VallesCaldera.com – The independent news source about the Valles Caldera

UPDATE: 1:45 AM — This photo depicts the flames of the Las Conchas Fire to the right (north) of the town lights of Los Alamos, plainly visible from Santa Fe Thursday night. Photo by Brian Egolf via twitter.

UPDATE: 12:10 AM — Jeremy Jolola of KOB-TV posted the following rough synopsis of Thursday’s events regarding the Las Conchas Fire via Twitter:

-Fire is a record breaker burning beyond 94k acres. This will be official Friday, likely.

-The fire activity closest to Los Alamos has calmed down compared to days past

-Chief Doug Tucker is confident the fire will not burn through the canyon into Los Alamos.

-A fire in the Los Alamos Canyon has been taken care off with back burns and foam

-Sadly sacred parts of land on Santa Clara Pueblo property has been destroyed

-The most aggressive part of the fire is in the Pueblo area, moving north where there are a lot of fuels.

-Air tankers will finally attack this part of the fire Friday

-IMPORTANT: THERE IS NO TIME LINE ON WHEN PEOPLE CAN COME BACK HOME

-As for haze in Los Alamos, it was actually a clear day, except for several hours today when the smoke came in. I suspect some homes will smell like smoke whenever people come back

UPDATE: 10:10 PM — Scores of revealing photos of the Las Conchas Fire’s effects on the Valles Caldera have been posted on the Valles Caldera National Preserve’s official Facebook page. Here are several of the photos, which were taken by VCNP staff member Rourke McDermott:

This shot was taken on the western portion of the Valle Grande looking toward flames burning lava dome Cerro del Medio, which is the most prominent dome that can be seen directly across the Valle Grande from the pullouts on Hwy. 4.

The Las Conchas Fire burning Cerro del Medio looms over elk on the Valle Grande.

Cerro del Medio burns.

Flames engulf Cerro de los Posos, just north of the Valle de los Posos, which separates Pajarito Mountain and Cerro del Medio.

An air crane replenishes its supply of water on the Valle Toledo. Although the source of the water shown here is not stated in the photo’s Facebook caption, it is likely at or near the headwaters of the San Antonio River in the Toledo.

Fire crews blaze a line of defense against the Las Conchas Fire at the north end of Obsidian Valley.

Rendondo Meadow has been transformed into a temporary city as it serves as one of the Las Conchas Fire’s incident command stations.

UPDATE: 4:55 PM — The National Weather Service has just released the following satellite image which shows the Las Conchas Fire and its burn scar. The image was taken from satellite passes over the area Wednesday afternoon and night. Click the image below to load a high-resolution version:

UPDATE: 4:20 PM — The Las Conchas Fire has burned more than 6,000 acres of Santa Clara Pueblo land, according to the pueblo:

Santa Clara Pueblo, NM – The Las Conchas Fire has charred more than 6,000 acres of the watershed of Santa Clara Pueblo and continues to destroy cultural sites, forest resources, plants and animals that the people of Santa Clara depend upon for their livelihood and culture. Wildfires have burned two-thirds of Santa Clara’s forest over the past 13 years, including 8,300 acres burned by the 1998 Oso Complex Fire and the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. In response, Santa Clara Pueblo Governor Walter Dasheno has issued a Declaration of Emergency.

“We are devastated to witness the destruction of our precious homeland,” said Governor Dasheno. “From time immemorial to this day our community has been stewards of this land, have fought to regain portions taken from us and have invested millions of dollars in restoring the forest and resources.”
…
After two days of extreme fire behavior, the Las Conchas Fire entered Santa Clara Pueblo lands mid-day on June 29. In the last 24 hours the fire has exploded across the western third of the reservation. This includes the area known as “P’opii Khanu,” the headwaters of the creek, which the Pueblo regained in 2000 after 140 years of struggle.

“Our canyon is the source of our Santa Clara Creek that we rely upon for irrigation but, more than that, it was a beautiful place of abundance in wildlife, clean water, culturally-significant trees and medicinal plants,” said Governor Dasheno.

UPDATE: 3:40 PM — Within 20 minutes after it began, the storm cell passed to the northeast and the sky above is once again blue.

