Monday, April 17, 2017

Canyon Fire Entrapment

I quite distinctly remember the Canyon Fire on the post of Vandenberg AFB last year for a number of reasons. These reasons include the fact it started and largely burned in Honda Canyon, the namesake of another fire there in 1977 which, driven by Santa Ana Winds, killed four people including the base commander and base fire chief. Read more about it HERE. I also remember last year's fire because it delayed the launch of  WorldView-4 earth observation satellite from the base's space launch complex. I also remember it for the fact it seemed to generate some of the most awesometacular pyrocumulus clouds seen on a wildfire on the Central Coast since the 1993 Marre Fire which also featured a firefighter entrapment incident sans casualties. There was even a memorable fire-related but not fire-caused fatality as Ventura County Fire Department engineer Ryan Osler was killed in the rollover of a VCFD water tender en route to the fire traveling on Highway 246 near Lompoc, CA. However, I only vaguely remember there was an entrapment situation on the Canyon Fire last year which caused some injuries but no deaths but was certainly a close call. Today I noticed a link to this on Twitter which appears to have been published a few weeks ago. This short video makes for a quite compelling post-incident analysis with some rather dramatic wildfire videography.

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