Update on the American fire and SNAMP

American fire as of 8-26-13The American fire is burning into our SNAMP study areas. It looks like our northern treatment and control sites have been burned through. Here is a snapshot of our study site and the fire perimeter (red) as of 8-26-13. SNAMP control (yellow) and treatment (purple) watersheds are shown.

American Fire Status from Incident Report as of 8-26-13: Fire Status: The south, west and north perimeters of the fire remainin patrol status. Some pockets of heat were found interior to the westside containment line and extinguished last night. Crews have completed burning operations adjacent to the Mosquito Ridge Road, along the eastern perimeter. These burning operations have consisted of fire fighters lighting low intensity (“cool”) fire with the intent of reducing ground fuels between the fire perimeter and the main fire. This tactic was highly successful as it reduced the potential of themain fire escaping containment lines. Crews continue to transition into detecting and extinguishing any remaining hot spots. With increased containment of the fire, crews have begun work repairing areas affected by fire fighting activities. This has included chipping material piled next to roads during fire line construction as well as identifying needs to construct water control devices along fire lines throughout the fire area. Forest visitors are asked to adhere to area and road closures. These closures are in place to protect visitors and fire fighters. The roads and areas that have been closed are unsafe due to fire-weakened, burned trees that pose a risk of falling, as well as frequently heavy smoke making visibility extremely poor. These areas and roads will be re-opened as soon as possible.

Summary Stats:

• Total acres burned: 24,935 acres
• Containment: 88%
• Containment expected: Thursday August 29th, 2013 approx. 12:00 AM

Some resources:

• Incident Report: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3624/
• SimTable Report: http://apps.simtable.com/fireProgression/outputTemp/CA-TNF-HU11_%20american.html
• ESRI Online report: http://www.arcgis.com/explorer/?open=11487c248b3a407cb6fd446ce8ef73d8
• Rim fire update: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3660/
• Rim fire visualization: http://apps.opendatacity.de/fire/en

We will keep you posted.

For more on the SNAMP project see: http://snamp.cnr.berkeley.edu/

This was originally posted on http://kellylab.berkeley.edu/.