Gregulator said
Based on their update tonight, the fire has not crossed strawberry creek yet. They said they have a dozer line tied all the way to 88. I hope it’s not the trail. But I have a feeling the trail may have been dozed. 

  

According to a report I saw a few days ago, they have a dozer line along MET to Silver Fork road all the way to Hwy 50 and were hoping to contain the fire there. While it is possible that they have dozed some or all of the trail, there are a few reason that they may not be dozing it for a fire line. Ideally you want to be able to get engines in and have hose lays along the line in order to extinguish any spots that occur over the line. While this isn't always possible, if they dozed the trail then they would need engine, aircraft, hand crews etc. support to manage any slop over along the fire line. They haven't been able to get any aircraft into that area due to heavy smoke, so unless they bring engines in they probably would not doze the trail.

Another consideration in creating dozer containment lines is topography. Fire typically burns up hill, up slope much more readily and faster than down hill, down slope or side slope unless wind driven. Often dozer lines go along the ridge or straight up a hill. Fire will run parallel to a dozer line straight up a hill making the fire less apt to jump the line unless there are winds counter to the natural uphill direction of travel of the fire. Ridges are used because the fire runs out of up hill, up slope advantage so a ridge makes a great place for a dozer line. But again, they must have the ability to combat spots over the dozer line or the line is useless. They often use firing operations between the dozer line and the fire to remove fuel between the dozer line and the fire. They would not use firing operations unless they had engine or air support because they could actually accelerate and increase the spread of the fire if it jumped the dozer line.

In addition, fire burns much more rapidly up draws because the V shape of a draw creates a chimney effect. Chimneys are extremely dangerous in firefighting. Fire burning up a draw or chimney will have much more energy that one burning up a hill of the same grade. Most of the trail is not at along a ridge and is on a side hill far from the ridge making it a poor choice for a potential containment line. It has several switchbacks in draws which again would not make for a very good containment line. And lastly, there are no escape routes and it is not paved, which would make it extremely difficult for crews to escape if things "went to shit" and the fire blew up on them. I really doubt that the incident command team would risk placing hand crews and engines along most of the Strawberry trail given some of the above mentioned factors. They can't even keep it from jumping Hwy 50 so when you compare that to the trail, you can see why the trail would be a poor choice for a containment line with the current fuel and weather conditions. I could be wrong, but I hope I'm not for the sake of our trail.

If the fire does reach the trail, which it appears it is almost certain to do, I suspect the trail will be closed to the public for a long time, perhaps a year or more, while they work to remove snags (dead trees) and other hazards and address erosion mitigation and reforestation needs. There is also the possibility that they may doze the trail in the future for post fire logging and other reasons but again, parts of the trail make it a poor choice for this. I hope we can get some official information about the status of the trail within the next few weeks.

I just watched the update from last night (https://www.capradio.org/artic.....t-updates/). At the 16 minute mark they said they have several dozer lines along Strawberry Creek and that they are hoping to hold the fire there. They are conducting firing operations along those lines.