Birds and Fire

For the past couple of days we’ve been marveling at the huge number of hummingbirds and orioles that suddenly appeared at our nectar feeders — double or more our usual number. We’ve seen as many as 50 hummingbirds simultaneously buzzing around just 4 feeders. We have two windows with 4 feeders, and both sets of feeders are equally busy.

This afternoon, Debbie made the connection between the appearance of the birds and the Horse Fire — and I suspect she’s totally correct. I’ll bet you we’re hosting a few hundred hummingbirds, and perhaps a dozen hooded orioles (hooded and Bullock’s).

They’re a real treat for us to see, and I suspect we’re actually helping them survive, as well.

With just a little sugar and food coloring…

Quote of the Day

Put down any hot beverages, swallow anything in your mouth, then read:

"If a drunken Mel Gibson did indeed call out, 'Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,' then there can be only one possible place for a man who believes such things: as the next Secretary General of the United Nations."

David Frum, writing at National Review.com

Kofi deserved that one richly. Well delivered, Mr. Frum!

Yalla Ya Nasrallah

Nasrallah, of course, is the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon (and currently rumored to be cowering in the basement of the Iranian embassy in Beirut). This song is Israeli, in Hebrew, with English subtitles.

Just go watch it!

Best. Music. Video. Ever!

Hezbollah, the Bar Bully

Over at the FreeRepublic, there’s a post that makes the case for why the world should stand aside while Israel beats the living hell out of Hezbollah, until Hezbollah gives up. This is so good I’ve reproduced it in its entirety — and I hope this post will entice you to visit the excellent FreeRepublic often…

Posted by MBombardier at FreeRepublic:

I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from my ship.

All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine…figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man’s mutilated ear.

Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.

Each punch opened a cut on the Marine’s startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows.

Nobody moved. Not one person.

The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor’s lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine’s head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.

Finally the Marine’s pleading turned to screams…a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly. Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I’m not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back.

You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]…say [punch] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [punch]”.

He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage. This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters…right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up…or that he was wrong.

Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I’m sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.

Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked “I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him.

I’m sure you can guess why I have shared this story today. I’m not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine’s woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:

This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage…but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat. Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.

President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.

Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:

1. Instigate a war.

2. Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you…get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.

3. Whatever you do, don’t surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population…and will force a truce.

4. Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle. This tactic has never failed. Not once. In fact it worked so well for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel - as a military victory! No kidding…it’s a national holiday over there!

President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to “Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we’ll be ready to discuss all matters."

Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country. And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw. As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat.

Well said. I’m a long way from an expert on the Middle East, but what MBombardier proposes makes eminently good sense to me. I’m good and ready for a significant terrorist group to be so badly damaged that they’re forced into the humiliating position of having to give up, and having to admit they were wrong. Even better to have the object of their torment — Israel — be the one doing the damage. I still have some hope that this scenario is actually exactly what’s happening behind the scenes…

Tip of the hat to MikeD for the pointer…

Horse Fire XVI

The map at right shows the satellite data (both WF-HMS and MODIS) overlayed with the Horse Fire’s perimeter (determined after the fact by human survey teams). It’s very interesting to see how they differ…

The east and west flanks of the fire both have particularly misleading satellite information — they show the fire extending well beyond where it actually was. On the western flank (the one nearest us), there are a couple of satellite paints and WF-HMS data (analyzed by a human) that show the fire extending toward us more than a mile further than it actually did.

On the northeast section of the fire, on the other hand, there are large areas that did burn for which there is no satellite data at all.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this experience is that the satellite data simply can’t be relied on. No matter how carefully I qualified the data (e.g., by how far away the satellite passed over), and even relying on the expertise of the NOAA analysts, the satellite data simply didn’t give us accurate information. And depending on the vagaries of the satellite’s orbits, it wasn’t always timely, either. I think the information we got by watching the smoke plumes from our yard was about as accurate and timely as the satellite data — and maybe even more so. The satellite data is just an indicator, and needs to be thought of in that way.

All the more reason to be happy that I’ve got the scanner…

Scanner

The recent Horse Fire was close enough to our home to make us very worried that it might burn us. During the fire, our biggest frustration was not getting accurate information in a timely manner. Several times we found ourselves in a situation where we had enough information to be concerned about an immediate threat, but not enough to know if we should start packing the vehicles for evacuation. This was very frustrating, and a couple of times we ended up taking a chance by doing a reconnoiter so we could either see for ourselves what was happening, or get some accurate information from someone who had seen for themselves. The risk there is that the fire could break out while we were away from home — we would never have done this if it had been windy, but fortunately it was not windy during the Horse Fire.

