Mountain Fire in Ventura County California

Images
NGFS Thermal Anomaly Detection at the Alerts Dashboard using GOES-18 Mesoscale Sector 1 data, 1649-1704 UTC on 6 November 2024

The Storm Prediction Center issued an Extreme Fire Weather Outlook (note that those conditions are #6 on the Priority List for Mesoscale Sectors!) for portions of southern California on 6 November 2024, and the forecast office in Los Angeles issued both High Wind Warnings — for strong Santa Ana winds — and a Red Flag Warning, as shown here, noting that this was a Particularly Dangerous Situation. The NGFS dashboard shown below includes the alert readout for this fire several hours after its initiation. The fire was detected by three different scannings: the GOES-16 CONUS scan, the GOES-18 PACUS scan, and the GOES-18 Mesoscale Sector 1 scan. Which scan strategy saw it first? It should be no surprise that the 1-minute cadence of the Mesoscale Sector first saw the fire. The first 15 minutes of the detections are shown above.

NGFS Alerts Dashboard for the Mountain Fire in Ventura County, Calfornia, 6 November 2024 (Click to enlarge)

NGFS imagery below tracks the early development of the detections, at 1649, 1650, 1651, 1655 and 1700 UTC. NGFS Microphysics RGB is on the left, Fire Temperature RGB is on the right. The signal is initially apparent only in the NGFS Microphysics. It takes several minutes for a credible signal to appear in the Fire Temperature RGB — at 1655 UTC. These 5 images also show how mesoscale scanning (every minute) captures the rapid changes that occur.

NGFS Microphysics RGB (left) and Fire Temperature RGB (right), 1649 UTC on 6 November 2024 (Click to enlarge)
NGFS Microphysics RGB (left) and Fire Temperature RGB (right), 1650 UTC on 6 November 2024; the detected fire pixels are highlighted (Click to enlarge)
NGFS Microphysics RGB (left) and Fire Temperature RGB (right), 1651 UTC on 6 November 2024; the detected fire pixels are highlighted (Click to enlarge)
NGFS Microphysics RGB (left) and Fire Temperature RGB (right), 1655 UTC on 6 November 2024; the detected fire pixels are highlighted (Click to enlarge)
NGFS Microphysics RGB (left) and Fire Temperature RGB (right), 1700 UTC on 6 November 2024; the detected fire pixels are highlighted (Click to enlarge)

Santa Ana winds (surface analysis shown below) means that this fire grew quickly.

Surface plot with winds, gusts, and temperatures. Note the gusts in the 20-45 knot range near Los Angeles. NWS Hazards/Warnings are also indicated. Time of image: 1900 UTC on 6 November 2024 (Click to enlarge).

The toggle below compares the NGFS microphysics RGB and the Fire Temperature RGB at 1850 UTC, about 2 hours after the fire’s start. Significant growth in the fire area is apparent, and it has become very intense.

NGFS Microphysics RGB and Fire Temperature RGB with the Mountain Fire, 1850 UTC on 6 November 2024 (click to enlarge)

The RealEarth NGFS instance for the Mountain Fire allows a user to add other fields to the display in addition to satellite imagery and fire detections. GOES-18 Fire Temperature RGB with Building Counts is shown below. This active fire is just upwind of a significant amount of development!

RealEarth NGFS instance showing Fire Temperature RGB and Building Counts, 1850 UTC on 6 November 2024 (Click to enlarge)

The animation below from the CSPP Geosphere site shows the effect of the strong winds: the plume from this fire rapidly moves offshore. There is also a dust plume in the southern part of the the animation, also suggestive of strong winds. Indeed, the winds are strong enough to ground fixed-wing aircraft that might otherwise be used to fight this fire!

True Color Imagery over southern California, 1511-1916 UTC on 6 November 2024

The animation for the same time of shortwave infrared data, below, shows the rapid development and expansion of the hotspot.

GOES-16 Shortwave IR (Band 7, 3.9 µm) imagery, 1511-1916 UTC on 6 November 2024.

More information on this fire is available at the Watch Duty website, shown below. Active evacuations are occurring as of 2100 UTC on 6 November 2024. The first entry for this fire is at 1655 UTC — “Possible vegetation fire reported at Balcom Canyon, with smoke visible on Alert California cameras.”

Screen Capture of the Watch Duty website for the Mountain Fare (Click to enlarge)

Webcam imagery of this fire is available here.

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