UPDATE: 3:10 PM — Reporting from two miles west of the fire lines at the home of VallesCaldera.com: It is pouring here in the Sierra los Piños area. Weather maps show this to be a relatively small storm cell, heading to the northeast. This is the first precipitation we have experienced here in quite a while.

A new fire map released today (seen below) shows the only main area of significant geographical expansion over the past day of the Las Conchas Fire has been within the Valles Caldera National Preserve and Santa Clara Pueblo. As the fire has been burning north and west, it appears to have burned Cerro del Medio and the Rincon se los Soldados entirely, has entered the beautiful Valle Toledo, and has climbed Chicoma Peak and Cerro Toledo. Cerro Abrigo has burned due to an intentional fire having been set at the top of that lava dome with the hope of stopping westward movement of the fire. This is in addition to prior days’ burning of the southeastern rim of the Valles Caldera, Rabbit Mountain, Cerro Grande, and the eastern portion of the Valle Grande. Additionally, spot fires have been burning in Santa Clara Pueblo.

Today, winds in the the Jemez Mountains are predicted at 25 mph with wind gusts up to 45. Fire managers have labeled the potential for growth of Las Conchas Fire as very high. Staci Matlock of the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that “thunderstorms are dropping lightning strikes into Las Conchas Fire area,” adding another threat to the region.

Click on the map below to download a high-resolution, pdf version of the most recently-released Las Conchas fire map:

Here are today’s strategies with regard to all four flanks of the Las Conchas Fire, as per InciWeb, the Incident Information System:

North – Firefighters are monitoring long-range spotting, which have been seen as far north as the Santa Clara Pueblo. Firefighters will also be dealing with unfavorable winds which may result in extreme fire behavior and continue to push the fire to the north. Firefighters will continue scouting for potential fire line and burnout opportunities to prevent the fire from spreading.

East – Firefighters will work the fire line along the NM Hwy 4 through Bandelier National Monument. Firefighters are working with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to prevent the fire from spreading on to the lab along the eastern perimeter down toward the southern edge of the fire. Firefighters are also creating and implementing structure protection plans for the Pajarito Ski Area and the Bandelier National Monument, as well as coordinating with the Los Alamos Fire Department.

South – Firefighting efforts in this area are supported with favorable winds and lighter fuel types. Today firefighters will be looking for opportunities to check fire spread along the Sanchez and Medio canyons.

West -Firefighters will continue to monitor the northwest side along NM Hwy 4. Favorable winds are helping firefighting efforts in this area.

The Las Conchas Fire, which ignited within the geologic rim of the Valles Caldera in private land when an aspen tree fell onto a power line, has burned 80,000 acres total, including 10,000 acres of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The fire has also entered Santa Clara Canyon in Santa Clara Pueblo, and remains 3% contained.

However, Los Alamos Fire Chief Doug Tucker stated this evening that his town is “in the best shape we’ve been in since this thing started,” and that “we’re starting to turn the corner on this fire.” Tucker also said that the preventative burns that began on Wednesday morning were successful in preventing the spread of the fire into Los Alamos National Laboratory. From NM Fire Info:

Firefighters began setting “back burns” on the west side of New Mexico State Route 501 around mid-morning. Those operations were declared complete by evening. The burns were intended to remove available fuel from the Las Conchas Fire, which has consumed more than 60,000 acres on two sides of the 37-square-mile LANL site but only one acre of the Lab itself.

The Albuquerque Journal reported on tomorrow’s plan to fight the Las Conchas Fire:

The focus for tonight and tomorrow will be on flanking the fire on the east and the west while following it north. Fire Operations Chief Jerome MacDonald said crews won’t try to get in front of the fire until there is a break in the fuel and weather.

Tomorrow’s plan consists of strengthening the lines already in place around State Road 501 and the lab boundary and putting more pressure on the east flank, MacDonald said. Winds are expected to blow up to 35 miles per hour out of the southwest.

Photos and maps confirm that ring fracture dome Cerro del Medio, the grassy Valle de los Posos, the Cerro de los Posos, and much of the southeastern rim of the Valles Caldera are on fire. A photo in the Journal showed that a wide swath of the montane grasslands of the Valle Grande were charred (however, according to the Preserve’s chief scientist, Bob Parmenter, this grass will reappear when this summer’s monsoons begin).

