2019 wildfire season: IMETs ready to save lives

There have been no new IMET deployments since August 9th, but with a two week deployment, I am sure that there are IMETs assigned to wildfire working to save lives. The NWS IMET Office has a Facebook Page (the first link in the list of deployments below is to their Facebook Post for the deployment in question). The NWS IMET Office also has a Twitter account. Here are some IMET deployments over the last several days. I am only listing wildfires at or below 70 percent containment and I don't know if the IMETs are still assigned to these fires:

• August 3rd, US NWS Pendleton Oregon IMET deployed to the Williams Flat Fire near Keller Washington, 45,359 acres burned at 65 percent containment.
• August 4th, US NWS Elko Nevada IMET deployed to Cove Creek Fire near Salmon, Idaho, 4,394 acres burned at 59 percent containment
• August 5th, US NWS Boise Idaho IMET deployed to the Nethker Fire near McCall, Idaho, 2,340 acres at 63 percent containment.
• August 7th, US NWS Portland Oregon IMET deployed to the 163HKComplex near Monument, OR, size and containment information not known.
• August 7th, US NWS Missoula Montana IMET deployed to the Bees Kove Fire near Missoula, Montana, 429 acres burned at 47 percent containment.
• August 9th, US NWS IMET trainee from the US NWS Western Region onsite at the Nethker Fire near McCall, Idaho, 2,340 acres at 63 percent containment. I wrote about IMET trainees in July 2017.

Finally, before you go, some of you know that IMETs sometimes launch weather balloons (aka radiosonde) when deployed to a fire. The IMET Office shared a short video on their Facebook Page on August 1st showing IMET Tom Wright launching a radiosonde. It is a nice video and even if you are familiar with radiosondes, I think you will enjoy this short two minute video.

IMETs save lives!