Winthrop on Aug. 4. Local businesses have offered free or discounted meals to firefighters working the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Firefighters eat dinner at East 20 Pizza in Winthrop. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
As of Friday, more than 100 large fires were burning across 14 states. Smoke from Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, one of the nation’s largest at more than 413,000 acres burned, has already traveled to New York City and Washington, D.C. In recent days, the smoke over Minnesota and the Dakotas has pushed air quality into hazardous territory.
The hazy skies and campfire smell of smoke pollution may still be an alarming rarity for parts of the nation; but this corner of the Pacific Northwest is learning what it means to live with an extreme dose year after year.
In Winthrop, two massive wildfires — the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 — have been burning for much of the past month on either side of town. They have consumed more than 113,000 acres of forest and produced billowing towers of smoke visible from Seattle on the far side of the Cascade Mountains. That smoke also settled in the valley and barely budged, amid scorching temperatures and not enough windy days to clear the air.
“It’s kind of the worst-case scenario with smoke,” Winthrop Mayor Sally Ranzau said. “It sandwiches us in there.”
Even though it’s only midsummer, Washington state has already had more than 1,200 wildfires. It’s a record for this time of year and nearly twice the average number over the past decade, said Hilary Franz, who oversees Washington state’s Department of Natural Resources.
In the typically drizzly Pacific Northwest people live for the blue skies of summer and wildfires are increasingly threatening those precious times. Over several days this week, an air quality advisory was in effect for the entire eastern half of the state.
“Unfortunately, year after year now, our summers are being completely lost to smoke,” Franz said. “We move from one gray to the next.”
(The Washington Post)
There have been no deaths and five buildings have been lost in the two Winthrop fires, but that toll doesn’t capture the social and economic harm the community is enduring. The mountains and forests in the area are a major tourist draw — attracting as many as 1 million visitors a year, town officials say — and that economy has ground to a halt. The scenic North Cascades Highway that brings many visitors has been shut down while firefighters battle flaming patches of snags. Many of the trails for hiking, biking and cross-country skiing that made this area a national destination for outdoor recreation run through lands that are burning.
One of the Pacific Northwest’s most famous resorts, the Sun Mountain Lodge, was evacuated last month as the Cedar Creek blaze bore down on the building. To save the resort, firefighters dug bulldozer trenches throughout the manicured grounds. The 3,000-acre resort, one of Okanogan County’s largest employers and a major source of tax revenue, is now shut down through at least August and faces a major restoration effort, said Eric Christenson, the lodge’s director of sales and marketing.
“The thick smoke coated the surfaces of the lodge both on the inside and outside,” he said. “The swimming pools are filthy. The hiking and horse trails — I imagine they’re devastated.”
Abby Pattison, a co-owner of the Observatory Inn in Winthrop, has seen reservations plummet since the smoke rolled in. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
On Thursday morning, as the air quality sensor at the Montessori school was reading about 260 — a level of fine particle pollution that the Environmental Protection Agency describes as “very unhealthy” — Abby Pattison stood on the deck of the nearby Observatory Inn, wearing an N95 mask and watering her plants. It was about half as smoky as it has regularly been over the past month; clear enough even to see across the street.
“This is actually not too bad,” she said.
Pattison, 43, and her two business partners recently bought the hotel along Winthrop’s main street, with its rough-hewed boardwalk and Old-West-style facades. The Seattle native had moved to this former gold mining town 11 years ago with her ex-husband and soon fell in love with the community and the opportunity to run on endless mountain trails. Both the town and its flow of tourists were growing, and she wanted to invest in helping shape its future. They named their hotel the Observatory Inn because of its high perch and — on a clear day — striking view of the mountains beyond. The sale closed on June 21.
Within a few days, the smoke rolled in.
Since then, the hotel’s been mostly empty. She’s had to warn away potential customers who call and aren’t aware of the air quality. The only guests have been some evacuees from an aborted Outward Bound trip and the occasional firefighter, both being charged at cost, she said. Pattison and her partners have been meeting to discuss expensive new air filtration systems and strategies for the fall since the fires are projected to burn until it snows. This weekend the hotel will be completely vacant, she said.
“We had our rainy day budget and we had to tap into it right away.”
Before the smoke blew into town, the hotel, as with much of Winthrop, had been having its best year on record as the pandemic eased and visitors flocked to outdoor destinations. Over Memorial Day weekend, Abilene Hagee could look out of Trail’s End Bookstore and see throngs of people window-shopping along the main street.
“The boardwalk was more packed than I’d ever seen it. It was just wall-to-wall people,” she said.
Not long after the fires broke out, her business plummeted by “90 percent, and it’s been kind of hanging out there,” said Hagee, who is also board president of the local chamber of commerce.
“The air quality’s awful,” she said. “We’re a tourist town, economically driven by that. And how do you invite somebody to come and play in your area when it’s so bad?”
A bulletin board outside a business in Winthrop offers updates on the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Like other businesses in Winthrop, the retailer Pinetooth was forced to close due to the fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Some restaurants, hotels, outfitters and guiding companies in the valley have closed, at least temporarily. Layoffs have set back housekeepers and food service staff members who were just recovering from pandemic disruptions. Many residents who could afford to leave decamped to the other side of the mountains in search of cleaner air.
