Paradise Fire Update and Map - August 14, 2015

Paradise Fire Update - Friday, August 14, 2015

2440 Acres

Fire personnel made great progress on the sprinkler system yesterday installing several additional sprinkler heads.  The system will be utilized to both increase relative humidity of fuels adjacent to the fire as well as for direct fire suppression should the fire move west.  Over the past several days there has been minimal fire growth.  

As helicopter operations continue on the Paradise Fire, National Park Service (NPS) fisheries biologists conducted snorkeling surveys of the Queets River yesterday ensuring minimal impact on the aquatic systems.  The surveys confirmed operations have not significantly impacted the ecosystem based on comparison with previous data sets of similar surveys.  

Recent lightning strikes have ignited fires all over the northwest and Canada including two on the Olympic Peninsula, the Cabin Creek and Gold Fires.  With the cooler weather and minimal activity on the Paradise Fire, some resources will be loaned to the Olympic National Forest for a few days to assist with these new fires.  Smoke from fires around the region is carried in the upper level winds for hundreds of miles. The smoke that is currently impacting the peninsula has been tracked from as far away as southeast Oregon. To see the most up to date weather patterns that are transporting the smoke, check out http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/land/fire.html or http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/sat_west.html

There were 188 new fires around the nation yesterday, 27 of them were in the northwest. The national situation report is updated daily with the priority fires and their statistics, https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf.  Canada's national wildland fire situation report is available at http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/report.

Fires are not permitted in the backcountry area of Olympic National Park, including coastal areas.  Campfires are only allowed in established front-country campgrounds in metal campfire rings.

For real time and detailed information, visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paradise-Fire/831205013596015.

Fire information is also available on Inciweb at http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4305/.  

Fire restrictions Olympic National Forest at http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/olympic/home/?cid=stelprdb5192793

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