Fire Revegetation

Not far from us we had a wildfire this past summer in a sagebrush habitat. You can see some photos of the fire on my friend Jenny's blog. I was going past the other day and decided to stop and take a closer look at what's coming up a couple months after the fire.

The raven had a high vantage point as he looked out over the charred landscape. It was clear that a lot of green was making an appearance.

Bunchgrasses were coming up from the roots. Apparently the fire was fast enough that it left some of the roots intact.

The bunchgrasses were fairly extensive.

I was surprised to see the wild rose emerging. Rose comes up quickly after a fire, but the reason I was surprised was I hadn't known it was there before!

Skunkbush was also emerging in one area.

Desert Boy was happy because he found a bone, and it was slightly charred on one end.

Prickly pear had burned, but small new prickly pear pads were starting to pop out of the ground.

Fortunately I didn't see any cheatgrass. It will undoubtedly come, but it's nice that some native plants have a head start.

One other plant I saw a lot of was this heron's bill. It's sometimes considered to be a weed, but at least it's keeping the ground down!

It was really fascinating to see what's coming up, and I'll have to take a look again and look for changes.

A Smoky Afternoon

 I was enjoying a little quiet time in the afternoon when the pager went off announcing a fire just a few miles away. I'm part of the Volunteer Fire Department, so after scurrying a bit to find my Nomex pants, fire boots, and fire pack, I made it to the station and jumped on the second truck to head up the hill. We could see the smoke in the distance, so it was easy to see where we needed to go.

 The fire was caused by a lightning strike (several people saw the exact one), and burning in sagebrush-scrub.

 We went to work on one side of the fire, trying to cool off the flames and keep the fire relatively small.

 Wind was not our friend, as it kept shifting. Soon we saw that we needed to move to another part of the fire.

 As the wind pushed the fire a new direction, it had more fuel to consume, and the flames shot up. We kept hoping that the extra engines on the way would get there soon, as it was more than our two engines and water tender could handle.

 The conditions got pretty smoky in places. A little of that smoke is good, but a lot is not so much fun.

 Law enforcement had the road blocked off, which made it much easier to work. Above, the first BLM engine and our water tender are checking in.

 We really like this old truck, but it has a bad habit of dying in inconvenient spots. We had to work a little to keep the fire from burning up the truck.

 We wanted to keep the fire from crossing the road, and we were successful in that, although the fire kept spreading on the south side of the road.

 The south side of the fire, which was the quietest when we got there, jumped to life and showed a big flame front that wasn't so easy to get to.

 I had to leave after a couple hours and go get the kids. This is what the smoke looked like from down in the valley.

 After some much needed snacks and ibuprofen, we went back up to the fire to see how my husband was doing. We saw that plenty of help had arrived, including two helicopters equipped with buckets. They had no problem getting to the back side off the fire.

 The kids had fun checking things out from the back of the van.

 More water drops.

 It is fascinating watching a helicopter at work.

 Meanwhile, the kids were busy making a meteor crater.

 Then they decided they were digging for gold. It kept them very happy.

 The Volunteer Fire Department tender was kept busy refilling the fire trucks. I had to go to a talk that evening, so we left my husband with the tender. He was supposed to watch the kids while I worked, but he couldn't get away. He finally left quite a bit after dark, and said that there were still some engines out there. Every time the wind shifted (which was often), more embers would burn and they had more smokes to put out.

We're crossing our fingers that too much cheatgrass doesn't grow on this site, but based on the elevation, it's pretty likely that cheatgrass will soon dominate. That's one of the toughest things about fires in sagebrush--at one time they were really beneficial, but now cheatgrass makes a spot even more prone to fire. The fire size was estimated at about 50 acres.

If you'd like to keep up-to-date with our fire department, you can like us on Facebook.

Day 6 - Jenny Lake Hike

The next day of our vacation, we decided that it would be fun to take the shuttle boat across Jenny Lake and hike from there, saving us about two miles of hiking each way. We all enjoyed the boat and feeling the cool water.

It was about a half-mile hike up to Hidden Falls, which wasn't really so hidden as we were hiking with boatloads of people.

An extremely habituated marmot looked for handouts.

So did this ground squirrel. I was a little afraid that the rodents would bite the kids, as they got so close.

We kept hiking higher, and Ed took a break out on a sunny ledge.

Then we got to Inspiration Point. We had passed some rock climbing classes, and Desert Boy decided he just had to do some climbing on the nice granite. He went up without any problems.

