High Sierra Topix

Chips Fire.

Ash fall in my yard, cannot see up the the street. Did not open the windows today.

The planned indirect attack and burn out will make the final size ~32,000 acres from the current 9,300.

I am familiar with the area. It is steep and rocky. Chips canyon is the classic deep V canyon. The vegetation prior to the Storrie fire 13 years ago was heavy timber old growth. Now it is massive tons of dead and down with a heavy brush understory in a snag patch. It is better to go indirect than risk getting someone hurt or killed.

Still not releasing info on the cause other than human. It looks like it started adjacent to the PCT.

I now have major fires all around me. Chips, Mill, Ponderosa, Reading, and Rush. Smoke not too bad today.

The rest of August and September may be very interesting around here. Typically our first wetting rain is late September to early October. Will it come early? I hope so...

Dave,
I was out on two separate trips over the last 2+ weeks and even the frequent rains did not banish all the particulates. Living in LA, I'm used to crappy air, but it was tough to have views obscured in the mountains, especially, when the webcams I visit all the time looked unusually clear yesterday. Luck of the draw..........
cg