Rolling Western U.S. Is On Fire / Wildfires Thread

scary stuff in northern california right now. we're approaching the peak of it but wildfire season gets longer every year.

still two months or so to go before the rains hit Oregon. yeah, scary shit

this wildfire smoke map / forecast is wild:

https://airquality.weather.gov/sectors/conus.php

that interface is wonky but the "vertical smoke integration" forecast seems to show smoke drifting all the way to the lower mississippi valley.

miraculously, we have not gotten serious smoke in Eugene yet. last year was much worse, but I think it's just pure chance (and weather patterns) that we aren't totally inundated at this point.

The #CarrFire that is burning through Redding, CA has now destroyed nearly 1,000 homes.

It's still just 20% contained and has burned an area *three times the size of San Francisco*.

Six of the 20 most destructive fires in California history have happened in the past 10 months. https://t.co/BcK4gNmnPX

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) July 30, 2018

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjZpEKYUYAII-qS.jpg:large

Was in Ashland, OR last week, which is about two hours north, and the smoke was so bad is was classified as "hazardous." Lots of people wearing masks, or at least staying indoors. Related, we were in Santa Rosa, too, which was hit super hard last year, but aside form a few "thank you" monuments to firefighters I never would have guessed.

from a friend, and I totally buy this theory"

[Now these developers are starting arson fires in Cali to force people to flee north where these prices are “normal”!

Sixteen thousand rental units in Portland are sitting empty

http://www.registerguard.com/news/20180820/wildfire-smoke-to-degrade-lane-countys-air-quality-to-unhealthy-levels

Seattle:

https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NASA-Vancouver-Fire-thumbnail-620x467.jpg

Missouri man flies to California, sets 13 wildfires, then tries to fly home, cops say

https://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/s6tqdm/picture235504772/alternates/FREE_768/Screen%20Shot%202019-09-26%20at%2011.44.07%20A_fitted.jpeg

After he was arrested, Graham told investigators he and his wife had planned to drive along Calaveras Road near the reservoir together before her death in 2018, according to the news outlet. A report by investigators states: “Because she passed away and could not be with him, it made him emotional, starting the fires.”

The blackouts, which were projected to begin early Wednesday just after midnight, were likely to affect parts of San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley but not San Francisco or Sacramento, PG&E said. https://t.co/myow89C8eu

— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) October 8, 2019

"Can't blame us for fires if we shut off the power grid"
Roll-Safe-tapping-finger-to-head.jpg

PGE recently spent $79 million on lobbying, got $1 billion in tax rebates, made a profit of $4.8 billion and hiked executive pay 94% https://t.co/ELHZLLlKn2

— reclaim UC (@reclaimuc) October 9, 2019

Saddleridge fire being investigated as caused by sparking SCE electrical tower despite residential outages.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-13/saddleridge-fire-electrical-tower-investigated-possible-ignition-point

This is normal right?

Black smoke and fire from Nustar Energy refinery pic.twitter.com/nuuCOuiVS9

— KTVU (@KTVU) October 15, 2019

I guess this isn't technically a wildfire but still (wait for it...):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u4BeyqyP8o

I have to say, between the fires and now smoke from a burning refinery, this ad is in pretty poor taste for Californians. #smokeandmirrors#banSUVs https://t.co/RrLBRrM9Ow

— Dr Kristina Hill 🏳️‍🌈 (@kzhill) October 15, 2019

There are approximately 42 fire units at Nu Star incident from agencies around the Bay including- Contra Costa County Fire, Crockett Fire, Rodeo-Hercules Fire, Pinole Fire, Richmond Fire, CAL FIRE and the East Bay Regional Park District and overhead from the East Bay IMT.

— Con Fire PIO (@ContraCostaFire) October 16, 2019

Interstate-80 is the major conduit from the SF Bay Area to Sacramento & beyond...

https://i.imgur.com/jNYX0hs.png

...and is forecasted to be closed for another 6+ hours.

More PG&E power outages coming over the next few days, some could last as long as 48 hours.

Outages already reported in Northern Sonoma County.

The wind woke me up early. Reminded me of how it was the night of the Tubbs fire. First thing I did when I woke up was check to see if there was a fire and wasn’t too surprised.

possibly no bueno with the Getty Fire in L.A., w/the strongest Santa Anas of the year supposedly arriving tonight. the air quality seems to be okay around the city, i assume the winds are blowing the smoke out to the ocean.

there are a dozen or so people on my FB marking themselves "safe" from this fire despite most living in idk Highland Park or Silver Lake or East Hollywood.

haha i assume it's to ward off calls or messages from family who live out of the area?

I heard some terrifying dystopian references (2nd-hand w/o source) about people trapped in their "smart" homes as flames approached, because the power outage meant the "smart" locks couldn't be opened, and the internet was down so they couldn't reach anyone for help?

any source or link for that wld be appreciated

I would think any door would have to have a failsafe way to open from the inside, for a house fire, etc.

