Fire in Snow Creek

General Palm Springs area.

Fire in Snow Creek

Postby halhiker » Thu Sep 17, 2020 4:02 pm

Not sure of the exact location but there’s a fire burning in the Snow Creek area with a pretty good plume of smoke.
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby zippetydude » Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:13 pm

Hi halhiker. Been a while, wish it were under happier circumstances...here's the latest

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7207/

z
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby munmile » Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:33 pm

Here is the view .
fire 17 28pm 9-17-20.png
today at 5:28 pm
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby munmile » Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:39 pm

Good News

Wind seems to be dying down, smoke lingering and rising instead of being blown eastward.
BTW, The fire crossed the valley from the point of ignition and started climbing the ridge toward windy point in five minutes!
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby cynthia23 » Thu Sep 17, 2020 6:10 pm

We can smell a LOT of smoke here in Cathedral City.
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby guest » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:36 pm

Hi friends, (nice hearing from you Hal!),
I live in Snow Creek, yesterday afternoon I kept hearing some dull booms, thought my drunk neighbor was slamming doors.
Then, several very loud explosions, with large black clouds filled with smoke, maybe 10-15 ft. Our fav agency,DWA, just kidding), have been working on filtering project, and one of their pickups seem to have caused it.
If so, their going to have a massive bill, (& if they raise users rates for their "mistake", that would be bad). The speculation is his catalytic caught some brush on fire, (I don't think he was parked on top of brush, but the wind had picked up shortly before). The explosions, either several propane tanks he had in truck, or maybe DWA has their trucks running on them, and maybe the tank is built in sections not explode at once, not sure, but did not act like a gasoline explosion.
Immediately the brush was on fire moving as fast as you could walk, 75 yrds from my house, 10 ft. from a couple others. Lucily, it immediately heading south towards Palm Springs, and up the side of the mt. towards the PCT. First 3, then 4 choppers made great headway, plus a crew of very tough firefighters hiked straight up the side, (lie I do regularly), but they have 40+ lbs, nomex, tools, helmets etc. They also lugged a 1.5" like several hundred vertical feet.

Choppers stopped at dark, and the fire slowly worked it's way backwards from the original direction, since wind died. It took half the night for it to make a big horseshoe around the village, ending about where PCT heads north from village.
Was burning good this am until the Chinook, double rotor arrived around 8am, then 3 more, then a few727's getting foscheck at San Berdu.
Clean up crews, spotter planes and stand by crews are staying in village for now. It headed right up to Snow Creek & DWA caretaker home & Hicks Cabin, and all DWA's facilities up there, not sure if they saved them. Hopefully more than a few camera's didn't make it!! I can't tell through the smoke if it's working it's way of north face of San Jac, little aircraft action there, so hopefully not. Seriously doubt it could make it over several ranges to the tram road, but make the community of by Windy Point.

Gotta hand it to the fire crews, they work very hard, (was over 100 degrees both days), and have probably already been working hard on other fires like the El Dorado, (did they save Forest Falls?).
I put ice chest, water & some electrolytes out for crew, hopefully they didn't have to deal with too much catclaw, cholla, snakes and others things, besides the heat & foul air. scott
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby SoCalJim » Fri Sep 18, 2020 5:47 pm

2020 cannot end soon enough. Add Yosemite and SEKI closed. Not much good news these days...
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby guest » Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:33 pm

The latest I've heard is the 5 explosions were the 5 tires on the vehicle. Still no confirmation of cause, as a neighbor mentioned, it could also be something like a high pressure fuel line that many new vehicles have. Fire is now around 4-6k on both sides of San Jac, the SW side heading up slowly towards Fuller Ridge, another around the Ismus, (area where Falls & Snow Creek get close).
Not much wind luckily, but lots of fuel up there with dead-fall and manzanita, ribbonwood, then the pines.We'll see how high it gets by morning.
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby cynthia23 » Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:55 pm

Thank you for your detailed post Guest. It's so scary to hear how high it is. Please continue to keep us posted. What a horrible day, in a hellish month, in a nightmarish year.
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Re: Fire in Snow Creek

Postby Florian » Sat Sep 19, 2020 10:32 am

Scott, the fire started near the village or up on agency land near the intakes?
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