San Bernardino's Burning Down

M

munk

Joined
Mar 22, 2002
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I see San Bernardino's burning again. Poor San Berdoo. My old stomping grounds. I've hiked an awful lot of that mountain chain and hate to see it die like that. California would not log, I guess, but the Beetle would, and there's a great Roman Candle on top of Big Bear just waiting to go off. To tell the truth, I'm not sure it would not be better in the long run to let the fire take its course, but I'm not up to date on all the environmentals. A whole forest of dead standing stuff can't be ignored.

It was in San Bernardino I armed myself. It was hiking the Whitewater district, now being burned apparently, where concerns about drug labs and backwoods burials motivated me to a single action Ruger 41 mag.

I changed my life in those mountains. I hate to see them scarred.

In a world going mad I wonder why San Bernardino still get's its share? We have WW3 in the Middle East brewing, a dictator in South America cutting off oil to the US, and yet SB still grabs a headline.

The Sawtooth fire they are calling the big one, I think, is burning portions of Morongo basin and Yucca valley. I was amused by a news report to read of a 2.5 acre 'ranch' owner who raised Meercats.


That area is crammed with 2 to 15 acre 'Ranchettes' . 150 homes burned so far.


Still, an awful lot of good was in those high hills, San Gorgonio getting to 11,500' in elevation, and it is a shame to see suffereing on this scale. Especially in the same mountains I learned to face myself, and Jeff Cooper started the 'modern' pistol technique.


munk
 
I've never heard of a meercat farm. What the hell do you do with meercats? Do they make good pets? Can they sing like in the movie?
 
aproy1101 said:
I've never heard of a meercat farm. What the hell do you do with meercats? Do they make good pets? Can they sing like in the movie?
Click to expand...

As I used to tell my daughter "I understand they're delicious."
 
munk said:
California would not log, I guess, but the Beetle would, and there's a great Roman Candle on top of Big Bear just waiting to go off. To tell the truth, I'm not sure it would not be better in the long run to let the fire take its course, but I'm not up to date on all the environmentals.
Click to expand...

The other night I saw something on TV (Discovery, Science Channel - can't remember) where a guy was comparing heat/rainfall records to forest fire frequency/size versus combustible load as cause. The upshot was dry weather causes the fires regardless of available load on the ground and a managed forest will burn just as fast and just as far as one with alot of dead timber. I always thought "no-cut" fanatasicm was behind all these recent burns, but maybe not.
 
That is a fascinating, 'aside', Cliff, and I thank you.

Born to burn, eh?



munk
 
Its fire season around here too. The water bombers have been flying by again. Hot and dry, makes us all nervous as the woods are so dry that it doesn't really burn, it explodes! When its dry and windy I remain relaxed until there is that burning brush smell in the air, then its all eyes on the sky and ears on the radio to find out where the fire is. Fire smoke can come from afar or it could be from down the road. Not much one can do anyways, when it comes it comes and then deal with it. 1) pack up all the valuables, and help out at the fireline if it comes down to it. 2) If it gets real bad, kiss the house good bye, admit defeat and get out. Forest fires really suck.
 
In the small Montana town where I live many of the able bodied, and many more not so able, are volunteer fire-fighters. I'd feel better about it if my back wasn't so messed up, but I figure it's worth the risk. The land around here is dry, and last week several acres were scorched when a spark from a haybaler grew into flame.


munk
 
It's interesting all those fires.

Here it has to be really dry for stuff to burn, and 90% of the time it's just the leaf litter that burns off. A lot of the deadfalls don't even catch. I guess not as many pines is one thing, so without that turpentiney thing going on you don't get total combustion.

On the other hand a lot of times when stuff burns it damages the trees and they end up dying or rotting. A lot of the old trees that have come down up in my woods are hollow from fire damage back in the day.
 
Hm, the thread isn't about the fire. Why'd you need the .41, munk? :confused:

I know something about facing myself as well. Hope it wasn't a bad trip up there. A wild place, a mountain is a good setting for a life-changing decision.


Mike
 
Ad Astra; amongst our fellow men there are many wild animals and I was in danger of my life, being as far back into the woods and rocks as I was. I'd never carried a weapon before, but after listening to experienced persons cautioning me to carry a weapon, I followed through and did exactly that.

Those hills have magic. Lots of good stuff there.



munk
 
Been going about a week in a pretty remote area, but you can see the towering smoke cloud to the east of the South Bay. Air quality on the valley floor ain't so good. It is now threatening Henry Coe Park. Very little property damage and no injuries so far.
Just part of living in California during the dry season.
 
