Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Caribou Hills Fire





We drove up to the Caribou Hills burn this afternoon. It's been about two weeks after the fire started. The State pulled most of the fire-fighters off the last night, though we saw several groups of yellow-shirted fire-fighters still mopping up small smoldering areas.





About 55,000 acres burned--most of it state land but the estimate is that about 80 recreational cabins were destroyed. All we saw from the road were the cabins (and the word is a misnomer as some of those were two- or three-storey house with fantastic views) that survived. It was apparent that many survived only because some one was there and fighting the fire themselves--everything burned up on all sides and just the house left standing. There's a large parking area where the road ends and I am sure many of the cabins that were destroyed are off-road and accessable only by four-wheelers in the summer or snow-machines in the winter.




There were some plants already shooting up through the blackened soil in some areas that burned off just a week ago. Other areas fire moved through so quickly that it only burned the lower grasses and scorched the lower leaves of the shrubs, leaving the tops still green. Also--what was interesting to see was the random, spotty nature of wild fire. It didn't just march in a straight line across the landscape, but would follow drainages and hilltops, leaving areas of undisturbed greenery.




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