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Taylor Creek 2018
RATIONALE
This blog was born of fear: In 2018, the Taylor Creek fire came within 3 miles of our house, ½ mile of our daughters house and within 200 feet of a friends house. This was very frightening to me and my friends and family. The fear was heightened by news coverage that was either slow in coming or lacked the kinds of details we craved. My concerns drove me to seek out and do a deep dive into a variety of sources that would provide answers: so I discovered NIFC FTP, GISserver, SWOFIRE, Inci Web, arcGIS, National Fire Situational Awareness, Rogue Weather and other sources. I learned what information satellite sensors (MODIS, VIIRS) could provide and what some of the limitations of those sensors are. I shared that information with friends and family and, I believe, they found it useful and reassuring (it's often better to know than to let your imagination run wild). I've adopted the "blog" approach because it will (at least) potentially reach more people than my emails could and all the posts will be archived in one place (here) and readily accessible for anyone to review in days to come. My wife Kate assembled the format for this blog by digging into the guts of TypePad (given her past profession, "diving into the guts" of something seems an appropriate way to praise her).