A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Update, 1845 MDT. I have a map of the fire’s perimeter (PDF, 340k). See also the comment by Jelff at the end of the Flathead Beacon’s story, Over 300 Firefighters Holding Glacier National Park Fire at Bay. I converted the map to a PDF, wrote this update, and uploaded the files to my server in less than 15 minutes. That’s how much time our federal employees can’t spare for the general public.
Many thanks to the friends and strangers who have sent tips and links on the Reynolds Creek Fire in Glacier National Park. Please keep the information coming. Even if I don’t mention what you send, your information improves my understanding of the situation.
Official updates. Now that an elite Type 1 firefighting team is fighting the fire, reports on the fire will issue from that team, which has its own public relations staff. Glacier’s staff can return to making sure the world knows that only a very small part of the park is on fire, and that the rest of the park is open. Business interests that depend on the park like that approach, which has some validity.
Maps. The Type 1 team now managing the fire will hold a briefing in St. Mary starting at 1800 this evening. You can bet there will be maps — probably large paper maps as well as maps displayed on computer monitors — at that briefing. Can you also bet that these maps will be uploaded to the internet, and if so, anytime soon? Probably not. Meanwhile, private parties have stepped forward with maps showing hot spots detected by the MODIS satellites. This one at mappingsupport.com is among the best. I obtained the latitude and longitude of a couple of hot spots, which I transferred to a digital 7.5-minute USGS topographic map. So the information is widely available. What’s missing is the federal government’s belief that putting fire maps online, and expeditiously, is important.
Where is Grizzly Point? I’m reasonably familiar with the park, but I cannot find this place on any of my USGS maps regardless of the scale. I can’t find it on Google Earth. A Google search returns nothing. Obviously, many people who work in the park know where Grizzly Point is — and evidently believe the place is so well known it’s enough to describe it as around six miles east of Logan Pass. Come on, federal worker who know where Grizzly Point is: take five minutes and mark the location on Google Earth.
Fire reporting should not be war reporting. A major forest fire is exciting. Flames tower above the trees. Firebrands shoot ahead of the blaze. Plumes of smoke block the sun. There's a roar that almost shakes the earth. Retardant bombers and helicopters hauling buckets of water buzz overhead. Streams of people flee the fire, while streams of yellow-shirted firefighters march toward it. You can smell the smoke. Sometimes, you can smell the fear.
The mainstream media do a very good job of reporting how the fire affects people — homes burned, miraculous escapes, economic losses — and who is fighting it. There are dramatic photographs of smoke and flame; of weary, soot smeared firefighter; of airdrops of retardant; of burned or burning homes; of couples who lost everything wondering how they can ever start over; of fire engines and ambulances. All too many photographs of fires could have been taken almost anywhere.
But what’s often missing is context. Where the fire started, has burned, and may be headed, is best described graphically, with maps. But detailed maps require a lot of space, usually available only on the internet. And only large news organizations have the resources to assemble the information and make their own maps. Smaller news organization depended on the timely release of agency maps.
Panoramic photographs are easy to produce and provide valuable contextual information, but I think the MSM still are not comfortable with the art. Again, this is partly because panorama are best suited to online display. But it’s also partly because generations of photojournalists have been taught to isolate action and detail, and because most photographers have difficulty imagining a scene wider than what their lenses frame. Videographers pan, but still photographers zero-in on a scene and do not pivot on their feet to make a series of shots that software can stitch into a panorama.
The internet provides opportunities to publish large graphics that are impractical or impossible for newspapers or television. News organizations should take advantage of those opportunities to present better contextual information on wildfires and other events.