Fire in Snow Creek

General Palm Springs area.

Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby Ed » Sat Sep 19, 2020 10:50 am

cynthia23 wrote:What a horrible day, in a hellish month, in a nightmarish year.


Perfectly said, Cynthia.

Nearly all of Southern California between 6,000 and 10,000 feet was covered with pine forest 20 years ago. Now huge swaths of it are regularly burned. I think someone on the SGWA discussion board questioned whether the pine forest would ever regenerate in our new climate. As for lower elevations, I shudder to think of the erosion that will occur this winter in the Bobcat fire area.
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby guest » Sat Sep 19, 2020 8:30 pm

Hi Florian, Cynthia, Ed and the rest,
The fire started in the very upper south corner of the village, and thank goodness the wind blew it immediately away from village. DWA has been working on a new, small filtration system there, with several vehicles there everyday. I went by where the truck was, (don't think DWA wanted it around to photograph), and it was on a dirt road, but right next to some very dry, brittle encelia, (aka brittle-bush in summer). That evening, the wind died down, and the fire slowly worked it's way all the way west, then north, coming very close to several homes against that slope. It burned several beautiful canyons, including lower Falls Creek, Snow Creek, west fork Snow Creek, Los Osos & several small mini oasis with Oaks & reeds, and it probably burned Vargus palms, a couple miles south of us. Many miles of the PCT got burned, but I'd assume the trail is ok.

Today, spot fires at 4-6k we're doused with the Chinook, (if it flies tomorrow, Sunday, you can watch it dip it's snorkel in the pond off Tipton rd., behind rest area, be prepared for sand & water spray!). Ground crews covered the west flank where the wind comes from to make sure no flare ups occurred.
12 guys slept on cots & inside the trucks in my cul-de-sac, last night, 20 tough folks sleep on the side of the west mtns. after being dropped by chopper & working that upper slope, they hiked all the way down & out this morning.
There were a few small smoke plumes at dusk tonight, one flare up heading up towards Fuller Ridge, that the Sky Crane made one final drop before heading home as dusk. No visible fire on any mtns. surrounding us tonight, smoke from that west fork of snow creek area is smoldering, which they probably will hit tomorrow.

Considering how long & how much most of the other fires have burned lately, I'd say we & the mtns & animals etc. were pretty lucky, and thanks for excellent rapid response, adequate man-power, choppers that are extremely effective in rugged terrain like this, and everyone else involved. Fire engines sat around the village the whole day, even though it seemed the threat was very low. I was returning from a bike ride on Snow Creek Rd., and I surprised a nice size coyote, (wind was blowing), and right after, a news crew, so yelled to get a shot as I rode by. I looked back and Wiley was pooping on the road, maybe his way of saying enough with the fires, winds, no rain etc. SS
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby jfr » Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:41 pm

Looks like it burned up the mountain a ways, but not too far. I'm glad it didn't climb any higher than it did, although parts of the PCT were engulfed.

I'm wondering if maybe it made the "legal" approach (developed by Bluerail and Fern) to the Snow Creek drainage a lot easier to bushwhack. If we get some good snow this Winter there might be some happy mountaineers out there in Spring 2021.

See https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7214/ for a map.
My (collected) trip reports: http://hikingtales.com/
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