“The economic impact is the hardest thing,” Ranzau said. “I think the smoke event was worse than covid was. … People were still here during covid. People didn’t go away. There were still visitors. We still had tourists. The highway wasn’t closed.”
As his co-workers were laid off, took vacation or found other work over the mountains, Dave Dewbrey, 49, stayed behind, part of the skeleton staff still working at Methow Cycle and Sport. He works on repairs and other projects put off during last year’s rush. But it has not been easy. He is allergic to smoke, he said, which feels to him like an exaggerated form of hay fever. Dewbrey swallows allergy pills every day and is never far from a handkerchief. Particularly worrisome is that his 2-year-old son has developed a cough.
“[We] were walking up the road out at our place. He would run, and then he would stop … and he would do deep breaths. And I would think, ‘Is this smoke affecting him?’ ”
Pattison, the hotel owner, decided to move her two daughters, ages 6 and 9, out of the valley when she could see in the distance the flames of the Cub Creek 2 Fire, which erupted July 16. The worst part, she said, was that her daughters were waking up in the middle of the night worrying about fires, unable to fall asleep. They’ve spent part of the time with their grandparents in the San Juan Islands, in western Washington, ever since.
“It just looked huge and very scary,” she said. “We didn’t really know what was going to happen at that point, with just how dry everything was, and it didn’t seem like fire lines were really helping because it was so dry.”
On Tuesday evening, a rainstorm helped clear some of the smoke and Pattison went to a movie at the Barnyard Cinema. The space had well-filtered air and she could see friends and try to relax. She was in the middle of “Roadrunner,” the documentary about chef Anthony Bourdain, when a neighbor texted her.
“There’s a smoke check on Davis Lake and we are gone,” the neighbor wrote.
Lightning had just sparked a new fire within a couple miles from Pattison’s home — the closest one yet — and the neighbor needed someone to “get the cats out and turn the sprinklers on.”
Pattison stood up and rushed out of the theater. That night she considered packing up her home and moving out.
A sign indicates the level of fire danger in Okanogan County. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Situated in dry forests on the eastern slopes of the Cascades, the Methow Valley is familiar with forest fires. But the pace and intensity of those blazes — and the subsequent threats from smoke and bad air quality — have been increasing as the planet warms, driven by humans burning fossil fuels.
The average temperature in Okanogan County, which includes Winthrop, has risen 1.1 degree Celsius since 1895, slightly above the national average, according to an analysis of temperature data in the United States by The Washington Post.
The big fires and smoke years of the past decade are a part of daily conversation here; just as the charred tree trunks still visible on the mountainsides speak to the proximity of the risk. The Carlton Complex Fire of 2014 that burned more than 300 homes is still the state’s largest wildfire. The Okanogan Complex Fire the next year left three firefighters dead. In 2018, flames threatened the town of Twisp, just south of Winthrop, while smoke blanketed the valley for days.
Even in winter, the Methow Valley struggles with clean air because residents have traditionally heated their homes by burning wood. But the onslaught of wildfires has pushed air quality to distressing levels, regularly above 400 on the state’s air quality index scale.
Over the past decade, Okanogan County has spent more days with compromised air quality than any other county in the state, according to data from the state Department of Ecology’s air quality program. This year has been the worst of all by some measures, as residents have spent nearly half their days breathing air that’s other than “good” — including levels defined as “unhealthy,” “very unhealthy” and “hazardous.” There have already been more “hazardous” days recorded by the county’s three official air quality monitors than in any year since the state started collecting data in 2006.
“It got bad fast and then it stayed bad for a month now,” said Andrew Wineke, a spokesman for the state’s air quality program. “Winthrop had some of the worst air quality in the world several times in the past few weeks.”
The science is “really clear” that the state’s summers are hotter and drier and that climate change will continue to worsen the threat of wildfires, said Amy Snover, director of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. She owns a house in the area and has been visiting since she was a child; after the Cedar Creek blaze erupted last month, her parents were forced to evacuate.
Projections based on climate change models predict a quintupling of the amount of wildfire acreage that will burn in the Columbia River Basin by the end of the century, compared to the average annual area burned from 1916 through 2006, according to Snover.
“We expect exceptionally hot and dry weather to increasingly not be the exception,” she said.
Firefighter vehicles drive through downtown Winthrop on their way to fight the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
A sign by Methow Valley United Methodist Church in Twisp, Wash., thanks firefighters for containing the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
For those who don’t leave by choice or necessity, the solution to coexisting with smoke comes down to finding spaces to breathe.
Liz Walker runs four air purifiers in her home — three plug-in HEPA filters and a box fan strapped to an air filter. Her house is a relatively new construction and meticulously sealed. Even so, on smoky days the air inside regularly exceeds 50 on the EPA’s air quality index scale — considered “moderate,” one step below “good.” Others who have no purifiers or air conditioners and must open their windows on hot nights are forced to breathe extremely polluted air.
