A bit OT - Retardant bomber in the Okanogan Fire Fight

[dp]

We're nearly all consumed (meaning obsessed ) by the fires here in north central Washington State, but sometimes something remarkable comes out of the mayhem.

It's a good example of being in the right place at the right time with a good camera.

http://northokanogan.com/?p=2124

Visibility right now is about 800' - can't see the mountain 2 miles away at all. Wind has been from the south all day, and the nearest fires are 18 miles distant. To the south, of course.

[LKeithR]

Yeah, it's pretty crazy down there right now. Never been anything quite this bad that I can remember. We're getting some smoke here in the valley today--comes and goes depending on the wind...

[lakeside53]

On the other side of the Cascades (Western Wa) near the foothills, visibility is about the same. Sunlight is about 1/2 of normal and massively shift to the red end. Feels weird. Westerly winds supposed to blow tonight so ours will clear out.

[Willy]

Friend of mine in Washington state sent me that one this morning, quite the shot indeed!

The fires in the drought stricken west are probably the worst I've seen. Over one million acres on fire in Washington alone. Add to this the fires in California, Oregon, and British Columbia and the total amount of damage and costs have got to be staggering. Unfortunately Washington also lost three young fire fighters to the fires this week.
The skies were relatively clear at my location for the last couple of weeks but the winds shifted overnight. I got up this morning and could not believe my eyes. Smoke so thick that visibility was measured in yards instead of miles.

I grabbed this pic from NASA today, taken at about 11:00 AM. It graphically shows the amount and the number of fires the west is enduring at present.
The photo covers the west coast including most of California, all of Oregon and Washington, and about 100 miles north of the Wa./BC border. That's me coughing in the smoke plume at the top of the page.
We need rain!

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=USA1.2015235.terra.1km

[dp]

Arson is no longer whispered about in quiet rooms. The pattern suggests we're having a lot of spontaneous combustion well away from the established fires, or people are clumsy with tools, mowers, etc., or someone is playing with fire.

[Willy]

Arson is no longer whispered about in quiet rooms. The pattern suggests we're having a lot of spontaneous combustion well away from the established fires, or people are clumsy with tools, mowers, etc., or someone is playing with fire.

I'm sure that arson is suspect in some of these fires. Events that draw lots of media attention always draw out the nut cases. But I think the largest factor is the extreme heat and drought the west has been under coupled with a very large and tinder dry fuel load. All you need now is to wait for the idiots out there that keep tossing butts out of their windows and starting campfires that they then walk away from.

We've had close to two full months of bans for any type of campfire or open flame of any sort. Yet people continue to be charged daily on these infractions. Most of the fires in BC have been human caused. When we do get a bit of dry lightening of course there are a rash of fire outbreaks due to how dry it is, but so far most of the big ones have been caused by stupidity.
Apparently even the fact that everyone standing around a campfire is subject to the same fine as the home owner or campfire starter is subject to, is not deterring these fools.
I mean really what does it take?
Hundreds of homes have been lost and lives have been cut way too short.
Never under estimate the stupidity of some members of the species.

[winchman]

The people who designed those planes probably never envisioned they would be flown that way, and most of the people who were trained to fly them for the airlines probably couldn't fly them on those missions. Tossing a 100-ton plane around like that takes some real flying skill.

[RichR]

The sad thing is pretty much every year you see stories in the news about states having droughts and fires while other states have floods. With all
the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent to deal with these issues, you'd think someone would propose a national pipeline and a water
management plan to help reduce the severity of some of these incidents.

[lakeside53]

The people who designed those planes probably never envisioned they would be flown that way, and most of the people who were trained to fly them for the airlines probably couldn't fly them on those missions. Tossing a 100-ton plane around like that takes some real flying skill.

There's also a 747 version.

They must have a bunch of stuff to make sure GC stays in limits.

