The Slide Fire

I went up today near the Bowen Ranch area to get a look at how the Slide and Grass Valley fires were doing. I followed the powerline Rd up to the top of the mountain about a mile west of the Bowen Ranch. It provide a birds eye perch from which to see the progress of these fires. Funny thing, during the time I was there checking out the fires, I saw two sets of white ( with black tipped wings ) Pelicans flying around, trying to find thier way around the big fire clouds. They would work thier way north towards Round Mountain ( east of the Bowen Ranch ), looking like they were trying to head out towards Lucerne valley and the desert in general, then when they came out from behind Round Mountain, they would run into the strong winds, and would have to turn around and retreat back over the Deep Creek Canyon area. They went back and forth about three times. One set of Pelicans flew right near my truck. The slide fire was really burning furiously today. I watched it come west from the Green valley Lake area down into the Deep Creek Canyon, then it crossed it in a huge fire storm. Fires came up from behind a big long ridge north of Running springs, and when it reached the top, looking through my 10x50 binoculars, it looked like Armegedon in places. The flames were so big my jaw just dropped! The flames were probably a good ten miles away from me, and how high they shot in the sky was just mindboggling. I watched the fire for some hours. From its orgin off to the east, at the edge of the Butler II fire from about a month and a half ago, there was a long fire line heading west all the way to some point west, and north of Running Springs. The fire was stalled moving north, from stiff winds pushing it back on a ridge top, and also because it had reached the burn zone of the 1999 Willow Fire. On its west extent it had reached the burn zone of the 2003 Old Fire. The Old Fire burnt a large swath from the San Bernardino side of the mountains, all the way across the mountians on the east side of Lake Arrowhead, down through Hook Creek Canyon, then on as far as Squints Ranch. That swath really put a stop to this fires movement west when it encountered that burn area. When looking at the vast area of the San Bernardino Mountains that can be see from my vantage point today, most of the area you see, after today, has been burnt in this fire, and past fires. Those higher forest areas with the big trees won't ever look the same in our lifetimes. These fires are burning up such magnificent mountains areas up there. If the winds switch direction, this fire could begin advancing northerly, and possibly even towards DCHS, but it will be burning in previous burn areas where the vegetation is very small in size compared to whats burning currently in this fire. I put 5 photos from today's trip at this flickr website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35054303@N00/?saved=1

The photos are the first five, two ( must see ) showing the volcano like fire cloud ( taken around 1PM ) of the slide fire about a half hour after it had crossed the Deep Creek Canyon, another photo showing a portion of the still burning Grass Valley fire, one photo showing a view from the mountains down to the high desert, and one showing my pooch Tema, shaking her headed back and forth in the wind :-)