Walker, whose background is in toxicology and who has a doctorate from the University of Washington, has been fighting to improve the valley’s air for years. Her organization, Clean Air Methow, is renowned in the area for raising awareness about the problem and getting air filters into the community, particularly among those who can’t afford to fortify their homes against smoke. She calls what is happening this summer a “smoke disaster,” and she believes the federal government should treat such events as they do other natural calamities, with funds for relief and recovery.
The consequences of these disasters are both visible and harder to track. Residents with respiratory troubles face acute health problems and difficulty breathing while others report sore throats, coughing, tightness in the chest, headaches and raspy voices. Many suffer from anxiety and depression. Staff members at a local social services organization, Room One, said that domestic abuse cases and residents coming to them with “suicidal ideation” spiked last month during the most intense smoke.
“This is normal summer now. The last 10 years, seven of those had smoke episodes that extended beyond a week,” Walker said. “How are we going to do better than survive? How do we retain a love of place? A love of summer?”
The increasing number and size of wildfires could make Winthrop something of a cautionary tale as more smoke spreads across the country.
“The 2021 fire year is different from any before,” Randy Moore, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, wrote his staff in an Aug. 2 letter. The number of large fires burning, and the 22,000 personnel responding, were both nearly three times more than the 10-year average for the month of July. “Severe drought is affecting over 70 percent of the West, and the potential for significant fire activity is predicted to be above normal into October.”
“In short, we are in a national crisis,” he added.
Jesse Charles, a doctor in the Methow Valley, has been treating people sick from the weeks of heavy wildfire smoke. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
At the Methow Valley Clinic, Jesse Charles, the family doctor, has treated a stream of patients whose asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have been inflamed and aggravated by the wildfire smoke. Some have been coughing up phlegm and breathing in a way he described as a “death rattle.”
“They’re totally drowning in their own lungs,” he said.
He has been talking about air quality with every single patient since the smoke hit, he said, regardless of the ailment. Children are of particular concern.
“These wildfire events damage the development of children’s lungs, in a long-term, permanent way,” Charles said. “If you have the resources you should just leave the valley.”
Researchers at Stanford University estimated that smoke from wildfires contributed to some 1,200 deaths in California last summer.
After he finished up work on Wednesday evening, Charles sat on the back deck of the local cinema and looked over the valley. The air quality had greatly improved that day — enough that people seized the chance to get outside, not knowing when the haze would be back.
A patient of his walked out onto the deck.
“Enjoying the fresh air?” he asked.
It was somewhat in jest; but she truly was relieved.
There was still smoke in the air, but nothing like they’d been living through for weeks. The sun was setting, and now she could see it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... ashington/
Climate and Environment
In a summer of smoke, a small town wonders: ‘How are we going to do better than survive?’
Wildfires are burning across the American West, with smoke stretching across much of the nation. In Winthrop, Wash., residents are used to the haze.
Smoke lingers in the Methow Valley near Winthrop, Wash., on Aug. 5 as the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires burn. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
By
Joshua Partlow
Yesterday at 12:25 p.m. EDT
143
WINTHROP, Wash. — On the worst days, and there have been many, one can see nothing but white — a hot, suffocating fog bank that smells of burning wood and blots out the sun. Hours tick by in a disorienting haze to the whir of air purifiers and box fans. Doors stay sealed, stores are closed and the normal summer bustle in this bucolic mountain town is snuffed out.
For much of the past month, Winthrop and its neighbors up and down the Methow Valley in Washington state have lived under an oppressive blanket of wildfire smoke. On certain days air quality has been the worst in the country — and possibly in the world — according to the National Weather Service, which described it as “almost off-the-charts hazardous.”
The mayor runs three air purifiers around-the-clock in her house and leaves a box of free N95 masks on a bench outside town hall. The town’s marketing director is considering enrolling her children in school in Oregon. A family doctor treats patients struggling to breathe and others knotted with anxiety, uncertain whether to stay or go.
“It’s all people are thinking or talking about,” said Jesse Charles, one of the few doctors in the Methow Valley. “This cloud that’s over everyone.”
It is another summer of smoke in America, as dozens of wildfires rage throughout the West and Canada. A historic drought and record heat waves worsened by climate change have crisped and yellowed the landscape, priming it for massive blazes. The wildfires burning in the West and in British Columbia have produced enough smoke to muddy the skies across much of the United States this summer.
Firefighters order food from East 20 Pizza in Winthrop on Aug. 4. Local businesses have offered free or discounted meals to firefighters working the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Firefighters eat dinner at East 20 Pizza in Winthrop. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
As of Friday, more than 100 large fires were burning across 14 states. Smoke from Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, one of the nation’s largest at more than 413,000 acres burned, has already traveled to New York City and Washington, D.C. In recent days, the smoke over Minnesota and the Dakotas has pushed air quality into hazardous territory.
The hazy skies and campfire smell of smoke pollution may still be an alarming rarity for parts of the nation; but this corner of the Pacific Northwest is learning what it means to live with an extreme dose year after year.
