kiefer's WunderBlog

Increased Fire Danger for NYC

Wed, 3 Apr 2013 22:11:00 GMT

The National Weather Service issued Red Flag Warnings for parts of the Northeast on Wednesday, April 3rd valid through 8 pm EDT (some areas through 10 pm EDT). Dangerous fire conditions stretched from northern Maryland through Massachusetts, including New York City.

A Red Flag Warning means that critical fire weather conditions are expected or occurring. Any fires that start may spread rapidly and become difficult to extinguish.

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Wunderground's New Fire Page

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:28:00 GMT

We have launched our new Fire Page. You can find it at http://www.wunderground.com/fire. Or go to the Severe tab from the home page and select Fire Weather. The page features a map with various fire layers and tools for predicting fire spread. The newest map layer is Fire(inciweb), which incorporates data from The Incident Information System (Inciweb). Inciweb is an inter-agency information management system created to provide the public of incident related inform...
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California Fire Season: Off And Running

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:19:00 GMT

California saw the worst fire year in recent history in 2008 with a total of 5,812 fires reported and 1,339,839 acres burned. In comparison, 2012 looks like it has a good chance to beat this record as drought conditions allowed for fires to start earlier than usual. As of August 19th, 2012, a total of 5,759 fires have been reported across California, burning a total of 540,422 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). Monsoonal moisture move...
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Experiment--Upslope Burn

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 03:05:00 GMT

Today was the first experiment of its kind. Experimental burns for fire-weather interactions and fire behavior are usually performed during prescribed burns on flat terrain. Prescribed burns are a useful fire management tool to maintain low fuel (or less vegetation). If a wildland fire develops, the fire would have less fuel to consume and thus would not be as intense. Prescribed burns are rarely performed on hillsides, canyons, and valleys because complex terrai...
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Fireline Qualified!

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:42:00 GMT

I am officially fireline qualified! You would think I have already been though this training, since I have been around multiple prescribed burns. However, it was not a requirement because most of those burns were on private land in rural Georgia. I would like to be apart of some upcoming experiments with the Fire Lab at SJSU. Most of their upcoming experiments are in California, and so CAL FIRE asked us to get fireline trained. After 2 online courses and 1 8-hour...
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