Hike Info:
Type: Lookout
Description:
October 10, 2016
Tonight we stay overnight at
Delilah.
It is something I did not think we were going to be able to do this
year. But a couple dates opened up and we were able to arrange Mom
Care while we are gone. This should be fun. Also the 11
th
is Sherri's birthday. A good way to celebrate-at least in my mind.
 |
| Smoke? No Contrail |
We leave around when I think we
should and get to Delilah about the same, around 9am. Sherri gets her
birthday coffee from Starbucks on the way. Besides traveling right
into the sun, we do not encounter any problems going in. We do see
one white truck on the way in. But not a problem-probably a hunter.
We do the normal stuff: weather, scan the area, looking at the log
and white board for fires already spotted.
After checking in, we go searching
for the
Dorst
Prescribed Burn. But we do not see any sign of smoke over
Big
Baldy-the direction Dorst is from us. But over
Grant
Grove, that is another thing. We see a column
of white towering perpendicular to
Park
Ridge. But it does not look like smoke. With
binoculars on, it looks like a cloud, but all the other clouds are
parallel to the ridge. I call
Buck
Rock and Mich answers. She sees it also, off in
the distance, on the other side of the
Great
Western Divide. She says it is a contrail. That
explains the strangeness. But that tail must have been gigantic. Also
Mich does not think that the Dorst Fire has started yet.
 |
| Delilah |
Sierra has sent up a helicopter with
four passengers to examine the Crown Fire. We can heard the blades,
but do not see him. Nor do we see any smoke from this fire. They are
around for about 45-60 minutes and then leave. This is a fire which
has been slowly burning for several weeks in a remote area, through
an already burnt area. Sierra is letting it burn.
 |
| Delilah at dusk |
Evidently they lit the prescribed
burn over by Dorst. We see the smoke, not in back of Big Baldy, but a
bit east of there. We hear on the radio that the General's Highway is
being impacted by smoke. Then we hear there are some spot fires. The
Incident Commander for the fire puts a halt to the firing operations
for today so they can take care of some of the things which are not
working out today.
The rest of the day was pretty
uneventful. We did the regular stuff of looking for smokes and
responding to status checks with both Sequoia and Serria National
Forest.
 |
| Sunset from the road |
Then at 5pm, we closed down. Normally
we would go home, but since we are also up here tomorrow, we get to
stay overnight. This is a pleasure. We go for a little walk-which
includes going down and coming back up into the tower, plus Delilah
is built on a hill, so we do get our exercise in. Sunset is nice. We
see some tracks and wonder what they are-turns out to be fox tracks.
Then when we get up to the top, we notice a vehicle is coming down
the road. So we go down and close the gate-it is too late for
visitors. The sunsets can be spectacular, not to mention the night
sky. But then the city lights of Fresno and Clovis come on and we get
to try to guess where everything is. Pleasant is the quiet, and the
darkness. Almost time for bed.
October 11, 2016
It is Sherri's
birthday today! Happy Birthday wifey!
 |
| Mill Flat Creek Haze |
But
also when I look out, I see Mill
Flat Creek
filled with haze, maybe smoke. Also there is a solid layer of smoke
beyond Big Bald. Maybe this is all part of the prescribed burn at
Dorst. At least I cannot find a separate source for the smoke.
Before going
in-service, I go for a little walk where I meet a woman gathering
wood. She gives me a hair net to cover my face from the little gnats
circling around me. Sherri and I have our oatmeal breakfast and get
ready for the new day. We take down our sleeping bags, extra
clothing, and pee can. Then we take weather and do another scan. At
9:30, we go in-service with both Sierra and Sequoia. Still no idea
where the Mill Falt Creek smoke is coming from.
 |
| Dorst Fire Haze |
 |
| Dorst Fire Smoke |
A
little while later, Fence
Meadow Lookout calls
and we talk about the smoke in Mill Flat Creek. He is wondering if
there was something in the Converse
Basin
or Grant Grove area. We are not seeing anything-no smoke from those
sources. Wondering if this is coming from Dorst. He also said he was
seeing puffs of smoke from the McKinley
Grove
area. What he is seeing may be behind a ridge where we can see.
