Spherical Magic & The Basin Complex Wildfire – Days 37-75

7/27/2008, 12:55 PM

Below is what happened yesterday afternoon! Erupting volcanoes and battleships on fire jump immediately to mind.

A perfect object example of:

"Contained" does not mean "Extinguished".

"Contained" only means that there is a ring of now black, mostly un-burnable material completely around the perimeter sufficiently wide that they are reasonably sure it won't jump to ignite fuel that will burn. A good, strong wind in the wrong direction could rescind that "Contained" proclamation right quick.

Spherical Magic & The Basin Complex Wildfire – Day 21

7/11/08, 5:30 AM

So much for fires moving slower when backing down hills. I said that wildfires are unpredictable. This one proves that. When I crashed last night, it was still near the top of Uncle Sam. This morning, it was already over the ridge top of Elephant, one mountain closer to us. There isn't a very deep valley between the two, so the front moved quicker than I would have liked. (Not moving at all, I would really like.) The nerve meter went up a few ticks

Spherical Magic & The Basin Complex Wildfire – Days 19-20

7/9/08, 9:15 PM

Today was even hotter. One of our landscape guys came and continued to clear fuel on the ground and limb-up trees to break the flame ladder. If you get the grass and scrub really short and cut low-lying limbs, especially from easy to ignite tree types, the fire will creep slowly along the ground with the flames not reaching very high and the trees are way less likely to catch. When you've got 10 acres to deal with, you can't whack it all, so you

Spherical Magic & The Basin Complex Wildfire – Days 3-14

6/23/08, 1:05 PM

The fire jumped the far ridge while I was watching last night. It's one valley closer now. Still a few valleys to go but the trend isn't looking good. Winds are from the NNW until Thurs. night when they swing around to W and then SW then SSW and back to WSW by Saturday. This is not good. It appears the crews are letting the interior burn while they tackle the fronts closer to the coast. I understand the logic but the Indians Fire near