Talk:Fawn Fire

Peer review

Fawn Fire

I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to get it to FA status.

Thanks, NRP (talk) 01:00, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Comments from Noleander

• The prose is, overall, professional quality and meets FACR requirements. Specific issues will be mentioned below.

• A woman was arrested the day of the Fawn Fire's ignition and charged with starting the fire, and as of 2026, legal proceedings remained ongoing. Has 3 separate facts, an has connector "and" twice. Also, "as of 2026" is sort of parenthetical, and deserves commas on both sides. Not sure how to simplify it, but as is, it is not ideal for readers. Maybe break into 2 sentences?
  • Done.

• Origin of fire name? Is there a nearby town named Fawn? or is it related to ... the intersection of Fawndale Road and ... Article should identify the origin of the name.
  • Sadly, none of the sources I found mentioned the origin of the name, so it would be original research to include it.

• Source titles: use a mixture of Sentence case and Title case for capitalization style. All source titles should use same style (ignore how sources capitalize their own titles).
  • Done.

• External links section: has 3 bullets, but indentation is not uniform. Suggest all bullets be top level (left aligned).
  • Done.

• Image "free to use" data: For image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2021_Fawn_Fire_map.png the licensing is rather garbled and, I think, inappropriate. The image was created in September 20244 by Commons user https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Penitentes That user relied on several government data sources. The licensing info focuses on the government data and says repeatedly "This image is in the public domain in the..." but that is misleading: it is referring to the data, not the final image created by user Penitentes. The important license is the CC-by-4 license for the final image by Penitentes ... and that license is there and okay. I've never seen a map image provide seven licenses for the underlying government data. I don't believe any kind of "public domain" govmt license tag is needed for that data. I'm not sure if an FAC image reviewer would object or not. It seems excessive and bizarre, but perhaps it is harmless?
  • I don't think it's a problem. I have seen maps on featured wildfire articles include those licenses, so I assume it's necessary to provide licenses for each.
  • Hi, I'm the map maker. The licensing for that and any of my other Commons-hosted maps is based on this conversation I had with a Commons administrator where I was asked to "indicate sources for maps themselves (map layers, map background) and credit them appropriately" or face deletion for not adhering to free license attribution requirements. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry and that in any event thoroughly attributing all underlying data would be useful to anyone else interested in creating maps. It's possible I was over-zealous in that and I welcome your perspective. Penitentes (talk) 17:09, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

  @Penitentes - Thanks for posting a note here with background info. I've used dozens of maps from Commons in articles I worked on (many with FA status), and the pattern I've seen is that the source of the map's data is identified textually in the "Description" page of the image, not in the Licensing section. For example, the James Cook article uses this map from Commons, and the source of the data (three copyrighted books) is simply named textually. There is no "license" provided from the books.

  Numbers, raw data, and lat/longitude locations cannot be copyrighted. So an editor making maps for Commons does not need a copyright license to use/copy data from those books. They simply need to name (give credit to) the source textually in the "Description" part of the Commons page.

  On the other hand: if an image (PNG, JPEG, etc) were used in a map, or a vector drawing were used in map, those would require a license.

  In summary: including "public domain" licenses for government-published books is not required for raw data (numbers, locations, etc). When you put that into the Commons page, it is harmless, but confusing. It may cause a domino effect if other editors start to think they cannot use numbers/locations from copyrighted sources. They can. Noleander (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

  @Noleander Thanks for the clarification. I see your point about potentially deterring others from using non-public domain information. In these cases I am using GIS vector and raster files, so it's something more than just raw coordinates but something less than tracing from an image. I will move to crediting the governmental data sources textually in the description and only providing a specific license for the OpenStreetMap data, which does carry an attribution requirement. Penitentes (talk) 18:48, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

  I see you've made a lot of maps. They look beautiful,... good job! Noleander (talk) 19:19, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

• Image file has mistake: that same image file in Commons mentions "Harlow Fire" ... looks like image creator copy-and-pasted and failed to change the name. Must be fixed.
  • Done.

• Consider finding other US wildfire articles that got FA status, and make sure you mimic their style (esp the InfoBox) and section outline: that is a safe thing to do and should minimize issues raised during the FAC process.

• That's all for now. I don't see any huge obstacles to meeting WP:FACR criteria ... after all, it is a relatively small article. I'm not a very good copy editor, so you should probably have an additional editor or two contribute in this PR for prose and grammar etc. ideally, someone with experience in wildfire articles, but that is not essential. Noleander (talk) 13:19, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  @Noleander: Thanks for the review, I have addressed all of your comments :) NRP (talk) 01:51, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Comments from User:Wikipedian12512

I’ll make some image requests and do some source stuff. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 19:55, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Image notes:

This could be used: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fawn_Fire,_September_3,_2016_(29434256445).jpg

• No, sadly that is an image from a different Fawn Fire from 2016

Suggest linking the Boeing model in the infobox. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 19:59, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

• Done.

“Judge Adam Ryan increased her bail from $100,000 to $175,000 on account of the enhancement and the damage the fire had already caused by that point.”- What does “enhancement” mean here? _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 20:00, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

• It's the enhancement mentioned earlier in the paragraph

“Date Contained

10/02/2021 6:53 PM (Active for 10 days)”- from source. Does it say it was completely contained? Perhaps just remove “completely”? _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 20:03, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

• Sorry, I don't know what you mean ... where does the article say "completely contained"?

@Wikipedian12512: Hi, thanks for the review! I addressed all your comments above, I just have a question on the last one. NRP (talk) 01:30, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

“Containment slowly increased until the Fawn Fire was declared 100 percent contained at 6:53 pm. PDT on October 2, 10 days after it began”- Almost certainly a stupid question, but just making sure. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 01:32, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

@Wikipedian12512: Sorry, I'm still confused. The source says "100% contained" at the top, I don't know what you think should be changed. NRP (talk) 01:39, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Oh! I misunderstood that and thought it meant “It is 100% contained right now”. Sorry for the multiple mistakes. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 01:41, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

No worries! NRP (talk) 01:43, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

On a recent edit I was pinged on

@NRP:Regarding this edit, my question was because this source doesn't mention the Fawn Fire at all so I wondered what exactly it supports. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:09, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. It just supports that wildfires had occurred near the region in recent years. NRP (talk) 00:17, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Suggestions

@NRP: I have a few suggestions for improving this article, but take everything with a grain of salt.

• Add some information about the weather conditions that contributed to the spread of the fire.
• The final paragraph of the progression section reads like a pileup of information. Of course RS coverage will sometimes leave us with no other option, but for a wildfire of this magnitude I'm sure there is more coverage. If possible, add at least two sentences per day.
• Growth and containment tables are a useful visual for readers. At least add it in at the end of the progression section.
• Create subsections and expand on the damage, closures and evacuations, and environmental impacts or related with whatever fits with RS. I have worked on Pickett Fire most recently, maybe use that as a reference work.

🌀Hurricane Wind and Fire, why'd you decline my draft? (talk, contribs)🔥 04:57, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I'd like to get the article back to FAC eventually but it needs some more work. I'll try to do this stuff soon. NRP (talk) 04:59, 31 October 2026 (UTC)