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Huge wildfire in Texas

It's an odd area to have uncontrollable fires. No trees, just grass and brush, plus easily navigable terrain. Can't help but feel like, the way we handle fires today, it wouldn't have gotten out of hand like this.
 
Fire is srsbz for sure but I couldn't help but chuckle the other day when a breathless reporter was talking about the size/acreage of the fire and said there were 9 houses in danger.
 
byke said:
It's an odd area to have uncontrollable fires. No trees, just grass and brush, plus easily navigable terrain. Can't help but feel like, the way we handle fires today, it wouldn't have gotten out of hand like this.
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Not necessarily. Large open grassfires like that are one of the more difficult and dangerous to control because of the speed with which they move and the random direction based on changing wind conditions, some of which are created by the heat from the fire.
 
I don't see any of that as being notably unique over our forest fires. Firefighters are pumped whenever they have an opportunity for a dozer line, because most of the time in the California mountains they don't, and then they're just working on the spot fires after creating breaks. No problems like that with the majority of these areas in texas. I think the more likely scenario is not that a fire at thunderhill is ten times harder to fight than a fire in georgetown, I think it's more likely that they're where we were at twenty years ago. These days, California does not fuck around. We've gotten really good at fighting fires, throwing way bigger efforts at even the smallest fire way faster than we used to.
 
byke said:
It's an odd area to have uncontrollable fires. No trees, just grass and brush, plus easily navigable terrain. Can't help but feel like, the way we handle fires today, it wouldn't have gotten out of hand like this.
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Damn those Jewish Space Lasers!
 
byke said:
I don't see any of that as being notably unique over our forest fires. Firefighters are pumped whenever they have an opportunity for a dozer line, because most of the time in the California mountains they don't, and then they're just working on the spot fires after creating breaks. No problems like that with the majority of these areas in texas. I think the more likely scenario is not that a fire at thunderhill is ten times harder to fight than a fire in georgetown, I think it's more likely that they're where we were at twenty years ago. These days, California does not fuck around. We've gotten really good at fighting fires, throwing way bigger efforts at even the smallest fire way faster than we used to.
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Isn't the trees so much as the flatness. No windbreaks and no clear defensible line for digging a fire break.

When 2/3 of your state is just a fucked off flat grass field for hundreds of miles in every direction, it can be brutal trying to stop fuel consumption.
 
ThumperX said:
...!
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Barf been spicy lately! :laughing

Eldritch said:
Isn't the trees so much as the flatness. No windbreaks and no clear defensible line for digging a fire break.

When 2/3 of your state is just a fucked off flat grass field for hundreds of miles in every direction, it can be brutal trying to stop fuel consumption.
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Yeah I definitely don't want to make any type of firefighting sound easy, especially with 35mph gusts. I stand by it though, those don't run out of control with virtually zero containment burning a million plus acres in this state over similar terrain and conditions. Not anymore.
 
byke said:
I don't see any of that as being notably unique over our forest fires. Firefighters are pumped whenever they have an opportunity for a dozer line, because most of the time in the California mountains they don't, and then they're just working on the spot fires after creating breaks. No problems like that with the majority of these areas in texas. I think the more likely scenario is not that a fire at thunderhill is ten times harder to fight than a fire in georgetown, I think it's more likely that they're where we were at twenty years ago. These days, California does not fuck around. We've gotten really good at fighting fires, throwing way bigger efforts at even the smallest fire way faster than we used to.
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there are tons of dozer lines in the mountains (where possible on slopes + on the ridgelines). they also use a tremendous amount of air support (helo + fixed wing). that's what is confusing about the texas fire - it would seem ideal to fight with fixed wing aircraft dumping retardant (and no watershed to worry about).
 
There are definitely a lot more now after having so many fires, but I wonder at what wind speed air support is grounded? I came across a couple articles, one said 35mph gusts and one said 50mph. Probably gonna ground the smaller stuff at those speeds?
 
byke said:
There are definitely a lot more now after having so many fires, but I wonder at what wind speed air support is grounded? I came across a couple articles, one said 35mph gusts and one said 50mph. Probably gonna ground the smaller stuff at those speeds?
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WRT dozer lines, yeah, some are because of fires, but a lot were done without that. they do tons of off-season training, and building lines is great training (so always include it).

