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Coach37
Social climber
Philly
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Aug 16, 2016 - 06:55pm PT
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Cedar Fire. Already at 300 acres, doubled since 4:30pm.
INciweb is usually the best, most up to date source:
Cedar fire page is here:
http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4964/
Another big one, Bluecut, started near Cajon pass this morning, rapidly growing, 9000 acres, mandatory evacs around Wrightwood and that area. 35k homes subject to evac. LInk here:
http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4962/
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Radish
Trad climber
SeKi, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2016 - 12:39pm PT
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Big and Getting Bigger. Its the first fire in the Tree Mortality and so everyone's watching this one!
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 18, 2016 - 12:59pm PT
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Jody, the area around virtually all of the western Sierra looks frighteningly flammable -- except, maybe, for the areas that already burned. We're paying the price of decades of forest mismanagement in areas congressionally mandated to engage in wise use of resources. And here in Friendly Fresno, we get to deal with the air pollution that results.
And I still see people throwing lit cigarette butts out their car windows.
I used to joke that vehicles that failed to use turnouts when followed by lines of cars should be confiscated and burned. Now, I'm about ready to say that people throwing lit cigarettes - or any part thereof - anywhere other than a proper recepticle should be confisacted and burned.
John
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Radish
Trad climber
SeKi, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2016 - 12:59pm PT
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Seems like I heard that the Central Sierra has the worst tree kill in the Sierra. Area's you mentioned and places like Bass Lake, Oakhurst are seeing Total Dead Tree's! Thanks for the Map Jody!
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Climberdude
Trad climber
Clovis, CA
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Aug 18, 2016 - 01:12pm PT
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John, I completely agree. Years ago my sister and I were doing a camping trip to the very northeastern corner of California. We drove through Lassen National Park on the way back and were aware of big fire nearby. While we were stopped waiting for a flag person to allow cars to go past where the road was being paved, my sister noticed that the women in the convertible car stopped ahead of us tossed a cigarette out next to the pine needles beside the road. She got out of the car, grabbed the cigarette butt, and put it directly into the women's face, telling her that idiots like her are responsible for the careless fires. The women had no clue, but was so taken back by my sister's directness that she took the still burning cigarette butt and swallowed it.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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Aug 18, 2016 - 01:12pm PT
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Yep - I mentioned it on another thread but you are right about the kill rates around Bass Lake - currently at 90+ percent.
I have a place about 40 miles uphill and inland from Bass Lake that stands at 85% dead right now. Some lots around me are already 100 % confirmed dead.
These beetles are taking out all of the Sugars, the Jeffrey and the Ponderosa pines in my area. The only pines not yet showing sign are young trees less than 8 inches diameter at breast/chest height.
Jody - I don't know that thinning would have helped. We had the Forest Service do major clearing and thinning around our Summer Community about four years ago so the stands were 20-30 feet apart with almost no ground fuel. The beetles still took every damn one of those trees out this year.
They are killing trees next to creeks and ponds which shoots down the idea that a well-watered tree is protected. Some of the first trees that died on us were the ones right next to the pond!
We watched a swarm emerge from a isolated grove a few weeks back after a brief late afternoon rain shower spurred the emergence. The little bastards literally filled the airspace between 4 feet to about 12 feet above the ground - hundreds if not thousands drifting and flapping downwind with the breeze. The swarm went on for about 20 minutes before it quit. Watched those same hundreds light into all of the downwind groves for about 500 yards from where they started.
It won't be over until they either run out of food or the whole damn place burns.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 18, 2016 - 01:15pm PT
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Radish, you're absolutely correct about the area from Oakhurst to Bass Lake (and parts north). The trees look brown and grey, not green. Last summer we were climbing on Fresno Dome in August, and caught sight of a smoke plume over the hill. By the time we got off the Dome and hightailed it down to Oakhurst, it was already a conflagration.
I don't think we'll see a quick end to this, but you never know. Around 50 years ago, there used to be a "scenic turnout" on the Tioga Road below Medlicott Dome describing the "Ghost Forest." At that time, there really was a forest of dead conifers, killed severl years before by needle miners. To my knoweldge, that area never burned in a massive fire.
John
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Aug 18, 2016 - 03:56pm PT
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Stupid bark beetles are bad everywhere in the West. Apparently a long, extremely cold winter would slow them down, but prospects for that look dim.