But this got me to pondering how I could possibly be better prepared the next time we have a fire in the area. It occurred to me that if I could listen to the radio communications of the fire and police, I’d most likely be able to learn a lot, as it happened, and from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. And that made me think of scanners, those radio receivers that “scan” a whole bunch of different frequencies, stopping when they hear someone talking on one. At least, that’s the way scanners worked the last time I had any contact with one, which was something like 20 or 25 years ago.

So I did some research on the web, and first I discovered that much (though not all) of the police and fire communications these days are handled on what are called “trunked” radio systems. These trunked systems work in a very different way than the radios of yesteryear. In particular, it’s no longer true that one particular radio “talks” on one particular frequency on these systems. Instead, each system is capable of talking on many frequencies, and the central system assigns a frequency each time the talk button is pushed. The central system keeps track of who’s talking on what frequency, and broadcasts that information on a special “control channel” frequency, with digital or analog codes. An old-fashioned scanner of the type I knew about would not be usable with these trunked systems, so at first I thought my idea was in trouble.

But with a little more research, I discovered that the scanner manufacturers have kept up with this technology, and scanners for trunked systems are readily available. After some research I settled on one particular model: the Uniden BCD996T. I got the unit a couple of days ago, and over the past couple of evenings and this morning I learned how to set it up for our local fire and police communications. The easiest way to configure this thing, by far, is to use the PC software that comes with it. It’s possible to do it all through the front panel, but very tedious; much less tedious with the software. This morning I entered the last of almost 400 frequencies and channels. Now the unit is sitting on my desktop, scanning away like mad.

Even though I’m a geek, I find myself completely amazed at the capabilities of this scanner. It has some very smart behaviors built in that make the scanning much more effective. For example, once it discovers someone talking on a particular channel and code, it will check that channel and code more frequently, making it more likely that you’ll catch the entire conversation — this works very well. The audio quality isn’t what I expected at all — it’s not the static-filled AM that I remember from 20 years ago; the modern systems are almost all FM and nearly static-free. And the sensitivity to weak signals is just awesome, especially by comparison to the radios of the 1960s, when I last did any serious RF work.

I’m particularly pleased with the ability to hear the firemen in the field, still working on the Horse Fire. I can hear the guys with walkie-talkies, way out in the boonies, as they work away at hot spots. This morning it is drizzling here, and I heard one team decide not to go into a steep-sided gorge, because they were afraid they couldn’t get out if the roads were wet. In the course of this conversation, they rattled off their GPS coordinates, so I was able to locate them precisely on a map. This is exactly what I hope to be able to do during a fire next time…

Next weekend I’ll be putting up a better antenna for my scanner. Right now I’m operating on just the little whip that came with it. A high-gain antenna, located outside and away from the electronic noise in the house, should work much better yet — especially for the weaker signals from walkie-talkies down in canyons, etc.

Debbie and I, as we listened this morning to the firefighters on the radio, were kicking ourselves for not having done this long ago. I’d encourage anybody living in the chaparral to get one of these scanners. And if you happen to live in San Diego, and you decide to get the same model that I did, I’d be more than happy to share the programming files with you (what Uniden calls “System” files) — just email me, and I’ll send them along…

One Liner of the Day

James Taranto notes this news story:

“Tour de France winner Floyd Landis denied on Thursday taking performance-enhancing drugs during the race and said he would fight to clear his name after testing positive for the male sex hormone testosterone,” Reuters reports.

And makes this quip:

Only the French would consider the presence of testosterone in a man’s system suspicious.

Ooooh…how I wish I’d thought of that!

1955

Hat tip to reader Richard F. for these gems…actual comments that ordinary people made in 1955.

I know a few younger folks that would have trouble believing these!

"I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $20."

"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long before $2000 will only buy a used one."

"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous."

"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"

"If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store."

"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage."

"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."

"I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying 'damn' in 'Gone With The Wind,' it seem’s every new movie has either “hell” or “damn” in it.

"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas ."

"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday they’ll be making more than the president."

"I never thought I’d see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."

"It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."

"It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."

"Marriage doesn’t mean a thing any more; those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."

"I’m just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."

"Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."

"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on."

"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel."

"No one can afford to be sick any more; $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood."

"If they think I’ll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."

My favorite: “…I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."

Hah!

Horse Fire XV

Last night at 6 PM the roadblocks on Lyons Valley Road came down. We were the first ones through the roadblock on the south side, waving to the CHP officer who had been manning it, and now looked very relieved to be done with this duty.

The photo above right is a panorama I made by stitching together seven individual photos. I took this while standing on the eastern edge of the “helispot” that’s along Lyons Valley Road, a mile or so south of the intersection with Japatul Road. Interestingly I saw no evidence that the helispot had been used — even though it was built (at considerable cost) for the express purpose of providing a place to load, unload, and refuel helicopters in an emergency. I could see several other places that did appear to be used for air support, including the large parking lot just south of the helispot. Go figure.

