Little Bobtail Lake

[Wildfire 3]

Recent quiet winds, cool temperatures and high relative humidity numbers have aided fire suppression efforts on the Big Bobtail Lake wildfire. This weather pattern may continue over the next couple days. The chance of precipitation is forecasted starting today until Thursday, with the likelihood increasing every day.

The rest of it, for further reading:

However, forest fuels are still very dry and it will take an ample amount of moisture to decrease the fire risk. Areas of activity yesterday included the northwest corner, the southwest corner going towards Grizzly Lake and the southeast towards Bobtail Mountain.

http://bcwildfire.ca/hprScripts/Wildfir ... asp?ID=526

[saigo]

Just got back it has calmed down considerably, from sat night. The containment went down as sat it was very aggressive. It has moved east, now sitting behind our place. Still hasn't crossed the bobtail fsr. They made some pretty good progress sat night they bucketed the Western flank for hours, it was the first time they could get in that area. We got 47 drops of rain out there today, lol!

[Frisk]

100% chance of rain tonight in Prince George and the surrounding area. Up to 15mm. I think they'll have it fully contained soon.

[saigo]

100% chance of rain tonight in Prince George and the surrounding area. Up to 15mm. I think they'll have it fully contained soon.

hope so, have thunder and lightening hitting right now, south of fire.

[damama55]

Another year of fires without the BIG water bomber. How long before we demand that it be used??

[Glacier]

Another year of fires without the BIG water bomber. How long before we demand that it be used??

Merry, we've been down this road before. The answer is that you can dump more retardant for less money without using them.

BTW, the fire is now the size of the Okanagan Mountain Park fire, but the weather is changing so it looks like Mother Nature will end the fire's advance beyond that as we start our rainy season.

[Frisk]

as we start our rainy season.

Not really sure what you mean by 'rainy season' because I looked at the average precipitation for a lot of cities across BC and I couldn't find one that received significantly more rain in mid May and June. Maybe 5 -10mm more than the second rainiest month but I don't consider that a rainy season. In fact, June is one of the driest months in most cities along the west coast of the province.

[Glacier]

Not really sure what you mean by 'rainy season' because I looked at the average precipitation for a lot of cities across BC and I couldn't find one that received significantly more rain in mid May and June. Maybe 5 -10mm more than the second rainiest month but I don't consider that a rainy season. In fact, June is one of the driest months in most cities along the west coast of the province.

There are no big fires on the west coast, so you can ignore those cities. The rainy season in BC's dry interior runs from mid May to about the 10th of July (+/- depending on the year). Fall and Spring are drier. December is the second wet season, but that doesn't count because very few fires happen during the winter. Note that for the driest parts of BC with the biggest fires (East Kootenay, Okanagan, Kamloops, Cariboo, Central Interior) June is pretty much universally the wettest month of the year.

There are two other distinct precipitation trends in the BC interior. East of the Rockies (Peace etc.) and the far north (like Dease Lake) have a very distinct dry period in winter and a very wet period in summer (lots of thunderstorms in July and August). The other interior pattern is still a wet June, but a wetter wet season is late fall-early winter. This happens in extremely western parts of the interior (Lillooet, Smithers, Atlin, etc.) and the interior rainforest (Castlegar, Blue River, Revelstoke, etc.)

All of these places are wettest in June:
Cranbrook
Osoyoos
Kelowna
Kamloops
Williams Lake
Prince George


Here are the northern precipitation patterns:
Dease Lake
Fort St John
Fort Nelson

Here are the coastal-interior transition patterns:
Smithers
Lillooet
Tatlayoko Lake
Atlin (The summer peak tends to move later into the year as you move north. In southern California it is in February, in southern BC it is in June, in northern BC it is in July or August, and way up in Atlin it is as late as September.)

Here are the interior rainforest patterns:
Castlegar
Blue River

[rookie314]

Another year of fires without the BIG water bomber. How long before we demand that it be used??

I fought fire for twenty years and I will never demand that we use it. The money and resources are best spent on equipment that works, no some PR piece.

[canuck500]

Exactly the Mars is highly over-rated.

[damama55]

Well, Rookie314, you definitely have more experience than we lay people. It just seems that the Mars would be able to put the fire out before it burns soooooo many hectares of our forests, or homes, and thereby putting lives in danger. With sooooo many acres of dead pine trees in and around PG and area, I think we are going to be in for quite a bad Summer of fires and losses.

[rookie314]

It didn't put out the KElowna fire and it didn't save the 230 homes that were lost. The "Ducks" were doing two and a half drops per group (that's 4aircraft) for every Mars drop. It's a PR tool. Give me S64's, a nearby water source and we will pound it!

[Frisk]

The Martin Mars is outdated and not very effective.

[trapp]

Too many people think that air tankers extinguish fires. They are a support tool only. The Martin Mars is an outdated costly inefficient aircraft. On the Okanagan Mountain fire we timed the Ducks and the Mars and did the math. The ducks delivered more water per hour and hit more targets than the Mars. It's use over the past few decades has been mostly political with demands from armchair fire control enthusiasts.

In my 50 years in wildfire control I have seen every aircraft there is deliver water or retardant to fires. The most effective and efficient is by far aircraft delivering retardant to buy time for ground crews. Water delivering aircraft need immediate follow up by ground crews as the evaporation factor is far greater than that of retardant.

Helicopter bucketing is very effective on initial attack on fires. Once a fire grows in size they are most effective targeting flareups along established guards or hitting spot fire over the guards. Back in the late 60's on a fire I was managing out of Clinton I ordered air tanker action. There was a roar came over the trees and there was a DC 6 at tree top level. Scared the hell out me as it was the first time I seen one dropping and so close up.

As an FYI I managed the air tanker base here in Kelowna in 1967 when the Avenger aircraft were being used. Perhaps I can dig up a picture of those old turkeys, but sometime at a later date.

[saigo]

Helicopter bucketing is very effective on initial attack on fires. Once a fire grows in size they are most effective targeting flareups along established guards or hitting spot fire over the guards. Back in the late 60's on a fire I was managing out of Clinton I ordered air tanker action. There was a roar came over the trees and there was a DC 6 at tree top level. Scared the hell out me as it was the first time I seen one dropping and so close up.

After watching the choppers saturday attack the fire burning towards cluculz, I totally believe choppers are effective. The wind changed and that was the chance they needed, we never saw bombers, it was chopper after chopper for hours. That end of the lake has pretty exotic homes.

This weeks forecast is 60% rain till saaturday, we got a few drops yesterday and today is blue sky.

First image is from yesterday, it shows how much it has cooled down, second is from friday. They say no structures have been lost I find that amazing considering how many dwellings are on so many different lakes.