WRT wind speed, the limiting factor is probably being able to control where the retardant goes (the aircraft can handle it, but if the payload just blows all over hell, it won't help). wind speed usually dies down at night, and considering their terrain, it would seem they could do night flights. cal fire grounds its aircraft at dusk, but is currently two years into a three year program to train up ex-military pilots to operate at night. could be a game changer.
 
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byke said:
Barf been spicy lately! :laughing

Yeah I definitely don't want to make any type of firefighting sound easy, especially with 35mph gusts. I stand by it though, those don't run out of control with virtually zero containment burning a million plus acres in this state over similar terrain and conditions. Not anymore.
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That is my point. We don't have similar terrain and conditions in CA. Nowhere in the State does.

The area on fire right now is directly in what is known as Tornado Alley.

Wind conditions in that part of the country cannot really be replicated elsewhere in this country because of the hundreds of miles of flat grassland there with very little trees and hill country to break global scale wind movement, combined with a geographic location that puts it right at the impact point of multiple global scale weather environments.
 
Thoughts, prayers, etc....

No, really. I say that with empathy and compassion.

I hope damage and loss of life is kept to a minimum.
 
Texas does not have nearly the large number of super tankers that CA does or as many smaller ones. They can be sent there but that takes time which was not had. As Lahaina last year and Colorado the year before, these 60 mph winds pushed the fire super fast and with no hills there to block it as was mentioned. Folks there haven’t had the need before for fire readiness or awareness as places farther west. In days of yore the native Americans regularly burned the dry grass in monumental prairie fires to manage the land. Cooler temps and less wind oughta help now.
 
… yam tits .


Okay… ‘ol :rofl

PS. As..the president would have said “this is a problem forest service is mismanaged” :rofl
 
easy wind said:
Texas does not have nearly the large number of super tankers that CA does or as many smaller ones. They can be sent there but that takes time which was not had. As Lahaina last year and Colorado the year before, these 60 mph winds pushed the fire super fast and with no hills there to block it as was mentioned. Folks there haven’t had the need before for fire readiness or awareness as places farther west. In days of yore the native Americans regularly burned the dry grass in monumental prairie fires to manage the land. Cooler temps and less wind oughta help now.
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if they don’t have heavy lift aircraft available at the ready - that is total bullshit. there is also the possibility that they have a ‘let it burn’ approach (some fire being good). but similar to the mosquito fire up here, which got away from them and into an unpredicted canyon run within a short few hours, the best intentions can go south very rapidly in spite of the best laid plans.
 
Just chatted with my forester daughter who said that the equipment resources are moved nationally according to the on/off fire seasons. I read something like 2 supertankers in TX to 23 in CA and fewer smaller planes too. Definitely hard to believe they don’t have it at the ready. But the characteristics of this one was a mind boggling 150 football fields per hour with warm temps, zero incline, very low humidity in dormant grasses and remarkable winds over 60. She has a program that calculated circa 1300 chains per hour, forester lingo. Now ashes are covered in snow and wind down to 10-15, but still not contained.
 
easy wind said:
Just chatted with my forester daughter who said that the equipment resources are moved nationally according to the on/off fire seasons. I read something like 2 supertankers in TX to 23 in CA and fewer smaller planes too. Definitely hard to believe they don’t have it at the ready. But the characteristics of this one was a mind boggling 150 football fields per hour with warm temps, zero incline, very low humidity in dormant grasses and remarkable winds over 60. She has a program that calculated circa 1300 chains per hour, forester lingo. Now ashes are covered in snow and wind down to 10-15, but still not contained.
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assets are normally moved within jurisdictions (state and federal). ca (cal fire) has a fleet of its own heavy lift aircraft (normally home based at military bases), and i am not aware of outside resources brought in except during emergency mutual aid declarations, or redeployment outside the state except during the same. and i have heard no news of ca assets being deployed to tx, but hope to get some info in my meeting with cal fire leadership on monday.

WRT to grass fires (even sloped), they normally rate a 'yeah, whatever' in our region (fast burning, but low grade fuel). still can't get my head around what's going on down there.
 
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Abacinator said:
I was thinking you're right, and its true for CA, but I was curious about wildfires in Texas just now, and it seems that the majority of Texas wildfires historically occur between January and May. Who'd have thought? (People who keep track of these sorts of things I guess lol)

https://fire-information-tfsgis.hub.arcgis.com/pages/historical-fire-statistics
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California wet season is basically October through April. West Texas wet season is basically the summertime.
 
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