I talk with Park Ridge to see if they can see where the smoke is
coming from. They do not think it is coming in from the Dorst Fire,
but they do not see a source. Maybe it is some illegal campfires
from hunters? They suggest talking to Division 3 from Hume Lake
District. Which I do. After we locate where the smoke is, Division 3
says that he will send a patrol over to the top of Happy Gap and have
them see something. We do not hear anything more. Also the smoke in
Mill Flat Creek is dissipating. So that is a bit less of a concern.
After doing a
couple of more scans, it is time for lunch. Its the usual, peanut
butter and Nutella. Both Brent and Kathy have encouraged us that it
is good to take lunch breaks outside of the cab, down stairs at the
picnic bench, both of us feel comfortable with eating and cleaning up
in the cab. By the time I finish my sandwich, it is 12:50 and time
for another scan. Nothing but the smokey haze which we have been
seeing all morning.
But
at 12:59pm, our usually serene lookout life changes. We hear Fence
Meadow calling into Sierra. He says he sees smoke at 241 degrees from
him, and about 3 miles away. We immediately figure out where that
is-close to Big Creek by Pine
Flat Reservoir.
We should be able to see it. But Oat
Mountain
is in the way, still we should see something coming over the top.
Nothing! Are we blind? Racing through my mind, Wendy will never
believe me. So I grab my camera to take a picture of what we are
seeing. Between the time I step out the door and round the cab corner
to face northwest-about 8 seconds, there is a large column of smoke.
This is at 1:03pm.
Smoke I say! And
there really is a good puff of smoke right where we have been
looking! So click goes the camera and then we rush to the firefinder.
The idea here is to figure out where the fire is in relationship to
Delilah. Then Sierra dispatch can use our bearing with what Fence
Meadow says and come up with a pretty good idea of the location of
the fire. Of course, Fence Meadow did a good job of pinpointing the
location. Ours is more of a confirmation. We radio in the
confirmation with the bearing and then sit back and listen to the
radio chatter. Our call went in at 1:04, five minutes after the
original call went in.
And there is a
bunch of chatter! It is both exciting, entertaining-in a perverse
way- and instructional. Those folks get onto the fire quickly. The
first report says that the fire is 20 acres. But it is expanding
quickly. Within a few minutes of the initial report, we heard the
first response to the fire. Sirens over the radio and the reports of
the seriousness of this fire started to filter in. In an hour, there
was a report of the fire being 60-75 acres, then two hours later it
had grown to 100. By this time, there was four aircraft in the air.
We would hear the chatter and chart the progress of the fire.
About this time
two things happened, Sierra said that all personnel associated with
Prevention, Detection and Suppression will be on duty till 7pm
instead of the Fall quitting time of 5pm. The other call is from
Marty who will will be volunteering at the lookout tomorrow. He said
he will be staying overnight tonight and be at the tower at 5:30pm.
So our time will be shorter-as volunteers we could go home at 5pm,
but some how we would feel guilty if we did not stay unless we have
relief.
So
we taker off after briefing Marty on what we knew. Then we leave. By
the time we get down to Fresno it is 7:30. With the excitement of
today, we are feeling hungry. So we decide to stop at Casa
Quintero
before going home.
Balch Camp Heliport.
A couple of things, Delilah looks right down onto Balch Camp. So we
were interested in seeing it. From Delilah, I could not make out
what the buildings looked like-it is 7 miles away. But the housing
looks pretty modern, maybe nothing fabulous, but definitely not slum
housing. One of the things we do in the tower is make sure we know
our territory. In going through my list of places on July
5th, I
came across Balch Camp Heliport. I had not seen a Heliport down
there before so we started looking closer, even using Celeste to
assist us. Nothing definite. So we visited the Heliport. It is
across Dinkey Creek and up a ways. It definitely looks like a place
for a helicopter to land. I think it is mostly a place PG&E uses
as there were some insulators laying on some pallets. Could we see
Delilah? A big maybe.
Haas Penstock.
These are the penstocks we learned about last year when the sun hit
them just right. This penstock is maybe 4’ in diameter and only
goes down about 3,000’-only 3,000’-into Black Rock Reservoir.
Not as photogenic as the Patterson penstocks, still impressive
enough.
