A message from Frank Frievalt Fire Chief, Mammoth Lakes Fire Protection District

The Quick Facts:

  • The Creek Fire is the closest fire to Mammoth Lakes and is the source of the majority of the smoke impacts.
  • There is no current or projected evacuation order for the Town of Mammoth Lakes at this time.
  • Based on the information we have, the fire’s “edge” is about 19 miles from town. A previous social media post indicated that spotting occurred 15 miles from town; however, this was incorrect.
  • There is an evacuation order within Madera County that includes the Reds Meadow area, but it is a massive “zone” which includes the town of Oakhurst. I have been in touch with Sheriff Braun to see if we can get some better granularity on that.
  • We will see dense smoke from this fire as long as prevailing SW winds are present.  If you have sensitivity to smoke, know that these conditions may persist for some time.
  • You should continue to stay situationally aware of the weather and the fire through the various links we are providing on our page.
  • While the fire has a long way to travel here, and must cross some significant barriers, it has already displayed extreme fire behavior and we are giving it our full and complete attention.  I have personally been in Reds Meadows multiple times over the past 72 hours to maintain awareness and stay in touch with the public and private operations in that area.
  • We are actively working with our fire and law enforcement cooperators to create several layers of decision points for various actions, up to and including evacuations.
  • If, over the next few days, conditions on the ground pass our decision points, early notification will be issued through Mono County Code Red Alert system, and also through a program that will send a text to your cell phone if it is connecting to a cell tower in the impacted area.
  • The Town of Mammoth Lakes public information officer will be providing relevant information, similar to the way winter storm, red flag, and other weather emergencies are communicated. Information will be updated frequently regarding the Creek Fire on the Town Website under the News Flash section on the homepage and shared throughout the Eastern Sierra via Public Information Officer communication channels.

While we will attempt to provide an elevated level of information on social media while the Creek Fire is impacting us, please use links to direct authoritative sources below for the most accurate and up to date information.

Important Links:

 

Air Quality has improved quite a bit this morning from last evenings dystopian event. The PM 10 Count was as high as 1818 . This mornings  PM 10 was below 200.   Not perfect but not nearly as bad as last night.  Winds will be light the next few days.

The upper high will shift SE the next few days. This may actually improve the air quality tonight into Saturday. A light NE flow will develop and this may actually inhibit the transport of smoke through the pass to some extent.  The winds are expected to be NE to about 2 or 3 knots at 800MB. So very little help but well take what we can get..  Over the following days Saturdays winds will continue for the ENE then SSE with the upper center over NW Nevada. Again these changes in the wind direction are accompanied by a flow of air that is pretty light,  so don’t expect miracles.

The west flank of the Omega Block which is currently cut off, opens by Sunday and provides us with a light increase of SW flow later in the day and night. The upper jet does remain to our north, over Oregon. However, the upper flow out of the southwest strengthens during mid week (Wednesday into Thursday).  More details on that next week….

 

Let hope for the best!!…………..  🙂