High Sierra Topix

The Rough Fire was finally contained last weekend after 3 months.They're not re-opening Cedar Grove until next year, the park newsletter mentioned roadway and guardrail damage.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Roug ... 617345.php

Map of Rough Fire perimeter below.

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/photos/CASNF/20 ... 7-CDT.jpeg

In the past for my wildflower close-up work have driven a lot of the roads in those areas including obscure dirt roads. Read some reports that although the fires went through some significant giant sequoia groves, the intensities were muted and most big trees came out well as is the nature of their bark.

Shows it burned along SR180 over Junction Vista Point area that had burned maybe a couple decades before. A lot of the lower canyon areas were chaparral. Burned over Belden Cave and all the huge limestone peaks about there then a few miles upstream. Also burned for miles areas upstream of Pine Flat Reservoir above the Rodgers Crossing Bridge including along Trimmer Springs Road next to the Kings River. Some of those areas have historically shown signicant wildflower displays that given some decent winter rains we can expect with all the freed up minerals and nutrients to appear next spring looking like they are on steroids. During my lifetime those areas have been difficult landscapes to access beyond road edges because of considerable poison oak. Much like some Rim Fire areas I walked about last spring that had been PO nightmares.

http://www.davidsenesac.com/2015_Trip_C ... 015-6.html

David

Thus will likely try and spend some time along those areas next spring.

One thing that worries me is that some very steep (normally vegetated) slopes above 180 burned. This may lead to elevated mudslide hazards when the snow melts, as well as potential hazards during the summer during heavy downpours associated with thundershowers. There may be more closures of 180 this coming spring/summer than we're used to seeing.

Inciweb has the Burn Area Emergency Response online here: BAER Report. A simple google search for "BAER Rough fire" results in some more documentation.

Expect growth of "Eriodictyon parryi" (Poodle Dog Bush) at lower elevations. I have spotted it along the old dirt road that runs beyond the pack station. It's nasty stuff.

Here's the very last of it, taken on my walk back from Tombstone Ridge and the Obelisk on November 1st, almost three months to the day after lightning started the fire while I was in Tehipite Valley.

markskor wrote:The Rough Fire was finally contained last weekend after 3 months.They're not re-opening Cedar Grove until next year, the park newsletter mentioned roadway and guardrail damage.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Roug ... 617345.php

I followed the daily updates and checked the maps every day as that fire progressed. I don't know anything about wildland fires and had a few questions. I noticed the response team kept building various fire lines of different types and the fire kept going past the fire lines. Were those lines built knowing that the fire was going to go by them (maybe to slow it down?)? Is there a "simple" way to describe the fire fighting tactics in a short paragraph or a website that explains what they were trying to accomplish with the various lines and helicopter drops?

Is there a "simple" way to describe the fire fighting tactics in a short paragraph or a website that explains what they were trying to accomplish with the various lines and helicopter drops?

http://www.nps.gov/seki/learn/nature/fic_firelinks.htm

Thanks for all the links to FS reports. I spend a lot of time in the area, from Spanish Mountain northward. I too followed the fire's progress on almost a daily basis and was relieved that its northward and eastward progress was stopped. It burned along a trail that I took to Geraldine Lakes this summer and I hope it cleared out some of the dead fall. For more info on what I've been doing in the area, see:
http://www.inaturalist.org/journal/sekihiker/4392
http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/sekihiker/2015/6/25
http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/sekihiker/2015/6/26