Hike Info:
Type:
Lookout
Please
note: This is not a record of the Creek
Fire.
We were at Delilah
Lookout,
25-30 miles away from the action. Below is a combination of my
recollection, Forest Service radio communications, text and e-mail
conversations with those who know fire. Consequently, this blog entry
should be read from the perspective of a person who had a narrow, but
interesting window into fighting the Creek Fire and the rescues which
all the first responders achieved.
Description:
Got up at 0615. Looked around
and saw smoke, lots of smoke. Also did my lightning report which came
back negative. Buck
Rock and
I talked some. He has some pretty clear air, I cannot even see
McKenzie
Ridge,
which is just across a valley from us. This may be a long day.
Went down out of Delilah for a
few minutes. Made sure we had enough water for the day. Then back up.
Sherri also goes down, but needs to stay down a bit longer. You know the bugs I talked about from yesterday? They have invaded the lookout cab. So we spend some time exuviatingg them as we find them.
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Pumpkin Bugs
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I go into services at 0800
with 3-4 miles of visibility. Also this bodes ill for today: the RH
is 18%-getting pretty low. I can taste a bit of the smoke in the air
from the SQF
Complex
fire. But that is not the excitement. Even before I go into service,
Buck Rock and I are talking about the Creek Fire. He has a fabulous
picture of the cloud from it. I get my view in. They both look
awesome and ominous. I would guess the pyrocumulus rises up at least
6,000’ up in the area. Later we hear this guy is huge, maybe the
biggest pyrocumulus cloud in the United States, ever! That cloud
continues to morph, shapes and grows all day until it gets hidden by,
ironically of all things, smoke. Eventually it goes up to being
50,000’. We have heard that the fire is now 500 acres.
There are a couple of
different threads on the fire which I was participating in. The first
is to the OSHER book group. You know this is the one I talked about
yesterday. Kay was wondering if there were any suggestions about the
Zoom meeting. Well I just noted that if anybody was thinking of going
to Shaver or Huntington, don’t. This helped one of the people’s
granddaughter to get prepared to evacuate even before the warning was
given. And then for the next several days, there was concern about us
and the fire. We are over 30 miles away.
Even before the Creek Fire
gets going, Sherri is wondering ab
out the smoke. Our friend and
fellow lookout, Judy, offers to come up and take Sherri back to
Fresno. After a couple of hours, Sherri decides it is not getting
worse, so she will stay.
That will pretty much be the
story of the morning and actually most of the day. But most of the
afternoon we are voyeurs. We listen to the happenings going on across
the way. We heard them fighting the Creek Fire, calling in air drops.
By 1020, the reports were that the fires had leapt up to 2,000 acres.
A little after noon time, the fire is at 6,000 acres. We are getting
winds up to 25mph from the south. And we are hearing that the air
tankers are having to back off due to turbulence.
That is wild. Then the winds
start to pick up. This starts to drop fire six miles away at
Clearwater
and
Hogue
Ranch.
The first responders try to get as many people out as they can. Both
sides of Road 81 are burning. Tees are falling, blocking access and
more importantly, ways of escape.
Then smoke is reported from
the Cascadel
Woods
area. First responders are sent to that area and evacuations are
started there as well. Then another spot fire is north about five
miles. More first responders are called in. Now the first priority is
to get people out of Mammoth
Pool.
But when the first rescuers get there, the road is blocked with
burning trees having fallen across the road, fire raging on both
sides. They cannot get in that way, and there is only one way in or
out.
There are a couple law
enforcement officers controlling this phase of the rescue. They
understand that the first rule of rescuing people is do not make the
situation worse by putting yourself in complete danger so that you
now need to be rescued. So the controller knows there are others who
need to be rescued and that even if they could get to Mammoth Pool,
there is no way they could get these people out. The best they can
tell the people is to get into the water.
The rescuers retreat and
continue on up Road 81 They are directed up and down these little
dirt roads, telling people to get out. There are dispersed campsites
where people are staying, there are people out hiking. There are
people coming in on horseback. The first responders are searching
them all out. Now roads are getting closed down because the fire is
rapidly expanding.