Anyway, you can see (if you click on that panorama) the Secret Canyon area, to the northeast of the helispot, under the clouds. This is in the Pine Creek Wilderness, some very rugged and inaccessible territory.

The leftmost photo below shows the Barrett Honor Camp — it’s an oasis of green amidst the burned area. I’m sure there’s a story there about how they saved that camp…

The next photo is taken from the helispot, looking up Horsethief Canyon. Just out of sight, over the next ridge, is an area full of homes — the firefighters stopped the fire before it got there.

The last two photos show some of the “mop up” operations going on last night (and continuing today). The truck is wetting down a dirt road; the helicopter is looking for hot spots that might flare up again.

We drove all the way to the north end of Lyons Valley Road, where it tees onto Japatul Road. Despite the satellite data and verbal reports to the contrary, our eyeballs tell us that the fire never crossed to the west side of Lyons Valley Road — so the eastern flanks of Gaskill and Lawson Peaks are still green. There’s a lesson in there about how to read the satellite data, though I’m not entirely sure yet what that lesson is…

The piece of good news in all this, at least for Lawson Valley residents, is that a roughly 45 degree swath of our risk aperture (for Santa Ana driven wildfires) has had the fuel removed. It’s the same effect that would occur from a controlled burn, though I can’t imagine any government agency approving a controlled burn of this magnitude. This is a significant reduction in our risk of wildfire…

Horse Fire XIV

We got back from our reconnoiter yesterday afternoon and discovered that our satellite Internet connection had gone down. We’re working with our ISP to get full connectivity back; meanwhile we’ve got just a laptop connected and we can (sort of) post on the blog and monitor email.

The reconnoiter: the roadblock was still up, but the two CHP fellows manning it told us that they were hearing (this is 2:30 PM yesterday) that the fire was nearly out — and our eyeballs told us the same thing, as we saw only a couple of very small smoke plumes. The CDF site this morning is reporting 25% containment — and the satellite is showing only a couple of red dots on the WF-HMS data, and nothing whatsoever on the MODIS data.

We’re reading this as the fire is all but out, though there is a (hopefully very small) risk of a flareup until they get a perimeter around the whole thing.

Very, very good news for all of us in the area surrounding the fire!

Horse Fire XIII

The map at right has the latest MODIS paints — none! Some of the older paints have completely fallen off ('cause they’re older than 48 hours). But on the last pass — almost directly overhead, too — the MODIS imaging didn’t find a single pixel of thermal signature for fire. The most likely reason for this is that there were no large fires left burning, just isolated smaller fires (these don’t produce enough heat to cross the MODIS threshold).

I called CDF, and their recording is now sounding positively chipper. In particular, it mentions no threat of any kind from the western flank of the fire (the one closest to us). Yahoo! They do talk about some remaining risk at Secret Canyon and Lake Morena (the orange shaded areas), but mostly they talked about containment, the need for 20 miles of perimeter construction, and the vast array of men and equipment on the scene.

We’re going to take off on a reconnoiter; if we learn anything new we’ll post within a few hours.

Horse Fire XII

Just got off the phone with a real, live — and informed — CDF person. He reports that the brunt of the fight on the Horse Fire is now on its western flank (closest to us), and that so far the firefighters there have managed to keep it all east of Lyons Valley Road, and south of Japatul Road. That’s great news for us!

Not so great news for us: the weather service is forecasting that the winds today will be toward the southwest, but light (definitely NOT a Santa Ana condition!). This would have the fire tending in our direction, with the uphill slopes it would first run into heading straight toward us.

We’re hoping those firefighters continue to prevail, and keep that horse’s ass of a fire over on the other side of the road!

The most recent MODIS data is now 12 hours old, so almost irrelevant. The next pass of a MODIS satellite is Terra, which will fly over in about 90 minutes, about 800 miles to the east. It’s just over 400 miles high, so that will give it a very oblique view (about 25 degrees). Assuming its sensors see that wide a path (I’m not sure about this), then it should have a great view of the eastern flanks of Gaskill and Lawson Peaks…

Horse Fire XI

We just got an update to the WF-HMS data. This is the data that is generated by a human analyst at NOAA, who takes into consideration all the available data (including imagery).

The green splotch, as usual, is where our home is located. This is zoomed in to show only the southwestern flank of the Horse Fire. The data of interest here are the small red and yellow dots — the red dots indicate fires located by the analyst within the past 24 hours, yellow dots are between 24 and 48 hours old. There are several new red dots, including one right smack in the middle of the community of Carveacre (that’s the dot by itself in the grey area, on the northwest side of the visible fire area). There are also more red dots in the area just to the north and to the east of Lake Barrett.

