Lyons Fire: the Final Final Update...

Debbie and I were able to drive up to the edge of the Lyons Fire burned area, right at four corners (where Lyons Valley Road meets Skyline Truck Trail and Honey Springs Road).  We drove a little ways up Honey Springs Road to get a view of the burned area.

There were quite a few fire crew members still on scene, both down by the roads and up in the burn.  A spotter plane circled overhead the entire time we were there (photo at right), and a tanker was working the fire as we approached.  CHP has Lyons Valley Road to the east of Four Corners closed off (presumably it's also closed at the intersection with Japatul Valley Road).

The burned area that we could see is shown below.  In the left-hand photo, north is about at the left edge; in the right-hand photo, east is about at the right edge.  The fire burned right to the top of the ridge at right, and quite possibly beyond that – we simply couldn't see from where we stood, and we couldn't go down Lyons Valley Road to see directly, as it was closed.






Here's a very rough map (below) I drew by hand to show the burn boundaries.  I can't tell for 100% sure, but it appears to me that the fire crews managed to protect all the homes on the north side of Lyons Valley Road.  I don't believe there were any structures in the burn areas uphill from those homes along Lyons Valley Road.

Lyons Fire: Final Update...

The fire now has an official name: the “Lyons Fire”, and it's listed on the CDF incident site.  As of 7 pm last night, they're calling it 250 acres and 10% contained.  This morning's HPWREN view from Los Pinos looks better than that report sounds: there isn't the slightest trace of smoke visible:

We saw CDF aircraft flying over the fire site several times yesterday afternoon and evening, and we heard them early this morning as well.  My somewhat educated guess is that they're doing both visual inspections and infrared inspections, looking for hot spots that need attention.

The speed and efficacy of the firefighter's response was very comforting to us.  When you're living in the midst of tens of thousands of cubic meters of highly flammable fuel, as we and our neighbors are, it's really good to know that competent firefighters have got your back...

Early this morning we were awakened by a completely unexpected sound: rainfall.  We didn't get much – just 3mm, or just over 1/10th inch – but it was very welcome nonetheless.  This morning when we got up, we were completely fogged in – that's normal for March or April, but definitely not for September!  It brought a very welcome coolness and dampness, and though it's not enough water to reduce the fuel flammability for very long, it must have been very welcome to the fire crews (assuming they got the same)...

Lyons Valley Fire Update...

“I think you're looking pretty good right now.”

Just heard that from the CDF fire crews.  Just before that, they said that they were down to just hot spots left; the fire was basically out.

Three cheers for the fire crews!  A bunch of people in Lawson Vally, Lyons Valley, and Deerhorn Valley are breathing a little easier...

Lyons Valley Fire Update...

Current view from Lyons Peak:

From all I can see and hear, it looks like the firefighters (both in the air and on the ground) are making great progress.  On the scanner I heard concerns from fire crews about the fire burning toward Carveacre Ranch, but the latest photo looks like they've largely knocked it down.  These things can flare up in a hurry, especially if the wind kicks up, so we're not out of the woods until they've doused every hotspot...

I just heard the fire crews order 500 lunches.  Hard to believe there are that many in the fire crew!

Fire in Lyons Valley...

At right is a map with a pink shaded area showing roughly where the fire is located.  We believe (though we don't have eyes on it) that it's mainly north of Lyons Valley Road, just easy of Four Corners.

The fire is being actively worked as I write this (2:35 pm).  Debbie and I saw an observation plane orbiting, three tankers attacking the fire directly.  We also heard ground fire crews talking on the scanner.

The wind is light, out of the north.  The fire appears to be burning both to the south (presumably driven by wind) and to the north (which is uphill from the fire's perspective).  We're guessing that the fire crews will be able to contain it at the ridge west of Lawson Peak, if not before.  We certainly hope so, as our home is only a mile or so from that ridge.

Below are a couple of shots from the east-pointing HPWREN camera on Lyons Peak.  As always, this is our best information, as it's nearly real time (the photos are updated every 2 minutes, 24 x 7).

