7/28/2015 Paradise Fire Update

 

8:00 am

(360) 797-5366

The weather forecast calls for a drying trend through this week. The rains this past week slowed the growth of the Paradise Fire within the Olympic National Park. Yesterday there was minimal fire behavior, with no smoke on the eastside. There was visible smoke high on the west end of the fire. With the warming trend continuing throughout the week, fire behavior will be active as the sun heats up the fire area late in the afternoon and the vegetation dries again.

The Paradise fire area is dense with fuels, making it very hazardous to fight directly, because of this, the strategy is to keep the fire from crossing the Queets River to the south and keep it east of Bob Creek by monitoring the fire's perimeter. The operations, as long as is safe to firefighters, will be to suppress any spot fires and work to keep the fire in the park boundary.

The dramatic shift in weather provides an opportunity to validate or modify the fire trends observed from the first 5 weeks of fire suppression activity.  In the first 5 weeks fireline personnel worked (June 14-July 24), fire growth occurred on days with temperatures at or above 71 degrees, relative humidity at or below 49 percent, and calculated Energy Release Component (ERC*= how much energy or heat can be released from burning vegetation based on how wet or dry it is.) at or above 33 (the 95th percentile for the area).

The Olympic National Park and the surrounding area has burn bans, restrictions and closures in place.  Check on the following links http://www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm,  Area burn bans: www.waburnbans.net

For real time information, visit our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paradise-Fire/831205013596015. Basic information is also available on Inciweb at http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4305/.  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.