Reporting Anomalies Regarding the Shell Fire
On June 27, the Shell Fire broke out along I-5 in the Grapevine. While watching coverage, I noticed that every report over the next few days said that the containment was very slowly increasing, but acres burned remained the same. At 50% containment all the way to 85% containment, the acres burned was 1984. So when was the fire actually extinguished? Containment refers to a trench dug around a fire, not the fire itself. As of day two of the fire, the acres burned remained at 1984, which tells me that was when the fire was actually extinguished. In fact, the air quality here became clear and normal on the day after the fire broke out, so all signs pointed to the fire being out, except the news kept reporting on the slowly increasing containment, not telling us that they were still apparently digging a trench around a fire that was out. Then we had a downpour on June 29 as a result of Project Monsoon, so I was pretty sure the fire was out by then.
Yesterday, the local paper reported that they had not received any updates from the Fire Department in a week! They had not reported the final numbers or verified that the fire was out (and I could not find any major news networks with final numbers either!). In response, the fire department finally gave them word today that the fire was “at 100% containment.” The acres burned stands at 1984. This actual extinguishing of the fire was most likely accomplished June 28, but only “containment” was reported on in order to make it seem like the fire was still burning.
It was a relatively small fire and fortunately that no one lost their home. I thought there was something strange all along about the reporting, since we live close by and saw the smoke on day one but not since then. I also have reason to believe that they are now actually exaggerating the acreage burned on all these wildfires in general, especially since last summer. There is no way for us to verify the true numbers, but in this instance, we could see with our own eyes that something wasn’t right.
