More of My McMillan Fire Footage on Media

Upon awaking this morning and checking online, to my surprise my footage of the 1,764-acre McMillan Fire yesterday had spread across various media sources beyond just AccuWeather last night. This is my first experience with this and I'm getting a small kick out of it. I do not regret giving a few news video gathering organization permission to use my stuff for free. There was nothing special about this fire to be quite honest. If I ever capture something pretty awesome then I will demand money. Below are the versions of my video that appeared today on ABC News, Pattrn, and WeatherNation. Check HERE to see my footage on AccuWeather last night.

My McMillan Fire Footage On AccuWeather

Tonight I was going to compile my best footage from yesterday's McMillan Fire near Shandon, CA, in eastern San Luis Obispo County. Before I could get a start on doing that I noticed that AccuWeather, which had asked permission to use my videos segments I posted on Twitter during the fire and received said permission, had put together a video montage set to background music on their Twitter channel. Given this is my first time being published like this, I have decided to post the Accuweather video montage instead of less-edited and more raw video. I think you'll enjoy this more polished version best or at least I hope so.
*UPDATE: to see three more versions of my footage as they appear on three other channels/networks HERE.

McMillan Fire Photos

Today while working at my house in Paso Robles, I espied a loom-up of smoke off to the east. I immediately stopped what I was doing and turned on my scanner and checked Twitter and heard and saw references to "McMillan". This told me that the fire was in the area of Hwy 46 and McMillan Canyon Road in the Shandon area. I then without much pre-planning (I neglected to grab water which I later regretted) and headed out the door and out Highway 46 east towards the fire. Below are some of the images I captured shown in order of the incident known as the McMillan Fire. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the camera on my iPhone8 was not set to Auto so some of these images aren't as clear as they should be... sorry! Tomorrow I will see about sharing some of the video shorts I captured. *Update: final acreage was mapped at 1,764 acres.

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All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Alamo Fire Chase

This afternoon the Alamo Fire, which began in southern San Luis Obispo County yesterday afternoon just north of Highway 166 near Alamo Canyon Road, exploded in the triple digit heat making a run southwards at Highway 166 for the second day in a row. This time it successfully got established south of the highway connecting Bakersfield and Santa Maria and ran amok in the ridges and flats in the vicinity of Twitchell Reservoir. In just a few hours it jumped from 250 acres to 3,400 acres.

This view is from a parking lot adjacent to southbound Highway 101 at the south Spring Street on-ramp looking southeast from Paso Robles, CA. At this point I was en route to meet up with mom and go hunt this fire and see how close we could get and perhaps get some interesting images of it. Note the pyrocumulus cloud atop the main convection column.

This was the view southward from the southern end of the Huasna Valley as mom and I sought to get in as close to this fire as possible. A couple of miles later we turned around at a gate on Huasna River Road.

On the drive into Huasna Valley we encountered several horse trailers filled with horses rapidly been driven out of the valley headed westward with grim faces

On the drive home we encountered a fair amount of radio traffic regarding a "Tower Incident." Given how crummy the radio and cell signal strength is out in Huasana Valley and environs we had missed the initial response to a new serious fire back closer to home atop the Cuesta Grade as started by a car fire on the northbound side of Highway 101.

We passed the Tower Fire on the drive home. The traffic backup on the northbound side of Highway 101 was actually a nightmarish crawl from San Luis Obispo to the top of the grade where the causal car fire was located. By the time we actually got to the fire almost an hour after first entering the queue the fire was pretty much done. I'm still not entirely sure why CAL FIRE needed to close down two of three lanes instead of one of three lanes. 

Here is the causal crispy car that started it all with the CAL FIRE prevention officer busy  investigating why the car caught fire. The Tower Fire started explosively but rapidly lost steam when once its own convection column blocked out the sun and plunged the fire area into a rather dark overcast. The fire burned 58 acres per the air attack.

The smoke from the Alamo Fire veered northwestward and northward from the fire contrary to the predicted Sundowner Winds tonight. This created an ominous smoky sunset over the North County. I shot this image from the northbound Highway 101 park & ride at Curbaril Avenue in Atascadero. All images by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).
*NOTE: to view a professionally-photographed image of today's fire action go HERE.

