Due to hot, dry weather and various human blunders, much of the west is on fire right now.
Fire is a part of many ecosystems, and some species of plants actually rely on fire to crack their seeds open for germination. The trouble is that fires are both started and suppressed by humans. Overly zealous fire suppression builds up heavy undergrowth, and when thoughtless humans spark a fire the heavy fuel bursts to life. It's not just a fire, it's a wildland inferno.
The biggest fire in SoCal is the Station Fire, which is consuming much of the Angeles National Forest between Pasadena and Acton. Fifty-plus years of undergrowth have created ideal fuel for a conflagration.
On Saturday, I heard a report of 20,000 acres consumed and thought it to be a blunder. The guy meant 2,000 acres, right? Nope. It was 20,000 Saturday, and it's grown to about 80,000 as I type this on Monday.
The worst part of this for me personally is that the fire is burning along some of my favorite mountain biking trails. The Gabrielino, Strawberry Peak, Sunset Ridge, El Prieto, and Middle Sam Merrill were all delightful, wooded trails, and I'm glad I had the chance to ride them while they were still prisitine. I am not alone. These trails are used by thousands of mountain bikers and hikers in the Los Angeles area. They provide an escape from the urban mayhem so close at hand.
Even more significant than the loss of flora is the potential danger for the transmitters and the observatory facilities on top of Mt. Wilson. Some of the telescopes and buildings are a century old, and the birthplace of significant scientific discoveries about the universe we live in. Transmitters for almost every TV and radio station live atop Mt. Wilson as well.
Further down the mountains to the west, Mt. Lowe is the site of a tourist railway that ran from 1893-1938. Most of the railway is in ruins, but volunteer labor has shored up the remaining artifacts and helped give today's visitors a sense of what the Mt. Lowe Railway was like back in the day. With sweeping fire, thousands of volunteer hours have been rolled back into ashes.
I learned about a new cloud type: pyrocumulus. The billowing white cloud often seen above a fire isn't all smoke. It seems that the intensity of the heat actually creates its own micro-climate and a cloud forms above the fire.
Right now, over 2,500 firefighters are on scene fighting the fire. Two firefighters died when their truck was overrun by the fire and they tumbled off a mountain road into a ravine. Here's hoping for no more casualties.
The photo shows the smoke and the pyrocumulus cloud above the San Gabriels on Sunday evening. It's a spectacular, yet daunting sight that almost obscures the jagged skyline beneath. I took the photo from the Whittier Hills, a safe distance all the way across the San Gabriel Valley from the fire.