The top shot was taken at 1:44 pm today, the bottom at 2:28 pm.  As you can see, the fire teams have already made a lot of progress.  Go, firefighters!

Smoke in Lawson Valley...

Update at 3:20 pm: the smoke has mostly cleared now.  We believe the fire at I-8 and Los Coches was the source of the smoke.

Original post: Just went outside to fire up the grill, and immediately noticed the strong smell of smoke.  In a broad smear to the WNW of our home there is moderately thick smoke.

The CalFire twitter site notes a fire in La Cresta, near I-8 and Los Coches; that may be the source.  The Lyons Peak cameras on HPWREN aren't telling me anything.

Please leave a comment if you have more information...

New Fire Monitoring Tool...

Completely by accident I just discovered a marvelous new tool for monitoring wildfires on the web.  It's the “WunderMap” from Wunderunderground, the weather information site I've preferred for years.  I've even been using this map for a year or so, without realizing that it had a fire information layer!  Here's a screenshot showing a current fire near Beaumont, California:

There's a lot of information on this map!  First, the orange blob is the latest officially reported fire perimeter.  This information is usually a day or two old, sometimes (especially on smaller fires) even more.  Then there's the triangle icon – click on that and you'll get basic information about the fire, and sometimes links to more information.  In the upper right you can see little fire symbols – these are “hits” from low-resolution fire-detecting satellites (using infrared scanners).  That information is generally only a few hours old at most.  This lets us infer that this fire is burning toward the northeast.  Finally, there's topographic information and roads – letting you see what sort of country is being burned through. 

All of this information was available previously, but not all in one place like this.  Wonderful job, WunderMap!

To see this fire information yourself, got to the link above and then click on the layer control.  Scroll down through the list of layers and you'll see the control for for fire information (off by default, which is why I never realized it was there!):

There's one more thing worth paying attention to – the little “settings” gear to the right of “Active Fires”:

Here you get to choose what information about active fires you want displayed.  Note the satellite choice: the North American Satellites choice gives you higher resolution and more frequent coverage, but North America only.  The MODIS choice gives you coverage of the entire globe, but with lower resolution and less frequent updates.

Awesome tool!

It Wasn't in the Forecast...

...but we got it anyway.  Rain.  Six tenths of an inch of lovely, wet rain.  The soil around our house is now wet down to 4 or 5 inches, the mosses have all turned green, the summer's obscuring dust has all been washed off the chaparral.  For the past couple of days, especially right after a shower, it's actually been muggy outside – something rarely felt out here in the high desert.

Three times yesterday we had storm cells move from east to west right over us.  In addition to a downpour, each of them brought lightning and thunder as well (though mostly this happened before the storm actually reached us).

Of course, not only does this rain leave our chaparral clean and green – it also leaves it damp, and that means a greatly reduced fire danger.  How long this protection lasts is very dependent on the future weather, but probably at least a few weeks.  I'll take whatever damper I can get on the fire danger...

Fire Resources: HPWREN Cameras...

In the 2007 fires, we got our best near-realtime information from the Lyons Peak HPWREN cameras.  At this writing, the HPWREN camera network has been greatly expanded (compared with 2007), and in the past few days another site has been added that's particularly valuable for folks near Jamul: the Los Pinos site, a few miles east of Barrett Lake.  If you're not familiar with these locations, I've created a map that has markers for all six HPWREN camera sites that may be useful for Jamul area residents during a wildfire.

This is What I Need...

...the next time there's a major fire around here.  Having one of these looking around would give us solid information, whereas current reporting systems produce a chaotic blend of stale and erroneous crapola (that's a technical term)...

A Year for Strange Weather...

October is generally the absolute peak of our annual wildfire season.  It was in October of 2007 that San Diego County experienced the worst wildfires it's ever seen.  Usually October is hot and dry, with the occasional Santa Ana wind blowing more hot and dry air over us from the desert.  It's those winds, combined with tinder-dry fuel, that are the fearsome enablers for the wildfire season...