First Fire Chase of 2017

Late this afternoon on the way home from student teaching in Atascadero, I chose to detour and head past my home in Paso Robles and check out a raging wildfire burning on the post of Camp Roberts whose smoke I had been observing late this afternoon from the campus of Atascadero High School. I had assumed it was a second day of prescribed fires on the base following a previously-announced 500-acre prescribed fire there yesterday. While visiting my mom in Atascadero after school I watched the headline of the local television news and watched a live report on a wildfire raging at Camp Roberts that was NOT a prescribed fire but later turned out to be caused by a live-fire exercise on the post of the base. I captured the following images during this, my first fire chase of 2017, whose official name was the Range Incident which at this late hour is reported to have burned about 5,000 acres. I saw a lot of open flame fronts and even sheeting on the west side of the fire adjacent to and just east of the San Antonio River.

View from northbound Highway 101 onramp at south end of Camp Roberts.

View from northbound side of Highway 101 just north of Nacimiento River overcrossing.

View looking southwest from southbound Highway 101.

View northwest from East Garrison Road showing a finger of the fire burning into the wind as a firing operation commences at bottom of screen obscured by the trees.
All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

R.I.P. SLOStringer!

I never met Matthew Frank a.k.a. SLOStringer, but I certainly became aware of him over the course of recent years. His accomplishments as a top-of-the-line scanner buff, firechaser, and photographer/videographer have become locally legendary and even earned him respect in the fire photographer and stringer community across the state. His news service became something members of the Central Coast community have come to depend upon for immediate, accurate, and relevant news coverage even more so than our traditional news sources such as newspapers and TV. Stringers shoot video for money, while SLOStringer, despite identifying as a stringer, really was not one in the traditional sense as he already had another business (owned a motorcycle shop). He did his stringing for the pure pleasure of chasing the story and reporting the facts and supporting our local first responders. His service to various elements of our community and to the local community generally, ended early this morning in a predawn traffic accident in a driving rainstorm. We here in San Luis Obispo County will be less well-informed and less well-served moving forward without him in our midst. I suppose the only positive to come out of this is that he died doing what he loved as he was responding in the 3 a.m. hour from his house in San Luis Obispo, CA, to a reported house fire in Atascadero, CA. R.I.P. SLOStringer!
*Note: last summer he covered the Chimney Fire quite remarkably and I covered his coverage starting HERE.
**Note: The Tribune ran a beautiful story about him HERE.

Coleman Fire - Day One

Today I needed a break from being home alone, sick with pneumonia and some sort of weird eye inflammation (not red eye) and recovering from the emotional toll of two weeks of family turmoil right during the last leg of the quarter and my Cal Poly undergrad career. The moment I became aware that a new wildfire (Coleman Incident) had broken out on the post of Fort Hunter Liggett following on the heels of the still-burning 3,000 acre Stoney Fire nearby, I grabbed my dog, my meds, and my camera, and got in the car and went firechasing for a few hours. I headed north on US101 and then headed west on Jolon Road and followed it all the way to Pine Canyon Road where I captured the following images prior to firefighting assets making their way into the area as they began to do as I left to head home. By the end of today's burn period the fire was reported to have consumed 2,800 acres and some projections suggest it might ultimately burn 30,000 acres.
*Note: updated 6/05/16

I captured this image on Jolon Road between Lockwood and Jolon with view looking northwest.

Skull-faced cloud (side perspective with sun as glowing left eye).

All but the first image were captured on Pine Canyon Road at Shetland Drive looking west-southwest into the Ventana Wilderness Area just outside Fort Hunter Liggett.

I didn't have to wait long for the fire to slop over the main ridgeline in this case the right flank of the head.

Note the tanker retardant drop being made on the fire's edge at left.

A short time later the left flank of the head slopped over the ridgeline.

Today's fire activity was slope, fuel, and wind driven alike.

No noticeable sunspots today.

The contrail suddenly emerging from behind the cloud surprised me and after making an adjustment I shot this image.

All photographs by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).
*Note: thanks Linsis for cleaning up the lint artifacts in these images!