Grand Prix Fire

click photo to enlarge		 First, I know many people have told me they are looking forward to my pictures of the fire. Well, we were out of town the night it got bad by us so I am afraid I am going to disappoint you. But I will provide links to pictures at the bottom. We were driving home on Sunday Oct. 26th and from 40 miles away this is what we saw. This fire, fueled by the Santa Ana winds burned 15 miles overnight. The smoke and ash was so thick in the middle of the day it looked like evening. The photos below show just how heavy the smoke was.

click photo to enlarge
click photo to enlarge

click photo to enlarge		 On Monday we drove up to the end of our street. 1-1/2 miles north, towards the mountains, this is what we saw. There was still smoke rising from the ashes. The fire, as it burned through an area, would destroy one house and leave the one next to it intact. This scene is very typical. If there was any brickwork it would be intact. Everything else would be destroyed.

So far in Southern California, as of Saturday morning November 1, there are 750,000 acres burned, over 3,000 homes destroyed and 20 people dead. There are still at least 6 different fires burning. The weather has changed dramatically for the firefighters benefit. We actually had some rain last night. The first in about 6 months and it has gotten cool.

click photo to enlarge		 The fire behind us was named the Grand Prix fire because it started near Grand Prix road. It burned an area 40 miles long. On the west it ran into an area that burned last year and stopped moving in that direction. To the east it merged with the Old fire name such because it started near the Old Waterman Canyon road. Moving east the old fire is 40 miles long and still moving east towards the city of Big Bear. The Grand Prix fire is still burning north.

Everyone living up in the San Bernardino mountains has been evacuated. There are of course a few who stayed behind.


click photo to enlarge		 Among a bunch of homes that burned near us was on that didn't and this sign was displayed. The firefighters have been working right in the middle of these terrible firestorms. They have been living on 2 to 4 hours sleep a day if they get that much. I don't understand what motivates these people but the coverage on TV of what they do is incredible. They are real live heroes that put their lives on the line for us.

Grand Prix fire information
Photos of the Old fire
The San Bernardino Mountains is one of our favorite places to play close by. We go driving the mountains roads, hiking the forest and work in the fire tower. It is our volunteer work for the forest service that has helped me gain an understanding of just what caused the terrible situation in the mountains. There are so many dead trees up there this had to happen. Since man intervened and allowed the trees to get to an unnatural density the trees were fighting for scarce water which weakened them. The weakened trees could not fend off the bark beetles and in many areas more then half succumbed and died.

So, you had an unnatural amount of pine trees per acre with more then half of them dead. Nature decided it was time to thin the forest. Even if this turns out to be arson a fire would have been started at some point by a different means.

I don't normally get on my soapbox but I hope we learned something from this awful tragedy and don't go rebuilding just they was it was or it will happen again in the future.