fire

Oct 22 2009

Forged by Fire: Lightening and Landscape at Big Sur

We know that wildfire is a key part of the ecology of the Bay Area and has played a major role in shaping our landscapes. Yet it’s simply not possible to let fires burn naturally in an urban region such as ours. But just to the south, the 240,000-acre Ventana Wilderness near Big Sur is large and remote enough to allow for the return of a natural fire regime. That’s what has happened over the past 30 years as a series of lightning-ignited wildfires has helped shape both a living laboratory of fire ecology and an increasingly diverse landscape. Read about it on BayNature.org.

http://baynature.org/articles/oct-dec-2009/forged-by-fire

May 01 2009

May Roundup 2009 – Fire recovery observations and Open House reminder

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, May 9^th for our Open House. We’ll open the gates at 9:00 AM and there will be plenty of parking at the turnout just south of Big Creek Bridge. We are rushing to finish grooming the trails, and will even have an historic trail to Dairy Canyon open by that time. Wear sturdy shoes and bring water and a snack. We’ll also have some scientists on hand if you want to talk about trout or sea otters or condors. Plus, we’ll be showing videos of our underwater habitats in the library. Our Reserve Manager, Mark Readdie, has been putting on his wetsuit and capturing footage of the trout in Big Creek, as well as life under the kelp forest in the Big Creek Marine Reserve. This is a viewpoint some of us may never see first hand, and the admission is free! You can also walk down to the beach for that picnic lunch you’ve been planning. We hope to see you then!

We’ve been guaranteed by Mother Nature that the weather will be perfect for Open House. We sure have been on a weather roller coaster for this past week. It was blowing fifty knots and cold on Sunday; a record high of 80 degrees on Tuesday; and this afternoon is foggy and 57 degrees. The barn swallows are a little confused, but they are nesting just the same. It’s a little difficult to find the bugs in the fog, but all of the swallow pairs have settled on which nests they’ll call home for the next five months. We hope they have better luck this season than last, when the fires interrupted their second set of babies.

We’ve been noticing other impacts from the fires, such as the disappearance of our little buck and our foxes (Mark says he still has foxes at his house…but he has chickens too!) Our theory is that the mountain lion population increased when their habitat burned in the wilderness. Since last fall, we haven’t seen the usual number of smaller animals, such as foxes, skunks and deer. Then, Mark found several mountain lion scat piles near the confluence of Big Creek and Devil’s Creek (see his blog at http://bigcreekblog.ucnrs.org). All together, they contained nine claws and a tooth of a 1-2 year old mountain lion, leading us to believe that a large mountain lion had digested a smaller one. A large male will stalk a smaller male to preserve its territory, but the big cats will also start to eat each other if they run out of the smaller food. We have seen several bobcats – alive, though, and hope that the cats work it out so that there is a rebalancing of the animal populations on the Reserve.

We also recently went up on the bulldozer line on Dolan Ridge to revisit that habitat. It provides a wonderful comparison of burned vs. unburned vegetation. The poppies and lupine in the burned areas are magnificent! At the end of the day, almost 100 species were identified, including 15 new species for the Reserve, with five of those 15 identified as fire followers. Now, the botanists are working on their theories of how these species got to that area; whether they were germinated through fire activity, bull dozer activity, or by some other means. Nevertheless, it is very exciting to find them and to be able to add to the diversity of the Reserve. You can look forward to seeing pictures of the recovering vegetation during our Open House, or hike up there and see it with your own eyes.

We’re looking forward to sharing all of this with you….and more. And yes, the tree frog is still in the toilet. In fact, another male tried to challenge our little guy for this prized location. Our guy won, and the other fellow had to move back out front to the pond. They are still out there singing, so we’re sure to have lots of tadpoles soon!

See you at the Open House!

Terry Hallock and Feynner Arias

Oct 22 2008

Chalk fire 10/21-22 Good progress by firefighters

Three helicopters are looping to the ocean and back up to the fire. They are coming down over Highlands Ridge, right over my house in the canyon and picking up water at Oystercatcher Pt, Potter’s beach and Gamboa Pt. Then flying up Vicente Canyon. They come over about every 8-10 minutes.

Inciweb is reporting they have clearance to extend the dozer line up past their medivac site (on map below) and put a hand line to Twin Peak. Today’s map shows them as proposed lines. I am going up there now to see what I can see.

