Category: History Spotlight

Remembering the Gorda-Rat Creek Fire, Pt. 2

(Continued from last Saturday…)

“I can’t remember all of those that helped in the following days but Greg Byrne and his son Airic, TJ, JC, Jim Cook, PB Rivers, Tall Cliff Anderson, Rob Stonecipher, Saj all come to mind. We didn’t have much as far as tools at first, just a few chain saws and weedeater besides the 125 gallons of water, pump and a couple of hundred feet of 1″ hose. A fire camp was set up at Sand Dollar and the Pacific Valley School was serving meals. I was having lunch with Greg Byrne when his son came up to us and said,” Hey guys, I talked to a fireman across the street and he said we could check out anything we needed to fight fire”.—Airic was 10 or 12 years of age but we decided to check it out.——We went over and acted like we did this all the time, identifying ourselves as the South Coast Volunteers and proceeded to make out a wish list. Everything we asked for was available and given to us on the spot with only a signature required. Little Airic had earned our respect for sure!

We went up to MJ’s place on top of Willow and joined with the Texas Hot Shots who were down in Spruce trying to keep the fire from crossing to the North side.  Our folks and their’s combined to make a successful stop with the Borate bomber dropping its load on us two different times. We came out of Spruce, colored with the fire retardant and felt like heroes! Up at MJ’s there were three full size city fire trucks in the yard. The hot shots had told us they could now hold the creek bed and we should all go take a well deserved break. We agreed and went over to Dave and Mariska Harris’s place for a hot meal, showers and some cold beer.—-I woke up at dawn and jumped on my motorcycle and went over to MJ’s place. The smoke was so thick you couldn’t see but 20 to 30 yards. When I got to the yard and I saw that the fire trucks were gone, in fact the yard was empty. I started down the road to the pool and ran into a wall of flame coming up the hill. I raced back to MJ’s and woke him up (he had taken a couple of sleeping pills the night before) yelling that the fire was coming, and quick!!   I drove back to David’s and woke everyone and soon we were out in the woods trying to establish a fire line below MJ’s without even having our first cup of coffee. The terrain was not too steep and was covered in good size pine and smaller madrone and manzanita. We started dropping pines with no sense of order and would probably have gotten someone hurt when we heard the clank clank of a big tracked machine coming our way.   A D-9 came to our rescue and pushed those little pines over creating a fire line that would have taken us hours, in a matter of minutes.—–We found out later that the Rat fire had Blown Up in the middle of the night and our Forest Service and Fire Fighter guys had been pulled off the Gorda fire to go fight the Rat. I also learned that the individual fire fighter might as well be in the Army in the fact that they have to obey orders from their superiors leading me to never trust what they might say, no matter how much they might mean it! —-No shame, no blame,—just the way it is!” (To be continued next Saturday…)

 

Remembering the Gorda-Rat Creek Fire or how the South Coast extension of the BSVFB got started

First the backstory: Soaring contacted me about gathering local stories to include with her stories of her look-out days up on Cone Peak, specifically the Gorda-Rat Creek Fire, her first as a look-out. I forwarded her inquiry on to Redtail, as she had requested, but also on to Chicago Kid, whom I knew had been involved.

And Chicago Kid sent this:

I couldn’t find my notes so I’ll just have to wing it.—–We must have partied the night before as I found myself nursing a long neck Budweiser at Pacific Valley bar late morning of July 6th, 1985 when someone came in to report a lightning strike above Gorda. I finished my beer and went South to the Willow Springs Maintenance yard just North of Gorda. I was told Don Harlan had just recently taken off with a dozer and was up on the grassy meadows above Gorda and the Cal Trans yard.  I went and got my motorcycle and came back to the yard and borrowed two radios, two canteens and two large cotton bath towels and drove up to find Don. I knew the road above pretty well as I was mining some Jade up that way at a place we called “Mudbone”. I found Don cutting a line between the fire and the town of Gorda and the Cal-Trans yard. I gave him a radio, some water and a towel and he thanked me. I went up around the flank of the fire to see if I could cut it off before it got into a drainage we locally call Spruce but it is labeled South fork of Willow Creek on the map. With just a wet towel to beat down the flames, I soon lost the battle.