In Winthrop, two massive wildfires — the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 — have been burning for much of the past month on either side of town. They have consumed more than 113,000 acres of forest and produced billowing towers of smoke visible from Seattle on the far side of the Cascade Mountains. That smoke also settled in the valley and barely budged, amid scorching temperatures and not enough windy days to clear the air.
“It’s kind of the worst-case scenario with smoke,” Winthrop Mayor Sally Ranzau said. “It sandwiches us in there.”
Even though it’s only midsummer, Washington state has already had more than 1,200 wildfires. It’s a record for this time of year and nearly twice the average number over the past decade, said Hilary Franz, who oversees Washington state’s Department of Natural Resources.
In the typically drizzly Pacific Northwest people live for the blue skies of summer and wildfires are increasingly threatening those precious times. Over several days this week, an air quality advisory was in effect for the entire eastern half of the state.
“Unfortunately, year after year now, our summers are being completely lost to smoke,” Franz said. “We move from one gray to the next.”
(The Washington Post)
There have been no deaths and five buildings have been lost in the two Winthrop fires, but that toll doesn’t capture the social and economic harm the community is enduring. The mountains and forests in the area are a major tourist draw — attracting as many as 1 million visitors a year, town officials say — and that economy has ground to a halt. The scenic North Cascades Highway that brings many visitors has been shut down while firefighters battle flaming patches of snags. Many of the trails for hiking, biking and cross-country skiing that made this area a national destination for outdoor recreation run through lands that are burning.
One of the Pacific Northwest’s most famous resorts, the Sun Mountain Lodge, was evacuated last month as the Cedar Creek blaze bore down on the building. To save the resort, firefighters dug bulldozer trenches throughout the manicured grounds. The 3,000-acre resort, one of Okanogan County’s largest employers and a major source of tax revenue, is now shut down through at least August and faces a major restoration effort, said Eric Christenson, the lodge’s director of sales and marketing.
“The thick smoke coated the surfaces of the lodge both on the inside and outside,” he said. “The swimming pools are filthy. The hiking and horse trails — I imagine they’re devastated.”
Abby Pattison, a co-owner of the Observatory Inn in Winthrop, has seen reservations plummet since the smoke rolled in. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
On Thursday morning, as the air quality sensor at the Montessori school was reading about 260 — a level of fine particle pollution that the Environmental Protection Agency describes as “very unhealthy” — Abby Pattison stood on the deck of the nearby Observatory Inn, wearing an N95 mask and watering her plants. It was about half as smoky as it has regularly been over the past month; clear enough even to see across the street.
“This is actually not too bad,” she said.
Pattison, 43, and her two business partners recently bought the hotel along Winthrop’s main street, with its rough-hewed boardwalk and Old-West-style facades. The Seattle native had moved to this former gold mining town 11 years ago with her ex-husband and soon fell in love with the community and the opportunity to run on endless mountain trails. Both the town and its flow of tourists were growing, and she wanted to invest in helping shape its future. They named their hotel the Observatory Inn because of its high perch and — on a clear day — striking view of the mountains beyond. The sale closed on June 21.
Within a few days, the smoke rolled in.
Since then, the hotel’s been mostly empty. She’s had to warn away potential customers who call and aren’t aware of the air quality. The only guests have been some evacuees from an aborted Outward Bound trip and the occasional firefighter, both being charged at cost, she said. Pattison and her partners have been meeting to discuss expensive new air filtration systems and strategies for the fall since the fires are projected to burn until it snows. This weekend the hotel will be completely vacant, she said.
“We had our rainy day budget and we had to tap into it right away.”
Before the smoke blew into town, the hotel, as with much of Winthrop, had been having its best year on record as the pandemic eased and visitors flocked to outdoor destinations. Over Memorial Day weekend, Abilene Hagee could look out of Trail’s End Bookstore and see throngs of people window-shopping along the main street.
“The boardwalk was more packed than I’d ever seen it. It was just wall-to-wall people,” she said.
Not long after the fires broke out, her business plummeted by “90 percent, and it’s been kind of hanging out there,” said Hagee, who is also board president of the local chamber of commerce.
“The air quality’s awful,” she said. “We’re a tourist town, economically driven by that. And how do you invite somebody to come and play in your area when it’s so bad?”
A bulletin board outside a business in Winthrop offers updates on the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Like other businesses in Winthrop, the retailer Pinetooth was forced to close due to the fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Some restaurants, hotels, outfitters and guiding companies in the valley have closed, at least temporarily. Layoffs have set back housekeepers and food service staff members who were just recovering from pandemic disruptions. Many residents who could afford to leave decamped to the other side of the mountains in search of cleaner air.
“The economic impact is the hardest thing,” Ranzau said. “I think the smoke event was worse than covid was. … People were still here during covid. People didn’t go away. There were still visitors. We still had tourists. The highway wasn’t closed.”
As his co-workers were laid off, took vacation or found other work over the mountains, Dave Dewbrey, 49, stayed behind, part of the skeleton staff still working at Methow Cycle and Sport. He works on repairs and other projects put off during last year’s rush. But it has not been easy. He is allergic to smoke, he said, which feels to him like an exaggerated form of hay fever. Dewbrey swallows allergy pills every day and is never far from a handkerchief. Particularly worrisome is that his 2-year-old son has developed a cough.
