Lightening strikes and wildfires in NV (WGBCC)

A couple of weeks ago I came across a link for news and notes from the Western Great Basin Coordination Center (WGBCC). Some of you know or will recall that under the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) are eleven Geographic Coordination Centers, each with their own webpage.

Apparently the WGBCC has been using social media (twitter) for their news and notes along with a more traditional link that may be found here. I t was through the WGBCC news and notes, sent to me by a friend, that I first found out that the US Forest Service had terminated its contract with Aero Union. Anyway, over the last two weeks I have been to the WGBCC news and notes page to find out what is going on in that region (includes all or most of Nevada).

I noted an entry earlier today (August 15):

Significant lightning received in central and northeast Nevada last night. Elko reporting 8 new fires, the largest is 700 acres. (obtained from news and notes from the Western Great Basin Coordination Center, on Aug. 15, 2011).

I believe that Elko is a dispatch center in NV, see this document of unit identifiers in the WGBCC for more information.

Being curious about these fires and wondering what aerial firefighting resources might be assigned to these fires, I went to the hotlist forums for the western basin on wildland fire, here finding two threads about recent wildfires in the west basin. One is the Stockade Fire, and a thread devoted to that fire may be found here.. It had burned almost 400 acres earlier today. Aerial resources working the fire yesterday included a couple of P-2 tankers (T-11 and T-12). I don't know if either P-2 is working the fire today.

A second thread about a fire, the Salmon Fire, may be found here. The Salmon Fire came in at 700 acres earlier today. There are some aerial resources that were assigned to the fire, including what I think (but am not sure) are SEATs along with some helos.