According to the Journal:

The fire also blazed through forest areas that had been primed by drought for the blaze, Parmenter told me when I caught up with him this afternoon in his Jemez Springs office. The forest areas were in bad shape, the victim of a progression that started with clear cuts in the 1960s, when the Caldera was a private ranch. The loggers left slash on the ground and didn’t replant, and the years that followed turned the landscape into what foresters call “dog hair” – thick, unhealthy forests choked with mid-sized trees. Where a healthy Ponderosa forest has perhaps 40 to 60 trees per acre, some areas post-logging had 1,500 or more, according to Parmenter.

It was one of the many forests in the West ready to be, in the words of another forest fire scientist, “reset” by fire.

Click here to read this article in the Journal, and to see the aforementioned photo of the Valle Grande.

This report on KOAT-TV showed scenes of the idyllic Redondo Meadow having been transformed into an incident command post with the requisite temporary city of a mess hall, bathrooms, offices, showers, and lots of tents.

UPDATE: 6:15 PM — From the Santa Fe National Forest:

Due to extreme fire conditions, Santa Fe National Forest and Valles Caldera National Preserve will close the majority of the Forest and Preserve to all public access starting Thursday, June 30, 2011.

UPDATE: 5:55 PM — Reporting on the fire via Twitter:

5:38 PM — StaciMatlock: Spot fire from Las Conchas fire burning at American Springs southwest of los Alamos. #NMfire http://t.co/Vjb0NhG

5:27 PM — kathydaly312: RT @GadiRoget: [Los Alamos Fire Chief] Tucker telling us todays wind cooperating with backburn direction. calls it a good day #nmfire #losalamos

5:08 PM — StaciMatlock: Backburn creeping into [Los Alamos] canyon. Firefighters meant to keep it on top the ridge but wind pushed it over. #NMfire

4:55 PM — StaciMatlock: Las Conchas fire is in upper los Alamos canyon but [Los Alamos Deputy Chief Mike] Thompson said will burn low and slow #NMfire

3:33 PM –StaciMatlock: [LANL plutonium scientist] Joe Martz says this looks like make or break for Los Alamos Canyon. #NMfire

Below is a map that was just released that shows the daily progression of the Las Conchas Fire. Click on the map below for a higher-resolution version:

Click here for a newly-released high-resolution map of the perimeter of the fire.

UPDATE 4:10 PM: Below is a screen grab of an aerial video taken by KRQE news that depicts the southeastern rim of the Valles Caldera burning. The vantage point of this photo appears to be over Redondo Peak, looking southeast. El Cajete Crater can be seen at the bottom right of the photo, and the Valle Grande is the large expanse of grassland in the left of the photo.

The video that includes this photo can be seen below:

The Las Conchas Fire has reached 69,555 acres with 3% containment.

According to Jason Lott, the superintendent of Bandelier National Monument, 17,000 acres, or half of the monument, have been burned. However, this historic visitor center area and the prehistoric sites north of the visitor center have been saved.

Here is the most recent infrared map of the fire, as of last night around midnight:

The Las Conchas Fire, which the Albuquerque Journal reported is now “considered the highest priority fire in the United States,” has grown to 94 square miles or 60,741 acres; 3% of the blaze has been contained, according to NM Fire Info. Between 800 and 1000 firefighters are currently on the ground, according to KRSN radio.

On Tuesday the fire failed to advance on the evacuated town of Los Alamos. and firefighters kept it from penetrating into Los Alamos National Laboratory (a spot fire of less than one acre in size burned on Lab property on Monday, and it was quickly extinguished).

In terms of the disaster’s impact on the Valles Caldera, the Las Conchas Fire has burned the southwestern rim of the caldera down to Highway 4, and has descended from the eastern rim (which includes the Pajarito Ski Hill and Cerro Grande) to encompass the grasslands of Valle de los Posos as well as the eastern and southern portions of the lava dome Cerro del Medio, which looms over the Valle Grande, according to the map shown below.

The Valles Caldera National Preserve has posted a dozen shots of the fire as seen from the Valle Grande on its Facebook page (you do not have to be a member of Facebook to see these).

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports:

On Tuesday, the fire was continuing to burn west of Los Alamos, into the Valles Caldera National Preserve and south through Bandelier National Monument. A mile-wide tongue of it crept north within a mile of Santa Clara Pueblo land, according to Carl Schwope, operations section chief for the Southwest Area Incident Management Team.

