As the western United States is experiencing a devastating wildfire season, National Weather Service Incident Meteorologists (IMET) continue to be deployed to a large number of wildfires to give firefighters on a given incident the best possible weather forecast so that they may be safe as the work to fight wildfires and as necessary do their best to provide structure protection. Recent readers may know that I have been following the Bobcat Fire (113,986 acres) that is still burning in the Angeles National Forest near Pasadena California. I watched a couple of virtual public meetings (a day later) held be officials providing updates about the fire. In the two virtual public meetings that I watched, I heard the IMET then deployed to the fire provide an incident specific weather forecast. I had not thought about this aspect of what an IMET does. I know that they work hard to determine current and future incident specific weather conditions as well as providing briefings to firefighters. I admit that I had not thought that they would be present at briefings to brief the public. The presence of the IMET at the virtual public meeting spoke volumes to me. IMETs save lives.
Before I get to recent IMET deployments, I had the opportunity to correspond via social media with NWS meteorologists about fire weather including a representative from the NWS IMET office. I asked how many IMETs were currently deployed to wildfires. This is what they said: "Currently (September 23rd) 30 IMETs are deployed to fires. This is a record for this date. Historically, no more than 20 IMETs have been deployed on a single day past September 19th."
Here is a list of IMET deployments over the last two weeks, obtained from the National Weather Service IMET Facebook Page. Links are to the specific post about the deployment where you may find links for more information about the fire. IMET deployments are usually for two weeks. If IMETs are required at an incident beyond the two week deployment period, another IMET will rotate in. Looking at the list of deployments below, it appears that there might be more than one IMET (not including an IMET trainee) on some fires, or perhaps the deployment was shorter than two weeks. Any errors are mine.
September 11th
September 13th
- Brattain Fire near Paisley, OR
- Dolan Fire near Big Sur, CA
- North Complex near Quincy, CA
- August Complex near Elk Creek, CA
- El Dorado Fire near Yucaipa, CA
September 14th
September 15th
- Slater Fire near Happy Camp, CA (IMET trainee)
- Thielsen Fire near Chemult, OR
- Beachie Creek Fire near Detroit, CA
September 16th
September 17th
- August Complex near Elk Creek, CA
- North Complex near Quincy, CA (IMET trainee)
- SQF Complex near Porterville, CA
- Creek Fire near Shaver Lake, CA (IMET trainee)
September 18th
September 19th
September 20th
September 21st
- Castle Fire part of SQF Complex near Porterville, CA
- Dolan Fire near Big Sur, CA
- Bobcat Fire near Pasadena, CA
September 22nd
September 24th
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