This afternoon I watched the crews and helicopters put out the slop overs that entered the very top of Vicente Creek from the fire break. Bulldozers continued uphill though. Lots of smoke and active burning close to the fuel break. Also watched aircraft lay down retardant on “Gamboa Ridge”.

Here’s what it looked like. Pretty ominous.

This morning, October 22, the backfire from the bottom of West fork Limekiln ran up the north side of the foot of the ridge separating it from Limekiln Creek. From Sand Dollar I witnessed 200 foot flames and a 5000 foot swirling smoke column.
Today I looked again over Vicente Creek from the top of the Reserve and it was nearly clear. Helicopters seemed to be putting out hot spots in the interior within the bowl of west fork limekiln creek. I could see all the way to Twin Peak and did not witness any rising smoke along the ridge.

Looking good. Thank you firefighters!

New perimeter map for Oct. 22 morning.

Oct 20 2008

Chalk Fire definitely NOT contained anymore!

Well, I went down to Santa Barbara to get married and in the meantime the Chalk Fire flared up and is now really, really knocking on our doorstep. It is really repeating the pattern of the 1999 Kirk Fire now. Apparently, somewhere around the 15th or 16th the fire crossed Hare Canyon and by the 17th had moved into the upper watershed of the north fork of Limekiln Creek. They are now trying to hold the fire along the ridge from Cone Peak to Twin Peak, west along that ridge to Ojito, south to the Big Oak along the Gamboa Trail and then down the old Pine Ridge Trail to connect to the dozer line they have put just east of the Hermitage, off their road. They have been firing off the Hermitage break east toward the approaching fire from Limekiln and that seems to be going well. You can see the backfire on this perimeter map, along the dozer line above the hermitage, separate from the main fire and moving toward it.

The tricky part is moving above there and tying it in to Twin Peak. From Highlands Peak and the Canogas trailhead on the Reserve, Gage has been checking the ridge surrounding Vicente Creek since Saturday and Jen and I checked today.

Here is a picture taken from the road just past Canogas trailhead.

Still no fire on our side but that window is wide open. We could see a bulldozer working next to that big tree on the ridge in the center of the photo. The story is that they were going to use the helitorch to put a black line along the other side of that ridgeline and back it up with helicopter support. We saw a helicopter flying up and down Vicente Canyon, dumping water just over the ridge and could see black smoke billowing up at a pretty fast rate. We were expecting flames to show up any minute. Gage has been seeing that also for the last 2 days so they seem to be slowing it down. As I type at 6pm there is a helicopter picking up water just off the mouth of Big Creek.

So it’s not here yet but I will be watching it daily to see if they hold it.

By the way, Big Sur Kate has good photos from her house on the opposite side of this fire. Check her blog out at http://bigsurkate.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/chalk-update-101908/

Oct 03 2008

Day 6, Chalk fire gets to the highway with rain on the way

Today we are to expect some rain. There is a storm that will hit the Monterey Bay area and NWS is expecting up to 1/2 inch down here. I went down to Pacific Valley in the evening to watch the storm approach the coast. There was fire right along the highway and traffic was being controlled. As I drove through there were firefighters monitoring a large bush go up in 15 foot flames. I got past there, checked the surf, realized I was too late and it was getting dark and so just decided to take some pictures.

Here is cone peak peering out of the mist.

It was remarkable to see the fire glowing through the clouds.

After it got dark I parked at the bottom of a gully about three north of Kirk Creek. There was a lot of fire up high but it had also moved down to within 100 feet from the road. There was a Ceonothus bush going up right there. I witnessed three remarkable phenomena at this time.

I saw an example of what firefighters refer to as “rollout”. This is where burning debris rolls down steep slopes and can catch fire to vegetation far below. I heard a big pop from way up the canyon and then tons of embers and burning debris rolled about 300 feet down the mountainside into the canyon bottom. I could see how trying to maintain a break with a fire backing down steep terrain is extremely dangerous and susceptible.

I also heard a huge crash come out of the very lower part of the canyon, just up from the highway, as a tree came down. Made me realize how tentative conditions are in a burning forest.

I also saw a very mysterious thing in the middle of a small redwood grove just up from the highway. Inside this ring of trees there were embers swirling around and around. I think it was the fibers from the redwood bark burning off and getting airborne, then the drafts around the grove were keeping them inside and between the trees themselves. It was impossible to capture with the camera or video but you can kind of see the little lights in the bottom center of this photo.

I took a few pictures of this area to try and capture the big flames and piles of coals that they left behind. It took just a few minutes for these patches to go up.

We shall see what the rain does overnight and tomorrow.