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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 30, 2017 - 03:23pm PT
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Not nice in the Pasayten or Okanogan thanks to the 33000 acre Diamond Crk fire...
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Aug 30, 2017 - 04:56pm PT
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A couple of shots of the Railroad Fire from Mariposa town.
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the goat
climber
north central WA
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Aug 30, 2017 - 06:09pm PT
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Smoke and choke this morning in the upper Methow Valley due to the Diamond Creek Fire. The last few days have seen active fire behavior on the NW flank which has now crossed into Canada. Where's CBP when you need them?!!
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Aug 30, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
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I read a report that says it jumped Hwy 89 which to my mind means its burning northward and probably eastward as well.
Topaz has been evacuated.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Aug 30, 2017 - 06:54pm PT
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Was in Walker yesterday when a quick moving cell moved thru producing thunder and lightening... Smoke towards Topaz appeared shortly there after along with dispatch calls...
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Aug 31, 2017 - 06:32am PT
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hwy 190 a no go. taken south of success on tues evening. pier fire
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Aug 31, 2017 - 08:04am PT
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" Honey it's 115 degrees...Mind if i build a bonfire..? " Stoopid American campers..
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 31, 2017 - 09:00am PT
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More often than not, "illegal campfire" = homeless tweaker.
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c wilmot
climber
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Aug 31, 2017 - 09:07am PT
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No good t hocking..
Helena has a lot of squatters- did they start the fire?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 31, 2017 - 09:52am PT
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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The Apocalypse descends upon Missoula...
We beat feet to Bozeman...
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Pier Fire, 20,000+ acres, 15% contained. This one's in the Tule River Cyn. east of Springville/Porterville.
If you're going to the Needles from the central valley you have to go south on CA65 to Ducor and up through CA Hot Springs. CA 190 is closed. A local friend up at Ponderosa tells me the road up from CA Hot Springs/down from the Western Divide Hwy has "Road Closed" signs with no enforcement at least for now. He says it's cool to drive around the signs. YMMV. He also says the air is good. The smoke must be blowing west.
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Gimp
Trad climber
Missoula, MT & "Pourland", OR
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I live 8 miles as the crow flies form the Lolo Peak Fire near Missoula which is now around 45,000 acres. Been a really bad last month.
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frank wyman
Mountain climber
montana
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DC-10's fly over my house every day, payload of 11,000 gallons a pop.I don't think they even report a fire anymore if its not 10,000 acres + really sad to see at least 30+ fires going on...
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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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It is semi-apocalyptic in Seattle today. The sun, when visible, is an orange or pinkish ball. Ash all over the car and inside window sills. Folks walking around with dust masks or bandanas over their faces. Big fires by Cle Elum, and over White Pass east of Rainier, and even some fires on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge are all contributing to the mess.
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kpinwalla2
Social climber
WA
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Columbia Gorge - looking south into Oregon, not far from Multnomah Falls.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the Big Burn) was a wildfire that burned about three million acres in northeast Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana in 1910.
The firestorm burned over two days, August 20–21, and killed 87 people, mostly firefighters. It is believed to be the largest, although not the deadliest, forest fire in U.S. history. The outcome was to highlight firefighters as public heroes while raising public awareness surrounding national nature conservation. The extensive burned area was approximately the size of the state of Connecticut.
from Wikipedia
At the time of the Big Burn, the U.S. Forest Service had only existed for 5 years & was not well organized for fire-fighting. Before then, forests in the Northern Rockies had burned regularly for millions of years, contributing to the dominance of “fire-species” like Lodgepole Pine, that require fire in order to flourish. Since the arrival of white settlers in the 1860’s, there had been intensive logging in the area & still more fires had been set by settlers to “clear land.”
In spite of that history of constant forest fires, the Big Burn happened & shaped a Forest Service that considered forest fires to be evil & a public who supported immediate suppression of every forest fire. That attitude continued until the 1990’s, when the Forest Service did a sudden “about-face” on the subject of fire-suppression. The 1995 National Fire plan detailed the change in wildfire policy, per this PDF, https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/41970/PDF
“The “Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy” addressed the role of fire as a natural disturbance and moved fire planning toward integration with resource management. Natural ignitions could be managed to achieve natural resource benefits and maintain fire dependent ecosystems.”
I agree the Forest Service went a little too-far with its policy of total suppression of every fire, from 1910 to 1995, but the new policy of letting fires burn untouched in Wilderness Areas can also be a mistake, if those fires are allowed to become big smoke producers, destroy scenic values, or become huge & cross Wilderness boundaries to threaten property outside National Forest lands.
Wilderness fires also affect the stability of fragile & steep mountainsides, which later landslide into streams & further threaten our already threatened anadromous fishes.
We likely don’t need to go back to immediate suppression of every wildfire, but let it burn policies should be re-examined in light of current damage done to our environment & health.
But ain't the sunsets great in our new "summer-smoke world?"
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