Random Ramblings: Aerial Wildland Firefighting

I have blogged about aerial wildland firefighting since 2009. I am not a firefighter and am not a pilot, just an interested bystander who wants to learn more and share what I learn here. Join me here as I blog on the aircraft and the pilots who fight wildland fires from the air in support of crews on the ground. I also blog on concerns affecting fire crews on the ground as well as other aviation and meteorology issues. Learn what it takes to do jobs that are staffed by the best of the best.

Friday, December 04, 2015

Soda Fire (2015): Burned Area Emergency Response: more maps & reflections

I have been writing about the Soda Fire Burned Area Emergency Response of late. I know that there are stabilization treatments ongoing at the Soda Fire burn area that I have not written about. Should you so desire, these treatments along with a time schedule are described in the Soda Fire Emergency Stabilization And Rehabilitation (ES&R) Plan. I'll post some other links a little later where you might find updates. I am hoping that this post is not my last post on the subject, but this may be my last post for awhile. With winter coming on, if it hasn’t already arrived at the Soda Fire burn area, I’m not sure how much more active emergency stabilization and rehabilitation treatments that they can do this winter. But what do I know? Perhaps there are things that they can do in the winter. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I will keep reading some of the documents that I talked about last week as well as doing my best to keep my eyes out for media reports and report back here.

I don’t know about you, but I have learned a lot about the lands that were burned in the Soda Fire as well as the all important Burned Area Emergency Response. I have grown to appreciate the sagebrush-steppe ecosystem. And of course, there is that magnificent bird, the sage grouse. Through the documents that are available (see the link above), the various photos and videos, and media reports, this little corner of a sagebrush-steppe ecosystem has come alive. I know that the ecosystem is hurting after the fire and I am very glad to know something about the Soda Fire Burned Area Emergency Response Plan that will be ongoing for the next five years.

I am delighted that there have been a lot of media attention on the Soda Fire Burned Area Emergency Response as well as good information available through the Bureau of Land Management. As I write this the Facebook page is updated at least every few days with photos and links to local media reports.

I have been promising to focus a little on some of the Soda Fire ES&R maps available to the public that may be found here. Each map is about 18 MB and is in a pdf file. I love maps and is this case it gives me an idea of what areas are being treated. I was especially interested in two maps which I downloaded and converted to smaller graphic files (jpeg) that I am sharing here. These are the map showing all vegetation treatments and 2015 drill seeding that I referred to on November 30th and December 2nd. The images below are not high resolution, if you want higher resolution files you will want to go the links in the preceding sentence and download them.