The view was great, and we took some time to snack and enjoy our surroundings.

Fun times.

I was surprised how many people did the hike over the rocky, uneven path. Here's a view of the human traffic jam. Many people had no water and some even did the hike in flip flops. Ouch.

While we were waiting for the boat back, the kids asked if they could play around on the rocks next to the water. I said yes, and they had a good time. Then Desert Girl fell in. She took it in stride and continued playing. I figured it was a good way for her to cool off on a warm day. I expected Desert Boy to fall in, too, but he managed to just get slightly damp.

We noticed clouds out to the east. These turned out to be from a huge fire, the Fontanelle Fire, which has burned over 60,000 acres. Although Yellowstone and Grand Teton were definitely wetter than the Great Basin, they were dry, and all sorts of fire restrictions were in place.

This was the end of our Grand Teton experience, so we said good bye to the beautiful mountains and clear, blue lakes and headed south.

Day 1 - Oquirrh Overlook

 I had seen the sign in Tooele pointing towards the Oquirrh Overlook and had wondered what it was. While at the Tooele Train Museum, we asked about it and learned that the steep mountain road led to an overlook of the big open pit copper mine on the other side of the mountain. It was supposed to be passable for passenger cars, so we decided to give it a try.

On the way up, we saw smoke, and before long we came to a vantage point of the Herriman (aka Rose Crest) Fire. It looked like it hadn't started long before.

 We continued up the road, which had a lot of washboards in places. We were able to make it in the van, even with the low tow hitch. Someone who hasn't driven much in the mountains and isn't used to switchbacks might get a little uneasy on the road, but I thought it was okay.

 At the top we had this amazing view. Just a few weeks earlier, we had the opportunity to visit the mine from the other side (which I've just realized I have yet to blog about! I will have to catch up Updated: here's a link to the post). The visitor center on the other side has some great info about the mining process.

 I kept my eye on the fire, not wanting our windy way down the mountain to be cut off.

 It was getting bigger, but the winds were blowing away from us. Unfortunately, they were blowing in the direction of homes, and several were burned.

Here's a closeup of some of the mining operations. The trucks look tiny, which is amazing since they are so large. This mine is really worth a visit, as it is so large it is hard to comprehend. The copper is not particularly rich, only 12 pounds per ton, but it still has been a profitable mine.

The kids weren't particularly thrilled with this destination (Desert Girl was asleep and Desert Boy refused to get out of the van), but I thought it was worth the time. Only a few other people were up at the Overlook. A paved, sinuous road leads across the mountain a little farther down, and that looks like it would be a fun excursion some day.

Fire Shelter Practice

So what are a bunch of people doing just standing around with a beautiful mountain in the background?

They're not enjoying the view, they're getting ready for the annual fire shelter deployment exercise.

If you're a wildland firefighter (full-time, part-time, or once-in-a-blue-moon (I fall in that last category)), you have to take annual refreshers. Most of it is in the classroom, reviewing safety for various fire-related things. Then, at the end, you go outside and pretend that a roaring fire has blown up and you don't have time to get out of the way.

So you drop your pack, use your tool to clean down to mineral soil, and deploy your fire shelter. If all goes well, you will be able to live to tell all about it.

The shelters are simple, but you have to be ready to deploy it quickly, so we practice getting in them every year, and have 30 seconds to do so.

The clock starts, and the second round of recruits heads to the deployment area.

The real fire shelters are made of aluminum foil laminated to another layer, but because they're expensive and don't do well with multiple deployments, we use practice shelters instead, made of a green tarp material.

It takes a few seconds to pull the shelter out of the case.

Then it's time to shake it out.
Then you get under it and lay down on the ground, holding the interior straps firmly as the strong fire winds whip around you.

There are different preferences for how to get into the shelter the fastest.
Then the instructors come around and shake the shelters to make sure you're holding it down well. It's a bit claustrophobic inside (and this is coming from someone who likes tight passages in caves). It would be really tough during a real fire to stay calm and keep the shelter down. The super-heated air kills before the fire does in most cases.

These guys were all able to deploy in 30 seconds. You'd want your feet to be pointing towards the flames, so the guy on the left needs to rotate 90 degrees.

Last year wasn't a particularly busy wildland fire year. It will be interesting to see what happens. Many millions of acres need to burn--but they need to burn in a way that won't threaten lives, and that can certainly be a challenge!