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Honeybee Fire still burning near Olancha |
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Wednesday, 21 May 2008 |
 The Honeybee Fire, just south of Olancha, continues to spread at an average rate and has charred approximately 1,200 acres. The blaze is being maintained as a fire-use-fire to help rid the area of dangerous, dead and dying fuels. Photo courtesy Kenny Gaynor/Inyo National Forest By Mike Gervais
Register Staff 5-20-2008 Local fire officials have dispatched extra hand crews and a hot shot team to the Haiwee Pass area to help keep tabs on a growing wildland fire-use fire as winds are expected to pick up later this month.
The Honeybee fire was sparked May 6 by a lightning strike. The fire burned approximately one acre that first day, growing to 185 acres by May 12.
Over the next six days the blaze grew slowly but steadily until Friday, May 16, when officials declared a red flag warning due to 15-30 mph winds with 45 mph gusts. At the time of the warning, the blaze had scorched 950 acres.
By Saturday afternoon the fire grew by 200 acres, bringing the total to 1,150 acres.
The fire is currently burning about 30 miles south of Lone Pine, south-west of Haiwee Pass in the Inyo National Forest near the south fork of the Kern River.
With the fire spreading and the original eight-man fire-use management team unable to control it due to the high winds, the U.S. Forest Service deployed two 25-man crews to help contain the blaze.
The eight-man hand crew, specially trained in wildland fire use, was assigned to the fire and was camping out nearby, providing on-the-ground observations and monitoring of weather conditions and fire spread predictions. A helicopter was also assigned to the fire for reconnaissance flights as necessary.
According to CalFire, the Honeybee fire grew four-fold between May 15 and May 17, but has slowed down.
“It’s continued to expand a little bit, but not too much, it’s spreading as it normally would,” said Inyo National Forest Fire Management Officer Kenny Gaynor. “We’re taking some holding actions to keep it in check, and keep if from spreading to areas we don’t want it in,” he added.
Fire management officials from the Inyo National Forest are working closely with fire management from the Sequoia National Park in the monitoring of the Honeybee Fire.
With the north winds, smoke from the Honeybee Fire is traveling down-canyon towards Kennedy Meadows and is expected to have some impact on the area.
Smoke may also be visible from U.S. 395.
As of Monday, officials had 70 firefighters working on the blaze, including the Fulton Hotshots and a hand crew from Springville, which was deployed by the Sequoia National Forest.
That crew is working on the Kern Drainage to keep the fire from spreading farther south.
Crews from the Inyo National Forest are working to control the blaze along the crest of the mountains and prevent it from burning towards U.S. 395.
As of press time on Monday, crews were contending with southwest winds between 10 and 15 mph which were expected to increase to 20-30 mph in the afternoon.
Officials are expecting the blaze to pick up later this week as forecasts indicated a strong area of high pressure would hold over the region Monday before gradually giving way to a strong pacific low pressure system which will reach the Sierra this afternoon. Increasing southwest winds are expected to combine with hot and dry weather to produce critical fire weather conditions in several zones today and this evening.
According to Gaynor, an additional crew was dispatched to the fire early Monday morning in preparation for today’s weather. That crew was sent to the fire “to augment the crews we have up there already,” he said.
The Inyo National forest expects the fire to continue burning for 2-3 weeks. “We should begin reducing personnel within a week, but our holding efforts should be winding down in the next few days,” Gaynor said.
“We want to emphasize the resource benefit of this fire,” Gaynor said. “It’s doing exactly what we want it to do, burning a mosaic pattern, just like a natural fire.”
Fire-use fires are allowed to burn their natural course with little interference from firefighters. The fire burns dead and dying fuel, reducing an area’s chances for major wildfires in the future.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 June 2008 )
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