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.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Oklahoma and Texas Wildfires - February 16 to 18

I heard of three wildfires in Oklahoma and Texas, one that burned at the end of last week (week ended February 16th) and two that were reported on February 18th. There may well have been more wildfires that I do not know about.

Kemohah Fire, near Hominy Oklahoma, 166 acres, one structure destroyed. Reported by Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today on February 16, 2017. To the best of my knowledge, this grass/vegetation fire is contained. It apparently started as a structure fire before spreading to burn 166 acres.

136 Fire, Potter County Texas, (Highway 136 and Cass Johnson Road) was one of a four wildfires (grass?) that were reported and on or about February 18th, most are at or near containment. My understanding is that the 136 fire, a grass fire, was contained at about 10 acres with the help of three air tankers dropping on the grass fire. The Texas A&M Forest Service made three tweets on twitter about this fire all on February 18th: tweet #1 at 11:24 AM on February 18th, tweet #2 at 12:01 PM on February 18th, and finally in tweet # 3 at 2:07 PM on February 18th they reported that the fire had burned 10 acres and was at 90 percent containment. Thanks to Mike Archer at Wildfire News of the Day for the link to an article with video from MyHighPlains (February 18, 2018) about the 136 fire and the other wild (grass) fires.

Red Horse Fire, Woods County Oklahoma, about 2,549 acres at 35 percent containment, started on or about February 18th. I first learned about the Red Horse Fire from the Oklahoma Forest Service's Daily Situation Report (Facebook) for February 19, 2018. A direct link to the OFS Daily Situation Report may be found on the February 19th entry on the OFS Fire Blog. I found two local media reports about the Red Horse Fire: Woodward News (February 18th) and NewsOK (February 18th). Thanks to Mike Archer at Wildfire News of the Day for the link to the Woodward News article.

The early reports that I saw about the Red Horse Fire from yesterday and early this morning (February 19th) reported that about 3,600 acres were burned. at some point the acreage burned was downgraded to 2,549 acres probably because of better mapping. As I was writing this, I saw the following post on the OFS Facebook page probably posted about 2:45 PM EST.

High 34 and 73 Fire, Rogers Mills County, Oklahoma, 400 acres. I wrote about this wildfire on February 16th, I have no further information on containment.

Critical Fire Weather Continues in portions of Oklahoma, Texas, and surrounding areas