This year has been very different.  First, the summer hasn't been nearly as hot and dry as in the most recent 8 years or so.  Second, we've had some rain during the dry season.  Night before last, we had over three quarters of an inch.  That may not sound like much rain to some of you, but for us it's not much short of a miracle – the fuel that we live amidst is now nicely wet down, right at the peak of our wildfire season when it's normally at its driest.  Our risk of wildfire over the next few weeks has been greatly reduced.

I can easily empathize with the peoples of ages ago, who would be outside doing some kind of dance to whatever spirits they thought needed to be thanked...

Bobcat Babies!

Don and Jan Maxted (I think from Deerhorn Valley, in rural Jamul) have a bobcat family living near them.  Don got this beautiful photo.

We've missed our bobcats, whose local population was decimated when the 2007 fires killed many of them and their prey.  I sure hope this is an omen of their return!  We sure have plenty of varmints out here for them to eat...

Back Home Again...

And it sure is nice to be here.  I picked up another danged virus of some kind on the way home, but this one is nowhere near as bad as the last one.  I just feel slightly peaked, with a touch of a stuffy nose.  Not so bad...

As I write this, the sky is completely overcast and everything is wet from drizzle, and the forecast is for rainy conditions and cool temperatures.  Two weeks from now is the third anniversary of the awful Cedar and Harris fires, and the environmental conditions could hardly be more different.  That year we were getting serial serious Santa Anas (not one this year so far!), the fuel load in the chaparral was dry as a bone, and we had high temperatures and low humidity.  Fire danger crackled in the air.  This year you'd have a hard time igniting the chaparral around our home (though we can't be complacent, as this could change in just a few days of the wrong kind of weather).  For now, though, we can relax and be cheerful about the next-to-nonexistent firestorm risk.  Whew!

Our beautiful red metal roof is now finished – more on that in the next post!

Rain!

Sixteen hundredths – just over an eighth of an inch – of H2O fell out of the sky onto our chaparral yesterday.  We had thunderstorms and intermittent showers all day long.  When I came home yesterday afternoon, the rain was sheeting off our brandy-new bright red roof.  Yay!

This fire season just got a little dampened.  By no means does this remove our risk for the year – we'd need more rain and no Santa Anas to perform that trick.  But it does tamp the risk down a notch, and I'll take that anytime I can get it...

Small Fire in Jamul...

Yesterday afternoon, according to news reports, a car rolled over near the junction of Honey Springs Road and State 94 (a few miles south of Jamul town).  The cameras on Lyons Peak caught this, taking one frame of the movie below every 60 seconds.  CAL FIRE was all over this, and had it out within a few hours.  It was contained to about 20 acres.  News reports said that 150 men, a dozen or so pieces of equipment, and several aircraft were involved.  Great work, all!



Cowboy Fire: Update (Looking Good)...

As of the latest CDF report, the Cowboy Fire is 62% contained, and just over 800 acres in size.  The map at right (click to enlarge) shows satellite thermal imaging data, giving a more precise location than I was able to do yesterday.  One interesting point for those of us living out here: the area that burned hasn't burned over in over thirty years.

The black shaded areas had fire within the past 48 hours, the orange within the past 24; these data are from MODIS satellites.  The red dot is from a different satellite, showing the presence of fire within the past 12 hours.  MODIS has a spatial resolution of about 1 kilometer, so those overlapping circles are far from precise – really all they can do is show you approximately where the fire was.  In particular, it does NOT mean that the entire shaded area burned, or that nothing out side the shaded areas burned...

Cowboy Fire!

Dang it, another fire.  CAL FIRE is calling this one the “Cowboy” fire; at last report it was around 200 acres, out between Potrero and Campo in a remote area (map of approximate location, NOT its size).  No people or structures are threatened, and it doesn't appear to be any danger to us as it's quite far away (about 16 miles).  As I was driving home tonight, Debbie called me saying that she could see smoke out toward Barrett Lake (east of our house).  So I drove out that way before I came home, which is where I snapped these two photos at around 3 pm, from Lyons Valley Road just west of Lake Barrett. 

