wildfire season already

[h2oman]

Yesterday afternoon I went down to the Oregon/California border to do some evening photography. On the way down I saw a plume of smoke from somewhere northeast of Mount Shasta, and there was smoke from another fire off to the east. Woke up this morning to the smell of smoke and, sure enough, we've got some here in the Klamath Basin. I was hoping we could at least get through May, maybe even June, without smoke. :(

[Heroique]

Not an encouraging sign. I think we're in for another tragic summer-autumn fire season, the new normal. At least the Pacific Northwest has a healthy snowpack in the Cascades. East of Seattle, the mountains have about 140% of normal in many places. It's so deep, I won't even be able to travel much above 5,000 feet on FS roads until well after Memorial Day. Hope the inevitable forest fires haven't ignited by then.

For those who might be curious, here's what a typical Cascade fire looks like:

215580

[Drew Wiley]

They're particularly worried about the huge still unburned area between Shasta and the Siskiyou, which includes the Trinity Alps. What makes that area even worse is that there is an abundance of illegal pot farms back in there as potential accidental ignition sources. Brush fires have already begun in southern Calif. I'm still planning on a southern Sierra backpack simply because so much of the lower country there has already burned over the past ten years, so the risk for another massive fire has diminished in that region to an extent. But it doesn't take much to bring in bad smoke from elsewhere, so I'm keeping open a number for alternative destinations, including the Northwest. I know what fires look like. The infamous one last autumn that sent smoke clear across the continent, even as far as Europe, was in the canyon which was my former living room view. It created a thermal cloud 80,000 feet high. No ground fire fighting equipment could operate even within ten miles of a fire like that. And the only reason there was so little loss of life (only two, both heart attacks, one a family friend) was that the terrain is rugged that it's mostly uninhabited.

The young family who bought my property were camping at the end of the road at that time, and it took almost a week for a big military rescue helicopter to get in there while the only road was cut off. One of them had to be hospitalized for smoke issues; the others were in a shelter while the whole area was evacuated and sealed off; and somewhere in that process, they all got covid, one with serious long-term complications. But fire potential does look ominous again for California and much of the West; the climate shift is doing its thing, and people are only slowly waking up to that solemn fact when it's already too late in certain respects.

[Heroique]

…I'm keeping open a number for alternative destinations, including the Northwest.

Time to get you back to the Olympics!

Though fires are expected there too, the kind that burn and smolder forever under the rich, thick forest floors.

Especially in the rain forests under the Big Leaf Maples.

[Alan Klein]

Where I moved to here in Central New Jersey, the Forest Fire Service burns off a lot of areas off of roads and in generally residential areas. I got out to photograph them in Tmax 400 film (sorry, it was 35mm not large format. I didn't have my 4x5 at the time but it should be interesting to try shooting it again in 4x5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2pUj1MPQj0

[Vaughn]

Fun images!

Richard did some great work with 8x10 and fire...
Some examples....

https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/richard-misrach/
http://www.kicken-gallery.com/artists/richard-misrach

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, I saw the 30X40 prints of those back when they were first all displayed together at the local museum, including that classic "burning bush" one. Friends of mine printed them for him. A different kind of fire. In the kind of forest fires I knew, you couldn't run fast enough to survive, let alone set up an 8X10. Trees would outright explode at kindling temperature a quarter mile ahead of the fire line. I don't imagine Misrach's mahogany Dorff would have fared any better under those conditions, much less him. I have that little Desert Cantos book, but the burning bush shot carries a lot more impact significantly enlarged; not all his images do - some in that series are rather poorly focused.

But back to fire conditions this year. I just checked the Caltrans updates, which came with pictures. They had already gotten plows up to Sonora Pass by the beginning of April, and there was only four feet of snow at the top. Egad! Bare ground is already apparent in patches around Sardine Meadow a bit below. But Sonora Pass won't be official open until Ebbets Pass is. Monitor Pass is already open. Locally, less rain mean lower grass on ranchlands, so a bit easier to control if something breaks out; and local burbs are finally beginning to do what is absolutely essential - enforce draconian fines on anyone who do not clear a legal perimeter. Select control burns have already transpired along roadways or brush piles when it was damper and safe to do so, and only by officially trained personnel with fire trucks standing ready nearby.

