A wildland fire started in Big Bend National Park, Texas, around 5:00 PM on Monday, February 1st, when heavy winds caused a power line to fall. The fire burned grassland…
RedZoneFebruary 10, 2016
The practice of hazardous fuel reduction is most often associated with moderating the flammable vegetation around the defensible space of individual homes and communities. But this proactive approach to fighting wildland fire comes in…
RedZoneJanuary 30, 2016
Smoke is made up of particulates, aerosols and gases, and identifying the characteristics of each in a given smoke plume can be helpful when fighting fires. Reading smoke can tell a firefighter what is currently…
RedZoneJanuary 23, 2016
2015 was a significant year for wildfires with the total acreage cresting 10 million for the first time on record. To put it in perspective, 10 million acres is roughly…
RedZoneJanuary 16, 2016
Haines Index is used to indicate the potential for rapid fire growth due to dry and unstable atmospheric conditions over a fire area. The index is a simple way to measure…
RedZoneJanuary 13, 2016
The Lightning Activity Level (LAL) is a measurement of cloud-to-ground lightning activity observed (or forecasted to occur) within a 30 mile radius of an observation site. The LAL is…
RedZoneDecember 31, 2015
Since 2001, each wildfire season has averaged almost 73,000 ignitions and over 6.5 million acres burned in the U.S. Interestingly, the vast majority of these ignitions are human-caused, but the…
RedZoneDecember 29, 2015
Wildland firefighters use very specific terminology to describe the various parts of a fire. The fastest-moving portion is designated the "head" of the fire, the sides of the fire are…
RedZoneDecember 19, 2015
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been refining a concept first proposed in 2011 for a network of space-based sensors called FireSat that would revolutionize the monitoring coverage of wildfires globally. …
RedZoneDecember 17, 2015
