Parts of Yosemite closing for Creek Fire, lucky the Whites have faired somewhat well

Yosemite is closing the Mariposa Grove of Giant Seqoias area today in anticipation of the Creek Fire.

Most of Connecticut is officially in drought conditions at the moment, and while the Whites are hardly wet this summer, and streams are low, I think they have been lucky for the most of the summer. Not too wet, but not drought either.



Brian

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to hike in Yellowstone after the 1988 fire. The section I hiked seemed to be recovering very quickly; lots of beautiful ground cover.

With the exception of the fires which were fueled by logging slash, have the NE forests been susceptible to the types of forest fires seen out West?

I spent a summer in Yosemite and explored some burn areas that were in recovery. Absolutely fascinating to see the new growth emerge. In regards to the Sequoia grove, the seeds of the cones need fire become seedlings. They pop like popcorn. For years they wondered why no new trees were growing. It was a direct result of fire suppression.

Parts of NH are in moderate drought, the whites are "abnormally dry". I have observed maple trees that are stressed are starting to show some color change.

I pump water for my home garden using a kludged up solar water system. I had to revise it to be even more kludgey as the groundwater table has dropped enough that one pump will not do it.

The WMNF knickname by firefighters is the "Asbestos National Forest". There have been lightning and human caused fires on occasion over the life of the forest but the largest ones have typically been logging related. There were extensive precautions taken in the WMNF after the Hurricane of 1938. The chief ranger closed large parts of the forests for several years after the event due to forest fire. The 1940 AMC guide has notes on various large sections of the WMNF that the areas are closed and anyone entering will be arrested. I have a special WMNF forest map of that era showing closed locations. Some trail systems like the area north of Dartmouth Range to RT 2 were abandoned. Many of the older mature birch glades are a result of fires post hurricane of 1938. The large Owls head fire and the previous Zealand Fire was directly attributed to JE Henrys logging practices and the use of wood fired locomotives spewing sparks into dry slash. Various reports of the wasteland formed after the Zealand Fires speculated that the woods would never grow back as the soil was sterilized by the fire.

Slightly drifting, but still about fires. I remember when we lived in Conway that my father was one of the men who was on the fire line during the Brownfield Maine fire Here is a well written article about that fire: https://www.conwaydailysun.com/news...cle_c17d8b18-aade-11e7-aa99-bf33a83391cd.html

Matt Noyes / NECN would put most of NH, including the Whites, as moderate/severe (dry, moderate, severe, extreme, exceptional).

Tim

More drift

I worked for water utility in Portland that kept track of the water level in Sebago Lake which is near the Brownfield watershed. The water level in Sebago was the lowest it had been the year of the fire and took a couple of years to bounce back. Bar Harbor also burned the same year at Brownfield https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/maine-fires-1947-year-state-burned/. The Rockefellers reportedly used the fire to expand their holdings and the parks holdings by buying out burned out properties

We hiked Sugarloaf Middle and North last Wednesday in on/off drizzle and showers. Wednesday night we had a steady rain at the campground for several hours.

On Thursday we hiked Cherry Mountain Owls Head Trail and the woods were quite wet in that area.

The rain might not have relieved the overall drought, but you would be hard pressed to get a fire going in those woods last Thursday!

Tom_Murphy said:

With the exception of the fires which were fueled by logging slash, have the NE forests been susceptible to the types of forest fires seen out West?

Click to expand...

I see a lot of small patches that look like they had a fire. But they aren't big. People more educated than I can probably speak to this better, but I suspect that a lightning strike starts the fire, and the same rain storm douses it out within a few minutes.

Tom_Murphy said:

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to hike in Yellowstone after the 1988 fire. The section I hiked seemed to be recovering very quickly; lots of beautiful ground cover.

With the exception of the fires which were fueled by logging slash, have the NE forests been susceptible to the types of forest fires seen out West?

Click to expand...

Not even close for a number of reasons. When you talk drought out west, your talking no rain for months, which means little or no green vegetation like in the east. We are in dry conditions, but we still get rain. Go into the forest here and pull up the moss, its moist dirt. Do that out west, its like moon dust. The dry conditions out west also lend to many lightning strikes, the main cause of fires. We just don't get lightning like that and when we do, its accompanied by heavy rain. Not scientific, but my observations having lived in both parts of the country.

peakbagger said:

I have a special WMNF forest map of that era showing closed locations.

Click to expand...

