Animated Maps as the Lassic Fire Swallows Miles of Forest Land

Yesterday afternoon as wind cleared the haze from Southern Humboldt skies, a massive plume of smoke curled upwards from the Lassic Fire.

Later, as dark fell, the glow of flames shooting skyward capped the mountain like lava of an erupting volcano.

A little after 10 p.m., scanner traffic indicated that the flames were from “a large firing operation on Lassic and Pine near Goat Rock” though earlier a spokesperson for the US Forest Service insisted, “The smoke is not due to defensive firing or burnouts…It is from the natural run of the fire.”

Then, we got early access to Lassic’s maps…!  We uploaded heat maps from the 20th and 21st together on Google Earth so we could see where the edges of the fire had expanded. (Red lines indicate perimeter.) Then using Google Earth’s measuring tool, we were able to see that one area of a single expansion measured over 1 mile from east to west and almost one mile from north to south.  And the fire had swollen in many other areas.

To help our readers visualize the incredible progress of this fire, Oliver Cory has prepared two animated maps. The first shows the expansion from August 2nd about midnight until about 9 p.m. last night (August 20th.)

This last concentrates on the final four days from the 17th to the 20th.

Here’s a non moving map of the fire as it looked last night. (Click on it to enlarge):

As of 1 a.m., Lassic’s glow no longer dominates Humboldt’s southeastern horizon. The fire appears quiet. With tomorrow’s maps, we’ll find out if that’s true.