If this data is accurate, our hearts go out to the folks who live in Carveacre…

The areas closest to our home, with the big one kilometer diameter red MODIS splotches, doesn’t have any red dots at all — we’ll take that as good news.

And we can’t help but be amused by the red dot located right in the middle of Lake Barrett. That’s a good reminder of the “coarseness” of these data — the small red dot implies a much higher precision than is actually present. It’s entirely possible that the red dot in Carveacre is actually misplaced, much like the one in Lake Barrett. We sure hope so…

Horse Fire X

We got a bit of new satellite data last night, and with this data alone you would now think that the major part of the fire is the part nearest our home. Yikes!

On the upper map, at right, the green splotch is where our home is, and the hand-drawn orange areas are where the verbal CDF reports say the fire is. For the southwest flank (the part nearest our home) and the southeast flank (the part nearest Lake Morena), the verbal reports jibe well with the satellite data. For the northern flank, all we have are the verbal CDF reports — in a dozen or so satellite passes, we’ve never seen a single pixel of data concerning heat or flares in Secret Canyon. This makes me wonder if the verbal CDF reports are just plain wrong, and the fire is actually south of Secret Canyon, where those black MODIS paints, and the two active WF-HMS red dots are…

CDF reported late last night (after we went to bed) that the fire was now 15% contained and had burned 16,384 acres. I’m not sure how they estimate containment. My guess would be the percentage of the perimeter that they have a secure firebreak around, but that’s just a guess. The burned acreage jumps right out at a geek like me: 16,384 is an even power of two (2^14, or 128^2) — a frequently encountered number in the world of a programmer who’s familiar with machine-level operations. It seems somehow unlikely that the estimated acreage accidentally came out as such a number. More likely is the estimation algorithm is being exposed here, somehow…

The lower map is really just for your interest. It’s the NOAA near-realtime map with every reporting option turned on (and a legend visible). The red dots are the results of human analysis; all the other dots are automated systems — algorithms running on sensor data.

Until yesterday, CDF was reporting that the cause of the Horse Fire was “under investigation”. Early lamestream media reports said it was an illegal immigrant’s campfire, but they soon backed off of that statement. Now the CDF is reporting the cause as an “escaped campfire”. So far as I know, the area where the fire started doesn’t have any campgrounds. It’s definitely an area subject to heavy illegal immigrant traffic. So I’d say the odds are that the initial report was correct — an illegal immigrant had a campfire that got out of control. But I can’t be 100% sure; I suppose it could be some loon back there camping in the National Forest, legitimately.

We’ve had a fair number of forest fires and brush fires started by illegal immigrants' campfires in recent years — I’ve even found the remains of such fires on my own property, which is kind of frightening (I’ve never seen an illegal immigrant on my property).

Have to wonder though, what anyone was doing with a campfire at 6 AM that particular Sunday. My weather system recorded the temperature at that moment as 90 F — more like air conditioner weather than campfire!

Horse Fire IX

Just when you think it’s safe to get a good night of unworried sleep, this darned fire jumps up and slaps you upside the head. A couple of hours ago, everything I could find out sounded like this fire was on its way down.

Now I’m not so sure.

The top map is zoomed out to show the entire fire, with satellite data that’s current as of 6 PM. The green splotch is where our home is. The purple splotch south of the west flank of the fire is a lookout point that we drove to at about 5 PM. To the north and slightly east of that vantage point, I’ve shaded in blue the places where we saw some open flames — not a huge blaze, mind you; more like a collection of bonfires a few hundred feet apart.

The MODIS data (see earlier posts for an explanation of how this data is gathered) shows active spots to the west of Lyons Valley Road for the first time. This is worrisome for us, as it indicates the fire is still burning its way toward us. As we expected, there is activity on MODIS all around the north half of Barrett Lake, and out toward Lake Morena.

The center map, directly at right, shows the same data but zoomed in to show just where our home is and that worrisome western flank of the fire. Again, the green splotch is where our home is, and the blue shaded area is where we saw flames at 5 PM. Those two red MODIS splotches closest to our home is what will keep me from sleeping well tonight…

I called the CDF info line again, and learned that they’re still estimating the burned area at 15,400 acres and just 5% contained. My own estimate, from the satellite data, is that 33 to 39 square miles (22,000 to 25,000 acres) have burned. CDF is reporting lots of assets on the fire: 1,164 people, 17 fire crews, 176 engines, 6 air tankers, 6 helicopters, 6 bulldozers, and 13 water tenders. They also say that the hot, dry weather and rugged terrain are hampering their efforts — of this I have no doubt. But it would be ever so much worse if we had bad winds, and thank goodness we do not.