“[We] were walking up the road out at our place. He would run, and then he would stop … and he would do deep breaths. And I would think, ‘Is this smoke affecting him?’ ”
Pattison, the hotel owner, decided to move her two daughters, ages 6 and 9, out of the valley when she could see in the distance the flames of the Cub Creek 2 Fire, which erupted July 16. The worst part, she said, was that her daughters were waking up in the middle of the night worrying about fires, unable to fall asleep. They’ve spent part of the time with their grandparents in the San Juan Islands, in western Washington, ever since.
“It just looked huge and very scary,” she said. “We didn’t really know what was going to happen at that point, with just how dry everything was, and it didn’t seem like fire lines were really helping because it was so dry.”
On Tuesday evening, a rainstorm helped clear some of the smoke and Pattison went to a movie at the Barnyard Cinema. The space had well-filtered air and she could see friends and try to relax. She was in the middle of “Roadrunner,” the documentary about chef Anthony Bourdain, when a neighbor texted her.
“There’s a smoke check on Davis Lake and we are gone,” the neighbor wrote.
Lightning had just sparked a new fire within a couple miles from Pattison’s home — the closest one yet — and the neighbor needed someone to “get the cats out and turn the sprinklers on.”
Pattison stood up and rushed out of the theater. That night she considered packing up her home and moving out.
A sign indicates the level of fire danger in Okanogan County. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
Situated in dry forests on the eastern slopes of the Cascades, the Methow Valley is familiar with forest fires. But the pace and intensity of those blazes — and the subsequent threats from smoke and bad air quality — have been increasing as the planet warms, driven by humans burning fossil fuels.
The average temperature in Okanogan County, which includes Winthrop, has risen 1.1 degree Celsius since 1895, slightly above the national average, according to an analysis of temperature data in the United States by The Washington Post.
The big fires and smoke years of the past decade are a part of daily conversation here; just as the charred tree trunks still visible on the mountainsides speak to the proximity of the risk. The Carlton Complex Fire of 2014 that burned more than 300 homes is still the state’s largest wildfire. The Okanogan Complex Fire the next year left three firefighters dead. In 2018, flames threatened the town of Twisp, just south of Winthrop, while smoke blanketed the valley for days.
Even in winter, the Methow Valley struggles with clean air because residents have traditionally heated their homes by burning wood. But the onslaught of wildfires has pushed air quality to distressing levels, regularly above 400 on the state’s air quality index scale.
Over the past decade, Okanogan County has spent more days with compromised air quality than any other county in the state, according to data from the state Department of Ecology’s air quality program. This year has been the worst of all by some measures, as residents have spent nearly half their days breathing air that’s other than “good” — including levels defined as “unhealthy,” “very unhealthy” and “hazardous.” There have already been more “hazardous” days recorded by the county’s three official air quality monitors than in any year since the state started collecting data in 2006.
“It got bad fast and then it stayed bad for a month now,” said Andrew Wineke, a spokesman for the state’s air quality program. “Winthrop had some of the worst air quality in the world several times in the past few weeks.”
The science is “really clear” that the state’s summers are hotter and drier and that climate change will continue to worsen the threat of wildfires, said Amy Snover, director of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. She owns a house in the area and has been visiting since she was a child; after the Cedar Creek blaze erupted last month, her parents were forced to evacuate.
Projections based on climate change models predict a quintupling of the amount of wildfire acreage that will burn in the Columbia River Basin by the end of the century, compared to the average annual area burned from 1916 through 2006, according to Snover.
“We expect exceptionally hot and dry weather to increasingly not be the exception,” she said.
Firefighter vehicles drive through downtown Winthrop on their way to fight the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
A sign by Methow Valley United Methodist Church in Twisp, Wash., thanks firefighters for containing the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
For those who don’t leave by choice or necessity, the solution to coexisting with smoke comes down to finding spaces to breathe.
Liz Walker runs four air purifiers in her home — three plug-in HEPA filters and a box fan strapped to an air filter. Her house is a relatively new construction and meticulously sealed. Even so, on smoky days the air inside regularly exceeds 50 on the EPA’s air quality index scale — considered “moderate,” one step below “good.” Others who have no purifiers or air conditioners and must open their windows on hot nights are forced to breathe extremely polluted air.
Walker, whose background is in toxicology and who has a doctorate from the University of Washington, has been fighting to improve the valley’s air for years. Her organization, Clean Air Methow, is renowned in the area for raising awareness about the problem and getting air filters into the community, particularly among those who can’t afford to fortify their homes against smoke. She calls what is happening this summer a “smoke disaster,” and she believes the federal government should treat such events as they do other natural calamities, with funds for relief and recovery.
The consequences of these disasters are both visible and harder to track. Residents with respiratory troubles face acute health problems and difficulty breathing while others report sore throats, coughing, tightness in the chest, headaches and raspy voices. Many suffer from anxiety and depression. Staff members at a local social services organization, Room One, said that domestic abuse cases and residents coming to them with “suicidal ideation” spiked last month during the most intense smoke.