There's a whole series of maps, including the one I think you're referring to, which can be found here:

http://whitemountainhistory.org/National_Forest_Maps.html
http://whitemountainhistory.org/National_Forest_Maps_2.html

Pretty cool to see all the changes over the years.

I swear I've seen some earlier maps which showed barely any areas acquired by the USFS, and steadily growing, but I'm puzzled as to where I found them.

Yup I have the 1940 version, I always thought it was special edition of a standard map.

As of July 25, Maine Forest Rangers had responded to 800 fires in 2020 which burned only 900 acres. The majority of the fires have been from lightning strikes and illegal campfires. The fire detection technology used today is pretty impressive.

I spent the last week in Vermont. Its not exactly dry there, but drier than expected. Some of the streams on the Long Trail are at a trickle and the water sources are drying up. Still, I was able to find mud.

Tom_Murphy said:

With the exception of the fires which were fueled by logging slash, have the NE forests been susceptible to the types of forest fires seen out West?

Click to expand...

The answer is yes. Perhaps the most extreme example happened in 1947. The year 1947 became known as the Year Maine Burned. From October 13 to October 27, firefighters tried to fight 200 Maine fires, consuming a quarter of a million acres of forest and wiping out nine entire towns. The Maine fires destroyed 851 homes and 397 seasonal cottages, leaving 2,500 people homeless. This was extracted from New England Historical Society article.

https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/maine-fires-1947-year-state-burned/

Mount Desert Island was hit very hard. The mature spruce fir forest was destroyed replaced by birch forest responsible for stunning fall color to be found there and converting many summits to bald granite knobs with mind-blowing views. We were planning to head to Acadia this fall, but pandemic forced us to postpone that until next year.

sierra said:

Not even close for a number of reasons. When you talk drought out west, your talking no rain for months, which means little or no green vegetation like in the east. We are in dry conditions, but we still get rain. Go into the forest here and pull up the moss, its moist dirt. Do that out west, its like moon dust. The dry conditions out west also lend to many lightning strikes, the main cause of fires. We just don't get lightning like that and when we do, its accompanied by heavy rain. Not scientific, but my observations having lived in both parts of the country.

Click to expand...

Same here. My family did not lose our home in the 1964 fire that swept through the northern end of the Napa Valley, but neighbors on both sides did, and the same area again with the Santa Rosa fire two years ago. The summer savana like weather out there has no comparison to New Hampshire. And temperatures of over 100 for days at a time. Every creek completely dries up by early July. No rain from late April to mid Oct. I am very careful to have only a small camp fire up here in the summer, and no fire if it is windy. I camped for years in Lassen National Park, and never built one fire. At that time there was a $280 fine if a ranger caught someone. And in the summer, they were out there.

It's common for land to be donated/sold for conservation after it's become worthless to its previous owners. In the case of the WMNF, I vaguely recall that the land had been valuable for logging (circa 1880s), but in addition to much of the best timber being logged out over the next decade or so, there were several enormous fires (started by loggers and/or their locomotives) that meant parts of the land wouldn't be harvestable for a couple of decades, and also aggravated the water-quality problems that deforestation was already causing for the downstream towns.

1903 was a particularly bad year, with 84,000 acres burned. That's about 10% of today's WMNF, or about half the size of the 2009 Station fire near Los Angeles.

sierra said:

I spent a summer in Yosemite and explored some burn areas that were in recovery. Absolutely fascinating to see the new growth emerge. In regards to the Sequoia grove, the seeds of the cones need fire become seedlings. They pop like popcorn. For years they wondered why no new trees were growing. It was a direct result of fire suppression.

Click to expand...

Yes and no. There are a number of trees that require fires for growth, but they need relatively small, natural fires. The mega-fires that we see today are much hotter and much more destructive.

Does anyone know the fate of the Mariposa Grove? I found it as extraordinary as anything in the Valley.

Yesterday I was bushwhacking in the Wild River Wilderness, and I don't recall seeing the forest floor as dry as it is now.

TEO said:

Yesterday I was bushwhacking in the Wild River Wilderness, and I don't recall seeing the forest floor as dry as it is now.

Click to expand...

It is pretty crazy how dry it is right now. There are sections of trail right now that are actually dusty. The dirt is powder and just blows around as you walk through it. We are in serious need of some rain.

Did a leaf-peeping/lake/pond tour by bicycle today and there were many dry brook/stream beds, and a few rivers that really weren't moving... more like a series of puddles. Never seen it so dry, and I have ridden these same roads many times per year for the last 20 years.

Tim