[Keith Pitman]

We had a 45 acre man-caused fire near here last weekend. Luckily they caught it in time. They also arrested a guy who was involved.

[Drew Wiley]

As a teenager, I survived an arson forest fire over 400,000 acres in size. Many of my classmates were homeless afterwards. Things were classified a little differently back then, according to single points of ignition. But it turns out the same person, after he was arrested right in the act of yet another arson incident, had deliberately set off the first fire at several points in the hope they would merge - and they did. An older couple died in that fire, and afterwards a State law was put into effect allowing the death penalty for any deliberate act of arson in which someone dies. I don't know if anyone has ever actually been executed for that yet.

We had one of those kind of wackos running around the back roads here last year. But by still classifying one string as 13 different fires, set at multiple points along the way, instead of one cumulative fire, this allowed them to charge him with 13 counts of arson, assuring that he will be locked up for a long long time. An even worse case occurred down near Big Sur where a drug dealer set fire to his cabin and adjacent woodlands to destroy evidence. That burned about 40,000 acres of scenic land and seriously impacted rare California condor nests.

[Vaughn]

You are right -- Richard's work would only be a touch more intense than Alan's project...and Richard had a lot more room to work with than Alan had. Using a 4x5 would change Alan's approach to the subject -- much more planning would be needed and changing the idea of what should/needs to be in focus. It would be a challenging project.

I have to admit that when jumping off a helicopter that was balancing on one skid on a ridge top in the middle of the wilderness to control a 7-acre fire (with a couple other firefighters), photographing was the last thing on my mind...and I don't think the heat would have been that good for the film. That particular fire singed the beard a little...

[Drew Wiley]

I never fought fires professionally. Back then, every able body was expected to pitch in some manner. That was called survival, just like community controls burns themselves, before those got outlawed due to air quality issues. But we had a boarder who carried a camera with him on the helicopters which dropped him onto the fire line. All his shots I ever saw were from the air, so he probably left the camera behind on the chopper. The work on the ground was too intense anyway for any kind of distracting effort.

I'm personally sensitized to forest fire smoke after all I've been through, so am not likely to try any journalistic approach to photographing them. I go back afterwards for the incredible sheens, hues, and patterns, and yes, the sad and surrealistic of what fires do too. It's strange seeing the smoking remains of the tiny country store right uphill from where I grew up shown on newscasts all over the world; but that was one of the few accessible points they'd allow the press or civic officials (including the Governor and current Vice President) even a brief look. Everything past that is Armageddon. But the vegetation is genetically engineered to start back up after fire. Some species like Sugar Pine are not likely to do well, however, due to significant climate warming with its ecosystem desiccation.

[Darren Kruger]

The SF Chronicle had a story today about a sequoia in Sequoia National Park that is still smoking from last year's fire. https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Giant-sequoia-tree-in-Sequoia-National-Park-still-16153658.php

-Darren

[Alan Klein]

You are right -- Richard's work would only be a touch more intense than Alan's project...and Richard had a lot more room to work with than Alan had. Using a 4x5 would change Alan's approach to the subject -- much more planning would be needed and changing the idea of what should/needs to be in focus. It would be a challenging project.

I have to admit that when jumping off a helicopter that was balancing on one skid on a ridge top in the middle of the wilderness to control a 7-acre fire (with a couple other firefighters), photographing was the last thing on my mind...and I don't think the heat would have been that good for the film. That particular fire singed the beard a little...

My 35mm shots were off the cuff. I just happened to be in the area scoping out some other pictures. The Firest Fire service was there getting ready so I grabbed my 35mm and shot away. If I did shoot 4x5, I would request their cooperation in advance, if they would give it so I could do a complete essay including their fire house and personal shots. They didn't bother me while I was shooting the 35mm and I said nothing to them as I walked around just letting them do their work.