[dp]

The photo at the link below was taken from my deck (the photos are very large for both file size and impression size). There is, near the center, a road that has a faint splash of pink on it. The drop was made right to left, and it also hit the nob just ahead of and to the right of the roadside splash. In the next link I show that splash from the road.

http://northokanogan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_2482.jpg

I drove up there after the fire and collected a rock that had had been painted in that splash just to see what the stuff looks like. I wrote an article about the area with pictures taken at the scene - http://northokanogan.com/?p=2034

That spot is about 12 crow-flying miles from my deck. I have a 2000mm lens but the smoke has been so thick it's worthless. That was taken with a Canon 250mm if I recall.

Dunno what's in the pink stuff but it stops fires in their tracks. When they lay down a triangle or box of it around your home it stands a good chance of surviving. It literally looks like pink paint when it dries.

[Willy]

[QUOTE=dp;999502...........
...................Dunno what's in the pink stuff but it stops fires in their tracks. When they lay down a triangle or box of it around your home it stands a good chance of surviving. It literally looks like pink paint when it dries.[/QUOTE]

Funny you asked, as the local TV station just did a segment on that very question recently due to all of the interest shown from viewers. Must have something to do with all of the fires in the area.
I think the bright reddish color is added so that it can be easily spotted from the air, this would help coordinate drop strategies.
At any rate, from the pdf linked to below.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEEQFjAEahUKEwjA0pa4gMLHAhXQpYgKHYbjD_s&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.phosphatesfacts.org%2Fpdfs%2FPhosphate%2520Based%2520Forest%2520Fire%2520Retardants.pdf&ei=DTTbVYCYKdDLogSGx7_YDw&usg=AFQjCNHVQkMitkkMFzB5yGGqogfRfNOGWA&sig2=0blE8SmmOfkdF6NuFStWCA

Wildland fuels (trees, brush and grasses) are composed primarily of
cellulose and smaller amounts of other aromatic hydrocarbons. Phosphate
salts containing a thermally volatile cation are most effective for fire
retarding cellulosic fuels. As the treated fuel is heated, the cation is released
and the residual phosphoric acid then reacts with the cellulose molecule
producing an ester. The phosphate ester subsequently thermally degrades via
dehydration resulting in the release of water vapor and the deposition of
graphite-like carbon that is not flammable in atmospheric conditions. The
ammonium phosphates have been found to be the most effective and
environmentally safe fire retardants for reducing the intensity and rate of
spread of fire in wildland fuels such as forests and brushlands.

[mattthemuppet]

I couldn't find the full video, but this is pretty amazing too

http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/a-dc-10-air-tanker-took-a-dump-on-this-camera-guy-1724279121

A Whitman student (where I teach) was one of the 3 that died last week in the Twisp fire. Very very sad.

Nothing much going on around here, the closest fire in the Blues was put out a few weeks ago (got to watch the helis scoop water up from the lake though) and there's another about 45min south east. Air quality was appalling on Saturday but I think the winds blew it all to Portland instead. Had to keep the kids inside the whole day, especially my asthmatic one.

Just part of nature really, exacerbated by us and causing more damage that we care about because of more and more people living in fire prone areas. No different to the tragedy at King Lake outside Melbourne when I lived there.

[Stu]

Here is the site where you can track fire activity.

http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf

My son (a Maryland Forester) has been out twice already this year working on the fires and he's signed up to go out again soon. He said the fire season could go on through October.

Stu

[aostling]

It's a good example of being in the right place at the right time with a good camera.

http://northokanogan.com/?p=2124

I am in the Melbourne airport, awaiting my flight to Tasmania. I did not know what to expect before opening your link.

[gasp!] it's a DC-10. They don't fly that low here — not at all, actually, since the epic disaster in Antarctica twenty-odd years ago. It's good to see they have found their niche.

[Mike Nash]

It's a good example of being in the right place at the right time with a good camera.

http://northokanogan.com/?p=2124

Very cool shot!