kiefer's WunderBlog

FIRE!!!!!!

Posted by: Kari Kiefer, 00:44 GMT le 17 juillet 2008

Tuesday and Wednesday we finally saw some burns! Before the burning, we need ambient background conditions so we launched a weather balloon first thing in the morning. This gives us a reference for comparison when we later analyze our data. We tried to launch the balloons approximately 1 km from the burn site.
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Ambient Balloon

The ignition crew drives along the perimeter of the burn site and spits out a diesel and gas mixture. The fire takes off from there and burns the entire plot. The plot on Tuesday was approximately 250 acres and Wednesday's was about 125 acres.
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Ignition

I got excited when I saw the big flames today, so I tried to take a self portrait, turned out pretty good!
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Kari and Fire

The flames varied in size, so I got Scott in this picture for reference. At this point, the radiation from the fire made the heat hard to tolerate.
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Scott and Fire

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Nice Fire

At the fire front, I looked up and got a great picture of the sky. Clear skies to the east and smoke to the west.

Plume

When a large plume has established, we launch another weather balloon to capture the moisture data I'm interested in. Here's me launching another balloon.

Plume Balloon

We noticed this on the way back from the fire. Green on one side of the road, burnt on the other!

AfterMath

Categories: Fire

Permalink | A A A

Top of Page

Reader Comments

Display: 0, 50, 100, 200

Sort: Newest First - Order Posted

Viewing: 1 - 4

Page: 1 — Blog Index

1. mahep1911 01:06 GMT le 17 juillet 2008
Nice prescribed burn there. Where was this taking place at and do you work for forestry ? Matt Firefighter/EMT Member Since: 17 juillet 2005 Posts: 10 Comments: 791

2. Kari Kiefer, Meteorologist 16:36 GMT le 18 juillet 2008
We were at Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichauway, Georgia. I work as a graduate research student in the Department of Meteorology at San Jose State University. My thesis focuses on fire plume moisture, so we took direct measurements of fire behavior. We cannot perform these prescribed burns in California, due to dry conditions, so we went to humid southwest Georgia. Member Since: 3 juin 2008 Posts: 11 Comments: 4

3. mtbeaver 22:44 GMT le 09 août 2008
That is simply the best jumpsuit I've ever seen

4. auburn (Mod) 23:00 GMT le 09 août 2008
Very cool...come burn my land...it needs it bad!!!!LOL Member Since: 27 août 2006 Posts: 539 Comments: 46702

Viewing: 1 - 4

Page: 1 — Blog Index

Top of Page

New Comment

Community Standards Policy Comments will take a few seconds to appear.

Post Your Comments

Please sign in to post comments.

or Join

Not only will you be able to leave comments on this blog, but you'll also have the ability to upload and share your photos in our Wunder Photos section.

About kiefer