[Drew Wiley]

Your camera would have melted into a ball around our forest fires here, or more likely, been vaporized. The fire crews bulldoze breaks, clear brush, and sometimes set backfires several miles from the actual front. We had fire tornadoes ripping large trees right out of ground and burning them mid-air. By the time press photographers are allowed back in, if its an accessible area at all, it's just during the smoldering mop-up phase after the main event. A few do get to shoot near fire trucks. But a lot of this occurs where fire trucks simply can't go, and sometime planes and helicopters can't even fly due to visibility issues. You're talking about events far more powerful than a hydrogen bomb (but thankfully, not radioactive). It really gets crazy when these new style mega-fires hit the suburban interface, and things like propane tanks and gas lines explode, plastic structures and aluminum vaporize, Burger Kings completely burn down and their bacterial burgers finally get sterilized. That is some really nasty smoke.

[Vaughn]

Fighting a fire on a ridge in the wilds, we wwere running out of water and too much smoke for copters to fly. Eventually one could come on out and they pushed a cubetainer (5gal) out of the copter and continued on their way. But they pushed out the wrong cubetainer. Instead of 5 gallons of water, it contained a large, perfectly ripe crenshaw mellon...better than water! The copter obvious was on its way to the main fire camp in the wilderness and those crews missed out on mellon!

We eventually got ferried back to the main camp by the time the main fire was fairly well controlled and I was patrolling around the fireline all night to make sure the fire did not jump the line. That was when a camera would have been great. Semi-boring with incredible visuals of trees occasionally exploding below all night.

[tgtaylor]

Back during the Vietnam War I served with the 1st Air Cavalry Division and we did so many air assaults that we were awarded the Air Medal. You supposed to get a oak leaf cluster for each 25 missions but we (ordinary infantrymen) never got any oak leafs – apparently the count was kept only for the senior officers because I've only seen battalion majors and colonels with oak leafs and I had made as many as 3 air assaults in one day! The choppers would ever land or even hover. As the “jumping off” point was reached I would get up off the floor and hop out on the skids holding on the the chopper with one hand so that I wouldn't fall off. Fast forward to about 10 years ago I was working near the Pleasanton Fair grounds. After sitting all morning in an office I usually spend my1 hour lunch breaks walking and one day they had a “Stand Down” for homeless vets at the fair grounds so I walked over there to check it out. They had a vintage Huey from the war there and it appeared incredibly small from what I remembered. I couldn't see how a squad of us got into it. Of course I was decades older and a few pounds heaver but still...

Logging oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico in good weather we would put our tools on a crew boat for transport and take a helicopter to the rig – about 100 miles out in the Gulf. Usually the rig personnel just started pulling the pipe out of the from the hole and that meant that we could get something to eat from the Galley and some sleep before being awakened that our tools have arrived and the pipe was out of the hole. Once started we couldn't stop until the job was done because with the drilling pipe out of the hole no drilling was going on. But during bad weather – weather that prevented the helicopter from flying - we went along with the tools on the crew boat – about a 100 foot vessel. I can take the swaying to and fro in rough seas feeling nauseous but as soon as the boat makes that first jump out of the water on the large swells I make a bee line for the head where I remain for the duration holding on to the sink with both hands and dry heaving. This went on for hours, like 10 or more, until the rig was reached at which time the Captain would cut the motors and try to maneuver under a sling that was dropped by a crane operator on the rig. I could tell by the sound of the motors where the position of the sling was over the deck. At the precise moment I would run from the head and out onto the deck would get a bead on the sling swinging latterly across the back of the boat and, again at the precise moment, run and grab a hold of it and wrap it around both arms so that I wouldn't fall into the Gulf. That was the go single for everyone else. As soon as I was on that sling the sickness would pass.

Thomas

[Vaughn]

No thank you (but thank you for your time in the service)...my few copters rides were enough, but interesting as we were flying over wilderness I was usually covering on foot or horseback, and got to see some wet areas I did not know about, etc.

Roughest seas I have been on was crossing the Cook Straight, NZ, in 1975...as a semi-drunk passenger, so not quite the same!

