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Post by SIERRA 14 on May 8, 2005 7:54:33 GMT -5
Don't get complacent! We are not out of the woods! On Friday May 6 there was a forest fire in Gaines Twp, Tioga County (PA). The fire occurred mainly on State Forest Land in the area of a future timber sale. One of our Foresters was marking timber in that area when a forest visitor notified him of the fire. The fire was only 7 - 10 acres in size when our forester located it. He immediately made notification of the fire. He then attempted to extinguish it but was unsuccessful due to the fires behavior and intensity. The fire occurred shortly after noon and it was not contained until close to 8:00pm. Resource assigned were several Fire Departments responded, the Bureau of Forestry, Forest Fire Warden Crews and an air tanker from the Hazelton Airport. There was also a concern with Urban Interface as several developments were in the immediate area. All in all the fire turned out to be 120 acres. Flame lengths were mainly 4 to 5 feet but frequently reach upwards of 25 to 30 feet (in that pesky Mountain Laurel). All resources assigned did an excellent job! It could have been a lot worse both from the size and possible loss of structures. A few words of wisdom - Do not push past the limits of your equipment or manpower. Two six wheel ATV's were rolled and at least one brush truck was damaged. All these units are out of service as a result and two firefighters sustained injuries. Link to national large fire map activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/lg_fire2.php
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Post by blueeighty8 on May 8, 2005 11:48:30 GMT -5
Great. They just repealed the burn ban in Sullivan, short of the 30 day post. Mountains covered in dead, blighted tree growth and years of matted underbrush. I hate forest fires down here b/c the mountains are so damn steep. So today, a nice sunny, warm, windy day.. Everyone will burn that trash they couldn't burn during the ban. My mini weather station just topped out a wind gust at 54.6MPH, with a constant speed of 28MPH.
Two fires today from wires down. Make that three.
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Post by SIERRA 14 on May 9, 2005 5:28:54 GMT -5
There was another fire on the Tioga State Forest yesterday. This one was able to be contained to 3 acres. Our recon plane called this fire in when it was very small so we were able to get a jump on it before it really got going. If we had not found it in the early stages, had an excellent initial attack and had access from a road this one had as much if not more potential that the Merrick Spring fire. There was very similar fire behavior.
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