Almost 3 weeks ago, there was a thunder and lightning storm in Mineral King. A lightning strike started a fire, and it looked as if it would be quick to suppress the thing.
Being somewhat cynical, perhaps because we’ve lived through the “easy to suppress” lightning strikes in 2020 and 2021, I had my doubts that the various agencies would be in agreement and just squash that thing.
While driving home from Salem one week later, I received texts from friends in both Visalia and Exeter, inquiring about my safety because they could see flames from their towns. WHAT??
Trail Guy took this photo on the day I received those texts. That single column had babies.
One friend sent me a photo her Facebook feed (“feed”? “stream”? “account”?) showing 2 areas of flame at night as seen from either Exeter or Visalia. (There is something about a photo from that platform that forbids my saving and showing it to you.)
On our next trip up the hill a few days later, it looked like this:
Each day in Mineral King began with clear air, and then somewhere around 9 or 10 a.m., the smoke would drift up the canyon and obscure all our views. Where is Farewell Gap?
On the way down the hill on Monday, this is what we saw:
We also saw BLM equipment, a Forest Service car, 2 Yosemite fire people, and a helicopter dipping water out of the East Fork.
The latest report at the time of this viewing is that the fire has grown to 850-900 acres, is not contained (well, duh, because what does “containment” mean when it was “contained” before it erupted into this conflagration?) and is heading toward the South Fork drainage in Three Rivers.
Here we go again. . . sigh.
P.S. For current info on the Coffeepot Fire, go to WatchDuty.org.
5 Comments
This is SO terrible. We hope the firefighters will be able to get it managed and out soon.
We so appreciate how you send us updates and comments. This isn’t much of a homecoming but welcome home. We hope to come up and do some work on the cabin and hopefully get to see you.
lWe had a wonderful visit with Mike when we were there earlier this month. Hope you are there when we come up again!
We’re going to pray hard that this fire is tended to and put out!
Tom and Linda, thank you for checking in. I’m sorry I’ve missed you this summer so far. I’m not accepting the idea that summer is over, and yes, please do keep praying hard about this fire!
Thanks for the photos, Jana. Sure hope the containment lines they’re working on will hold this monster once it reaches them. It’s going to get a LOT bigger before there’s any chance of stopping it. 2231 acres now, after it was 50 acres on 08/15 and about 620 ares on 08/18. Sure hope it doesn’t get to MK and SoFo. Dreadful that it’s burning in more sequoia groves now. The new normal is really nasty, and this is going to be looked back on as the good old days. Keep painting, so that people can remember how beautiful and full of life it once was.
Laurie, I sure do hope you are wrong in predicting that one day this will “be looked back on as the good old days”. Sigh. Thank you for the encouragement to keep painting the beauty that we still have available to us.
Now 2,231 acres (as of 6:45 a.m. August 22). The letters/numbers on the WatchDuty site corresponds to evacuation zones. The Mineral King Valley is in Zone TLC-E095. So far, we’re not in danger, but be prepared for the Mineral King Road to be closed with little notice. Kathy is going up this weekend to close for the winter. *sigh*
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