According to Inciweb, the Rough Fire has grown to 83,446 acres and is currently the largest active fire in California. There are 1,902 personnel currently assigned to the Rough Fire. The fire, which began as a lightning strike on on July 31, 2015 is now 25% contained. Its current location is 2.5 miles to the southwest of Spanish Mountain and 5 miles North of Hume Lake. No evacuation orders have been issued for this fire including the Hume Lake area.
Heavy concentrations of smoke are expected near the fire today. Smoke that does rise out of Kings Canyon, will be slowly transported to the north, with potential impacts in Owens Valley. Residual smoke that has not cleared the area will collect with the new smoke being produced making the air quality even more dangerous and unhealthy. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials. All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter or soot and is hazardous to breathe. Unhealthy to Very Unhealthy conditions are expected in communities near the fire.
NASA’s Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on Sep. 03, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Inciweb