The bottom map is one I have not posted about before. This is the raw WF-HMS data from NOAA. On this map, our home is the blue dot. Their mapping system is not as sophisticated as the one I’ve been showing you maps from, as you can see from cartoonish presentation. One thing that’s particularly confusing is that they use a different map projection system, which has the result that their map appears to be sort of twisted in a clockwise direction by about 20 degrees from the maps you’ve been seeing. Nevertheless, it shows more current WF-HMS data, and it has something in addition: it shows the smoke pattern observed by satellite. And in the case of the Horse Fire, you can easily see that the high-level smoke is moving off mostly to the north.

This will likely be my last post for the evening, unless something dramatic happens. The temperature is cooling off rapidly (75F right now) and the humidity is rising just as quickly (36% right now) — both very good things for the firefighters.

And we are certainly wishing those firefighters well tonight…

Horse Fire IX

The Aqua (EOS PM) satellite, one of those carrying the MODIS imaging equipment, made a pass overhead just before 3 PM. Its view of our area was fairly oblique, as it passed way to the west of us…so the western flanks of the fire may have been invisible to it, as well as anything burning deep in Secret Canyon. It does show a broad area that’s very hot, near the western side of Lake Morena — the furthest part of the Horse Fire from our home…

The darned CDF information line is a bit like playing the slots. Most of the time you just get an old recording. If you’re lucky, you get a human, but they don’t really know very much. If you hit the jackpot — and I just did — you get a human who is well-informed. And even had a sense of humor!

From my jackpot CDF lady I got a good verbal report of the areas still burning (I’ve hand-shaded these purple on the map). The one of most concern to us is the western flank of the fire, and she described an area that jibes nicely with what the survey crew told us. It’s still not an immediate concern for us. She also told us where it’s burning in Secret Canyon; that’s the northernmost purple splotch. It’s also burning on the north and east sides of Lake Barrett — but the honor camp (for dishonorable people) is still safe. And finally, the major burn area is in Bobcat Meadows, just west of the northernmost part of Lake Morena — this jibes nicely with the MODIS data.

The eastern flank of the fire — out near Lake Morena — is still in a wilderness area, but getting closer to civilized areas. I hope they can stop it before it passes Lake Morena, headed east…

Horse Fire VIII

Around 12:30 PM this afternoon we saw a quickly growing column of white smoke suddenly pop up from behind Gaskill Peak (as seen from our yard). The CDF information number was back on a recorder (with a four hour old message), and there’s been no new satellite info since 7AM. We were worried, so we decided to do another reconnoiter.

On Sunday evening, the last time we did a reconnoiter, we made it to a roadblock at the red line on the map at right. From there, we had a great view of the valley that Barrett Lake is in, and north to Horsethief and Secret Canyons, where the fire was burning. This afternoon we only made it to the purple line, where a new roadblock was installed. My theory is that the CDF is using Lyons Valley Road for helicopter operations; my evidence is that we saw four fuel trucks leaving.

Our home is in the green splotch. The blue line is roughly the ridgeline that lies between us and the fire. We’re very fond of the ridgeline — not only is it a beautiful view from our home, but it’s also a very defensible line for the fire-fighters, should the fire start burning west of Lyons Valley Road.

On the way down Skyline Truck Trail, and on the part of Lyons Valley Road that we could drive, we saw helicopters very low overhead, and fuel trucks parked at several locations — probably staged for quick use when needed.

Right at the roadblock, we saw a CDF survey team pickup parked, with one crewmember trying to open the locked gate. I took advantage of the moment to talk with the driver, who was very informative. From her we learned:

— The Carveacre voluntary evacuations were ordered because the community is so difficult to evacuate, with just one twisty, steep dirt road for access. It’s not that Carveacre is immediately threatened.

— The fire is still entirely east of Lyons Valley Road. She gave us a good verbal description of where it’s burning on the western flank of the fire; I’ve shaded that area in yellow on the map.

— She confirmed that the CDF was making a stand on Lyons Valley Road, and had the objective of keeping the fire on the eastern side of it.

— She told us that all the ridgetops (being defensible and accessible to the planes) were being “painted” with fire retardant.

Then her crewmate got the gate open, and they took off to do some reconnoitering of their own. As we walked back to our car, we saw the most amazingly stupid thing I’ve seen in quite a while. A pair of cars was stopped in the middle of the road, with the two drivers talking to each other through their open windows. The road was narrow in this area, so they completely blocked it. Behind them was a line of 7 firefighting vehicles, trying to get out of the Skye Valley area (near Lake Barrett), including fuel trucks, crew operations trucks, and a helicopter logistics truck. These two idiots sat there with all this equipment held up behind them, just jabbering away. When I hollered over at them that they were gumming up the works, one of the drivers answered back with a rude comment about my ancestry. But they moved, finally.

