As I mentioned this morning, in the early stages of a fire like this, information is difficult to come by. As the fire gets more dangerous and threatening the teams managing the fire quickly change. You will hear the different references to the Incident Management Teams (IMTs) a lot over the next 24 hours so here is an explanation of who those teams are.
The five types of IMTs are as follows:
Type 5: Local Village and Township Level – a “pool” of primarily fire officers from several neighboring departments trained to serve in Command and General Staff positions during the first 6–12 hours of an incident.
Type 4: City, County or Fire District Level – a designated team of fire, EMS, and possibly law enforcement officers from a larger and generally more populated area, typically within a single jurisdiction (city or county), activated when necessary to manage an incident during the first 6–12 hours and possibly transition to a Type 3 IMT.
Type 3: State or Metropolitan Area Level – comprising several entities within a state or DHS Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) region, activated to support incident management at incidents that extend beyond one operational period. Type 3 IMTs will respond throughout the state or large portions of the state, depending upon State-specific laws, policies, and regulations.
Type 2: National and State Level – a federally or state-certified team; have less training, staffing, and experience than Type 1 IMTs, and is typically used on smaller-scale national or state incidents. There are thirty-five Type 2 IMTs currently in existence and operate through interagency cooperation of federal, state, and local land and emergency management agencies.
Type 1: National and State Level – a federally or state-certified team; is the most robust IMT with the most training and experience. Sixteen Type 1 IMTs are now in existence and operate through interagency cooperation of federal, state, and local land and emergency management agencies.
At the East Canyon Fire there is currently a type 3 IMT in place, this evening a type 2 IMT will be taking over. During the 416 fire, we had a type 2 team, then a type 1 team took over. When the type 2 team takes over tonight, they will likely establish more common protocols like we saw with the 416 fire and information will be more widely available. Hopefully, we will not need a type 1 team.
Here are the current wind directions
Don’t stare at them too long, you will swear they are moving… This matches the overnight model run for 9-10 am pretty closely.
The morning models show a similar wind profile to the overnight model runs. Here are the projected winds for the rest of the day by the hour from 10 am to 9 pm.
As far as gusts, I show 22-28 this afternoon and evening at 10m above the surface.
Tomorrow we will once again have a system approaching the NW portion of Colorado. This could tighten the pressure gradient leading to higher winds on Tuesday (than today), again out of the southwest.
I will keep my eyes and ears open today for any info, but as I said do not expect a lot of information until the type 2 takes over tonight. Apparently, it was 6:40 pm yesterday that they determined it was 895 acres, so don’t be surprised to see a big number come out later today or tomorrow morning.