Red Flag Fire Danger Predicted Across Emerald Triangle Sunday a.m. Through Early Monday Morning
National Weather Service map indicates Red Flag Warning begins just after midnight October 27 across the Emerald Triangle region.
Today and tomorrow, Public Safety Power Shutoffs are planned after meteorologists predicted high winds and dry weather were coming. These same conditions prompted the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue a Red Flag Warning for many areas in the northern half of the state early Sunday morning.
Josh Whisnant at the NWS in the Eureka office told us that in California, winds coming from the northeast in October happen up and down the length of the state. In the Bay Area, this weather pattern can be known as Diablo winds. In Southern California, the same dry winds are called the Santa Anas.
In Autumn, high air pressure often builds up in the Great Basin over the semi-arid region east of California in Nevada and Idaho. Simultaneously a “thermal trough” develops in California along the base of the Sierras. As that high pressure spills down the mountains westward, it brings warm dry air that often carries all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In years with a weaker system, this brings pleasant weather that people appreciate.
But when the system is stronger, it brings hot winds that can dry vegetation quickly to the point that fires begin easily. And the winds from this year’s event are predicted to reach 70 mph in places. Wind, at such high speeds, can damage electric transmission equipment which, during such dry conditions, can spark a fast-moving wildfire.
The dynamics predicted for this weekend further south mirror the weather scenario when the Camp Fire, the Carr Fire, and the Tubbs Fires occurred.
Whisnant described this offshore wind event as “unusually strong this year” statewide.
Screenshot of the interactive “Red Flag” Warning map which will provide more precise predictions for your location.
The NWS predicts residents in the Emerald Triangle who live above 1500 feet may expect 25-35 mph sustained winds with gusts over 60 mph and low humidity.
In the lower valleys, winds are expected to be much calmer–only 10-25 mph.
Cal Fire urges residents to be careful during Red Flag Warnings. They state, “During these times extreme caution is urged by all residents, because a simple spark can cause a major wildfire.”
Related Information: PG&E’s schedule of planned power outages across Northern California
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Held hostage again by PG&E.
Right? So sick of it!!!
No. Held hostage by the climate. PG&E are trying to do damage control.
Finally.
After years of ignoring the problems in favor of profits… But the weather conditions have normalized this pattern in the past decades – this has become standard and the Jet Steam is not something we can control.
There is a larger picture here., we are not entitled (regardless of our California Arrogance) to be exceptions. The Tsunami of change doesn’t recognize Exceptions.
Regarding PG&E… The fact that homegrown power systems and smaller distribution systems (micro grids) have been discouraged in favor of mass production and distribution is the direct result of the drive for corporate profit coupled with miserly local governments ignoring the fact that every chain (in this case, distribution) has weak links (distance from source to customer).
We are not held hostage to PG&E.
We are addicted to it.
This is the price we pay.
It won’t last long.
Well said
Going to be quite a crowd at the next PG+E anonymous meeting
So how does the rest of the country deal with high winds, this is bs….or even the surrounding states…
They don’t have the entangled legal system that California has? They don’t have the government that California has? They don’t have the physical variation in climate or size? Because they do have investor owned power companies too.
You may have noticed on a map, California is a bit bigger than other states, in size and population. It was stated here yesterday; 100,000 miles of power lines alone. How much more are you willing to pay? You dont wave a magic wand and ‘fix’ something like that.
I usually check two National weather service forecast maps because one is from a place about 200 feet lower in elevation and the other 200 feet above from my elevation. The difference is substantial with maximum winds of about 15 miles per hour while the other shows max 30 miles per hour respectively. I’m amazed that the Weather Service can even attempt that level of precision in forecasting when just 10 years ago it would have been impossible.
/” I’m amazed that the Weather Service can even attempt that level of precision in forecasting when just 10 years ago it would have been impossible.”/
~since a hurricane can hover for 20 hrs. over the Bahamas, T.H.E.Y. (The Hierarchy Enslaving You), can ‘forecast’ winds with no prob.
‘Apocalyptic’ levels of destruction in Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7utT7CAiS6w 2 mins. September 4
Lots of people never heard of the wind driven fire that burned from Trinidad to Blue Lake in 1908. Destroyed entire towns, killed people. Maybe do an article on that to remind people it CAN happen here?