Just before we pulled out to head back home, I took a good look at the visible smoke plumes. The biggest one, by far, seemed to be coming from further east, out toward Lake Morena. The closer in burn area, on the western flank and most concerning to us, showed much less smoke. We took some comfort from that…

Horse Fire VII

Several of my readers have emailed to ask me how on earth I could possibly see anything good coming out of the Horse Fire. One of them (who shall remain unnamed) even accused me of being around-the-bend insane. This is an attempt to defend my sanity.

These maps show a larger area than the recent maps I’ve published. In both of these, there’s a purple square in the area where our home is, just to the left of center.

The upper map has pinkish areas that show all the areas burned in fires that occurred from 2000 through 2005. Those pink areas are the least likely to burn again within the next few years, because much of the fuel is gone. I’ve driven through those pink areas to the northwest of our home within the past few weeks — and even though that fire was in 2001, five years ago, there’s still very little fuel there.

But if you start with that purple square, and look at the 90 degree swath of land from about NE to about SE, you’ll see that there’s virtually nothing that’s burned within the past six years — for miles and miles and miles. During a Santa Ana wind condition, that’s the direction the winds are coming from — so any fire that started out in that direction during a Santa Ana would pose a big risk to us.

Now if you look at what the Horse Fire has done, you’ll see that it has reduced the aperture of risk considerably. Any fire starting to the east of the Horse Fire’s area will have to go around that burned area to get us. It’s still not impossible for it to do so, of course — but it’s definitely going to slow such a fire down, and remove a whole bunch of fuel that could have made it grow.

The lower map (at right) shows different green shadings for fires in the decades between 1950 and 1999. Most of that map is covered by an area burned in 1972. All of Lawson Valley, including where our house now stands, was burned that year. We’re living amidst 34 years of fuel accumulation — and that’s the same kind of accumulation that the Horse Fire is now burning in.

The most relevant thing visible on this map is due south of the Horse Fire, where there’s an area of about the same size as the fire that isn’t burned on either of these two maps. That means that there’s over 50 years of fuel accumulated in that area — making it the biggest risk area left anywhere near our home. Between that area and our home, very little has burned since 1972. If any fires pop up in that area, you can bet we’re going to be watching closely and biting our fingernails…

Horse Fire VI

Just got off the phone with a real person at CDF, instead of the recording they’ve been using. This person, who seemed to actually have some sense of what was really going on, gave me several pieces of useful information:

— Winds on the scene are light, erratic, and not a problem.

— The fire has not (yet) crossed west of Lyons Valley Road. This is the last road between the fire and Lawson Valley, where we live.

— Primary fire activity currently is near Lake Morena and on the east side of Barrett Lake.

— Wind forecast is for moderate winds to the northeast. This is good for us, bad for Guatay/Pine Valley.

Horse Fire V

Acrid smoke in the air this morning — smells very strongly, with an acidic bite. It’s reminiscent of the Cedar Fire three years ago; not a pleasant memory.

The map at right was current as of 6 AM this morning. I’ve had some questions about the satellite data and exactly what it’s showing. Here’s what I understand after some research last night and this morning.

The MODIS data shows up as one kilometer (about 0.6 miles) diameter circles with slanted line shading in them. Where there’s a circle, the satellite detected heat. The heat measurement is integrated over the entire one kilometer circular area — so a pinpoint of extremely intense heat could trigger it, and so could a broad area of much lesser heat. It does not necessarily mean fire — but it probably indicates at least some fire somewhere in that circle. The colors of the splotches indicate their age. Red splotches are less than 12 hours old; orange splotches are 12 to 24 hours old, and black splotches are more than 24 hours old.

The WF-HMS data is much different. This is data generated by the NOAA as a result of a human analyst who is looking at several different sources of data. The data available to the analyst includes MODIS, visible light imagery, smoke plume detection, and more. The analyst then makes an estimation of where actual fires are, placing dots on a 250 meter grid to indicate them. They’re visible on this map as relatively small solid red dots. The red dots are less than 24 hours old; if there were any data 24 to 48 hours old, they’d show up as yellow dots.

I’ve hand-drawn a few features on the map:

The green splotch at left is the area where our home is.

The purple arrow points to a purple dot; that’s where we stood on Sunday evening when we reconnoitered the fire. Just above and to the right of that purple dot, you can see one of the small red WF-HMS dots (just to the right of the black line that indicates Lyons Valley Road).

