Where the forest fires are

With the skies having an obvious red color to them this evening it is easy to tell that it is forest fire smoke causing much of the obscurement. Here is a useful website for viewing the locations of current forest fires in Washington state for trip planning (avoiding the smoke): activefiremaps.fs.fed.us - Cached

It looks like the Darrington area, the area from Ross Lake to Chelan, and the Quilcene-upper Elwha and Dose have most of the fires at this time.

Last Saturday, I was perched on the crest of the Tatoosh range next to Castle & watched through binoculars as an old lightning strike sent up 50' of flame and a smoke column about 500' high from the ridge south of Wahpenayo.  No cell coverage, so we drove up to Paradise to report it when we got back to the car.

As usual, the NPS was arrogant & paternalistic:  "Oh, we already know about that, it's south of Randle...".  I left thinking I'd finally gotten them to understand that it was right on the Park boundary, but woke up Sunday AM with a bad feeling.   So I called 911 & finally got connected with the right USFS office.  After giving my report, I mentioned it might be a duplicate, but the USFS gal said it was the first they'd heard of it.  What a disorganized bunch the Park Service is!

This weekend I hiked from Snoqualmie to Scenic (64mi, 3 days, cool but ouch). We walked past one lightning strike that was still smoldering, right next to the PCT, really surreal, then when we were coming down the pass to Glacier & Surprise lakes a chopper was dipping water out of the lake for a nearby fire.

From Shuksan I could see two fires, a small one on the north side of Pioneer ridge and a larger one that was somewhere near the southern Pickets. This latter fire was putting out enough smoke to obscure vis near the southern Pickets. There was also a lot of smoke in the Glacier Peak area so that the peak was nearly obscured. The Baker area had very little smoke.

Hopefully the rain early next week will materialize and help with the fires.

I think we are getting a view here of the kind of weather situation that must have been responsible for some of the mega fires that are said to have occurred west of the Cascades every 400 years or so (as I recall reading). One can see evidence for some of these fires just by noting that the trees in most Cascade locations vary in age locally with a few very large trees randomly and near streams that must have survived the fires. In the mega fires individual fires must have coalesced into large maelstroms.

Not only have we had very high amplitude high pressure but the location of the ridge and it's blocking nature has allowed for the formation and persistence of cut off lows that meander and cause prolonged periods of lightning. A much more typical pattern is for a more brief period of lightning at the end of a hot spell almost immediately followed by a strong onshore push as ocean air rushes in to fill a thermal trough. Most fires get put out quickly.

In our current situation (looking like it is now ending) The blocking ridge and higher pressure inland prevent strong onshore flow from developing as well as weakening and redirecting any fronts that try to approach the area.

Here is another good website, giving the size of some of the fires: www.nwccweb.us/predict/outlook.asp

Came back over Snoqualmie today from Montana and there was a whole lot of smoke in the Salmon La Sac - Ellensburg - Stuart area. I understand there is a fire near Lemah Peak that was smoldering but has recently grown causing closing of trails including the Crest trail near Spectacle Lake. There are also expanding fires near Shull Ridge in the Pasayten and in Company Creek near Bonanza. But the biggest source of smoke is coming from Canada, witness this photo: www.fs.fed.us/r6/wenatchee/conditions/im...SHScanada231_G11.jpg