From what I understand the ndns back in the old one's day did spot burning everywhere all over the continent so if a wildfire did happen to catch from lighning the overall results wouldn't be as bad. Also from what I've been told and have read when the understory is kept reasonably clear the fires never get so big as to burn the upper story of the trees and since the fire runs through faster the trees suffer less damage.
I think it was the same year I moved to Banning that Mt. San Jacinto caught fire and burned much of the northern slope.
There's something about a fire like that that forms a real heavy knot in the pit of my stomach and I want to cry.

Some folks got together a few years back and formed the "Tall Grass Prairie" here in the northern part of the Oklahoma.
The idea was to turn the land back into the pristine prairie it once was. They were laughed at and criticized but they kept on buying up land until there was enough to make a go of it.
A few buffalo were bought, a few were donated for the good cause and now there is a fair sized herd of buffalo roaming a prairie as they once did.
Every year a part of the Tall Grass Prairie Conserve is burned off just like in the old days.
Some of the very old native tall grasses seeds have to undergo a lot of heat in order to germinate and the ash from the burning helps to fertilize the ground so the newly seeded grasses can grow well.
The Tall Grass Prairie Conserve has done much, much, better than expected and there have been some old, old, grasses reappear after all this time as well as some flowers that were thought to be extinct like the grasses!!!! :thumbup: :D :cool:
One of them I was told is what is known as the Prairie Orchid, I understand it is sort of a lily like flower that looks like an orchid and it is supposed to be very beautiful...

I've just been sorta waiting to see if someone thinks the prairie has grown back enough to its native state so that a sod house can be built once again.
I'd like to see that some day.:cool: :D
 
Some folks got together a few years back and formed the "Tall Grass Prairie" here in the northern part of the Oklahoma.
The idea was to turn the land back into the pristine prairie it once was. They were laughed at and criticized but they kept on buying up land until there was enough to make a go of it.
A few buffalo were bought, a few were donated for the good cause and now there is a fair sized herd of buffalo roaming a prairie as they once did.
Every year a part of the Tall Grass Prairie Conserve is burned off just like in the old days.
Some of the very old native tall grasses seeds have to undergo a lot of heat in order to germinate and the ash from the burning helps to fertilize the ground so the newly seeded grasses can grow well.
The Tall Grass Prairie Conserve has done much, much, better than expected and there have been some old, old, grasses reappear after all this time as well as some flowers that were thought to be extinct like the grasses!!!!
One of them I was told is what is known as the Prairie Orchid, I understand it is sort of a lily like flower that looks like an orchid and it is supposed to be very beautiful...
Click to expand...

I love to hear things like this!! Thanks for pointing that out:)
 
An occasional burn also helps keep fleas and ticks down, I have seen deer roll in the ashes and was told it helps remove ticks from there skin.
Just some more useless triva.

Dick
 
What Yvsa said. Look at the forest and the climate, and how it changes during the year. Observe how the lightning is more frequent when conditions are dry. Imagine how things would work without human intervention.

Part of the "programming" of the forest involves the occasional fire. It quickly reduces dead and dying plants to fertilizer. It forces animal migrations. It gives seedlings a better chance of taking root. (Hell, some trees won't even drop seeds unless a fire's been through recently -- what does that tell you?) It essentially empties the forest's garbage bin. As horrific as the aftermath looks, give it a decade or two and it's looking beautiful again. A decade or two is nothing in terms of the lifespan of a forest. It's a blink of an eye. The trees don't mind and the deer don't mind. It's just us humans that get bent out of shape over it. ;)

The forests will burn and the forests will grow back. The mistake here is building in such areas and expecting that this cycle will somehow stop all of a sudden. It won't.
 
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Well, those clouds must think they're in Ohio, cause they're spewing water like firehoses and fireing off mortor barrages. :eek: Sounds like The Late Unplesantness Between the States out there. Windows, hell, doors are shaking and I may have wet myself when there was one real close as I returned to the relative safety of the house from rolling up the car and truck windows.
 
Fires out west, floods in New England, and meanwhile down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the king. ;) :D
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Sarge
 
I'm no ecology major or any sort of forest biologist, but I understand that fires are a natural part of a forest's rejuvenation. Things get dead, dry, and clogged up, so it burns. That's a natural thing, if I'm not mistaken. Isn't it only a problem because people and property are in the way?

Chris
 
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