The blue horseshoe shaped line (open to the left) is the approximate ridge line of the line of mountains that forms Lawson Valley (where we live). The fire is on the other side of that ridge from us. This matters because ridgelines form naturally defensible lines for the firefighters — fire moves much more easily up a slope than it does down a slope, and the ridge makes and easy target for the aerial tankers. Having a very defensible line between us and the fire is a very good thing that we are taking some comfort from.

The large yellow shaded area at top and toward the left (west) is the community of Carveacre. There has been a voluntary evacuation of Carveacre for most of the past 48 hours, and we’re still trying to figure out why. The fact that the CDF has the evacuation in place is worrisome, as the community of Carveacre is (as you can see) quite close to us.

I just listened to the latest CDF report, and its a real eye-opener. First thing: they’re now reporting 15,500 acres consumed, which is very close to the estimate I made yesterday from the satellite data. There’s a lesson there: the CDF reports are not current. CDF is now reporting a lot more assets on the fire: 770 firefighters, 102 fire trucks, 8 bulldozers, 7 helicopters, and 6 aerial tanker planes. They’re still reporting just 5% containment, which probably mainly reflects the fact that the fire is mostly burning in remote wilderness areas.

The CDF also reports that with the evening, the actively burning areas are much diminished — but with the heat of the day, they expect strong flareups in three areas: Secret Canyon (the part burning to the northeast toward Pine Valley and Guatay), Hauser Canyon (the part burning to the east, and nearing the western edge of Lake Morena), and (most worrisome to us) the part burning on all sides of the northern half of Lake Barett. The latter part is four to five miles away from our home; it’s the area I took pictures of on Sunday.

As I prepared this post (and after I prepared the map at right), there was another satellite update. The MODIS data is largely unchanged.

Horse Fire IV

Verbal report from the CDF, at 12:10PM: the hotspot that is leftmost on the map in the previous post has flared up, and is burning rapidly to the northeast, up Secret Canyon toward Pine Valley and Guatay. There are voluntary evacuations of Guatay and Pine Valley underway, along with Carveacre.

There’s a lot more smoke in the air, quite suddenly.

This is not good news, but it doesn’t look like any increased threat to our home. But the fact that Carveacre keeps popping up is really bothersome — it’s the closest community to us (line of sight), and according to all the information I have, the fire is burning away from it. So why is it being evacuated?

Horse Fire III

This is the latest MODIS satellite imagery (around 11 AM). The intensities are lower, and now there are just three smallish areas with active fires. All good news.

I just called the CDF information line, and instead of a recording I got a live person. Unfortunately, this live person seemed to have no idea what he was talking about; I got no useful information from him at all, except that he said the CDF’s estimate of the size was now 7,000 acres.

So I guess its down to who am I to believe: the CDF information line, or the satellite’s lyin' eyes.

I’ll take the satellite…

Horse Fire II

Given what we saw on yesterday’s reconnoiter of the fire, we were not terribly concerned about risk to our home, but still we didn’t think it was prudent to just go to sleep — after all, this rather large wildfire was burning just over the hill from us! But around midnight, it became clear that we simply weren’t going to get any more news — every source of information shut down for the night. The MODIS satellite only makes a few passes a day over any given spot, so we’d be waiting six or eight hours between updates on it. We assessed the risk as so low that making the long road trip out to the fire wasn’t worth it (the fire was only two or three miles in a straight line from our home, but to get there on roads is about 15 miles) — so finally we just gave up, and went to bed.

As of 7 am this morning, the CDF has not posted any news for today (their message is unchanged from last night). But…the MODIS satellite data (publicly available, in near realtime) shows a huge change from last night when I finally went to sleep. The map is at right, this time shown overlayed on a US Geodetic Service topo map instead of the simple shading as I used previously. As before, the green splotch on the left is where our home is. Now, however, we’ve got all kinds of MODIS data.

The orange slant-shaded areas (two splotches) are the 24-hour old data from yesterday. The red slant-shaded areas are between 4 and 24 hours old. The red solid-shaded areas are current as of about 6:45 am this morning; they show where the fire is burning right now. The blue arrow is my hand-drawn inferred path of the main fire.

Last night the CDF message was reporting 6,000 acres burned. My very rough estimate (from the MODIS data) is that 12,000 to 15,000 acres have burned as of this morning.

