Fighting fire before it arrives

The day in July when a campfire ignited the Waterfall fire outside Carson City the weather was dry and windy.

"The first day kind of caught everybody by surprise," said Sandy Munns, fire behavior analyst and a captain for the Reno Fire Department who worked on the 9,000-acre fire that destroyed 17 homes.

"Winds were blowing down slope on eastern side of the Sierra," Munns said. "It bumped into town and burned houses in King's Canyon."

Firefighters knew better what to expect from the raging wildfire the next day and were able to protect a number of houses because of the teamwork by Munns and Rhett Milne, a warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Both men spoke about their work Thursday at Operation Sierra Storm, a two-day weather conference at Caesars Tahoe. They said fire forecasting involves three things: the lay of the land (topography), how many flammable plants and trees exist in potential pathways for the fire (fuels), and weather.

By analyzing data collected in those three areas, Munns and Milne were able to tell incident managers that fire was headed for two subdivisions.

"We informed them that the fire was again going to run downhill into subdivisions at Lakeview and Timberline," Munns said.

"Our information allowed them to divert resources from other places on the fire ... and several dozers and aircraft worked those areas."

The fire began to encroach on the neighborhoods around 3 p.m., and the preparations made a difference, allowing firefighters to dig and save homes in some cases.

Munns said his and Milne's fire forecasting helped, but really it was fuel reduction work around the neighborhoods - started three years prior to the wildfire - that had the biggest impact.

"Fuels reduction around communities, done with a $250,000 grant, reduced vegetation built up right against the subdivision," Munns said. "Fire burned right up to the community and stopped, or allowed firefighters a chance to cope with the fire. They didn't lose a single home in Lakeview."

Timberline completed about 20 percent of their needed fuel reduction, therefore firefighters were not as successful at protecting homes. The fire damaged 10 homes and destroyed eight.

There's no way to say for sure what this fire season will bring for the Carson Valley, but Munns said predictions he has heard from fellow professionals is that it will be a wet spring, which could help or hurt things depending on what types of wild grasses grow.

Milne said he is happy about the snowpack but that it may not provide enough moisture to make a dent in the thick, dry fuels that have experienced drought-like conditions the last five to seven years.

"Depends on who you talk to," Milne said. "Usually it takes several years of above normal precipitation to get rid of a drought."