High Sierra Topix

Butte Fire. Started Sept. 9, 2015. Sadly going strong. 2,000 acres at 20% contained it says at the CA gov site. Also says:

Fire is expanding in all directions. Steep river drainages, high heat, low humidity, and volatile dry grassy oak woodland promote dangerous fire behavior and challenging terrain for firefighters.

Probably will smokify Emigrant Wilderness...

Sigh.

And an update from 4 hours later (6:30 PM today) says 14,000 acres at 10% contained. A bad day for them...

Fire behavior remained extreme throughout the day with rapid, uncontrolled fire growth. Suppression efforts had minimal impacts due to a high focus on structure defense. Mandatory evacuations are in place and expanded throughout the day as the fire perimeter grew. Evacuation warnings have been issued for additional threatened areas. More evacuations are anticipated as the fire behavior continues to impact additional areas. Continued hot and dry weather conditions will also limit nighttime recovery.

Here is the same online fire map I posted previously, but centered on the Butte fire.

http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.p ... fire_3.txt

It was really bad going through Squaw Valley and Dunlop then all the way to Lodgepole. but the trail head at Crescent Meadows was much better. We had a little smoke to Nine Mile creek but never used the masks we brought. From that point on we had a few days where the smoke would start to come over from the west in the evening, but by morning it had all blown back. Nothing but clear cobalt blue skies until the day we summited Whitney (9/9) when dark clouds threatened. I'll work on a trip report in the next few days/weeks (a lot of information and photos to sort through).

We broke down just south of Lone Pine heading home and had to get towed up to Bishop. The conditions at Onion Valley were horrible. But it wasn't until I got home to Sonora that the smoke and ashes began falling on me. The Butte fire in Calaveras & Amador counties has grown to nearly 60,000 acres is two days. It is just plain ugly here.

9/10 from one of the switchbacks on Horseshoe Meadow Road, looking North towards Lone Pine, around 6:30 PM. 9/11 from the summit of Mt. Langley looking north, around 10:00 AM

I went out on the Lake Sabrina trail on Saturday. We originally wanted to backpack in and stay the night, but with Bishop taking a pretty big hit from the smoke the past couple days, we decided to just go on a day hike. Got to the trailhead around 9 am and hiked out to Baboon Lakes for some lunch and fishing. Started hiking back to the trailhead from Blue Lake around 3 p.m. and got to the trailhead at 5 p.m. Within those two hours, the area went from being almost completely smoke free, to not being able to see the surrounding peaks at all! The smoke filtered in fast and thick, and the wind was forecast to be mostly coming from the east and southeast that day. Glad we decided against backpacking in.

Article in the Washington Post today:

"Scientists say California hasn't been this dry in 500 years."

Study based on evaluating tree ring growth. Pretty sad for those who love the Sierra Nevada.

Pray for rain. Stand up for the natural world. What more can we do?

Peace.

posted the study earlier at: viewtopic.php?f=9&p=101280#p101280

Could we please keep this thread limited to fire and smoke reports?

balance wrote:Pray for rain. Stand up for the natural world. What more can we do?

Fight global warming, obviously. If we don't do anything, it will only get much worse.

Loop from Kennedy Meadows (Emigrant Wilderness), Sept 10-15. Butte Fire just started so a lot of smoke to drive through. Still quite smoky, but became more haze than smoke once over Brown Bear Pass. Not a problem with breathing, but ruined any chance of good photos. Very strange combined smoke-overcast conditions. Smoke increased during the day, worst about 5-6 PM. Wind picked up Sunday, so actually had some sunshine. Became very windy the 13th. Rained all night the 14th, clearing out the smoke. Nice and clear yesterday. Not sure how long the clear skies will last, since the Butte Fire is still burning.