Firefighters have fought for two nights in a row to prevent the Las Conchas Fire from swallowing Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. None of the structures have burned…

In the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the fire was burning through Cerro Medio. To keep it from pushing hard through the other hills, air support will ignite Cerros del Abrigo and possibly Cerros de los Posos. Like a burnout, the idea is using fire to fight fire. “We’ll burn trees in the cerros from the top down,” Schwope said, so when the fire reaches the hills, it can’t climb up in the treetops and crown.

“When this (Las Conchas) fire lines up, it will crown. It will rip through there.”

Los Alamos National Laboratory has posted several photos on its Flickr stream.

According to Juan Carlos Rodriguez of the Albuquerque Journal:

Fire crews are working from all directions, building fire lines by hand, burning out areas to create spaces and dumping water on the fire. Aircraft were grounded Monday afternoon and night due to winds but were back up on Tuesday.

[Deputy Incident Commander Mike] Bradley said he expects the Las Conchas Fire to grow indefinitely.

“We need to look at it in terms of this fire season. We saw what happened to the Wallow Fire, we saw what happened to the Horseshoe Two Fire, we saw what happened to the Monument Fire,” Bradley said, referring to Arizona fires. “There’s no reason to have any other assumptions than that this has a huge amount of potential. The fuel conditions are the same and the weather conditions are the same.”
…
Bradley’s team’s incident command post is at Redondo Meadows north of Jemez Springs. A small, temporary city with a mess hall, bathrooms, offices and lots of tents is being built as crews’ lives will be centered there until the fire is under control.

But that hasn’t been convenient in terms of getting crews to the fire.

“One of the problems that we have is between where our base camp is and other portions of this fire, we have a three-hour travel time, so we lose six hours of work time just trying to get crews out there,” Bradley said.

He said smaller camps will begin to spring up so crews don’t have to travel so far.

Bandelier National Monument sent out the following status update via Facebook Tuesday:

Sorry, no photo today, but new info from Frijoles Canyon: protective burns were done upstream from Alcove House and along the mesatops to keep fire away from the historic structures around the Visitor Center, and they have held. (YAY!) However, the protection also included a lot of vegetation clearing, so the area will look different for years (but not as different as if the actual blaze had come through!)

Here is the most recent map of the fire, as of Tuesday afternoon:

Below is a report on the fire this evening from Albuquerque ABC affiliate KRQE:

Las Conchas fire swells to 61,000 acres: krqe.com

The following video about the fire and the surrounding area was done by Outside Magazine:

Scenes From the Las Conchas Fire from Outside Magazine on Vimeo.

A crew member aboard the International Space Station took this photo on Monday of the smoke generated from the Las Conchas Fire (the fire has expanded significantly since this photo was taken):

From NM Fire Info:

June 27, 2011 at 11 a.m.
LAS CONCHAS WILDFIRE UPDATE
Fire Name: Las Conchas
Time/Date Started: 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 26, 2011
Location: Jemez Ranger District, Santa Fe National Forest; approximately 3 miles south of Los Alamos. The fire started on private land off of NM 4 at mile marker 35.
Legal Description: T18N, R4E, SEC 4
Cause: Unknown, under investigation
Fuels: Mixed Conifer, Ponderosa Pine, Pinon-Juniper
Size: 60,740 acres (Updated acreage from the Infrared Flight last night)

% Contained: 0
Resources Committed: Joe S. Reinarz’ Type 1 Incident Management Team took over management of the fire at 6:00pm this evening. Seven Hotshot crews (Type 1 crews), 12 Type 2 Crews, 31 engines, 3 water tenders, 5 dozers and 20 aircraft (12 air tankers and 8 helicopters). Numerous resources on-scene and more are en route.
Weather: Today’s weather: mostly sunny in the morning then partly cloudy with a slight chance of dry thunderstorms in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation: 10 percent. Max temperatures: 82 degrees. Relative humidity: 13 percent. Southwest winds 14 mph with gusts up to 25 mph diminishing through sunrise. Gusty and erratic winds expected near thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Structures/threats: Structures, powerlines, natural gas lines, Bandelier National Monument and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Evacuations: Las Alamos and surrounding communties within the fire perimeter. Voluntary evacuations are in place for the Cochiti area.