I would think any door would have to have a failsafe way to open from the inside, for a house fire, etc.

that's a pretty non-contestable requirement of CA Fire Code for buildings

and we all know how much rich techbro assholes feel about public safety regulations

Cue Silicon Valley Jared and the driverless car scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UBdrMTxsvs

if you die in a fire because of your "smarthome" maybe you... aren't that smart

"Open the pod doors HAL"

SF is on fire and TIME is on it (view quickly before it is deleted):

As fires continue to ravage different parts of California, watch as firefighters face massive flames in San Francisco pic.twitter.com/lFjNOQiBqV

— TIME (@TIME) October 29, 2019

lol

The Zack House by Craig Elwood burned by the Getty fire in Los Angeles.

https://www.facebook.com/KCMODERN/photos/pcb.2525595454199945/2525593230866834/?type=3&theater

xp RIP Time tweet

the reagan library is now threatened by the blazes

bump

CalFire admits in presser this morning that they have NO resources to fight this. Like, NONE. Guess why? Bc the prison populations, who have for decades been California’s primary firefighter hand-crews on wildfires, are too sick with Covid to go. https://t.co/ZZKIpsN5lc

— RH Herron/Rachael Herron (@RachaelHerron) August 19, 2020

well, not exactly NONE. but yeah, that is bleak. $2 to $5 a fucking day for the work, too, which probably makes it the highest paid position available for them

it would be disgusting even if they weren't exposing themselves to immediate and long term danger for that wage. absolutely unconscionable.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-climate-danger-of-kamala-harris-prison-labor-legac-1844712734 this suggests it's $5/hour? not that it makes a difference. (n.b. in spite of myself i don't place much of the blame for this on kamala herself, article doesn't do a great job of explaining how the AG's office got to the point of filing that. however, it's not justifiable.)

Anyone know the likelihood of Santa Cruz city having to evacuate? My sister lives there, and this is cranking up her nervousness...

(caveat that i'm just some guy, not a firefighter) It's not too close yet but I'd be concerned about the cluster that just broke out south of Henry Cowell State Park (https://www.esri.com/en-us/disaster-response/disasters/wildfires) . CalFire's general policy is to greatly favor protecting residential areas over parks so I wouldn't be surprised if they're already doing controlled burns around UC Santa Cruz.

xp: She should be fine if she's in town. If she's up the coast or in the hills off Hwy 9 she's probably already evac'd.

I don’t really want to reveal where I live (not Santa Cruz) but um I have a bag packed. 😬

DJI: this account has all the latest information

https://twitter.com/CALFIRECZU/

Article about the guy from Sonoma that built Watch Duty. I wish the app wasn't so necessary.

https://www.marinij.com/2025/01/15/watch-duty-app-california-wildfires/

I'm one of the co-founders of that app (although I stepped away after the first fire season cuz I needed to make money.)

ILX saving humanity once more.

Wow Lucas, thank you. Great to hear about people putting their tech skills to build something positive for the community.

I thought this long IG slide story on "fire amnesia" was pretty illuminating:

https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17857716315281975/

we got another one near Santa Clarita -- the Hughes fire, 3400 acres already.

smoke is coming in heavy over the west san fernando valley

Not again!

jeez this one got big fast

They closed down the 5 freeway but it looks like it will be reopened soon.

Just turned on the local news and it looks like the 405 is on fire.

A new 10-acre fire, the Sepulveda Fire.

As the Hughes fire surpasses 10,000 acres.

had to rush home from work to wake up my fiancé, who wasn’t answering the phone. the sepulveda fire is less than a mile north of us, and we could see some of the flames from our roof. we’re packed and ready, but thankfully its looking like its been pretty well contained already.

good luck, kev

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/did-a-private-equity-fire-truck-roll

61-track charity compilation for fire relief out today:
https://superbloomabenefitforfirereliefinlosangeles.bandcamp.com/album/super-bloom-a-benefit-for-fire-relief-in-los-angeles

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/did-a-private-equity-fire-truck-roll🕸

A colleague said it rained on Sunday?

Hope y'all get more of that instead of the 70-80F and gale force winds.

I heard from my friend in Century City that she got rain.

it rained a bit on saturday night and then on and off all day on sunday, with the occasional brief heavy downpour. the three big fires are all now almost completely contained.

heard that google maps updated satellite view for altadena :(

oh yeah that's grim

oof

We get disaster imagery from FEMA pretty quick and yeah devastating stuff

I had two TL-15 safes rated for 1 hour of fire. When I opened them 5 days after the burn one was still on fire inside. Everything that wasn't metal or diamond was ash, sapphire and amethyst had changed color from the temp. The metal is all blackened & some things are missing entirely or partly melted as well.

/r/LosAngeles thread on how well folks' fireboxes, fireproof safes, fireproof fire cabinets survived the fires. (spoiler: most of them didn't)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLosAngeles/comments/1iaw38n/did_your_fireboxes_melt_just_like_in_lahaina/

snowpack looking like 💩

the LA fires were barely 4 months ago...

time to buckle up again as LA's rain season ended with only about 50% of the annual normal.

