Lick: This week's observatory fire

[01101001]

Some area pretty far from the Lick Observatory, on Mt. Hamilton, east of San Jose, California, around Henry Coe state park, is afire, around 500 acres so far today. Spokesperson did say it might affect this evening's viewing.

Ham Cam (http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/hamcam/) number 2 is currently facing southwest, toward Santa Cruz on the Pacific, looking across Silicon Valley, and is showing the fire.

6178

Google Map: Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode&sll=46.2492,-114.155846&sspn=0.104225,0.256119&ie=UTF8&ll=37.341793,-121.642245&spn=0.001872,0.004002&t=k&z=18&om=1)

San Jose Mercury News: Fire burns in Henry Coe State Park
(http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6793235)

Amid breezy conditions, firefighters this afternoon were scrambling to fight a brush fire that quickly scorched 200 acres outside of Morgan Hill near Henry Coe State Park, authorities said.
[...]
"It is serious," said county Battalion Chief Scott Jalbert. "This has the potential of being a major fire."

[Musashi]

I was just in San Jose and considering taking the trip up to Lick. Normally Cam 2 faces East, but it looks like they turned it at some point.

[01101001]

Now 5200 acres and growing. 10% containment. Access roads are very difficult. This morning had a heavy marine layer, and it was too cloudy to see much, but the clouds are burning off with the sun and maybe the smoke plume will become visible. Ham cam shots at local dusk were dramatic, as the orange light from the fire became visible.

The Ham cams (http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/hamcam/) seem stuck around local midnight, are dark, and not showing current views.

Check out yesterday's camera 2 daily stills (http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/hamcam/dailyStills/cam2/) while you can. Around 1400 local, smoke began appearing in air. Around 1600 they swung the camera around.

Around 1900 PDT to 2030 PDT:

6186 6187 6188 6189

Updated: San Jose Mercury: Fire grows near Henry Coe State Park (http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6793235)

The rapidly spreading blaze, called the Lick Fire, began at 1:46 p.m. and was fanned by gusty winds. It is about 10 miles from the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton, according to a fire spokesman, but the observatory is not endangered.

CalFire: Lick Fire current information and status (http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=215)

[01101001]

Now at 7000 acres.

San Jose Mercury: Officials: Fire near Henry Coe park could devour 10,000 acres today (http://origin.mercurynews.com/ci_6797222)

The blaze raging in a remote area east of Morgan Hill could double in size today and devour 30,000 acres before it's squelched, officials said.
If the blaze sparked Monday in Henry Coe State Park grows as Cal Fire spokesman Frank Kemper predicted, it could today consume at least 10,000 acres of rugged, forested terrain. By 2 p.m., the blaze had churned through 7,000 acres.

If the fire does grow to 30,000 acres, about the size of San Francisco, it would be one of the largest fires in Santa Clara County history. But it likely won't destroy any homes, Kemper said, because the wind is fanning it the southeast.
[...]
The fire is burning about 10 miles from the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, according to a fire spokesman. But the observatory is not endangered.

Keith Baker, a telescope technician, said the telescopes were open Monday night, though workers at the observatory kept a close watch on the blaze. "As long as the wind doesn't change directions, we're OK," he said.

The Ham cams (http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/hamcam/) are working again. The smoke is less dramatic than yesterday.

[Musashi]

They turned the camera back. Don't know what that says about the fire. Partially contained I guess: http://origin.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6824965. Started from a burn barrel with mysterious ownership (at this point). 27,000 acres as of last night.

[01101001]

They turned the camera back. Don't know what that says about the fire.

It's not much to see, I think. The last images before the Hamcam looked away were pretty boring. The action might have just moved away from view. Also, there's so much smoke in the air, from the Lick Fire (http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=215) and another as big, way up north in Plumas County (CalFire: Moonlight Fire (http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=216)), that it's getting hard to see any distance. The sunrises and sunsets have been unusually red the last few days. Pretty. It's been a couple days since I could detect a column of smoke in the Diablo mountains.

The Lick Fire seems to have settled into middle age. They're fighting it, and making progress daily. If it moves inland, east, it gets even more remote and less dangerous. If it moves west, toward people and structures, it gets a lot easier to fight. It's just a matter of time before it's all contained, and that could take weeks.

And, they got the human (boring news story) (http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6828041) who started it by burning refuse. He/she might get some big bills in the mail.

The Lick Observatory is way safe, still many, many miles away.

I don't think there will be much more to report unless there are very dramatic changes.

[ngc3314]

I watched one of these fires from Lick around 1981, this one to the west of the summit and not far from blocking one of the access roads. Very spectacular nighttime views looking down on the fire, really showing the irregular ring shape of the live flames. Took many pictures. In all my years of film photography, processing labs only lost one single roll I shot. Yep - the very one...

[01101001]

Well, the Lick Fire story has got a tenuous NASA connection.

San Jose Mercury: NASA's pilotless drone aircraft assists in battling Lick fire (http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_6841088)

Ikhana, NASA's pilotless aircraft, flew over the 47,000-acre Lick fire for the first time, transmitting images and information to firefighters below as they battled the blaze into Saturday evening.

"They used that to facilitate their planning for the day's firefighting," said Vince Ambrosio, NASA Ames's principal investigator on the Ikhana project.

Ambrosio monitored the drone's flight from a base in Boise, Idaho, while other NASA technicians on the ground interpreted the images for fire commanders. Altogether, Ambrosio said, Ikhana flew 20 hours, starting Friday night from NASA's facility at Edwards Air Force Base to 11 fires in California, Oregon and Washington before returning to Edwards on Saturday afternoon.

NASA Dryden: Ikhana UAV Gives NASA New Science and Technology Capabilities (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2007/07-12.html)

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/images/content/173135main_ikhana.jpg (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2007/07-12.html)

Fire 50% contained Saturday evening; 90% an hour ago, at nearly 50000 acres.

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

ehm... can someone point out to my ignorant mind why there are so many fires in observatories?

[01101001]

ehm... can someone point out to my ignorant mind why there are so many fires in observatories?

Well, I wouldn't say there are more for observatories than for other structures, statistically. Innocent "out buildings" seem at special risk; they're always bursting into flame.

Maybe near-observatory fires are self-selecting for reporting here in that this community is concerned about them. Also, observatories are frequently equipped to provide good images of the action with web cams.

Maybe they do have more fire risk than say, cheese factories, because observatories are uphill in sparsely populated areas. Many popular ones are in Mediterranean climates for the seeing, and get dry vegetation in their surroundings as a dangerous bonus.

And those darn big lenses are often accidentally left uncovered to focus the sun's rays on dry leaves, and... poof!

(As it turns out, the Lick fire wasn't especially close to the Lick Observatory, about 10 miles, but the folks at the observatory seem to be the first to have called it in, probably because they were there conducting business in the relative wilderness, and they had a good view.)