For us, the most immediately concerning thing is those two solid red splotches near where the fire started. Those are in the same area that I photographed last night; likely that means there has been no firefighting activity there (and we saw none last night). If those areas started burning toward the west, we could have problems. Obviously we will be keeping an eye on that. The center-of-mass of the fire, however, is about six miles due east of the observation point where we reconnoitered last night. The fire moved a long, long way in the still evening air (my weather station recorded no wind at all last night). To some extent, I’m sure that’s due to a combination of the rugged terrain (channeling air flow) and the heavy fuel loads. The area that’s burning is very difficult to get access to — my maps don’t even show any trails, let alone roads. The easternmost front has almost reached Lake Morena (a large man-made reservoir); if it makes it past the lake, every direction is populated. And south of the entire path of the fire is also populated; the beautiful Deerhorn Valley area. If it headed north from where it is currently burning, there are several more miles of wilderness and one of the last remaining large family ranches in San Diego County, then more populated areas (and also the areas burned three years ago in the Cedar Fire).

All in all, it appears that the risk to our home is still quite low. If I lived in Deerhorn Valley or Campo, I’d be considerably less sanguine right now. And as I have said earlier, the fuel consumed by this fire is substantially lowering our risk of the particularly deadly Santa Ana-driven wildfire, because all that fuel would be upwind of us in a Santa Ana…

Update 8 AM:

The CDF is now reporting 6,600 acres burned and 5% contained. They’re also reporting exactly the expected areas as “of concern", a lesser risk than “threatened”. I can’t make sense of the 6,600 acres given the clearly larger area burned on the MODIS data — either there’s something I don’t understand about the MODIS data, or the ground reports haven’t caught up with it…

Horse Fire

The fire that I posted about earlier today now has an official name: the “Horse Fire” (so called, I presume, because it started in the upper reaches of Horsethief Canyon). According to the last information for this evening, it has now consumed over 6,000 acres and is completely uncontained. During the day there were 4 tanker planes, 4 helicopters, 50 engines, 4 water tenders, 4 bulldozers, and 500 firemen fighting the fire. Now that its after dark, the aircraft have stood down — but the fire crews and all that equipment will be at it all night, in the relative cool and still air. We wish them all well.

This evening, just before dark, Debbie and I, along with Jim (our friend and neighbor), set off on a reconnoiter. This was prompted by the rapid growth of the smoke plume combined an ambiguous CDF message telling us that the fire was burning away from us — but that a community between us and the fire (Carveacre) was “threatened”. This made no sense to us, so we decided to see if we could eyeball it ourselves. The lack of up-to-date and accurate information in these situations is extremely frustrating. On the one hand you’re at risk of life and property from a distant foe; on the other hand you have one heck of a time finding out anything about that foe. The urge to go see it yourself is just about irresistable in those circumstances.

So we went. The map at right has several hand-drawn elements. The green area at left is where our home is. The purple dot near the center is where we were able to drive to (the road was closed further on). The orange circumference is my guess, based on observation from that one point, about the perimeter of the fire (as of about 7pm tonight). The red arrows are my nearly completely uniformed guess about the path of the fire, which has now broken up into numerous fires forming a ragged perimeter. The nearly circular red areas with slanting stripes are areas that showed on MODIS satellite data as having an active fire in them (as of about 11 am).

While the scene was dramatic and full of easily observed fires, it was actually quite reassuring. The fire’s center of mass was clearly at a considerable distance (at least a couple miles from where we stood), and much of the terrain between us and it had already been consumed by the fire. There were a few hot spots that were closer, in particular an entire ridge, perhaps a half mile long, that was ablaze just north of Lake Barrett. It seemed to be marching slowly and steadily toward the lake, with no action being taken to stop it. If that fire changed course and headed west, toward Lawson Peak and Gaskill Peak, that would take the fire toward us. There were also a few hotspots visible toward the junction of Lyons Valley Road and Japatul Road; if they broke loose they could also threaten us. But…these were just hotspots, and looked like (to our uneducated eyes) they could be handled by the fire crews. It certainly didn’t look like either Carveacre or Lawson Valley was in imminent danger.

The good news is the same as reported earlier, only much more so because the fire is so much larger now: an enormous swath of the fuel that was such a threat in a Santa Ana condition is now gone. Assuming we survive this one intact, our risk of a catastrophic blaze just got lowered substantially…

I saw something surprising while watching the fire, and was reminded of it as I processed my photos: there were a large number of birds in flight near the fire (I caught quite a few by accident in the photos). Many of the were either raptors, crows, or ravens. I’m guessing that they’re taking advantage of the fire, by hunting the rodents that expose themselves while fleeing the fire. That’s a twist I’d never thought of before. The mice have a choice: stand still and be roasted, or run and be eaten. Once again, for the umpteenth time, I’m very grateful that we humans don’t have to worry much about other animals trying to eat us…

Below are a selection of the bazillion photos I took at the scene. Most of these were taken with a hand-held 620mm lens (stabilized), under very challenging low-light/high-constrast conditions. Please be forgiving of the (many) technical shortcomings — these were not taken in a studio. As usual, click on any thumbnail to get a larger (sometimes much larger!) view…