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SU19080925.2.6&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
Thank you for this. I had never heard of that fire. Put a nick in my wall of smugness over the issue.
Great article! Wow, what a fire. Thanks for sharing!
most people don’t understand why. the 100 yard stand of green trees is what saved Fieldbrook. the entire remaining area was already clear cut and the amount of old growth slash on the ground is hard to imagine, but it was described as impassable and this fire was said to be started by man to reduce the slash. sounds like bad timing. here is the mill town just before the fire in 1908, notice what is standing.
living redwoods stopped the fire. to date there is no record of a natural forest fire in the coastal redwoods. the HSU collection has numerous photos of manmade slash burns in the cut areas. some are amazing and it is worth the search on their website. understanding history is key and most of it is now at your fingertips.
Anyone who’s ever listen to Smokey the Bear knows that 90% of wildfires are caused by man and as posted this is nothing new. The more people that come and live in naturally prone areas for wildfires, the more people are going to die,the more structures are going to be burned down and the higher the cost will be.
” there is no record of a natural forest fire in the coastal redwoods” ….then how do you explain the numerous “chimney trees” that were gutted by fire (and survived)? You can see these fire damaged trees in the old growth redwood preserves.
Or not- https://redwood.forestthreats.org/fire.htm
“Residual old-growth forests harbor abundant visible evidence of fire in the form of basal and canopy fire cavities and charred and fire-notched bark. Fires clearly burned almost everywhere over the coast redwood range sometime in the past, but were these fires just rare events, or are wildfires likely to become more common here as they have in the interior forests? Do fires burn due to fuel accumulation or in synchrony with climate variation, or were past fires just the result of cultural needs?…
Coast redwood is a difficult tree to work with, as fire scars are readily lost to decay and those that do form often do so only below a height of 30 cm. Early efforts understandably used stump surfaces, but this sampling height was far too high to capture the actual fire history. Because of this methodological legacy, all early efforts, particularly those that reported fire intervals greater than 20 years, both in the south and in the north are suspect. More recent efforts indicate that fire appears to have been far more frequent and prevalent than early research suggested.
Remarkably, fire was also common in many of the humid portions of the northern redwood forest. Such a prevalent role for fire in the north reflects the presence of Native Americans who burned for resource benefit for centuries. In humid sites, it seems likely that the fire frequencies were conditioned on the decisions of a few individuals and the ability of their ignitions to spread more broadly–fire spread reflected fuel and climate conditions that varied over time at northern coastal sites.”
Thanks so much! And there were a couple other big fires on the coast after that:
from http://www.humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/3765 :
*Humboldt county fire history map II.I-31
*Some of these fires included entire towns being burned, such as the 1908 fire that destroyed the community of Luffenholz. II.I-28 Surprisingly, several of the more destructive historical fires have occurred on the coast around the Trinidad area, including the 7,432-acre Luffenholz Fire of 1908, the 17,527-acre A-Line Fire of 1936, and a 15,000 –acre unnamed fire near Patrick’s Point in 1945. II.I-25
Ice, thanks for the link to the article. I had heard about the fire but not the details.
When was the fire that burned to the beach at Shelter Cove and where did it start?
These are known as katabatic winds. They move down out of the mountains, pushed by high pressure and gravity.
Some of California’s fire problems relate to improper forest and range management, over a period of several decades. Some problems are the result of aging electric grid infrastructure, and poor system maintenance.
Some problems result from the movement of human populations into previously uninhabited woodland, and the failure of landowners to clear brush and deadwood, and create firebreaks. Some problems are exacerbated by climate change. However, California (much as it would like to think so) is not unique. The great fire of 1947 destroyed nine Maine towns, and 500,000 acres of woodland. More recently, our Australian cousins have faced devastating wildfires
on an unprecedented scale, burning out whole towns, and killing millions of animals. Brazil, as we speak, is on fire.
The Amazon’s massive blazes, man caused, can be seen from the space station.
There is no one cause, or one solution, to these conflagrations. People have to get together, and hammer out strategies for prevention and protection. Hard to do, in our polarized, suspicious, and angry national environment.