Watching Fire Weather

By now you have probably noticed the changes that I have made to the layout of this blog, including a text box for the NJ Forest Fire Service on the right-hand side of the page. You have probably noticed that for the last month or so, I have been making daily updates reporting on fire weather forecasts in New Jersey. I got started on this exercise on or about April 3, around the time our contract aircraft (AgCats and AT-602) went on contract.

I developed a routine. One of the first things I do in the morning is to log on to the webpage for the Mt. Holly Office of the National Weather Service. More accurately, I log on to their webpage for emergency managers where they have a lot of useful weather related links including one to a page for the fire weather. So, I read the fire weather forecast and as appropriate also read any hazardous weather forecasts where Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings are reported. This started as a way where I could at least follow along on what the NJ Forest Fire Service and wildland fire fighting agencies in the adjoining States of DE, PA, and NY might be doing that day. I can say that on a daily basis, I do think about these wildland fire fighting agencies and hope that in some small way I honor what these men and women are doing to keep us safe in my corner of America.

However, in the process of reporting on fire weather forecasts I have learned how quickly fire weather concerns can develop. For example, on March 30, I wrote about yet another round of flooding concerns in NJ. If memory serves, there was little if any rain for the next week and the temperatures were on the warm side for early April. By April 5, we were under Red Flag Warnings, followed by a Fire Weather Watch on April 6 and another Red Flag Warning on April 7.

The Owassa Fire started the afternoon of April 7 to be reported under control on April 8. For more on this fire you may want to see the articles that I wrote here and here as well as a some video showing AgCats and a helo working the fire that I embedded in an article that you may find here.

Kudos to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service! Thank-you!