UPDATE: 3:15 AM — The Santa Fe New Mexican‘s @StaciMatlock reported the following tonight via Twitter:

Las Conchas fire has entered Pajarito Ski Area. Firefighters trying to keep it out of Pajarito Canyon leading to Los Alamos. #NMfire

Officers now going door to door in Los Alamos trying to get stragglers to leave. #NMfire

Officials confirm fire burning 3 miles from Area G where radioactive waste prepped for shipment to WIPP are stored. Lab says safe. #NMfire

Lab spokesman says 10,000 barrels of transuranic waste stored at Area G safe from fire because area “barren” and “mostly paved.” #NMfire

Santa Claran Resort Center in Espanola is full with Los Alamos evacuees. Red Cross now sending them to Cities of Gold in Pojo. #NMfire

Los Alamos Hospital closed and patients evacuated. Two nursing homes also evacuated and closed, according to Los Alamos officials. #NMfire

Los Alamos county fire chief doug Tucker calls fire “tragic.” Biggest risk is toward Cochiti. Fire could go in any direction. #NMfire

The Albuquerque Journal reported that:

Los Alamos National Laboratory has brought in teams to monitor air around the lab in response to concerns about possible contamination as fire burns near the nuclear research center. From a statement sent out late this evening (Mon. 6/27):

[T]e Laboratory has called in teams to monitor its network of 60-plus AIRNET monitoring stations and has high-volume air samplers ready to deploy. “We’re doing this as a precaution,” (lab director Charlie) McMillan said. “The health and safety of this community and our neighbors is our highest priority.” No Lab facilities face immediate threat and all radioactive and hazardous materials are accounted for and protected.

UPDATE: 8:30 PM — Via twitter:

BWells: Getting Facebook update from LAFD friend that fire is crowning on South end of the ski area. #nmfire

jeremyjojola: RT @DDixonMedia Sad day in the Dixon family. The #NMFire swept through Dixon’s Apples early this am. Waiting to learn which bldgs burned. Trees mostly ok.

UPDATE: 3:20 PM — The following photo was taken in Los Alamos this afternoon next to the town’s medical center:

(photographer unknown)

UPDATE: 3:00 PM — The Las Conchas fire has now crossed into the boundaries of Los Alamos National Laboratory. From NM Fire Info:

A one-acre spot fire was reported in Water Canyon, within Technical Area 49, on the Lab’s southwestern boundary. Reports from the field say the fire has jumped to the north across New Mexico State Route 4.

A mandatory evacuation order has been issued for the town of Los Alamos, due to the Las Conchas Fire having jumped over Hwy. 4 towards the town. An evacuation order for White Rock has not been issued as of yet. Residents have been instructed to wait in their homes until they receive a reverse 911 call with specific evacuation instructions in order to expedite an orderly evacuation of a town that has only two paved exit roads that are currently open.

Residents of the north area of town have been instructed to evacuate using the dirt road that stretches from Rendija Canyon to Totavi.

Los Alamos Fire Chief Doug Tucker has now pegged the size of the Las Conchas Fire at 49,000 acres. This eclipses the size of the devastating Cerro Grande Fire of 2000, which reached 48,000 acres after two weeks of burning.

UPDATE 1:15 PM — The following time lapse video of the Las Conchas Fire as seen from the Pojoaque Valley yesterday afternoon was just posted on YouTube:

UPDATE: 1:00 PM — The fire management team in charge of the Las Conchas Fire stated in a news conference that the fire has the potential to double or triple in size.

According to the Albuquerque Journal:

The fire is also burning in Bandelier National Monument, but the visitor center is not threatened. The fire is reported to be in the monument’s Frijoles Canyon and within a half-mile of the part of the canyon with ancient Pueblo Indian ruins and cliff dwellings that is the main feature of the monument.

Officials also said that while the fire did hit Dixon Apple Orchard near the village of Cochiti Lake, apparently the orchard trees survived and it was buildings at the orchard site that burned.

UPDATE: 12:30 — Bandelier National Monument has confirmed via Twitter that one-third of its acreage is now on fire. The Monument tweeted: “Future of the historic buildings is still uncertain; all the artifacts were moved out of the museum Sunday night.”

