Awatchfire

Pierce County, Washington

West Fork Fire

Burning 14.3 miles south of Greenwater and 18.3 miles south-east of Carbonado, since Saturday 22 August.

Map of Washington. The West Fork Fire burns 55 miles from Ellensburg and 55 miles from Seattle, and 56 miles from the state capital, Olympia.
The fire sits 55 miles from Ellensburg and 55 miles from Seattle.

310

acres burned so far — about 0.5 square miles

53

days burning so far

16%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 9:09am today

The West Fork Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 174 hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 174 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the West Fork Fire. Amber flames mark every place that gave off heat in the last day; the shading is the shape of the ground.
Heat in the last day Higher ground pale, valleys dark Where another fire is recorded

174hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 3:10am on Thursday, local time.

0readings

of heat in the last day. There is not yet an earlier stretch of record to compare that against.

14.1miles

is how close the heat has come to Greenwater at any point in the record. In the last day the nearest heat has been None miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Carbonado is 18.2 miles, None in the last day.

0.9miles

is the furthest any heat has been seen from the point on the official record — the width of the ground involved so far.

Six other fires are burning inside the same view. Clearwest Peak Fire started 145 minutes before this one, 4.7 miles north, and has reached 0 acres. Garda Falls Fire started on Monday 24 August, 1.7 miles south, and has reached 73 acres. Grand Park 2 Fire started on Friday 7 August, 2.8 miles north-east, and has reached 168 acres with 17 people assigned. Pigeon Fire started 7 minutes after this one, 3.2 miles north, and has reached 9 acres. Sluiskin Fire started 6 minutes after this one, 0.5 miles south-west, and has reached 0 acres. White River Fire started 3 minutes before this one, 0.1 miles north, and has reached 0 acres. Their heat is counted against them, not against this fire, and the pale rings on the map mark where they are recorded.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground once so far. The thickest of it was thin between 1:00pm and 4:30pm local time. The last of those windows closed 185 hours ago, so what is overhead now is not known.

Where the heat is

No cluster large enough to call a separate front. The heat is in one piece.

Conditions measured 13.0 miles from the fire: 65°F, air at 39% humidity, a 28 mph wind out of the east.

How it got here

Five days of record on a day-55 fire

The record here begins at 4:07pm on 24 Aug and runs to 3:11am on 8 Oct — 1067 hours, 55 readings of heat. The fire is on day 55, so the first 50 days are missing: nothing showed up from above until the fire was large enough and the sky over it clear enough for it to be seen.

Animated map of the West Fork Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 358 frames at 3 hours a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Day by day 5 days of record

  1. Map for Mon 24 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Mon24 Aug

    First readings

    • 2 heat readings
    • Heat from 4:07pm to 9:19pm
    • Spread 0.6 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon and night
  2. Map for Tue 25 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Tue25 Aug

    The fiercest day

    • 18 heat readings
    • Energy 6.4 times the day before
    • Heat from 2:15am to 2:25pm
    • Spread 0.9 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn, morning and afternoon
  3. Map for Wed 26 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Wed26 Aug

    Cooling off

    • 21 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Energy 59% down on the day before
    • Heat from 1:56am to 9:00pm
    • Spread 0.7 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn, afternoon and night
  4. Map for Thu 27 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Thu27 Aug

    Cooling off

    • 12 heat readings
    • Energy 78% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:22am to 3:17am
    • Spread 0.6 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn
  5. Map for Thu 8 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Thu8 Octlatest

    Cooling off

    • 2 heat readings
    • Energy 92% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:37am to 3:11am
    • Spread 0.6 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn

How the record has moved

Each step is a change on the interagency incident record — acreage, containment or crews — with the date it was reported. No satellite reading is involved.

  1. Saturday 22 August

    First reported

  2. Sunday 23 August

    0 acres on record

    0 ac

  3. Monday 24 August

    Grew to 5 acres — containment 0%

    5 ac · 0% held

  4. Tuesday 25 August

    Grew to 349 acres

    349 ac · 0% held

  5. Thursday 27 August

    Revised to 0 acres

    0 ac · 0% held

  6. Thursday 27 August

    Grew to 266 acres

    266 ac · 0% held

  7. Friday 28 August

    Grew to 271 acres

    271 ac · 0% held

  8. Sunday 30 August

    Grew to 296 acres

    296 ac · 0% held

  9. Monday 31 August

    Grew to 299 acres

    299 ac · 0% held

  10. Tuesday 1 September

    Grew to 300 acres

    300 ac · 0% held

  11. Saturday 5 September

    Grew to 306 acres

    306 ac · 0% held

  12. Sunday 6 September

    Containment 17%

    306 ac · 17% held

  13. Tuesday 8 September

    Grew to 310 acres — containment 16%

    310 ac · 16% held

16% of the perimeter is being reported as held. No crew count has been published for it yet. It has grown from 0 acres when it was first written down to 310 now. Nothing has looked at it for 174 hours, and the record still lists it as active.