Fire Season Stuff

Airport fire has crossed the Ortega hwy and hit El Cariso, reports of structures on fire in Lakeland Village, last update had it at 19,000 acres. One burn casualty on Elsinore side of Ortega.

Looks like San Juan etc is gone, at least the top and bottom anyway.

They are hitting Modjeska and the ridge down from it out our way hard with the red stuff right now. At least 6 jets dropping.
10 Sept 24 fire 2.jpg

10 Sept 24 fire 3.jpg
 
My question is, why does California close the forest for years after a fire when other States open theirs after a few months? What am I missing?
"California" does not close the forests (except for State parks and other state land). It is the land manager whose land burned that makes the decision on closures. Length of a closure depends on a bunch of things like severity of the fire, soil types, steepness of terrain etc.

A fire like the Station Fire was very intense and followed by severe storms the following winter. So it had a long closure, that was reduced in size as the forest recovered and stabilized. Here in San diego we have had fires in town where the closure lasted only a few days, if that even. After the fire at Mt Laguna only a few affected trails were closed until they could be fixed up, including one or two that got bladed into fire breaks.

The Santa Anas have steep terrain so it can take a while for slopes to stabilize where the burn was severe. I didn't make it to any Trabuco trail days but it sounded like the fire and flood damage was pretty bad. It often doesn't make sense to go rehab a trail immediately following a fire when it could just get wiped out by a landslide or mud flow during winter storms. And like J said some forests take their sweet time getting rehab projects started.
 
Current update on Wrightwood: Fire has burned past/through Mtn High east and west. and is at the edge of Wrightwood on both sides of Highway 2. Mandatory evacuations of Wrightwood and Pinion Hills. Highway 138 is shut down at the 15 and where it intersects with Phelan Rd. Highway two is shut down at 138 and all the way up to and through the LA county line. The fire came through at Inspiration Point. Not sure if it's jumped the highway there tho.

 
Last edited:
My question is, why does California close the forest for years after a fire when other States open theirs after a few months? What am I missing?

There’s no making sense of how individual units of the Forest Service run their business. The 3 areas up here in Northern AZ (Prescott, Sedona & Flagstaff) are all run differently when it comes to MTB trails getting built and then, what TYPE of trails get built.

For the longest time, Prescott seemed to be building MORE trails but never anything that was very difficult and god forbid you tried to include any “features”. Flagstaff was the opposite for a while but then they had a change in leadership and they’ve mostly been building like crazy.
 
I have been looking on "Watch Duty" and it gets updated all the time. The attached shows that the fire looks to be moving closer to STT again? It shows Cadillac where it went up and then up toward Old Camp, and now it seems to be moving closer to STT? Why are they not stopping it, and why has OC public works not held a press conference yet? https://app.watchduty.org/i/33801
 
Haven't heard anything about the cabins, @BonsaiNut .
Watch Duty said 2 helos requested for Harding Truck Trail increased fire activity.

This fire is so tragic. Just when we were getting some access back some dumbass Public Works administrator sends out heavy equipment during fire weather. The same type of weather where they tell the public to not operate equipment. Some people should be losing jobs.

I feel bad for the Warriors and Jason and Kiwi and others who did a lot of work, including fighting the USFS to even be able to do the work.

Now the long ass cycle will have to begin again.

A conspiracy theorist might say the USFS orchestrated this to get rid of the last of the cabins, destroy trails so they can close off the whole forest and have to deal with the pesky public.
 
Haven't heard anything about the cabins, @BonsaiNut .
Watch Duty said 2 helos requested for Harding Truck Trail increased fire activity.

This fire is so tragic. Just when we were getting some access back some dumbass Public Works administrator sends out heavy equipment during fire weather. The same type of weather where they tell the public to not operate equipment. Some people should be losing jobs.

I feel bad for the Warriors and Jason and Kiwi and others who did a lot of work, including fighting the USFS to even be able to do the work.

Now the long ass cycle will have to begin again.

A conspiracy theorist might say the USFS orchestrated this to get rid of the last of the cabins, destroy trails so they can close off the whole forest and have to deal with the pesky public.

Did you say conspiracy theorist? :sneaky:

Haven't "they" wanted the cabins gone for years? Seems like I heard something about that in the past.

Don't even get me started on the hangers in Tustin ... :cautious:
 
Back
Top