It is being reported by a north coast friend that there is a new fire at Apple Pie/Captain Cooper School. For goodness sake, what is left to burn???
From Debbie at Blaze Engineering: “Did you hear about our new fire up here? Bombers flying overhead as I type. It’s in some pine trees not far from Captain Cooper School. Martha Karstens hiked in after it was reported. Must be 100 degrees there. Geez. Lots of bombers now.”
I am hearing (but have not confirmed) that it was only 2 acres.
Gosh, Martha and the rest of the BSVFB must be EXHAUSTED!! I am, and I’m only reporting, not fighting fires!!
Dear Lord: Make it go away!
4:00 pm – just spoke with Paula Martinez, USFS PIO, ret. Anticipating road will be closed for a couple days while fire burns out, and rocks stop falling. Originally, it would have been approximately five days, if they had left the fire to burn out on its own, in terms of threat to the highway, so they decided to speed it up by doing a burn-out operation. Decision made this afternoon. The idea is to speed up the process, in order to get Highway One open as quickly as they can.
6:00 pm – Cal-Trans is reporting they hope to have the road open by tomorrow, Friday, evening.
If you would like to see some great photographs Connie McCoy took, please see my prior report on today. They are well worth your time.
As for me, looks like I might get to bed before midnight, as I have finished this horrific brief I have been frantic about since Tuesday. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get to watch a little television! That’s certainly been a novelty for me, lately.
My god! What tha…??? Hope it gets taken care of quickly (Apple Pie!!) Geez………
The fire sown at Apple Pie explains huge planes heading overhead south yesterday.
God PLEASE… NO MORE FIRES!
The fire at Captain Cooper was the result of a stump fire from the Basin Fire catching hold of some leaf litter and dry branches. In many areas the forest floor is already covered with a carpet of dead leaves shed off the trees plus lots of branches and fallen logs from trees that have been weakened or killed by the earlier fires.
The fire stayed at about 2 acres but was in an area that had escaped being burned thuroughly. It was infested with large amounts of genista.
The tall genista is a perfect “ladder” fuel to take fire up into the canopy. One of rthe reasons for the huge danger on Apple Pie and Stone Ridge, even now. The stuff needs to be cleared away and not allowed to build up again.
Perhaps now is the time to think of bring in herds of goats to clear out the ridges and make room for wildflowers and native plants.
Firefox.