I went back down and got the slip on unit that Pat Chamberlain had loaned to the South Coast, into my 1970 GMC 3/4 ton pick up truck. Weeks earlier a vehicle had gone off Highway One to the West at a place we call Broken Truck. The driver was killed but his vehicle caught on fire. The fire raced up the hillside and although there were several people there, the fire was able to jump the highway to the East and begin its way uphill. It looked pretty darn serious when suddenly a large Borate bomber showed up and dropped its load on the fire East of the highway and knocked it down so it could be mopped up by those who were there. This close call spurred Erik Jensen (a local who had been a fireman in Carmel) and Sandy Sanderson to contact Pat Chamberlain about starting a South Coast branch of Big Sur Fire. Pat liked the idea and sent the slip on unit down for first response and Erik and Sandy got me on board to store it at Gorda where I had a Jade Shop above the gas station.  (To be continued next Saturday, unless…)

 

 

 

Photo Sunday, 10/29/17 – Nutcracker Suite, 1965

Remember this photo from last week?

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Look what else Sylvia found:

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Photo Sunday, 10/15/17

This little history lesson started because Janet (Sommerville) Hardisty asked me to put her in contact with Sylvia Deen Trotter Anderson, and thus the exchanges began, and both ladies were gracious enough to keep me in the conversation so I could learn some local history and share in the photographs.

A couple of photos from the 50-60’s from Sylvia Deen (Trotter) Anderson’s collection:

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The people in the photo below are Janet Sommerville’s parents, and Sylvia Trotter Anderson’s parents, Walter Trotter and wife Guelda [gwel-dah] (Fenton) Trotter.  Janet’s mother, Betty is the one on the right. The two on the left, I believe are Walter Trotter and the gal in the middle of Janet’s dad and Trotter is Janet McChesney. Please correct me if I  am wrong, ladies.😘

From Janet: “The lady sitting by your dad is Janet McChesney, they lived at the main house at the Forest Service Station, as Doug/Mac was head in Big Sur at that time, so this would of had to been anywhere from sometime in the 50’s to 1961 as the girls (Kathy, Nancy, & Maryjane) moved away before Capt. Cooper opened up on the hill in 1962. The other lady seems familiar, but I’m not really sure??”

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A Couple more – this one of the classroom, Sylvia found from a collection at the University of Wisconsin, of all places:

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“Up close with back to camera is Miss Morrisay. Then the girl on the right with hair band is cousin Susan/Susie Brazil, almost looks like back of head of Kip Hopkins. Tal Bradford is the fellow with fingers under his nose I think. Blonde in the middle almost looks like a Morganwrath, but don’t think it is. I have school photos with some of these kids in it, so they were a year ahead of me, maybe a Warren and almost looks like Billy Royer at the far right hand under chin.” (Description by Sylvia)

From Janet: “Lets see, I think those are David Lindley’s ears next to Susie (Kaye Short’s grandson), then we have Lincoln Curtis in front row by Miss Morrisay, Ron Warren, then we move over to Blonde, which is Jeanette Ramsdell,
next to her is I think Raymond Niemeyer, can’t remember the guys names on the right, but I remember them(Bruce?). And like you said, Tal, and then I think Lorna something and maybe Kate Healey’s head, and no idea on the other.”

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The above is from the University of Wisconsin archives. It is the little red school house. It sat south of MAF approximately where the CT housing is now.

From Sylvia’s Collection:

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“I did have this one however….. These two girls in detail…Their mother was Rowena (Davis) Kelly-Lee our school teacher. The elder/taller girl is Dorothy Kelly and the younger/smaller one is Rowena “Punky” Kelly. Punky, I’m sure you will recall drowned at Post’s area in Jul of 1964. I was 8 and you probably 10-11. Cousin Judy Trotter-Weidman was best friends with Punky and about aged 12. She had a hard time dealing with Punky’s passing.
This is the backside of the old Pfeiffer School if memory serves me as I was in the small room for the 1st and 2nd graders with Mrs. Kelly and you “older students”- ha-ha were with Miss Morrisey. We could go out that door right to the play area.”