There are lots of news reports, as usual with these things they full of conflicting information.  What I could see for myself, though, was very comforting: a small cloud of fire-fighting aircraft swarmed around the fire.  As I drove home, a gigantic helicopter, painted bright red and black, flew right over Lawson Valley headed for the fire site.  It looked like some kind of bizarre insect, angry and rarin' for a fight. 

There is every reason for folks out our way to feel safe – the winds that would make a fire dangerous are not present, nor are they forecast.  Let's hope nothing too odd happens with our weather – and let's all keep our fingers crossed that the firefighters and the folks of East County out near the communities of Potrero, Campo, and Lake Morena – and their property – all stay safe...

Fire in Lakeside...

We had a bit of a scare yesterday.  First Debbie spotted a plume to our northwest that looked like smoke (sometimes it's hard to distinguish between clouds and smoke; the color can be quite similar).  Shortly after that our Internet connection went down (it works by a radio link to Alpine, 18 miles to our north).  I called our Internet provider, and he wasn't sure what the cause was, but his three valley networks centered on Alpine were all down.  He'd heard that the fire was in the Harbison Canyon or Crest area – and that was very worrying to us, as those communities are actually quite close to us, in precisely the direction that smoke was coming from.  The news outlets (as usual) were useless, so I jumped into my truck to go take a look.

As I drove up Skyline Truck Trail, just before topping the hill that leads down to the town of Jamul, I got a view of Cajon Mountain in the distance. It was clearly burning, with smoke trails originating at various points on its south face (the side toward me).  This was a bit of a relief to me, as Cajon Mountain is much further away from us than Crest and Harbison Canyon.  Also comforting were the first news reports, which started coming in right around the same time.  They placed the fire in the area of El Monte Road, just south of Cajon Mountain.

I drove on through Harbison Canyon (no sign of fire there!) and up to Interstate 8.  Then I drove west on 8, grabbing the two photos with my cell phone and scoping out where the fire was.  I could see aircraft on the fire, and engine companies on the ground (news reports said over 20 companies were on the job), so it looked like the fire response was terrific.  This is so, so good for us to see after the debacle we lived through in 2007.  The map at right (also online) is my rough eyeball estimate of the fire's location.  I could be off by the proverbial country mile, so don't take it as anything other than an estimate, please. 

By this morning's early light we can see no smoke coming from Cajon Mountain.  There are no updates to the news reports from yesterday, which variously claim that between 2,000 and 3,000 acres burned.  Some people (including two climbers) were rescued by helicopter, but so far as I can tell nobody was hurt and no structures were damaged. 

One thing that's a little disconcerting for us chaparralies: Cajon Mountain completely burned over in 2007.  Here we are, just under three years later, and there's already enough fuel there to sustain another wildfire.  Sheesh!

It's Official Now: Fire Season is Over!

Oh, look at that lovely, lovely little blip on the graph at right. That's showing nearly a half inch (about 11mm) of rain since early this morning. We have puddles on the ground, and our yard is a sea of mud.

This is already more than enough rain to declare the official end of the 2009 fire season. Whew! We escaped without any serious fires this year!

Best of all: we're expecting even more rain today and tomorrow. And the snow level is supposed to be down to 4,500 feet (about 1,500 meters) this afternoon – we may have to go for a little drive to see the snow!

Viewer for Lyons Peak Cameras...

I've got a new viewer page up for the HPWREN cameras on Lyons Peak (permanant link on the sidebar at right).

This page makes it easy and convenient for anyone to view the cameras, and includes the ability to zoom and move around the image.  On the north and east facing cameras there's even the ability to identify the features you point to on the picture (I haven't finished them for the other two cameras yet).

Enjoy!