“This is normal summer now. The last 10 years, seven of those had smoke episodes that extended beyond a week,” Walker said. “How are we going to do better than survive? How do we retain a love of place? A love of summer?”
The increasing number and size of wildfires could make Winthrop something of a cautionary tale as more smoke spreads across the country.
“The 2021 fire year is different from any before,” Randy Moore, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, wrote his staff in an Aug. 2 letter. The number of large fires burning, and the 22,000 personnel responding, were both nearly three times more than the 10-year average for the month of July. “Severe drought is affecting over 70 percent of the West, and the potential for significant fire activity is predicted to be above normal into October.”
“In short, we are in a national crisis,” he added.
Jesse Charles, a doctor in the Methow Valley, has been treating people sick from the weeks of heavy wildfire smoke. (Jovelle Tamayo for The Washington Post)
At the Methow Valley Clinic, Jesse Charles, the family doctor, has treated a stream of patients whose asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have been inflamed and aggravated by the wildfire smoke. Some have been coughing up phlegm and breathing in a way he described as a “death rattle.”
“They’re totally drowning in their own lungs,” he said.
He has been talking about air quality with every single patient since the smoke hit, he said, regardless of the ailment. Children are of particular concern.
“These wildfire events damage the development of children’s lungs, in a long-term, permanent way,” Charles said. “If you have the resources you should just leave the valley.”
Researchers at Stanford University estimated that smoke from wildfires contributed to some 1,200 deaths in California last summer.
After he finished up work on Wednesday evening, Charles sat on the back deck of the local cinema and looked over the valley. The air quality had greatly improved that day — enough that people seized the chance to get outside, not knowing when the haze would be back.
A patient of his walked out onto the deck.
“Enjoying the fresh air?” he asked.
It was somewhat in jest; but she truly was relieved.
There was still smoke in the air, but nothing like they’d been living through for weeks. The sun was setting, and now she could see it.
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Ray Peterson
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
So you are telling me you would be okay sitting for a long period of time in a long line of vehicles in an active wildfire zone with no good way to escape to safety?
Consider what might happen if they have to turn vehicles around in an emergency.
Consider that the likely "pilot car zone" would probably be from around the Mazama Junction to near Lone Fir Campground (around 11 miles). So you'd realistically be talking about delays of more than one hour. Those long backups might well be halfway to Winthrop, so people living here would be caught in them even if they didn't even want to go over the pass.
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Re: General Wildfire Discussion
White stuff in the Mountains this morning
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
Quote from WSDOT;
"Everyone is eager to get the road back open and traffic flowing, and the ICT has specific goals for what conditions are needed for that to happen. Every day we meet to get updates and coordinate our effort to reach those goals, but the fact remains that fire conditions remain hazardous and dynamic, and the priority is safety for you and the crews working out there."
Here is an example of poor communication by the WSDOT. This commentary speaks of goals that need to be met before the highway can reopen, but what exactly are those "goals" that need to be met?
Would allowing traffic to pass with a pilot car when conditions allow mitigate those safety risks?
Pictures would help.
"Everyone is eager to get the road back open and traffic flowing, and the ICT has specific goals for what conditions are needed for that to happen. Every day we meet to get updates and coordinate our effort to reach those goals, but the fact remains that fire conditions remain hazardous and dynamic, and the priority is safety for you and the crews working out there."
Here is an example of poor communication by the WSDOT. This commentary speaks of goals that need to be met before the highway can reopen, but what exactly are those "goals" that need to be met?
Would allowing traffic to pass with a pilot car when conditions allow mitigate those safety risks?
Pictures would help.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
WSDOT
Multiple wildfires likely to keep stretch of SR 20 closed until further notice
Update: August 3, 2021
Fires and fire response activity in the area means that the SR 20 closure will remain in place at least through this week. Firefighters have made great strides in the containment of the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires, but with hot, dry conditions and low visibility due to smoke, it is not yet safe to fully reopen the road.
Closed means closed
At the moment, the closure points are between milepost 165 and 179, west of Mazama in the Methow Valley. However, the east side closure point has changed several times and local evacuation levels have been raised and lowered over the past several days. Air quality in the area also rates from “unhealthy” to “hazardous”.
We continue to see people who are trying to force their way through a closure sign or who are not prepared for the road closure when they reach the area. This is a problem the crews working this fire should not have to deal with – we all want them focused on the fire and keeping themselves and nearby residents safe. There is no local access or Forest Service detours. Cross-state travel is available on US 2 and I-90.
Still opportunities to enjoy the North Cascades
From the west you can still access as far at The Overlook on SR 20, and Diablo Lake and Ross Lake are far enough from the fires that air quality is much better. It is still essential to be prepared for hot summer driving conditions with plenty of water, a full tank of gas and well-researched travel plans. These fires are not the only things happening that could affect your travel plans this summer.
When will it reopen? Can’t you make an estimated guess?