Smoke to pour into the US as Canada wildfires force province’s largest evacuation in ‘living memory’

very firy out there, esp. around the colorado plateau.

https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn

July 14, 2025

Fire activity remains high across the West, with 14 new large wildfires reported and 36 fires currently uncontained. An additional 78 fires are being carefully managed using strategies beyond full suppression, balancing safety, ecological considerations, and resource priorities. More than 15,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are working across the country, including 18 complex incident management teams, 368 crews, 702 engines, and 120 helicopters. So far this year, 37,672 wildfires have burned 2.5 million acres, tracking above the 10-year average in number, though slightly below in acres burned.

A new multi-state fuels and fire behavior advisory was just issued for central and southern Utah, the Arizona Strip, southwest Wyoming, and lower elevations of Colorado’s western slope. This region is experiencing critically dry fuels, including grass, brush, and pinyon-juniper, and recent wildfires have shown intense fire behavior and rapid spread. These fuels are dry enough to ignite and carry fire easily, even from small sparks. Read the advisory on the predictive services website at the National Interagency Coordination Center.

it has been beautiful and smoke free in the salt lake / northern wasatch area. i am taking a much needed trip to capitol reef national park this upcoming weekend and i see there's already a new start about 50 miles as the crow flies from where i'll be staying. not especially worried about that one crossing a valley and another high top but i'm gonna be watching it :|

just saw that a fire destroyed a lot of the north rim at grand canyon :(

yeah crazy

including the historic lodge

Traveled through the area between Mts. Shasta & Lassen and not only was it 112F but the air was so thick with smoke from multiple wildfires it was positively apocalyptic/hell-on-earth vibes.

https://i.imgur.com/eQY23qy.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/2QXQzCi.jpeg

yikes

grateful we've been spared heavy smoke here so far but at this rate the streak won't last long.

smoke from the Shasta-Trinity National Forest fire has made it to the Bay Area, but it's not that bad yet

Buncha friends up that way.

The area around Whiskeytown lake just burned a few years ago.

buncha big fires in the southland right now

gifford fire (san luis obispo/santa barbara counties) currently at over 100,000 acres

canyon fire (near calarts/val verde) is nearly 5000 acres

also a 1000-acre fire near big bear

this is like day 3 of upper-80s/lower-90s weather, it's otherwise been dry and mild here this summer

dang.

feels like we have new starts around here every week.

the big fire here is still the monroe fire at 66,000 acres. some wildland firefighter / blogger wrote about how a small town was almost taken out. they're getting a little more containment on it. not sure why but this subject is fascinating to me. maybe just cuz fire lol. glad i've never had to deal with evacuation or heavy smoke like l.a. did last year.

the grand canyon fire at 132,000 acres is still going ofc - looks like they're slowly getting some containment on it too though.

dont have fires up here in vermont but a good part of the summer has had some level of smoke in the air blowing down from canada kind of a bummer

a fire can be 20 miles away here and there is no smoke to speak of. a lot of it gets carried aloft and pushed back down to the midwest and northeast afaict.

it is insanely hard to find nasa's wildfire smoke forecast online but i think i finally found where it now resides. sorry for the massive url. you can just go to the desi site. you have to select the hrrr-conus dataset and then surface smoke or vi smoke from the "surface" menu. https://sites.gsl.noaa.gov/desi/?x4dLocations=%5B%22City%22%5D&chart=x4d&lat=40&lon=-105&theme=dark&timeZone=local&hourFormat=12&x4dviewState=%7B%22latitude%22%3A39.996%2C%22longitude%22%3A-105.837%2C%22bearing%22%3A0%2C%22pitch%22%3A20%2C%22zoom%22%3A4.91%7D&dset=HRRR_CO-CONUS&clusHghlgt=true&x4dMapStyle=2D&x4dMaps=%7B%22basemap%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22Mapbox%22%7D%2C%22mapboxBasemap%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22Satellite%22%2C%22parentValue%22%3A%22mapboxBasemap%22%7D%7D&preferredFontSize=14

i mean noaa's smoke forecast. it used to be somewhere else (and better?) but that site is defunct now.

This one?

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=5213bcd1c851452d8adc7f5cf788659b

that's the one I know

i still get nextdoor emails from where i used to live in the colorado rockies and there are fires up there nearly constantly what a mess

xp the arcgis one i don't like because it doesn't actually simulate the smoke plumes moving in a forecast timeline, it just outlines areas that are smokey right now. if you haven't seen what i'm talking about, it's pretty cool (and useful!). just click that long-ass link above and then select "VI Smoke" at the bottom of the "Surface" menu (under "Miscellaneous") ("VI Smoke" stands for "vertically integrated smoke" and it gives you everything in the atmosphere).

smoke from a big one in oregon (emigrant fire) is currently arcing down into the wasatch front - gonna be pretty smokey here for at least the next two days.

I thought that old one shut down, but it looks like it still works?

https://fire.airnow.gov/#3.71/41.36/-82.56