More on IMETs and the 416 Fire (CO)

I wrote about the deployment of National Weather Service (NWS) Incident Meteorologists (IMET) on June 11th, on of the IMET deployments was to the 416 Fire burning near Durango Colorado. As I write this the 416 Fire has burned 34,161 acres in the San Juan National Forest and is at 30 percent containment. Thanks to my friends on the NWS IMET Facebook Page, I found out about two articles on the IMET that was working the 416 Fire on or about June 14th. The first article with a video is from 9News Denver Colorado, you may have to disable any ad blockers you are using to read this content. I am embedding the News9 video report below. The video report is only a couple of minutes long, you will see the IMET, Jeff Colton, deploy a video, talk about the twice a day weather briefings he makes to the firefighters. Colton also talks about how he tracks storms and other dangerous weather that might affect the firefighters, and notifying firefighters of dangerous emergent weather conditions.

There is also an article on the Denver Post (you may have to disable your ad blocker on this site to view the report) about IMET Jeff Coltons work on the 416 Fire, go here to read the article. This article has a nice photo gallery along with a map of wildfires burning in the Western United States. The reporter who wrote this article, Kirk Mitchell, talked to Jamie Knight of the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team about the importance of IMET Colton's work providing weather forecasts and briefings for the firefighters:

Jamie Knight, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team, said Colton’s work is all the more critical to firefighting efforts particularly with an approaching storm. 

Firefighters on the lines were cautioned about the storm, to take particular close attention to wind speed and directional changes. “We asked them to keep their heads up,” Knight said.

The storm could generate an unpredictable outflow wind gusting up to 40 mph, she said.“It increases the danger. To date, we’re pretty proud there have not been any houses lost or serious injury incidents,” Knight said.

There is a nice article about IMETs from the National Weather Service, "Eyes on the Sky: A Day in the Life of an Incident Meteorologist (IMET) on the Front Lines of a Wildfire", please take a few moments to read the article, with some photos and some comments from NWS IMETs about their experiences working wildfires.