Below,  “Sorry another bad photo, but this one I did remember a bit more about! L-R
Leigh Hartman Toldi, ME Sylvia, in back ?Char Piaz, Janie Curtis, then maybe Krista Mackowski, Collett Mason [french sounding]and Janet Sommerville. Found the program that went with this awhile back as well. Hard to believe we has such stuff in Big Sur with such a wonder teacher, Lillie/Lily Selvig. Still have the costume that her son Dirk wore for one of the ballet plays as a joker. What a hoot!! Sylvia”

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Then & Now

Thanks to Sylvia Trotter Anderson, in a comment on an earlier post, I was pointed to this valuable resource. Whoever digitalized this deserves our deepest gratitude. Here is a screen shot of the headlines of this gem.

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Here is the link: Big Sur Gazette, May 1980.

It is 56 pages, and a lot to digest, but very well worth the time you will spend. For example, you will find this from then Congressman Leon Panetta: Making Big Sur a National Park would “…induce the kind of rampant tourism that would itself destroy the precious and unique qualities of the area.” (Gazette, p.4, last column.) It seems we didn’t need to become a National Park for that to happen. But then, no one could have anticipated the effect that Social Media would have.

Doug Madsen described Big Sur this way: “Big Sur is really a spiritual retreat, a place wher you can live in harmony with animals and trees and the sun and the moon.” (Gazette, p. 15, “Spiritual Retreat.”)

May this now historical document help you take a look at the changes we have seen. Even if you don’t read all of the testimony before congress regarding turning Big Sur into a State Park (which I would love to see you do) You will get a kick out of the ads from back then. Anyone remember Tom Nash’s (now an attorney) Taxi Service??? Some of us will remember that, but not until that old memory is startled into recognition. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. I will be using it as a background for other posts and considerations in the future.

I’ll leave you with the extemporaneous quote by Senator S.I. Hayakawa, Big Sur is a “crazy place inhabited by rich & poor hippies…unique bohemians…who are zealous conservationists.” (Gazette, p. 36.)

If you are interested in reading any of the 4 years of issues of the Gazette, one can find the Index here.

 

 

 

 

Paul’s Slide Area in 1983

These photos were sent to me by Leon Miller Trice. That same year, 1983, the South Coast was cut off from the north for 15 months due to a slide near Julia Pfeiffer Burns – now called The Big Slide.

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Big Sur Community Harvest Market

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Pitkin’s Curve Project

Per Cal-Trans, “This area is part of an historically active landslide. Repairs were required in 1998 after the El Nino storms of that year. In February 2000, a more massive slipout below the road resulted in complete closure of the roadway. Due to the magnitude of the slipout, previous strategies for reconstructing the roadway were no longer feasible. In order to found the road on a stable base, realignment into the hillside was required; the roadway remain closed for three months while the detour was constructed. This alignment continues in place as a temporary solution until feasibility of a long-term strategy is fully evaluated.”

Here are some Cal-Trans photos of the slip-out of 2000:

Feb. 2000 slip-out

Realignment

New Road Surface


Aerial of Slide

Artist Rendering of Project

This shows the artists rendering of the eventual bridge over Pitkin’s Curve and the Rock Shed at Rain Rocks. Quite a project, but one those of us on the South Coast are glad to finally see, despite the interim inconvenience.

Here is the link to the flyer Cal-Trans put out four years ago about the project: Pitkin’s Curve/Rain Rocks flyer

All Cal-Trans photos used with permission provided by Steve Price! Thanks, Steve!!

Don’t forget to check out the May 2010 photos of the project here. You will see the construction of the 50 ft x 50 ft anchor for the south side of the bridge.