Fire in Mountain Center darkens Palm Springs ...

[tramtim]

Things as you all know are better; we had over 2” of rain yesterday to cool off this monster. I have heard that they are going to start letting some of our hot shot crews go starting today and keep a group up to finish cutting fire lines.

[Hikin_Jim]

Things as you all know are better; we had over 2” of rain yesterday to cool off this monster. I have heard that they are going to start letting some of our hot shot crews go starting today and keep a group up to finish cutting fire lines.

Hallelujah.

[scotts]

Thanks for the legend Backwoods. I agree that it's rather odd that we should get so much rain today after so long without it, and it's also odd, looking at the map in the Desert Sun today of historical fires, how fires on MSJ have 'skipped over' the Idyllwild area.

Interesting that much of the area covered by the mountain fire also burned in the '40's and again in the '80's -- including an almost identical 'lick' towards mountain center in all three instances. Forty year fires? Also note that the coverage by decade seems to move like a feeding amoeba. This is most evident in the 60's, 70's, 80's, sequence moving from north to northeast to east.

If the sequence could be taken back 1000 years instead of 100, you wonder what kind of patterns would emerge.

Scott

[zippetydude]

Interesting thought. It would be a different pattern, I'm guessing, back when human fire suppression didn't lead to fuel overloading. Lots of mild fires would regularly clear the understory, which would have led to healthier trees and avoided the crowning (when the fire gets up into the trees and destroys everything).

As it is, I'm afraid to see what happened to the forested sections that burned. From the plumes and the brightness of the flames, I'm afraid there will be nothing left at all but the charred trunks of dead trees.

If the rain hadn't come, it looked very much like the fire was going to make a run up to Hidden Divide. Had it done so it might well have run across the entire high country. Thank God for the rain!

z

[Hikin_Jim]

Thank God for the rain!

Amen

If the rain hadn't come, it looked very much like the fire was going to make a run up to Hidden Divide. Had it done so it might well have run across the entire high country.

Well, it did get up to Hidden Lake Divide, but there it stopped when the rains hit. It might well have run all the way to Miller, Cornell, and the tram otherwise.

HJ

[zippetydude]

Ugh. I thought it had been stopped lower than that. It was even closer than I realized to consuming everything. Yipes. It will be interesting to watch the area heal, though it will take many more years than my lifetime for the forest to fully recover.

z

[hikerval]

Wildflowers next spring will be amazing.

[scotts]

Interesting thought. It would be a different pattern, I'm guessing, back when human fire suppression didn't lead to fuel overloading. Lots of mild fires would regularly clear the understory, which would have led to healthier trees and avoided the crowning (when the fire gets up into the trees and destroys everything).

As it is, I'm afraid to see what happened to the forested sections that burned. From the plumes and the brightness of the flames, I'm afraid there will be nothing left at all but the charred trunks of dead trees.

If the rain hadn't come, it looked very much like the fire was going to make a run up to Hidden Divide. Had it done so it might well have run across the entire high country. Thank God for the rain!

z

Yeah. Intensity of past fires vs this one is unknown. Fuel load and/or climate/weather being variable.

The rain was providential. I suppose the SJs do catch rain that gets past the coastal areas, or that runs into the mountain from the south. Still, weird to see rain in the summer. Whatever, I'll take it.

Scott

[Andy]

Thank you all for your updates on this tragedy. The Desert View area has always been a favorite of mine and I'm almost afraid to see what little is left out there.

I worked a summer in Yellowstone almost a decade after the '88 fires and was amazed at how little had changed in the burn areas. Not only does it take forever for a tree to mature in the wild after a fire, the dead trees seem to stay standing or half fallen for decades. Cross country travel is a major pain.

That said, does anyone know if civilian volunteers will be sought to assist in erosion control, trail shoring etc before mud slide season? I know the State and Fed Govs have their usual go-to for trail maintenance, but in a situation like this I'm wondering what plans will be made to keep Palm Springs from being overrun with a few thousand acres of topsoil.

[cynthia23]

I just came back from (again!) dropping my son off at Idyllwild Arts Camp. On the drive in, you can barely see any burned areas except where it actually crossed the Highway, but I was appalled by how close the fire burned to the propane tank facility. It must have come within a hundred feet! I don't know how explosive those things actually are, but had the fire gotten in, it wouldn't have been helpful, to say the least.

On the way back, we were hit with TORRENTIAL rains. I actually had to pull off the road several times. I won't say I've never seen such a downpour, but certainly not in many years, and not here. We drove through one heavy cell after another. It was uncanny the way the thunder clouds coalesced almost exactly over the burn area, so much so that I actually wonder if there is a connection between the fire and the extreme rain. Is that possible? Could the large area of still hot ground be in some way concentrating or drawing down unusual amounts of moisture from the normal monsoon clouds? Such a large fire is bound to have some effect on the atmosphere. It certainly didn't seem like an ordinary rainstorm. I know nothing about meteorology or geophysics, but I'm sure somebody here does. Anyone?

Andy makes a good point about run-off into Palm Springs. As Florian's photo above shows, already some of it has made its way into the Palm Canyon wash. There's bound to be more.