Discussion: Big Basin heavily affected by fires

Many of us have raced among the redwood trees in Big Basin. My first time visiting California was to visit the Minarik family and attend an A-meet in Big Basin.

The park has already been heavily affected by the current fires, including the park headquarters burning to the ground. The fires started after highly unusual lightning storms over the weekend.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/historic-bu...

Disheartening. Many good orienteering memories.
With its narrow, winding mountainous access roads, I am impressed that all campers and staff thankfully got out safely.

The list of mapped Bay Area Parks being affected include Joe Grant, Morgan Territory and Sunol. Several others may be in danger before this is all over. Obtaining exact information on the burn areas is difficult. CalFire information resources are overwhelmed. There are just so many fires and smoke obscures the fire boundaries.

Suzanne, we also have great memories of that Big Basin Event. Redwood trees are resilient to fire. That is why they can live a thousand years. So things may not be as dire as we suppose.

Pacific NW geocolor 4-hour loop. That's alot of smoke.

L-band image just before sunset, starting to show good contrast on the hot spots.

Thanks Eddie!

Geoman -- besides your wonderful hospitality which made Zan's trip feasible, my favorite memory is Zan's Orange course story. Coming onto a mapped downed redwood, she thought, "I can climb over that." Climbing up wasn't that hard -- then she saw the drop. Oops, bad route choice!

I really had fun designing legs that required finding a way through a maze of those mapped fallen redwoods. Up and over was supposed to be the worse choice.

The SCU and LNU Lightning Complex fire are now the 2nd and 3rd largest fires (by area) in California since records were kept in the ‘30s and with precious little containment they are on their way to #1 and #2. Air quality in the Bay area is really bad (worst in the world at the moment according to the Purple Air app) making Covid-19 issues worse.

https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/mAQI/a10/cC0#4...

Climate change is a threat multiplier full stop.

The Redwoods are resilient and usually bounce back after fire so here is to hoping the fire intensity isn’t so high to push them
past their naturally high fire resilience.

Hoping our Bay Area orienteering friends are all safe during these already difficult times.

1000km downwind, the Yellowstone webcams are thick with smoke. Visibility maybe 5km.

NOAA HRRR smoke product

https://hwp-viz.gsd.esrl.noaa.gov/smoke/#

Nice. You can see that integrated plume hitting Minneapolis in the geocolor today too. I wonder if it will be thick enough to smell when it reaches the east coast. Red sunsets?

Another dry lightning outbreak is forecast for the Bay Area and northern CA this evening. Not good.

We are in southern Utah and there is a haze obscuring the mountains. I thought it smelled a little smoky this morning.
I hope the forests recover well and the fires are under control soon.

Interested in knowing more about Redwoods and fire? check out this twitter thread from Swetnam.

https://twitter.com/tom_swetnam/status/12976373888...

A neighbor left this on my doorstep yesterday. Mike, I thought you'd appreciate it :)

The fires started after highly unusual lightning storms

Is Bay area 5G already? It produces a local distortion of magnetic field. I suppose it is just a coincidence.

Can always rely on y for a spark of humour in dire circumstances. Hang on. Spark?

Most of the redwoods are apparently still standing:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-000-year-ol...

article in LA times

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-11-...

interesting twitter thread on 2020 CA wildfires

https://twitter.com/weather_west/status/1326937605...

it’s getting hot and dry in here

https://twitter.com/berkeleyearth/status/132595573...