Tag: fire

Friends,

I had no idea that this year marked Smokey Bear’s 65th anniversary, but apparently everyone else did, including El Orosito Bombero himself who got something of a makeover this year. A new suit, a new ad campaign, new videos, and you can even friend him on Facebook. It’s a far cry from his previous social networking campaign…

All this leads up to Adventure Pass free day in the national forests on Veteran’s Day, November 11th. Come enjoy the joint for free and refrain from burning it down, okay?

Your pal,

bob

Friends,

Folks in my little town are anxious. Freaking out. There’s a little 2,200-acre fire not too far away, and we’ve had a tough time getting solid information about its progress. Clearly network teevee couldn’t really be bothered with the story. The newspapers surrounding the hill are making a cursory attempt, but as usual, the Town Crier has stepped up its game. Between their Facebook presence and their breaking news blog, they’re making the big media outlets look like chumps. Chumps!

What I’ve been looking for though, has been a map of the fire’s perimeter. It’s not on the InciWEB site, CalFire’s site, nowhere. Maybe there’s a map behind this group of people…

Ahh. There we go. Very helpful!

– bob

UPDATE: Click on the bottom photo for a much larger version in another window. Not for dial-up connections…

Friends,

There’s a little 400-acre fire burning about six miles from Idyllwild Arts up here in my little burg. Here’s a link to the Town Crier Breaking News Blog, but few other sites seem to feel that the news is worth covering. CalFire even seems bored by the thing. The Palm Springs Desert Sun has a little story (didn’t bump dead politicians on their front page though) that covers the basics but misses the bigger story. The Jazz In The Pines fundraiser for that very private arts high school is this weekend. Will it be burned out? If the highway stays closed, how will the throngs get here? Will they just turn around after hearing about the flamey flames?

And who was supposed to be watching Mrs. O’Leary’s cow?

– bob

UPDATE: Sandra on Facebook sent this link to the InciWeb site. You may not know this, but she’s awesome.

Talk about your brain-dead moves. You’re hiking through heavy brush then reach a peak that affords a gorgeous 360-degree view. What better time to have a smoke and take it all in. But where, pray thee tell, does one extinguish said incendiary device?

A rotten log seems like a good bet. What could go wrong?

click to embiggen

This is the first map that I’ve seen of the fire perimeter posted by the fine folks at InciWeb.org. The first thing you’ll notice is that the whole area is pretty much roadless. I have old USGS maps that show roads up there, but they were removed through…wait for it…legislation!

I wasn’t sure if I should post this second picture from the CalFire blog, but here goes…

This is a shot of the burning log noticed by one Pacific Coast Trail hiker and includes mysterious hiking companion “Steffi.” They tried to put it out, but the wind got the best of them. You’re on your own for dreaming up your own personal “Steffi” narrative. That’s what the comments section is for, after all.

– bob

Friends,

Apparently our little 700 650 700+ acre wildfire is no longer news. The only information you’ll receive from now on is from the relentless Jaunty Little News Team and the CalFire blog. We’d like for Jaunty meteorologist Dr. Barry Spoon (68th in the class of ’84 at Universidad do Chiropractico in Caracas) to get a little rest after a full night of pouring over charts and graphs, so let’s see what CalFire has to say as of 7:00 this morning…

Fire is burning in the San Jacinto Wilderness but is visible from many areas.
Hand crews accessed the fire and established an anchor point and began building fire line along the ridgetop and the handcrews have spent the night Coyote on the fire and more crews will hike, fly to fire this morning.
Winds have died down and based on fire weather forecasts, fires projected movement is expected toward the South by South East.
Medium ROS, 15 mph winds, smoke, heavy downed timber, moving into brush.
The Steep terrain have made accessing fire difficult and ground resources have lengthy travel times to access incident.

640 personnel on fire, Resources assigned include 28 handcrews, working the fire in very steep terrain today. Aircraft should fly due to favorable weather and light winds.

Got that? A ton of guys had a hard time getting here and can’t fly to the fire, so they’ll have to walk. With huge packs. Then fight a forest fire.

Would it be weird if I brought them cookies or something?