Edit. My dad went to the US Merchant Marine Academy ('42-'44) and then went into the Navy ('44-'48). As a cadet and later as an engineering officer he was in NZ a couple times, but never interested in sailing. I was surprised by a comment he made decades ago when in one of the World Cup races, a sailboat decided to cut through the Cook Straight..."That is a mistake." Turned out it was a time-loser for the boat. Some of the roughest seas around. They have almost lost a ferry or two between the islands.

[Drew Wiley]

An older fellow who had once been head photographer for the US Navy, and wanted to me to partner in his studio back East, had been shot down three times in choppers in Vietnam while on documentary assignment, and in two of those instances he was the only survivor of the crash, and remarkably himself unhurt each time. But safely back home, he shattered his ankle and twisted his leg much like a ski accident, requiring surgery and multiple pins, during a routine handball game. Something similar once happened to me - as a teenager I had just returned from free-climbing 22 serial running waterfalls that day - none over 50 ft tall, but all potentially fatal - and then broke an arm and got a big scalp cut tripping over a friend in an evening basketball game. As they say, When your number is up, it's up.

[Drew Wiley]

Update. We're now official in red flag conditions comparable to October - first time ever, by a country mile. Several spot fires have already broken out, one ironically caused by a man using his riding mower to get his field in compliance with fire compliance regulations. All it takes is a mower blade hitting a rock and causing a spark, or some chaff getting into a belt and pulley and friction igniting there. It will take awhile before burb dwellers realize that red flag conditions are too late to be mowing.

[Heroique]

Several spot fires have already broken out, one ironically caused by a man using his riding mower to get his field in compliance with fire compliance regulations.

I hope it remained a small field fire and he learned a permanent lesson.

[Tin Can]

Somehow I missed this post

Yes, Thank you

Our generation all lost family and friends

RIP


Back during the Vietnam War I served with the 1st Air Cavalry Division and we did so many air assaults that we were awarded the Air Medal. You supposed to get a oak leaf cluster for each 25 missions but we (ordinary infantrymen) never got any oak leafs – apparently the count was kept only for the senior officers because I've only seen battalion majors and colonels with oak leafs and I had made as many as 3 air assaults in one day! The choppers would ever land or even hover. As the “jumping off” point was reached I would get up off the floor and hop out on the skids holding on the the chopper with one hand so that I wouldn't fall off. Fast forward to about 10 years ago I was working near the Pleasanton Fair grounds. After sitting all morning in an office I usually spend my1 hour lunch breaks walking and one day they had a “Stand Down” for homeless vets at the fair grounds so I walked over there to check it out. They had a vintage Huey from the war there and it appeared incredibly small from what I remembered. I couldn't see how a squad of us got into it. Of course I was decades older and a few pounds heaver but still...

Logging oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico in good weather we would put our tools on a crew boat for transport and take a helicopter to the rig – about 100 miles out in the Gulf. Usually the rig personnel just started pulling the pipe out of the from the hole and that meant that we could get something to eat from the Galley and some sleep before being awakened that our tools have arrived and the pipe was out of the hole. Once started we couldn't stop until the job was done because with the drilling pipe out of the hole no drilling was going on. But during bad weather – weather that prevented the helicopter from flying - we went along with the tools on the crew boat – about a 100 foot vessel. I can take the swaying to and fro in rough seas feeling nauseous but as soon as the boat makes that first jump out of the water on the large swells I make a bee line for the head where I remain for the duration holding on to the sink with both hands and dry heaving. This went on for hours, like 10 or more, until the rig was reached at which time the Captain would cut the motors and try to maneuver under a sling that was dropped by a crane operator on the rig. I could tell by the sound of the motors where the position of the sling was over the deck. At the precise moment I would run from the head and out onto the deck would get a bead on the sling swinging latterly across the back of the boat and, again at the precise moment, run and grab a hold of it and wrap it around both arms so that I wouldn't fall into the Gulf. That was the go single for everyone else. As soon as I was on that sling the sickness would pass.

Thomas

[Heroique]

Update. We're now official in red flag conditions comparable to October - first time ever, by a country mile.

May 9, 2021: Nothing significant to report in the forests of Washington state.

