Wildfire Information 2015
This web page provides updates of the North Central Washington fire situation.
Fire Update: August 21, 2015
(Click to enlarge)
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| Map of large Wildfires in NC Washington, Aug 21, 2015 (0.8 MB PNG image) |
Map of large Wildfires in NC Washington, Aug 21, 2015 (3.6 MB PDF) |
Download GoogleEarth KMZ file of all large Washington Fires (updated 8/21/2015)
Fire Update: August 16, 2015
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| Scan of Gmap4 Aug 16, 2015 (direct link here: www.MappingSupport.com) |
First Creek Fire situation Aug 16, 2015 |
The First Creek Fire
The south end of the First Creek fire begins at the road junction at the north end of Lake Chelan State Park by the Alpenhorn, northwestward into Slide Ridge. Smokes were coming up everywhere above the road for over 2 miles uplake from the park, burning actively right beside the road. This entire slope of Slide Ridge appears to have patches of actively burning fire. Rockslides are a constant danger. A large rock slide came very close to the police car in front of me. Lots of unburned fuel is left to go on this hillside, but it's patchy, and was laying pretty low at sunset when the temperatures were below 80 degrees.
Limited convoys of cars were being allowed in to pay last respects to their cabins in case the worst happens. Last night, Sunday Aug 16, people in the convoy were talkative, showing a mixture of determination, wonder and anger. Convoys were leaving from the Alpenhorn on every odd hour (5, 7, 9, 11), and the road through Navarre Coulee was open, but this was on a contingency basis, and very likely these roads will close again when the fire starts torching later. After 7pm, they started opening the road every hour, but only for residents with an emergency. The road is very dangerous with rockfalls and potential for burning trees to come down.
The satellite image above shows the MODIS thermal mapper image that was about a day old on August 16. These maps can be linked to at the gmap4 site (www.MappingSupport.com)
Personal perspective
This is the second year in a row that fire has forced me to evacuate, then later return and remove valuables while active fire burned just outside.
I offer the following perspectives as a fire behaviour analyst that doesn't work for a government agency.
For agencies
Understand the public need. The biggest public need is information. Where is the fire burning, where is power out, are the roads open? Good sources of information may be available at public meetings, but what happens to those who missed the meeting? And anyway, when a disaster is occurring, meetings and infrastructure usually aren't in place. Websites should contain the same information that was available at public meetings, particularly up-to-date fire maps, and websites need to be consistent. Unfortunately, some agency websites have low resolution maps that are misleading.
Consider that when hundreds of people are trying to evacuate, misleading maps of fires and road closures cost millions of dollars of lost time, and potentially lost homes.
There needs to be good public communication between operations staff working with the public on the ground and agency media staff so that the information is up-to-the-minute.
For the media
We appreciate all the good you do, but PLEASE send your staff to disaster communication training!! Despite good intentions, there is a lot of misleading, unhelpful or insensitive information being put out by TV and radio.
For instance the big TV stations put out news blasts that completely ignore local communities, while focusing only on where they got their trucks placed. Then there is no follow-up when the news later turns out to have been wrong. News reports for the Carlton Complex fire still report 60 homes lost even though the actual number was 330 homes.
Radio hosts should be aware that situations are constantly changing and news is stale the instant it goes out. Avoid statements like, 'It could have been worse,' (when it was worse, but you aren't aware of how much worse).
Avoid statements like, 'At least no one was hurt,' (when during a disaster you aren't aware of people that may be lying in a ditch dying as you speak). During an earthquake I fell and hit my head and an hour later the announcer came on to announce that no one was hurt. FU was my thought.
Repeat the official warnings often and skip the chit chat. Who what where when why? While driving to Chelan, the radio reception was so poor that I kept missing the crucial data, only to have the station switch back to endless chit chat, without repeating what area the discussion was about.
When interviewing a technical expert on a subject that is outside your expertise, the objective is to steer the expert toward clearly presenting information that the public can use to get help, and not to spend too much time on sensational reporting, at least until the main danger is past.
For the public
Shut up with the advice on how firefighters should be doing their job. When you say, 'They could have put it out if they had jumped on it', this can be interpreted as, 'They should throw lives away.'
When you say, 'Those guys should get their butts out of their trucks and actually fight the fires', this can be interpreted as, 'I am a jerk.'
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