Fires

[sandfly]

French creek State park is burning as of 4:30 pm today !!

 

[resica]

Yeah. She started burning around 12:30 yesterday. They have her 90% contained now. Been doing air drops all day. Last I heard about 450 acres had burned.

 

[Smike]

400 acres on declining fire weather, with temps around 55. Overcast since 10am and low winds today in SE PA..This one is all but put to bed. Thank goodness too, if this started last Friday things could have been different.

Sandfly, you guys in NC PA with leaf out on tress not for another couple of weeks are the ones most in danger now. No big rain makers insight for a while, and 10 and even 100 hour fuels drying out to scary RH values up there.

http://www.wfas.net/images/firedanger/fm_100.png

http://www.wfas.net/images/firedanger/fd_class.png

Setting up like the Ceder Run fire in 08.
Good luck!

Pretty good map of current and recent fire activity (thank you tax dollars)

http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/data/activefiremaps/ema2012101_1500.jpg

 

[willscreek]

About a year ago to the day I planted my garden between several rain storms and the next day after fishing, my garden became a pond due to more rain. We had lots of rain last year and now we're dangerously dry. Would anyone know if PA's long term total of precip is still low? It just seems strange to me that it's so dry after all that.

 

[PSUFishMenace]

Willscreek,
Past 180 days, percent of normal precipitation:

=0&layer[]=1&layer[]=2&layer[]=4&timetype=RECENT&loctype=STATE&units=engl&timeframe=last180days&product=per_normal&loc=statePA]Map

You can play around with this map and look at other time frames if you'd like.

Hope the FCSP fire didn't torch the brookie streams up there! From what I have read, it doesn't seem like they would have been affected too badly.

edit: nvm, the link is not quite what I wanted...just click PA on that map and select the data you want from the drop-down menus at the bottom

 

[Chaz]

A few years ago I think it was 2008 I was up there for the last weekend of April and there were at least 6 wild fires going all at the same time. Two of the fires you could see at night along Upper Pine. It was dry up there 4 weeks ago when I was there, and it hasn't rained much there since.

 

[tomgamber]

Its dry. Be careful. Period. I covered a 750,000 acre wild fire once. Was there when it started and it didn't end until it snowed in October. Also saw one go from 0 - 10K acres in 6 hours. Not sure it'll ever be that dry around here but there is a lot of fuel that could stand to be burned. As long as you can keep it from destroying property, its not always a bad thing. Watching a 100 ft pine tree go up completely in less than 30 seconds will give you some respect for it.

 

[Tiogadog]

Plenty of wildfires here in Virginia. If anyone is planning on heading down to Shenandoah Nat Park check the park's webpage for alerts. Fires are mostly on the western side but I could see and smell the smoke at my house on the eastern side.

Rain is needed badly... none in forecast, however

 

[iceyguides]

Saw this forest fire - http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/04/forest_fire_in_perry_county_ti.html in perry county as my friends and i left tuscarora state forest on a backpacking trip...fire on the mountain.

 

[Smike]

I've seen 100' pines go up and its sounds like a jet engine taking off!

Here is pic of one going off from 2008. :

http://stanislawphoto.com/photos/fire/content/bin/images/large/DSC_1726.jpg

Brookie stream headwaters 1 yr later after complete 100% burn out:

Brook stream headwaters

The fish were fine, but it can raise water temps with the loss of cover.