This weekend’s weather brought a drying trend that increased fire activity, including some interior heat, smoke, and both single and group tree torching. “The fire woke up a little bit today,” fire behavior analyst Phil Perkins reported on Sunday morning’s briefing. As of Tuesday, the fire had burned 26,067acres.
On the southeast portion of the fire, helicopters dropped water to cool hot spots and prevent fire advances. Crews continued working on a mechanical line between Three Mile Creek and Parson’s Draw, including use of two feller bunchers, which cut and grab trees. The feller bunchers are followed by a skidder that moves the trees out of the area. Using equipment where the operator is enclosed within a cage allows safer access into forested areas where many dead, standing trees remain.
More personnel and equipment are being brought in to help with line construction in preparation for a burnout operation expected early this week.
A plane capable of capturing infrared imagery flew over the fire early Sunday morning to detect heat within the fire’s perimeter. Cloud cover interfered with obtaining complete imagery, so the flight produced limited useful data. Another infrared flight was scheduled for Monday. Once the infrared information is interpreted, the incident management team will review the data and evaluate the fire’s perimeter. The thermal imagery will help estimate additional containment in areas where crews have been unable to walk the fireline because of rugged terrain.
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