The GeekHiker

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve driven up Highway 2 into the Angeles National Forest over the years.  So many that I suppose I could probably drive it in my sleep, it seems I know the twists and turns of the road so well.

Don’t worry, though, I won’t.  The drop-offs on the side of the road are a bit steep, sometimes dropping 1,000 feet down a 60 degree slope.

At the Red Box trailhead, the Mt. Wilson Road splits off to the southeast.  Five miles up that road sit a massive array of transmitters, cellphone towers, LAX ATC equipment and, at road’s end, the historic Mt. Wilson Observatory.  Every time I passed the turnoff, over many years, I thought to myself “I should go out there and tour the Observatory.”

A couple of weeks ago, I did.

I put the cooler in the car, picked up a sandwich at 7-11 (those market fresh ones are actually pretty good), and headed to the top.  My plan was to do a short hike, break for lunch, then take the Observatory tour.

Trail near the telescope

The hike didn’t go so well.  Turns out the peak I was going to bag had been closed off and replaced by a cell phone transmitter array, the road/trail blocked by a chain-link gate.

That’s what I get for picking a trail in an old hiking guide, I suppose.

So I trudged back uphill to the truck, sat in the bed, and ate lunch while reading my book.  Then I took the tour, which was a mixed bag.  The facilities were fascinating.  The tour guide… well, let’s just say he spoke, um, at length.

Exterior of the 100-inch telescope

The massive 100-inch telescope

Then I headed home.  Not the most exciting day, not really worth blogging, and hence the reason that I didn’t.

But I bring it up now because I spent last weekend watching the massive Station Fire eat its way through the forest, heading towards Mt. Wilson and threatening the facilities there.

And it’s just weird to think that I was up there on a quiet day just the weekend before.  Seeing the fire creep closer, it’s hard not to wonder if the facility might go despite the firefighters best efforts, and to wonder “geez, what if I was on the actual very last tour?”

The telescopes themselves are probably safe, being pretty much all metal and built to withstand some fires.  A lot of the outbuildings though, and especially the homes of those that live there, would not.

The Station Fire has burned, as of this writing, 134 164 square miles.  Not acres, mind you, as fires are often measured.  Square miles. It’s threatening not just the Observatory, but communities on the south, west, and north, heading towards the 14 freeway.  On the maps, it looks like a good quarter of the forest has been burned through.

The L.A. Times has been keeping an updated map of the fire, and the scale is amazing.

I’ve never seen a fire quite like this.  Usually fires are driven by high winds, but winds are light or non-existent right now.  So instead of the fire burning in a certain direction, it’s simply spread in all directions across the forest.

And without winds, the fire’s massive plume of smoke has risen 20,000 feet into the sky, looking for all the world like giant summertime thunderheads.  I didn’t manage to get any pictures, though you can find those on the L.A. Times website as well.  (If anyone in LA has one that I could use here, full credit given, I would greatly appreciate.)

A book I have on Fire in California has a fascinating section explaining the different levels of fighting fires.  It’s not as simple as just putting water on it.  Put in terms of flame length (defined as “the average maximum length along the axis of a flame; directly related to fire intensity”), the breakdown goes like this:

0-4 Feet of flame length – Hand crews can work to build a fire line in front of the fire; the fire burns to the line and is extinguished due to lack of fuel

4-8 Feet of flame length – Heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, are the only safe way to build a fire line

8-11 feet of flame length – Requires helicopters and planes to drop water or retardant to slow the spread of the fire

Over 11 feet of flame length – No fire suppression is effective.  The amount of energy being released is so great that no amount of water or retardant has any measurable effect.

Fire crews have been reporting flame lengths of over 100 feet with this fire.

(And if you ever hear anyone say “why can’t they just pour water on it?”, now you know why.)

It’ll be days before the fire is finally put out (as of tonight the estimate is September 15th).  Homes have been lost.  And, worse, lives, as two firefighters perished when their vehicle rolled off a road.

The cause is still under investigation; rumor has it that it might have been arson.  Disturbing, to say the least.

As for the forest itself, as sad as I am to see the damage, I think I’ve grown more at ease with the fact that this is how these forests work.  Most of the brush up there hadn’t burned in over forty years, and some of it hasn’t burned in 100. If anything, this fire was overdue and not wholly unexpected.

I hear people talking as well about the wildlife losses, but wildlife has been around fires for thousands of years and have adapted pretty well.  In the ’88 Yellowstone blazes, for example, 345 elk perished.  Not a small number, to be sure, but from a resident population of 40,000 it wasn’t enough to have too much of an effect on the health of the herd.

If anything it is we who suffer more.  We who build permanent structures in areas that have fires, and sometimes those structures are lost.

Those losses are sad as well.  Some people think that it’s just “rich folk” who have cabins up there, but often the properties are small grandfathered cabins, not expensive mansions.  And, whatever the case, it’s someone’s home.

As I said, though, the forest itself is not something that I find myself worrying about too much.  Yes, it will look like the moon for a while.  Yes some favorite spots of mine have burned.  Yes, some trails on the hikes page will be closed for a good long time.  The trees in the photo at the top of this page are most likely blackened stumps now.

Still, I remember when the Secret Spot burned a couple of years ago.  (For those unfamiliar, read this post.)

And, as these things do, it came back.  The Angeles will as well.