Jesusita Fire Tu/W/Th

Dylan took this pic tuesday afternoon from Stearn's Wharf. The Jesusita Fire was 4-5 acres, it's now about 200 acres. It's a little windy today. It didn't rain that much this year, but fuel moisture is very high. LACFD sampled live fuel moisture in SMMNRA is currently 140%, which is about as high as it gets for chaparral, and is wetter than the long term average. So this hopefully won't be that big of a deal. A good test of the relative merits of wind/fuel condition on fire spread.

Wed afternoon Update: somebody posted on twitter that "downtown is now cast in an orange post-apocalyptic glow." We can see the smoke plume from our window in the VIPER lab. It is 97 degrees at the SB airport. And it's getting windier. Hmmm. You can see the plume in the satellite imagery, click on western US 1km visible.

Twitter is pretty amazing. There are a ton of pics. Here is one from the 8th floor of the library that I stole.

Mike McDaniel took this one in Harder Stadium. Nice Image.

The latest SB Independent update is that the fire is out of control. Homes are burning. Great. I don't have internet at home anymore, so no more updates today. Tomorrow there should be some glorious news :(

Thurs Morn Update: Tried to go for a surf this morning, but the wind swung onshore before sunrise -- I was closing up my wetsuit at the top of the stairs, smelled methane, saw the wind on the water, waves went to crap almost instantly. Karma for trying to have fun whilest others were hating life. KCLU has had really good coverage.

pre-sunrise

clear skies in back of goleta, the tail of the jesusita fire to the east

smoke as seen looking down sueno rd.

Doc Searls does a really good job when there are fires in SB. Give him a read. Again, the Independent has a ton of info.

82 degrees at 9am. This is ugly. Wind swung back to from the north again, too. Airport weather. Here is the Montecito RAWS (weather station). The wind gust speed values today look a little suspect, but this is closer to the fire than the airport. The progression from 1:14 to 5:14 yesterday is pretty interesting: winds 7, gusts to 12, from the E --> 16, gusts 43, from NNE.

Very nice photos from the LA Times. It's pretty clear that more than 20 houses have burned.
More great photography.
Live video.
Semi-official website.

Thurs Afternoon Update: Nothing right now (noon). The live video shows smoke lazily rising. It's hot (87) but wind direction is WSW, so pointing it towards the Los Padres right now.

The new Ray Ford article is riveting reading. It's about the fire yesterday. He was on Inspiration Point with a hotshot crew, in an area that had burned out on tuesday, when the flames all of a sudden surrounded them, for hours.

Doc Searls dropped the MODIS active fire product detections onto an image of SB. Pretty helpful.
1pm Airport. 95 degrees. wind goes NE. live video still not very scary. there's a spot fire up towards the crest of the front range. 2pm Airport. 87, back to WSW. 3pm. 89. WSW. Looking OK. Though smoke has shown up on the satellite for the first time in a while. Wind looks northerly. You can see alot of different active smokey areas in the live feed. 4pm. 100. variable winds. Smoke plume still visible in satellite image.

"Ash from Jesusita Fire falling like snow flurries on State Street as winds shift back towards town" from twitter.

Very nice zoom-able Google Map of the perimeter.