The calm before the fire storm, I fear.

"Before lighting any fire, please check with local authorities first," our nervous DNR is pleading.

[Alan Klein]

We're lucky in the East. We usually have loads of rain and much fewer forest fires. I think the last time we had an official drought in New York was back in the 1960's. They stopped serving water with your meals at restaurants unless you asked for it. I think that's when they started requiring low-flow restrictors on showerheads and reduced gallons for toilets. They've been getting stuffed up ever since.
NYS Forest fires history. https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/42438.html

[Drew Wiley]

On a extended quickie loop trip necessary to sign some documents I visited "ground zero" of the monstrous Creek Fire last summer, and even camped there last night. From a distance everything looks like an all-out nuclear war had been there. But up close, there is already a stunning variety of wildflowers, exceptionally lush grass sprouting out, ferns, plus abundant wildlife - the creeks full of several frog species, more kinds of birds than usual, even young curious gray squirrels, so their nests somehow survived, deer, and not doubt mtn lions behind them. The dead pines and manzanita were taken out so fast that meadows with ancient oaks appear untouched, even though the whole perimeter is ash, as if the fire had no interest in other fuels. Streams and waterfalls are still flowing well, and a decent snowpack is visible on the Ritter Range in the distance. It's a stunning contrast to the Central Valley below, where the conditions are already visibly and officially drier than anything on record for this time of year.

Very long day today returning back, but I got up around 5:00 AM before the sun rose over the peaks, when all the photographic color was at still its best.

Alan - all bets are off once the polar ice cap melts. That could open a pandora's box far worse than what we've got now. All the ocean and atmospheric currents will somehow be seriously be affected, with the potential for drastic demographic shifts as water and agriculture itself shifts. But I can't solve that. Keeping my cats happily fed tonite is about as far as my pay grade goes.

[h2oman]

I was perhaps a bit hysterical with my original post - things seem to have gotten under control quickly.

I've been out to Lava Beds National Monument, much of which burned last summer, and I have the same report as Drew. A month ago it was just scorched earth, now there are small green things growing almost everywhere.

[Drew Wiley]

There are a lot of pioneering species, both animal and plant, eager to take advantage of more open conditions. Those dense dead pines were largely a monoculture which sprouted up after the intense logging of the 1880's and then 1950's through 60's. Prior to that, both natural lightning fires and annual burns started by Indians for sake of open meadows and more game like deer was involved for probably millennia. Now the fires burn too hot, with too much fuel. But ironically, the only thing that can stop the terrible pine beetle infestations is catastrophic fire itself. In some situations, the cycle of new growth starts up fairly quickly. In other areas, you get deeply sterilized soil and mudslides which make it hard for colonizing species, along with a much drier ecosystem devoid of effective water retention. A lot depends on the specific geology as well as the intensity of the fire. In the southern Sierra, there are many granite outcrops and bare peaks which provide islands amidst the firestorm, especially above 7000 ft.

But when massive fires reach developed areas, they turn into an entirely different kind of animal with artificial fuels like plastics, aluminum, and propane tanks. The couple I sold my mountain property to owns the propane business for a big chunk of the foothills and resort areas above. They were obviously concerned that many of their customers were displaced. But now they are busier than ever installing new tanks and lines. Its probably the best time to move back into those woods, since the most of the dangerous variety of fire fuel brush is going to be gone for the next 40 yrs until it's mature and ripe for fire again. But getting insurance policies renewed won't be easy.

I'll visit again next Spring when I have time to use some heavy artillery LF gear. The spring bloom amidst fresh ash nutrients will probably be even more intense then. I'm also eager for them to reopen trails in the burn area above the beach over here at Pt Reyes, which go insane with flowers for the first five or so years after a fire, especially purple fireweed. Just want to see it. Getting the right shot is optional. Have plenty of color chromes and negs to print from already. I'm way more interested in complex pattern plays and sophisticated hue interactions than anything picture-bookish or postcardy. Multicolored ash and clay in the same scene often provides the neutral relief from saturated colors necessary for a complex dance of the compositional elements.