Paradise Fire Daily Update for July 13, 2015

Attached please find the July 13th Daily Update for the Paradise Fire. This attachment is formatted to one page for printing and posting. For mobile devise users, the text is included below.

Paradise Fire Update  

Monday, July 13, 2015

For Immediate Release
360-797-5366

Another quiet day on the fire.  The continuing moist weather and a strong marine layer has kept fire activity low.  Remote weather stations around the fire area showed humidities over 95% Sunday with some isolated showers.  This weather pattern should continue through today (Monday) with gradual drying through mid-week. An A-star helicopter arrived as a replacement with a 7 member helitack module. The module, from the Inyo National Forest, brings experience with helicopter rescues on Mt. Whitney and will help deliver supplies and gear to the firefighters along the Queets.

Sunday's rain has added humidity but will not put out the fire. Even an inch of rain cannot prevent smoke and then flames a week later. Almost every fire requires "boots on the ground" workers who grunt and sweat to mix water into hot embers and burning roots under old stumps. Summer rain is often very local, pouring on one hill while entirely missing the next ridge. Rain or morning dew often wets only the surface, where dust returns after noon as the day heats up.

Trail improvement from the Queets River Trailhead to the fire is going well.  The Central Oregon Type 2 Initial Attack crew (T2IA) and the Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) are working from a temporary camp five and one-half miles up the trail.  The WCC completed improvements along 2.5 miles more trail working from their camp back toward the trailhead. The T2IA crew successfully completed about 2 miles of trail improvements heading east and are about half way toward Harlow Creek. This improved access will better allow the movement of supplies and people to and from the fire.

The "confinement strategy" chosen for the Paradise fire is being attained.  Firefighters on the ground, aided by the wet weather, have been successful in keeping the fire north of the Queets River and east of Bob Creek. Even with the return of dryer weather later in the week, fire managers are confident that they will be able to prevent any further growth to the south or west.

The open fire ban is still in effect.  Olympic National Park officials would like to remind the public that there is a ban on open fires in the park's wilderness backcountry, including all locations along the coast. Campfires are permitted only in established fire grates at established front country campgrounds.

More information is available on Inciweb at http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4305/.  For real time information, visit our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paradise-Fire/831205013596015. For current information about visiting Olympic National Park, as well as information about the history and role of fire in the Olympic ecosystem, please visit the park's website at http://www.nps.gov/olym

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Paradise Fire Information Staff

360-797-5366