Weather specialist added to 416 fire crew
As the 416 fire grows more mammoth in the San Juan National Forest 13 miles north of Durango, firefighters brought in a meteorologist equipped with sophisticated atmospheric gear and a weather balloon to gauge the potential danger of expected lightning strikes.
The wildfire has now consumed 32,076 acres since June 1, and hot, dry weather has been anything but kind to the 1,137 firefighters tasked to the wildfire. Fire commanders worried conditions could get much worse Thursday with Tropical Storm Bud making landfall and heading in their direction. Although heavy rains could quench the flames, lightning strikes could multiply problems. On Thursday, they experienced isolated thunderstorms with light rains and lightning strikes.
A red flag warning is in place Friday for the fire area from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“It’s all part of the puzzle here,” Incident Meteorologist Jeff Colton remarked in a video about his firefighting role.
He sent up a weather balloon carrying equipment as high as 40,000 feet in the sky to help them calculate relative humidity and measure barometric pressure and wind speed.
After a 90-minute balloon flight, Colton, who works for the National Weather Service, sent information to the agency’s Washington D.C. office to crunch numbers on a supercomputer, he said.
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.
The 416 fire is now 18 percent contained and has cost $13.6 million to suppress so far. The Burro Fire in the Bear Creek area has now consumed 3,408 acres and is zero percent contained.
Dry conditions and the 416 fire led officials to close the San Juan National Forest to all visitors for the first time in its 113year history.
Moderate to extreme drought conditions affect larger areas of Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico plus parts of Nevada, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, reported there were 1,746 people responding to fight six active wildfires in the region.