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Smoke Main fire on right and spot fires
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To complicate the matter,
there is a bridge under reconstruction near Bowler, so they cannot
take people out the best way and the way mostly away from the fire.
So they need to go over Grizzly Meadow Road, through Lower Chiquito
Campground. But that quickly gets shut off by a spot fire surrounding
a small segment of the road. There is one other dirt road which
skirts the fire, road 6S44. But you hear comments to make sure they
have a high clearance vehicle. Evidently it makes an already
nerve-wracking experience even more so.
We hear of the fire’s
expanding range. Now it is on both sides of Mammoth Pool. Also it
seems to be following the San Joaquin River and route 81. The first
responders are not keeping ahead of the fire. Occasionally you hear
of someone being reported that someone does not want to evacuate. The
law enforcement officer says, take a picture of them. That sounds
rather ominous.
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Lightning map around Mammoth Pool
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If that is not enough, you
know that pyrocumulus cloud we saw earlier? It is creating its own
weather with lightning strikes just to the north of Mammoth Pool. Truly a dangerous situation. Turns out the strikes were between 1430 and 1500
One of the rangers knows there
are backpackers up at Lillian
Lake and
beyond. He is given permission to hike in and notify them to get out.
A couple of hours later you hear that the majority of them do come
out. But a couple of them feel they can go further away from the
fire. We are only hoping that they made a good choice as there will
not be many options open to them otherwise.
The chaos of getting people
out and getting in front of the fire is starting to calm down. This
is only a relative term. Sierra’s radio continues to crackle on
both channels. The air attack has been trying to lay down retardant
to slow the growth and to redirect the fires away from places where
there are people and structures.
Meantime, lots of people need
to get out of Huntington.
The fire is threatening to cut off the exit via 168. They have some
people at China
Peak and
plotting how to get them out.
In the middle of the
afternoon, Wendy heard of a report of a plane going down in Sequoia.
Looking at WildCad, It turns out the plane went down close to Mineral
King,
around Eagle
Lake.
Not that everybody did not have enough to do. Found out later the
occupants died.
A friend of ours is the
campground host for Chilkoot
Campground
along Beashore Road. This is where our family stayed last
June. We
text him and tell him what is happening. He says that he will be
leaving soon.
By 1735 the fire was 36,000
acres. The conversation thinks it is more. By 2039, it is 73,000
acres. We heard at one point a plane was trying to map the fire.
There was so much heat being given off, it sounded like he was giving
up mapping it and would return with the data he collected.
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Looking towards Pinehurst
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By the way, we still did our
lookout responsibilities. Taking weather, doing scans, listening to
the radio, … But frankly, even during a normal year, Delilah is
known for its solitude, broken only infrequently by guests. On the
other hand, Buck Rock, close to Big
Meadow,
can be a hive of activity. He does relays of radio messages from
patrols to patrols or Porterville, he has eyes on activities, mostly
legals, but sometimes, not so. The patrols in the area are called to
break up an argument. Such as a group thought it would be cool to
drive on top of Wedding Rock, past barricades and have a good time
with a campfire. Buck Rock spotted them and let those in the area
know.
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Fading Sun
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Our day gets done at 2000. But
we are slow to turn off Sierra’s radio as I would hesitate to say
entertaining, more like mesmerizing and addicting. The activity, the
intensity, the calmness they all approach their job with. But with
the fading sun, comes darkness. And with the darkness, we look north
and see flames surrounding Musick
Mountain
27 miles away.
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Fire around Musick Mountain
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Before I go to bed, I have a
text conversation with Kathy. She was wondering how we were doing
today. It is exciting to hear the goings on. Also it was hot, but not
bad enough for us to leave.
Reflection: Sherri and I have
hiked and driven a lot back where this fire is raging. There is a lot
of sadness. There is the hope that the land will come back, there is
a hope that in a decade it will be restored. But there are also the
people who are being devastated. Some have only been there for a few
years. But many go back five, six, seven or more decades. Much
sadness. We will only know when things open up again, probably next
Spring.
Background
Apparently this is not the
first large fire in that area. Back in 1994 Buck Rock was able to
look down into Big Creek and pick
out a smoke.
She reported it.
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Afternoon smoke columns
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