Mt. San Jacinto Outdoor Recreation

Well, there's good and there's bad. The good...you can barely tell there was even a fire around the trailhead and all along Jenks Lake Loop. There was no fire damage north of the road at all, contrary to what the fire maps indicated. The bad...it looks like there was a band, running west to east, from somewhere around 8000 to 9000 elevation that cut across the wilderness and seemed to decimate most of the trees in its path. It appears to have burned right across the SF drainage. Only an aerial view will give a clear picture of what damage occurred to the trees. A firefighter I spoke with said there are many areas where the manzanita burned off completely but the trees were spared. In other areas, the fire ran up to the ridge, consuming everything in its path. From my vantage point, I couldn't see anywhere that the fire had hit the ridge.

Here's a shot of the SF Trail Head

DSCN9984 by zippetydude, on Flickr

You can see there's minimal permanent damage, although the trees have been injured, they do not appear to have been killed. All along the road you can see where the undergrowth burned a bit, but it doesn't look bad along there. Here are some examples.

DSCN9961 by zippetydude, on Flickr


DSCN9959 by zippetydude, on Flickr

DSCN9960 by zippetydude, on Flickr


The truly bad burns are farther back and farther up. They don't appear to have been able to eat the entire mountainside in most places, but rather have cut a large swath from west to east. You'll be able to see what I mean in these photos.

DSCN9951 by zippetydude, on Flickr

Same shot, zoomed in

DSCN9952 by zippetydude, on Flickr

Over by SF drainage as far as I could tell from where I was

DSCN9962 by zippetydude, on Flickr

Again, zoomed in

DSCN9963 by zippetydude, on Flickr

DSCN9975 by zippetydude, on Flickr

DSCN9987 by zippetydude, on Flickr

It's very hard to tell how big the area is that is devastated, but much of the "burn area" seems to be largely intact as far as trees are concerned. To sum up, it's better than I had expected in some places, worse than I hoped in others. Much of the understory has been cleared, but that will regrow quickly. However, unless there is some provision to replant trees in burned out wilderness areas, the badly charred areas will probably not have trees in them again during our lifetimes.

z

Thanks for posting those pics, z. I was expecting to see something much worse, but it is hard to tell unless you are there in person. Where do I sign up for planting new trees?! I would even turn my back yard into a pine tree nursery to grow seedlings!

Thanks, Zip,

Those are some pretty encouraging photos, although some areas look just nuked.

I did not get over to Sugarloaf as I had hoped this weekend. My friends wanted to do Mt. Wilson, which was nice, so, that's what we did.

HJ

Looks promising, but wait until fall to see what real effects the fire had on the SGW. The trees may look green up top, but they may have been exposed to high enough heat at their base so that the sap 'boiled' and congealed, which will cause a slow death over the next few months/year.

Manzanita growing already? It's well adapted to survive fires and should grow back (the roots survive quite well), but only a few weeks since the fire is a little too optimistic. You'll also see more of it in the future since all the seeds its produced over the years will crack open with the fire and start to produce new patches of dense brush. I'd expect grasses to start growing first, especially if a few storms roll in and drop some water on the wilderness.

Its sad the fire happened and the wilderness is closed, but it might help the SGW with new growth replacing the old stuff, and give it a break from the heavy impact of humans trampling through it.

Zip, thanks for posting the photos. I'm going to visit the Morton Peak fire lookout on Monday. I might swing up toward Barton Flats after to have a look for myself.

-Florian