The short answer is “not really.” Our agency supports the Incident Command Team that is managing the fire response. Everyone is eager to get the road back open and traffic flowing, and the ICT has specific goals for what conditions are needed for that to happen. Every day we meet to get updates and coordinate our effort to reach those goals, but the fact remains that fire conditions remain hazardous and dynamic, and the priority is safety for you and the crews working out there.
If you are trying to make plans for your late summer trip, the best thing you can do is keep checking our travel alerts map and check for updates on Facebook, the WSDOT app and this post.
Resources for additional information:
Cedar Creek and Delancy Fires 2021: www.facebook.com/MazamaFires2021
Cub Creek 2-2021 Fire: www.facebook.com/CubCreek2Fire2021
Smoke Blog: wasmoke.blogspot.com
Evacuations: www.okanogancounty.org/government/emerg ... /index.php
Methow Conservancy (Wildfire Preparedness): https://methowconservancy.org/discover/ ... ecovery%20
Wildfire Ready Neighbors (House Assessments): https://wildfireready.dnr.wa.gov/
Multiple wildfires likely to keep stretch of SR 20 closed until further notice
Update: August 3, 2021
Fires and fire response activity in the area means that the SR 20 closure will remain in place at least through this week. Firefighters have made great strides in the containment of the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires, but with hot, dry conditions and low visibility due to smoke, it is not yet safe to fully reopen the road.
Closed means closed
At the moment, the closure points are between milepost 165 and 179, west of Mazama in the Methow Valley. However, the east side closure point has changed several times and local evacuation levels have been raised and lowered over the past several days. Air quality in the area also rates from “unhealthy” to “hazardous”.
We continue to see people who are trying to force their way through a closure sign or who are not prepared for the road closure when they reach the area. This is a problem the crews working this fire should not have to deal with – we all want them focused on the fire and keeping themselves and nearby residents safe. There is no local access or Forest Service detours. Cross-state travel is available on US 2 and I-90.
Still opportunities to enjoy the North Cascades
From the west you can still access as far at The Overlook on SR 20, and Diablo Lake and Ross Lake are far enough from the fires that air quality is much better. It is still essential to be prepared for hot summer driving conditions with plenty of water, a full tank of gas and well-researched travel plans. These fires are not the only things happening that could affect your travel plans this summer.
When will it reopen? Can’t you make an estimated guess?
The short answer is “not really.” Our agency supports the Incident Command Team that is managing the fire response. Everyone is eager to get the road back open and traffic flowing, and the ICT has specific goals for what conditions are needed for that to happen. Every day we meet to get updates and coordinate our effort to reach those goals, but the fact remains that fire conditions remain hazardous and dynamic, and the priority is safety for you and the crews working out there.
If you are trying to make plans for your late summer trip, the best thing you can do is keep checking our travel alerts map and check for updates on Facebook, the WSDOT app and this post.
Resources for additional information:
Cedar Creek and Delancy Fires 2021: www.facebook.com/MazamaFires2021
Cub Creek 2-2021 Fire: www.facebook.com/CubCreek2Fire2021
Smoke Blog: wasmoke.blogspot.com
Evacuations: www.okanogancounty.org/government/emerg ... /index.php
Methow Conservancy (Wildfire Preparedness): https://methowconservancy.org/discover/ ... ecovery%20
Wildfire Ready Neighbors (House Assessments): https://wildfireready.dnr.wa.gov/
pasayten
Ray Peterson
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
Cloud over Coyote Ridge
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
#Cubcreek2 Washington and Oregon Wildfires - August 6, 2021
There are 28 large uncontained fires and complexes in the Pacific Northwest -- 14 in Oregon and 14 in Washington. This translates to 750,124 acres of active uncontained fires.
Northern Rockies Type 2 Incident Management Team 6 will be in-briefing at 8:00pm today and will assume command of the Walker Creek Fire, Spur Fire (Bonaparte and Lost Lake Area), Chickadee Fire (Cecile Road, Loomis Area), Muckamuck Fire (Conconully Area).
Northwest Interagency Coordination Center: https://nwccinfo.blogspot.com/2021/08/8 ... e-map.html
There are 28 large uncontained fires and complexes in the Pacific Northwest -- 14 in Oregon and 14 in Washington. This translates to 750,124 acres of active uncontained fires.
Northern Rockies Type 2 Incident Management Team 6 will be in-briefing at 8:00pm today and will assume command of the Walker Creek Fire, Spur Fire (Bonaparte and Lost Lake Area), Chickadee Fire (Cecile Road, Loomis Area), Muckamuck Fire (Conconully Area).
Northwest Interagency Coordination Center: https://nwccinfo.blogspot.com/2021/08/8 ... e-map.html
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Ray Peterson
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
Cedar Creek and Delancy Fires 2021
8/6 Here's a map showing were all the large fires are currently.
https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/afm/index.php
8/6 Here's a map showing were all the large fires are currently.
https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/afm/index.php
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Ray Peterson
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
Interesting on development and costs of wildfire air support... Chinook @ $8000/hr...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... essweek-v2
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... essweek-v2
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
Thanks David and Chris. I am noticing that the winds have switched to the west in Little Bridge Cr. and then slightly from the SW starting at Elbow Coulee. So as you say David, this is a calculation and we do hope it does what they want. Wind driven fire however is so unpredictable as the fire, as we, know can make it's own wind.
