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Mountain fire caused by lightning

kanderson

kanderson

Active Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2004
Messages
365
Location
Springville, Utah, USA
Car(s)
AC Cobra 427 1965 restored
Lightning started a fire about 10 miles from here. I'm not much of a photographer, but these turned out pretty cool. I was standing about a mile from the fire for most of these, and I could feel the heat on my face. 3 homes were completely destroyed at the base of the mountain, and several others had serious damage.

http://img371.imageshack.**/img371/3510/fire13wp.th.jpg
http://img371.imageshack.**/img371/8922/fire26al.th.jpg
http://img371.imageshack.**/img371/8617/fire37xu.th.jpg
http://img371.imageshack.**/img371/5284/fire41ch.th.jpg
http://img371.imageshack.**/img371/1566/fire54lu.th.jpg
 
Wow! That looks frightning...

Buba
 
Mostly frightning for the people that they evacuated, wondering whether there would be anything left of their homes. What a nightmare.

My house is on the other side of the mountain about 10 miles. I have friends in the fire department that let me through the closed road so I could see. But having a house up there would really suck right now. Even the houses several blocks from the fire smell like smoke inside and out now.
 
Wow, good pics. Too bad for those people's homes. :(
 
More photos from today.

Sky drops (two different planes):
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/5736/arialdrops9si.th.jpg
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/980/arieldrops26hx.th.jpg

Helicopter refilling:
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/3849/helosupport8pb.th.jpg

Helicopter changing crews and doing maintenance:
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/2390/dsc003721hb.th.jpg

The aftermath, taken from the two places I shot the original fire photos (I think):
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/6814/firearea36xw.th.jpg
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/482/westsideoffire9vp.th.jpg

This is where they said the lightning hit and started the whole thing. The house behind belongs to Hal Wing, the owner of the Carrera GT, Enzo, etc. He was lucky the wind blew the fire away from his $10 million, mostly-underground house.
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/3554/firestartarea0bq.th.jpg

Hotspotters knocking out what's left of the fire:
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/9950/firecrewsmoppingup3qq.th.jpg

This is how close the fire got to a friend's house. They are estimating $10,000 in smoke and heat damage.
http://img227.imageshack.**/img227/7034/fireclosetohouse2az.th.jpg
 
Wow. That's great to see something like that... Of course, it's a bad thing, don't get me wrong but one of my subjects this semester is "Fire and the environment" and being winter time, there's nothing local to study...

kanderson, were there any losses of life or was the evacuation process pretty smooth?
 
I agree - it's a terrible thing, but as long as it's happening, we may as well enjoy the show.

No loss of life or injuries (human, anyway) of any kind reported. Wildfires are a frequent event around here during summer months, and the resources dedicated to fighting and controlling them are extensive. This is the third fire I've been able to see from my house in the last two years, and the only one in many years that has destroyed homes.
 
Yeah, bushfires (as we call them here) are very frequent in our summer months. They behave differently to the wildfires North America and Europe have, I'm not certain how differentrly, but it is different.

I also note that you were 1mile (1.6km) away and could feel the heat. That's an insanely strong fire there, definately crowning and basically the only way to fight it is with aerial bombings.

And if you look at it from the environmental side of things (as I do), you realise that it's bound to happen and there's absolutely no way to prevent them, you can stop/control them, but not avoid them starting. It also allows for new growth and in some cases, plant species can re-appear after not being seen for decades on end!

Sorry for crapping on there folks.
 
When Yellowstone National Park burned to the ground a couple of decades ago, it was an awakening that fires are not only a natural part of the environmental cycle, but a mandatory event in a healthy ecology. They now do controlled burns on a regular basis. This was a big political controversy, however, because most people still believe forest fires should never happen.

Yes, it becomes a very hot fire when the starting point is at the base of the mountain and the canyon winds carry it quickly to the top so that the whole mountain is on fire at the same time. That's a lot of fuel to burn at once. But the heat felt at a distance is more due to quantity rather than temperature-- the combined heat of several square miles of fire on a mountain side can be felt from a very great distance. But this was a fairly quick burning fire, and most of the trees were spared.

That's different from the Yellowstone fire where the heat was so high that even the rocks and soil burned, leaving volcanic-like scars behind. The fires were so massive that the firefighters saw some pretty awesome and terrifying things, including fire tornados and ground-to-ground lightning.
 
Indeed, contolled burns have been a part of Australian culture since the early 1980's (after Ash Wednesday) and everyone has been educated that they HAVE to take place as a part of fire prevention.

It's unfortunate that some people don't realise the amount of planning that goes into controlled burns... I know that for some burns in Victoria, planning starts in the January and doesn't start till May/June. They also take into account what sorts of animals are in the area and whether or not they need assitance in moving, they also look at the sort of habitat in the area so nothing is overly disturbed... Quite a complex operation.
 
FireFox said:
Maybe Hollywood could use it as a scenery. Hope youre house is save though.
Click to expand...

Same thoughts here. You could tell people these are from your recent visit to Mount Doom.
 
swek said:
Same thoughts here. You could tell people these are from your recent visit to Mount Doom.
Click to expand...

Hehe :)

Anyway, pictures at night look really impressive. Fire came indeed scary close to your friends house!

Damn, you guys in the USA have all those impressive nature stuff. Tornadoes, hurricanes, huge lightning storms, forests in fire.
I mean, they do a lot of damage, hurt and kill people and destroy many dreams, but they look damn impressive.
Over here I'm happy if I can see one decent thunderstorm a year.
 
This is where they said the lightning hit and started the whole thing. The house behind belongs to Hal Wing, the owner of the Carrera GT, Enzo, etc. He was lucky the wind blew the fire away from his $10 million, mostly-underground house.
Click to expand...

who's that guy?

the house looks ugly from the outside.. it's styled like a barn!
 
who's that guy?
the house looks ugly from the outside.. it's styled like a barn!
Click to expand...
Well I don't particularly like it, but it looks a lot better when you see the whole thing. It's supposed to have the "garden castle" look to it or something. But it's gaudy if you ask me.

Hal Wing is the owner of the company that makes Little Giant Ladders, and he personally made some $100 million last year. A huge underground garage holds many millions of dollars of cars of all makes and years. He owns a Duzenburg worth a couple of million dollars, and he owns the gold plated rolls silver shadow used by Alfred Hitchcock. It would have been quite an expensive fire.
 
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