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Post by MTwomn on Apr 30, 2021 17:21:11 GMT -5
Two days, three fires.
Yesterday, just before rush hour, I got an alert on my phone. The six lane highway connecting the Tri-Cities was closed in both directions for a fire. Turned on the Tri-Cities Police and Fire scanner. It was a traffic mess. That highway is the only way to get across the river to Pasco and the only way to get to Kennewick unless you take the city streets. When Hanford is working regular, not working from home, there are around 5000 people at rush hour heading down this highway. There were a lot of calls about illegal U-turns on the highway. Parts of this fire were still burning over night. They are saying today that parts of it may burn for at least another week.
This area is a wild-land, where the two rivers join, mostly under the freeway surrounded by large residential build-up right to the edge of the wild-land. Basically the fire is in the center of a 250,000 population metropolitan area.
Around 9:00 this morning I was heading into West Richland and saw what looked like smoke from a very large tumbleweed fire. As I was driving past the RV Park the first fire truck was turning into the park. Met 4 more fire trucks heading to the fire. One of the RVs in the middle of the park caught fire. Looks like they were able to contain it to three RVs. As close as they park the RVs, that could have been a real disaster.
This afternoon there is another fire, or maybe a hot spot that flared up, about a mile down from yesterday's fire. So far they say it is 145 acres Again the highway is closed.
Hope that this is not a forecast of how this summer will be.
The link/video is of the first fire. It might want you to go to a paid subscription but you can click on the red sign in link. The TCH does not like sharing their material so I will include some screen shots from the video.
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Post by MTwomn on Apr 30, 2021 17:38:08 GMT -5
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Post by MTwomn on Apr 30, 2021 17:39:12 GMT -5
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Post by MTwomn on Apr 30, 2021 17:48:06 GMT -5
at the golf course
From the north side of the Columbia River
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Post by Fire21 on May 1, 2021 9:33:38 GMT -5
Unfortunately, I fear, this is what this summer will look like across the west. We are terribly dry here. I know you are usually very dry there, and are even more so this year. The drought maps show massive areas of unusual to severe to extreme drought all over the western US.
I talked a couple days ago with one of our Asst. Chiefs, and she said they have been very busy, including some wildland fires...and this is supposed to be our rainy season!
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Post by 88cars38 on May 8, 2021 17:01:58 GMT -5
Hope the fires are out and you have received some rain. We were getting dry here but received about 1.1 inch over the past day.
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Post by MTwomn on May 8, 2021 20:36:38 GMT -5
In April we had less than 0.01 inches of rain. The forecast for the next ten days is 0-4% chance of rain. We can reasonably expect the next rain in September or October. The fire in the delta is still burning and probably will for some time. The rivers are fairly high from the snow melt in the mountains so the area is currently swampy with a lot of wild overgrowth.
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Post by Fire21 on May 9, 2021 11:54:38 GMT -5
My philosophy at our fire dept was to let these spring wildland fires burn a bit longer. They usually burn slower (almost never "out of control") than later summer fires, and the more we get rid of now, the less we have to worry about later on. But this year is so extraordinarily dry, I don't think that strategy will work!
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Post by MTwomn on May 13, 2021 17:51:59 GMT -5
They have decided to let this fire continue to burn. Because the rivers are still high, the ground is like a swamp. A couple firemen got in areas were they were up to their waists in the mud. The sides toward the highway, businesses and homes they put out. The areas closest to the rivers will continue to burn. The homeless camps have been removed.
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Post by MTwomn on May 27, 2021 0:05:31 GMT -5
About 9:15 tonight I heard sirens so stepped outside. Saw red flames coming over Red Mountain about half a mile away. Looks like it is just down hill from all the vineyards where there is a lot of steppe wildlands. Still a very red sky. Will wait a bit before heading to bed to see if it comes over to our side of the mountain.
Then I found out that this afternoon there was another wildland fire about 5 miles south of here, Haven't heard any details on that yet.
It looks like it is going to be a long summer of fires. So far, four wildland fires in the immediate area.
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Post by diane44fan on May 29, 2021 17:45:12 GMT -5
I wish I could send some of our rain to you! We fid get about a week with none. This week it rained Thursday eve, Friday eve, All day today and is supposed to rain tomorrow. My yard is soggy again and I was hoping to cut grass Monday but at this rate we won't be able to walk across the yard much less cut it.
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Post by MTwomn on May 30, 2021 22:21:43 GMT -5
The fire I wrote about on 26 May: There was an explosion at a home. House, several vehicles and a relatively small area of steppe burned. No other details have been reported. There was no wind that night or it could have been much worse.
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Post by MTwomn on Jun 7, 2021 18:46:25 GMT -5
More details of this fire have come out:
A Burbank man is accused of burning down a house his ex-girlfriend was planning to buy.
Todd J. Gaines, 38, threatened to torch the house on Schumacher private road outside of Benton City the week after the break-up, according to court records.
At the time, people didn’t believe he would follow through.
But less than two weeks ago, at 9 p.m. on May 26, neighbors heard an explosion and saw a pickup speeding away as flames engulfed the Benton City house, about 20 miles west of the Tri-Cities.
Now a $100,000 nationwide arrest warrant has been issued for Gaines, who has avoided police since the fire destroyed the home, patio and shed on the 10-acre lot. He is charged of first-degree arson.
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Post by Fire21 on Jun 7, 2021 21:34:53 GMT -5
Yeah, that would definitely be 1st degree!!
We had a 300-acre grass and timber fire about 40 miles north of town. Started Thursday due to lightning. It was declared under control Saturday, but crews were still on it as of today, mopping up. The thing that will be so laborious this year will be doing extended overhaul (mopping up) to ensure that no embers exist within an enlarged radius of the burn. It's just so dry this year that even a small spark blowing into the unburned fuel could cause the fire to reignite. So extra effort will be made to guarantee a cold perimeter around it.
Gonna be a long hot summer!!
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Post by Fire21 on Jul 1, 2021 17:22:57 GMT -5
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