I told a firefighter up at the house on Sat. that no house is worth losing their life over. This is after asking me if we had a basement in case they needed a place to hunker down if there was a blowover. That made me shudder.
Whenever I drive past Wood's Canyon I always think of those firefighters that lost their lives and of Daniel who was badly burned.
I told a firefighter up at the house on Sat. that no house is worth losing their life over. This is after asking me if we had a basement in case they needed a place to hunker down if there was a blowover. That made me shudder.
Whenever I drive past Wood's Canyon I always think of those firefighters that lost their lives and of Daniel who was badly burned.
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
I actually think posts like yours offering valid concerns are important. Thanks for clarification of your comments. However direct communication with those in charge would also help as perhaps they are not reading these posts.PAL wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:19 pm I knew you would chime in Chris. In yesteday's briefing they mentioned that they might do a back burn in the evening. I have seen a video of it from the Okanogan Highlands Fire Watch page on the evil FB.
But with a Red Flag warning, don't know if it was wise. Wind up there is out of the NW now, headed right towards Newby Cr. Granted it has to cross Twisp River Rd., so it would take a bit to get over there. Now to be fair, the video showed it crawling along the ground and not in the trees. But they kept warning about the high grasses in the old burn scar, that could take off quickly. If there are crown fires in there and a wind coming...
Well, think about it, should they be doing a controlled burn in these conditions? I don't know or necessarily think it is a backdoor deal. They are taking advantage of a situation and if they can beat this wind, then they will have accomplished much. This is a gamble. And yes, it will burn at some point even more.
I will say and I will be dragged through the mud for this, but after the rains, they could have snuffed this. The air was clear at some times. I have seen how they aggressively fought the 2014 Little Bridge Cr. fire, which is where the fire is going now, and they were able to stop it. Again, short of resources, I get that.
Have I called anyone for clarity? What kind of answer would I get? I doubt if I can call anyone that would give me a clear answer. They are all too busy.
This is all my opinion. I have a high opinion of Frankie and the incredible support people and the people on the ground. Not so much the plotters and decision makers.
I have no expertise in fighting fires, but I am observing from the past and what I hear, that it is so ding dang dry, but they continue to do this semi controlled burn.
That's enough. I am saying what other people won't say.
Like you, I question those who are making the decisions all the time. After all its those policy decision makers that have gotten us into this mess in the first place. And it would not be the first time that a controlled burn backfired.
I talked with a fire fighter on the fire in your area that claimed the lives of three firefighters and badly burned a fourth. I also read the incident report.
I was informed that a change of wind direction was forecast to occur that day and that's exactly what happened. But there they were in a box canyon with a poorly planned road trying to save property.
Its sad and I can't imagine having to live with a decision that cost someone their lives, however no property is worth the cost of someone's life.
That firefighter, who quit working for the Forest Service, also described to me a lack of training for new firefighters. After one year he felt he was totally on his own.
Its clear that a lack of communication between those making the decisions is still prevalent.
We the public whose health and safety are affected by those decision-makers need to know the reasoning for the necessity for an action as well as what is actually happening on the ground. It is getting better but always room for improvement.
For example it was only recently we learned details for the reason why highway20 continues to be closed.
So keep on questioning Authority. If we don't do it nobody else will.
Side note:
I've been trying for a long time to get the FS to embrace what is called safety culture. Direct sincere email letters to the FS concerning this issue have been met with threats by the new district ranger that my emails would end up in the trash.
He does not want me to CC the Forest Supervisor, his boss, with my concerns. The 'FS no significant impact' determination tool that bypasses public comment for a project needs to disappear.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
I don't know because I am no expert, but if you look at historical wind data the significant winds yesterday (and they were pretty light) were out of the S and E. The red flag warning today calls for strong winds out of the W.
So in all probability if things go okay the high winds today will blow the burnouts back on themselves where they will have already consumed most of the fuel.
That is if everything goes right, and I suspect that is what they planned for. I do not know if it was a good or bad decision and wouldn't want to make that decision myself.
So in all probability if things go okay the high winds today will blow the burnouts back on themselves where they will have already consumed most of the fuel.
That is if everything goes right, and I suspect that is what they planned for. I do not know if it was a good or bad decision and wouldn't want to make that decision myself.
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Re: Wildfire Discussion
Just watched the morning brief. Frankie acknowledges the red flag day and wind. Burn out was successful on Little Bridge Cr. Although Caltopo showd spillover, but it is not 100% accurate. Says that this could be a worse day then we've seen and the communities of Twisp and Winthrop could be threatened.
Following the brief people commented that they wondered if it was a good idea to keep doing this "controlled" burn with these predicted winds.
Pearl
Following the brief people commented that they wondered if it was a good idea to keep doing this "controlled" burn with these predicted winds.
Pearl
Pearl Cherrington
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