Efforts Continue to Contain Church Camp Fire
Incident: Church Camp Wildfire
Released: 6/29/2012
Duchesne, Utah - With favorable conditions late yesterday firefighters were able to burnout about 100 acres on the south flank of the Church Camp Fire.
This burnout was needed to remove a jagged finger of fuel and improve the fire line depth. "If you picture the fingers on your hand as our fire front, rather than trying to build line around each finger, like a glove - it's more efficient to build a line across your finger tips and burn out the little fingers of unburned fuel so they can't throw embers into fuel on the wrong side of the control line. It'll take less time so we can build more line around this fire. Instead of a "glove" we want a "mitten"" said Tracy Swenson, Field Operations Section Chief on the Great Basin Type 2 Team managing the fire.
Burnouts require the most experienced fire managers and firefighters working with favorable weather and landscape settings. It is often done at night to take advantage of the lessening heat and rising humidity.
This burnout operation was carried out by the Elk Mountain Hotshots, a highly trained and experienced Type 1 Interagency fire crew with the U.S. Forest Service located on the Mendocino National Forest in Upper Lake, California.
Currently on this fire are 480 personnel, 22 engines, three helicopters, two dozers and four water tenders.
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