– bob

Friends,

Some flamey flames on the other side of the ridge this evening. Here’s a shot from Palm Springs (via the Desert Sun):

We’re not really supposed to be alarmed though. My little burg is, at this time, not threatened. Let’s have a surprisingly responsive news media explain it…

Smoke and flames from a wildfire burning near Idyllwild in the San Jacinto Mountains is visible across the Coachella Valley tonight.

The fire, which burned about 1.5 acres as of 8 p.m., can be seen at least as far east as La Quinta and was even more visible at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains.

“It’s coming down the ridge over on to our side of the mountain … very high up … but we can see it and certainly smell it from Andreas Hills,” said Marie Weigel in an e-mail to The Desert Sun. She is wife of Palm Springs City Councilman Lee Weigel, who lives in the Indian Canyons area.

The fire was reported about 4:35 p.m., U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Valerie Baca said.

Firefighters are hiking 3.5 miles, starting at Keenwild Station, on the Pacific Crest Trail to reach the blaze in the Apache Peak area, she said.

They are expected to remain at the scene all night and continue their battle Wednesday morning.

Not my idea of a fun nature hike, that’s for sure. Updates as they occur…

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: Oh yeah, KESQ is covering it too. Fewer words, more pictures…

Fire crews from the U.S. Forest Service have been called in to battle a brush fire that sparked Tuesday evening in the Apache Peak area near Idyllwild.

The fire has burned at least 1.52 acres by 7 p.m., Forest Service officials said. Officials, though, are still assessing the acreage burned.

Firefighters are hiking to the fire to battle the blaze.

Officials say the town of Idyllwild is not being threatened.

Well, not threatened. That’s good. I love officials.

UPDATE II: Hey Bob! Where’s Apache Peak fer crissakes! It’s here:

View Larger Map

UPDATE III: The Desert Sun (which seems to be the only halfway serious news organization to be covering this thing) has a new article with a News Infographic™ to explain where the fire is. Kind of like the Google terrain map above. Scooped!

UPDATE IV: The Idyllwild Town Crier weighs in at 8:00 AM on Wednesday with essentially the same information you’ve already read, except for one thing. As is their custom, breaking news can be a teachable moment:

Apache Peak, named sometime after 1867, is a double-headed mountain along the Desert Divide in the State Game Refuge Boundary of San Jacinto Wilderness. The highest of Apache’s summits is the westernmost with a height of 7567 feet, while the eastern summit reaches approximately 7400 feet, barely a quarter of a mile away.

Now class, I want everybody to take out a clean sheet of paper…

UPDATE V: I’m now looking at the CalFire blog (of all things) for the latest from the Forest Service. Not encouraging:

Apache Wildland Fire
Current sizeup: 650 Acres – 0% containment – Potential for 3000 acres [emphasis added – ed]

Now it’s time to get worried.

UPDATE VI: Here are a couple reasons for people on The Hill to be encouraged:

• The wind, although it’s gusting up to 40 MPH, is heading West to East. This pushes the fire away from us.
• On my way back to the Lodge this afternoon, I noticed that somebody had managed to bring a helicopter with a bucket to the party. The levels at Lake Hemet are a little lower this afternoon. Maybe they’re dropping trout and bass on the fire. It’s a Fish Show!
• According to InciWeb, they’ve replaced the incident commander. Hard to know why. The first guy did such a nice job letting a 5 acre fire expand to 700+ acres. (um, you’ve heard of wind and dry brush, right? don’t you think it’s possible that there were circumstances beyond his control? – ed He had to go! An utter disaster! Boo! easy there, sport. – ed

Pals,

The forest surrounding my Secret Alpine Laboratory is getting whipped around by 50+ MPH winds right now. The power is out and I’m, um, “sheltering in-place.” The ringer on my analog phone isn’t working, so if you need to call, just ping me on the cellphone and I’ll spin the rotary dial on the home phone to call you back. My thinking at this point is that I should save the batteries on the cellphones as much as possible. Who knows when the power will be back up? So. Cal. Edison doesn’t.

I’ve laid in firewood, picked up more batteries, and I’m set. The rest of Southern California isn’t doing so well though. There’s a new fire at the junction of the 15 and the 215 and apparently the fire in Aquanga has been contained. Luckily, there’s no other danger (beside the wind) in my immediate area. Northern San Diego County sounds like a very bad place to be at the moment though.

With the high winds blowing right now, maybe it’s not a terrible idea to leave the electricity off. You know?

– bob