Fire in Muir Valley
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:56 pm
Will write more details later but wanted to take a minute here at Jeff Kennedy's computer to express heartfelt thanks from Liz and me to all of you who helped fight the forest fire at the north end of Muir Valley. After a long hard day fighting this monster, and with the help from Sunday's rain, the fire has been extinguished other than the hot spots, which we are going to be knocking down for the rest of today.
An incredibly thoughtless act by a neighbor -- starting a bonfire during a strict burning ban down here due to the long drought, was allowed to gather steam up the mountainside for two hours before we discovered it. (Although we had 150 climbers in the Valley, they didn't even bother to report it to us!) But, once we sounded the alarm, in 15 minutes, about 50 climbers were at the scene with trail building tools building fire breaks. The local firefighters were busy on fires elsewhere and didn't show up until late in the evening after most of the fire was out. So without the extremely heavy and dangerous (fighting hot fires above sheer cliffs!) work by these wonderful climbers, we may have seen much of the valley burn. As it is, all the mountain laurel and ground cover above the north cliff at Coalbank hollow is toast. What once was a beautiful upper meadow is black. Overall about 36 acres were burned. With a little time and effort we hope this area will come back.
There were too many volunteers to keep track of who was there. I'm sure we missed saying thank you to some of you. For all of you who were there, please accept our deepest appreciation for your efforts!!
More later. It doesn't look like any climbing areas will need to be closed -- just a few projects.
Rick Weber
An incredibly thoughtless act by a neighbor -- starting a bonfire during a strict burning ban down here due to the long drought, was allowed to gather steam up the mountainside for two hours before we discovered it. (Although we had 150 climbers in the Valley, they didn't even bother to report it to us!) But, once we sounded the alarm, in 15 minutes, about 50 climbers were at the scene with trail building tools building fire breaks. The local firefighters were busy on fires elsewhere and didn't show up until late in the evening after most of the fire was out. So without the extremely heavy and dangerous (fighting hot fires above sheer cliffs!) work by these wonderful climbers, we may have seen much of the valley burn. As it is, all the mountain laurel and ground cover above the north cliff at Coalbank hollow is toast. What once was a beautiful upper meadow is black. Overall about 36 acres were burned. With a little time and effort we hope this area will come back.
There were too many volunteers to keep track of who was there. I'm sure we missed saying thank you to some of you. For all of you who were there, please accept our deepest appreciation for your efforts!!
More later. It doesn't look like any climbing areas will need to be closed -- just a few projects.
Rick Weber
