[pct-l] Fire Reaches Silverwood Lake... and Julian

[rogers at isi.edu (Craig Milo Rogers)]

	Overnight updates to the Valley of Enchantment map on
rimoftheworld.net indicate that the Old fire is probably burning on
both the east and west sides of Silverwood Lake.  These updates
are (I assume) based on police/fire scanner reports, and have
a reasonable probability of ground truth.

http://rimoftheworld.net/features/cppvoe

	Summit Valley is under mandatory evacuation.  Oak Hills is
under voluntary evacuation.  Silverwood lake is immediately south of
the PCT, Summit Valley and Oak Hills are north of the PCT.  It's an
ugly picture.

	Much of the area adjacent to the PCT burned in the 1999 Willow
Fire.  In the summer of 2002, the ground cover near the hot springs
was still fairly bare.  I didn't visit it this summer, perhaps one of
this year's PCT class can recall for us the state of the chaparral,
grass, and underbrush in the Deep Creek drainage?

	Here's a Web site with a nice map of the 1999 burn:

http://wanr.earthbiz.net/DCUpdate.html

It also gives a taste of the rehabilitation measures that might be
taken in the wake of this year's Old fire.  In the worst case, as I
see it, this segment of the PCT might be closed in 2004.

	More bad news:  the Willow Fire map demonstrates how the
Old fire has a shot at the north shores of Arrowhead and Big Bear,
even if the fire line holds on the Rim of the World. Whether the
green on the map refers to trees or the National Forest boundary,
there's plenty of fuel in the area, as I recall.

	In San Diego, the Cedar Fire is on both sides of Hwy 79,
and is expected to have reached Julian as of this writing.
Corollary: The PCT is burning in that area, too.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/

					Craig "Computer" Rogers