Big Fire In Joshua Tree

[halhiker]

There's a pretty good size fire burning in Joshua Tree right now. I'm sure it got started by some of the lightning. Don't know exactly where it is but it looked like it was in the Juniper Flats area or perhaps west of it. From the plume it looks to be pretty substantial. More info as it's available.

[halhiker]

OK, maybe it's not that big. But it looked big from here in the Coachella Valley.

http://redlands.patch.com/articles/ligh ... -150-acres

[Pitownpi]

Quail Fire(275ac) 90% contained tonight and hopefully 100% by tomorrow am; sad it was Pinyon/Juniper south of Quail mtn. that had NOT BURNT yet, those and Joshua Trees pretty much gone for our lifetimes.
I often wander through the old burnt forest on Quail Mtn. wondering what it was like.....
..could new Quail fire have revealed anything/one still missing>?

http://www.mydesert.com/viewart/20120814/NEWS0803/208140314/Quail-Fire-Joshua-Tree-National-Park-nearly-contained

check this out tonight, it's the Buck Fire over near Sage Road and Buck Road in Riverside county.
that's San Jacinto peak in distant horizon. smoke is going up& over this way...



8.14.12 007 by Pitownpi, on Flickr

could be interesting sunset

8.14.12 004 by Pitownpi, on Flickr
Buck Fire got rather large quickly, glad to see they brought in the big tankers, watching that DC-10 drop chemicals is some rather impressive flying!

[Sally]

I was watching the smoke from the Buck Fire in Sage all afternoon yesterday. Last night I could see the orange glow from flames from my backyard, but the flames themselves hadn't made it over the ridge (to the west side of the hill.) It doesn't look so ominous this AM.

[Hikin_Jim]

I hope they get it out soon. I'm no fan of fires.

HJ

[zippetydude]

I hope they get it out soon. I'm no fan of fires.

HJ

Mostly with you HJ, but when the fires clear a bunch of old undergrowth and end up protecting the trees from crown fires ruining the wilderness, of course I'm of a different persuasion. I hope this can all be figured out in the next few years so the forest can be as healthy as it should be...

z

[Hikin_Jim]

Zip,

Good point, although that's really for more arboreal forests, i.e. forests as in the Sierra or something similar. In chaparal, for example, there's no "crown" therefore no crown fires.

Joshua Tree used to be far more fire resistant in that vegetation was fairly isolated. A fire typically wouldn't spread far because the fire couldn't spread from isolated clump to isolated clump across bare ground. Unfortunately, non-native grasses have been introduced to Joshua Tree. These grasses provide a "fire path" that allows fires to spread. Fires now destroy Joshua Trees, Pinyon Pines, Quercus Turbinella (that's an Oak whose common name escapes me), etc. that take years and years to grow. I'm not a fire expert, so there may be some benefit to more frequent fires in Joshua Tree, but J Tree does not fit the profile of an arboreal forest where more frequent fires are beneficial in that they prevent crown fires. Ain't no crown in Joshua Tree!

Just some thoughts. Don't have the answers. Hate to see old growth "trees" burn under any circumstances.

HJ