Probably going to have to cut down the spruce in my front yard, it's about halfway gone now :-(
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krahmes
Social climber
Stumptown
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Aug 18, 2016 - 05:17pm PT
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Lived in Alta Sierra for a year in 1998. Great times nobody around just me the wife and the dog. I don't know how many times I hiked up Black Mountain. It looks like from the incident map Alta Sierra is going to be okay and the fire is pushing to the northeast. As I recall all that area that is is burning now had burned about 2 or 10 years before I lived there. Around Greenhorn Pass some of the most grand incense cedar I've ever seen. I brought some back to Oregon and two of them have survived here with one in my backyard and one on my Grandfather's old place.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Aug 18, 2016 - 06:06pm PT
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Stupid bark beetles are bad everywhere in the West. Apparently a long, extremely cold winter would slow them down, but prospects for that look dim.
I've read that very wet winters would do the same.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Aug 18, 2016 - 06:08pm PT
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And I still see people throwing lit cigarette butts out their car windows.
http://www.thehogring.com/2012/04/28/whatever-happened-to-car-ashtrays/
Cause the car makers do not equip cars with them anymore.
I see the sparks from butts hitting the pavement at night all the time. Not a scientific study but just my own little hunch.... most of these fires start along the side of the road.
Climberdude good story.... I have my own: was sitting my RD waiting for the light to change when the dude in the car next to me flipped one out his window.... it landed next to my foot, so I bent down picked it up and threw it into the back seat of his car!!!!! pissed him off good.
I have proposed that we start fires in the dead trees during the winter, when there is snow on the ground and falling snow to help keep the burning temps down.... it might work.
Where the heck is Ron Anderson, he would be able to add to this topic.
I hope and pray that we get through this summer.....
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Aug 18, 2016 - 09:56pm PT
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Southern Sierra is looking equally grim. Along Hwy. 190, on the road to Camp Nelson and the Needles, there are equally vast stands of brown, dead or dying trees. All of this really only became observable over the past two years or so. The year before last you saw hints of it happening and then this spring it became very clear just how bad things had gotten.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Aug 18, 2016 - 10:23pm PT
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hey there say, all... jody, and all those sharing here...
thanks so very much for the info...
i been so busy, and can't stay on long, and can learn a lot here...
please, keep on, with the updates...
i will try to check the other two fire threads, when i can...
think there is two more...
prayers for all concerned...
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Aug 19, 2016 - 06:43am PT
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What we're seeing is a complete restructuring of our forest ecosystems--world wide. It's kinda grim. Some resistant pines will survive, but the place isn't going to look the same in our lifetimes, that's for sure. Once the dead trees drop their needles, they are less of a fire danger than even regular trees. it's the so-called "red phase" that is dangerous. And we have LOTS of those. I was around Bass Lake earlier this year and was horrified at the number of red-phase trees.
Yes, extreme cold does cut back the beetles, but many places in Cali NEVER get those kinds of temps. You need something like 20 below zero F. for a couple of weeks to do the job. Ugh.
It's gonna be a long fire season. Props to all the firefighters!
BAd
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norm larson
climber
wilson, wyoming
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Aug 19, 2016 - 07:08am PT
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Sad to see the beetle kill for sure.
Here in Wyoming the beetles worked there way through our forests too. The beetles killing seemed like it would never end until all the trees were dead. But the beetles have died off considerably here. They have a growth life cycle like everything. There are still plenty of trees that made it through and there are young pines popping up everywhere in the wake of the devastation. Don't despair too much it will pass.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Aug 19, 2016 - 07:56am PT
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most of these fires start along the side of the road.
I tend to agree. I was on the 14 a few days after the Sand fire. You could see where the fire started, right along side the road.
I have proposed that we start fires in the dead trees during the winter, when there is snow on the ground and falling snow to help keep the burning temps down.... it might work.
Interesting.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Aug 19, 2016 - 09:12am PT
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Don't despair too much it will pass.
This is true. However, in the West, I've heard theories that the mountain vegetation is due in part to a wet period that everyone presumed was normal until people started studying precipitation long term. I'm beginning to think more along geological time than human. When I drive along Angeles Crest Hwy. and see bald hillsides where stands of pine used to be, I know it'll never be the same in my lifetime.
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Radish
Trad climber
SeKi, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2016 - 09:43am PT
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Lots of ash on cars in Visalia this morning. California Hot Springs evacuated. There was a pyro cumulous cloud already showing at 6 this morning. The Needles will be on the path here pretty soon if it keeps going on, will be interesting watching!
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