UPDATE: 12:00 NOON — The fire map shown below was just released by New Mexico Fire Info.

Los Alamos Fire Chief Doug Tucker reported in a news conference that at least 30 structures, mostly homes, have burned in Las Conchas, Cochiti Mesa, and Dixon Apple Orchard. He also stated that 2,500 Los Alamos residents have evacuated the Hill under a voluntary basis, and that the fire is within 50 feet of Los Alamos National Laboratory property, although it is currently being held behind fire lines that were established last night.

Los Alamos residents are now reporting that the sky is “raining ash,” and that the smoke is “thick is pea soup” in the town.

The Las Conchas Fire has now spread to 43,597 acres as of 8 am this morning — 19 hours after it began. In comparison, the infamous Cerro Grande Fire of 2000, which burned hundreds of homes in Los Alamos, reached 48,000 acres — but only after two weeks of burning.

Bandelier National Monument and the Valles Caldera National Preserve are closed for the foreseeable future. Structures have burned in Cochiti Mesa, and hundreds of Jemez residents remain evacuated.

Los Alamos County has turned off natural gas to facilities on Los Alamos National Laboratory’s southern border. The county remains under voluntary evacuation.

The fire remains 0% contained.

The following map shows the current extent of the fire:

The following info came from the New Mexico Fire Info web site:

Fire Name: Las Conchas

Time/Date Started: 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 26, 2011

Location: Jemez Ranger District, Santa Fe National Forest; approximately 12 miles southwest of Los Alamos off NM 4 at mile marker 35. The fire started on private land.

Legal Description: T18N, R4E, SEC 4

Cause: Unknown, under investigation

Fuels: Mixed Conifer, Ponderosa Pine

Size: 43,597 acres, based on overnight infrared mapping. The fire burned actively all day to the north/northeast. Running, crowning and spotting up to a half a mile of the head of the fire was observed.

% Contained: 0

Resources Committed:Joe S. Reinarz’ Type 1 Incident Management Team has been ordered. Three helicopters, two Hotshot crews, nine hand crews, five dozers and thirteen engines have been fighting the fire and more are expected to arrive. This is an interagency fire fighting effort. In fire management we all work together. We are working with local, state and federal agencies.

Weather:Today’s red flag conditions (hot temperatures, low humidity, high winds) contributed to the intense fire behavior and rapid fire growth. For a complete weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow click here.

Structures/threats:Structures, powerlines and natural gas lines. The fire is approximately 1 mile southwest of the boundary of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Evacuations:Cochiti Mesa, Las Conchas, Bandelier National Monument, and campgrounds near the fire were evacuated today. There were approximately 100 residents evacuated from Cochiti Mesa and Las Conchas and no evacuees reported to the evacuation center at La Cueva Fire Station. Voluntary evacuations were also issued for White Rock and Los Alamos. Because these are voluntary evacuations, no evacuation center has been set up at this time.

The following info came from the Wildfire Today web site:

Yesterday firefighters were actively backfiring along Highway 4 between the fire and the city of Los Alamos. As you can see by the map of the fire, as of late Sunday night the fire was approximately 3 miles from the city. It is also less than a mile from the boundary of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, birthplace of the nuclear bomb and still a location for research on radioactive materials.

One fact working in favor of the firefighters is the footprint of the Cerro Grande fire that burned from Bandelier National Monument into Los Alamos. That fire, which is between the Las Conchas fire and Los Alamos, started from an escaped prescribed fire in the National Monument and on May 10, 2000 moved into Los Alamos and ultimately destroyed over 280 homes and burned 47,000 acres. Less vegetation, or fuel, is available in the old Cerro Grande fire and so far the firefighters have has some success keeping the fire from crossing Highway 4 into the previously burned area, but it has crossed in some places.

…

Even at 3:00 a.m., when most self-respecting fires take a break and lay down for the night, the Las Conchas fire was still burning so hot very early Monday morning that the convection column of smoke and hot gasses made it very difficult for the infrared aircraft, N149Z, a King Air 200, to fly over the fire to collect the imagery. Normally the aircraft will fly nice, neat, orderly parallel flight lines spaced equidistantly, as you can see from the flight tracks of infrared missions we posted in 2008. Last night they flew six flight lines, most of them in different directions, but they successfully mapped the entire fire.