It's Hard to Predict Where an Ember Hurled From a Fire Might Land

The question every county official at the Kincade Fire had to struggle with over the past week was: Where might the fire go next, and what areas do we need to evacuate? The fire was spreading rapidly on fierce winds, winds capable of hurling burning embers more than a mile out front of the leading edge of the flames. And on the other side of Highway 101 is bone-dry vegetation, old and dense after some 70 years without fire.

Amid the critical, life-saving decisions officials must make in situations like that, one piece of information that would be extremely helpful is impossible to know: When burning embers are whirling around in a smoke plume, and carried away on a strong wind, where is a spark going to land and start a new fire? Right now, state-of-the-art fire technology can tell firefighters what will happen if the spark lands here, or there, but not whether it will land here, or there. Danielle Venton's story this week tells us why that is.