theycallmethefireman2's blog

wowowowowow

 abuse

All I can say is WOW, it is truly something I have never seen, and quite frankly, if I never see it again it will be just fine by me.  The sheer size and magnitude of this event is unbelievable, and it is very far from over for these poor folks.  See, I spent my weekend in Hyde, Tyrrell and Washington Counties along with several hundred more firefighters from various parts of the state that have flocked to eastern NC to help with the enormous wild land fire there.  It has consumed over 32,000 acres, note this was Sunday’s estimates it made some good runs yesterday, and it is unknown when and where they may be able to halt and contain this beast.  The fire is so large and so hot that it has become its own weather maker, with it developing pyrocumulus clouds and large dust devils/fire whirls. 

A pyrocumulus cloud is basically when a large forest fire is able to create thunderheads from the rising heat and ash of the fire.  The fire will start to draw in air from all directions to the heart of the fire and then all the drawn in air will converge at the heart of the fire and create a updraft of super heated air, ash and other debris, creating a column of superheated air, that will then start to form clouds that then turn into thunderheads.  These clouds can create rain, hail, and even tornados if strong enough.  Most of the rains from these clouds are useless because as they develop, the prevailing winds in the upper atmosphere drag them away from the main fire. 

I am sure most of you have seen a dust devil in a large field, but imagine that dust devil as a weak tornado that has been spun up by these fires and is capable of picking up glowing embers, hot ash, and debris, and then carrying it all several hundred feet or yards and dumping the glowing embers across your fire line, these are called fire whirls. 

Also, the soil in Hyde and surround counties down east isn’t really like the soil here, their soil is peat moss.  So the fire is capable of burning several feet underground without you knowing that it is there until it decides to break back through to the surface.  It is capable of burning under you fire lines too if it so chooses. 

These poor folks have a long hot road ahead of them and my thoughts and prayers go out to them all.  Hopefully they can at least contain it and start to work on permanently extinguishing it, but permanent extinguish will be quite a few months down the road.  I was only able to go for the weekend, work is calling, but we mainly helped out at various stations around the counties to give the local guys a break, they all looked so worn.  This heat is excruciating to work in and I just hope that they will try to remain hydrated and rested, because the conditions they are all working in will kill you if you don’t take care of yourself.  If you pray, please pray hard for these men and women, they sure could use it.

~thefireman