Smokey Sunset in Van Nuys via Instagram
Winds seem to have strengthened but shifted so we aren’t getting quite as much smoke as earlier, but still heavily smells of smoke.
Winds seem to have strengthened but shifted so we aren’t getting quite as much smoke as earlier, but still heavily smells of smoke.
The full-sized trees are always the most striking after a fire — looking almost skeletal as they reach into the sky. They can also be the most dangerous as you have no idea how strong of weak they are. A strong wind can topple them in an instant.
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Looking southwest across the burn area you can see patches of green besides the burned trees and shrubs. I am always amazed how quickly life can return after a wildfire. There are some plants and trees that have even adapted to fire and need regular burns to propagate and thrive. A dramatic fire often yields a dramatic regrowth a few months later.
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Learn more about the Angele National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains with these books and maps
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
Another overview of the area to the north of Placerita Canyon Road which burned last year.
Another large section that burned last year. It looks stark now, but signs of regrowth are already there.
Burnt Tree, Little Tujunga Canyon, Angeles National Forest
A standing sentinel to the power of wildfire and its capricious nature, picking one tree but not another — moving this way but not that.
Join me on Douglas E. Welch Photography on Facebook
Learn more about the Angele National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains with these books and maps
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
(All links confirmed as working – June 23, 2016)
As is common, we are in a drought again, here in California, and this makes the occurrence of wildfire more likely and also increases the damage that wildfires can do in the landscape and in populated areas. In an effort to stay in touch with the wildfire situation here in California, I have collected a set of resources to keep me informed when fires break out. While I live in the middle of the San Fernando Valley and fairly free from the direct danger of wildfire, fires in the surrounding areas can cause large problems with evacuations, smoke plumes, and ash and also directly affect friends and family who live in or near wildlands
I noticed this year that 2 major map-based information sites are no longer available. This is a big loss, as they tried to show active burn locations, fire perimeters and more for each incident and provided a large amount of easily interpreted data. I hope that they come back online before too long (as one web page suggests.) They were great resources.
“CAL FIRE is a State agency responsible for protecting natural resources from fire on land designated by the State Board of Forestry as State Responsibility Area (SRA). CAL FIRE also manages the State Forest system and has responsibility to enforce the forest practice regulations, which govern forestry practices on private and other non-federal lands. Two major themes are attendant to the CAL FIRE mission. One is the protection of the State’s merchantable timber on all non-federal lands from improper logging activities and the other is the protection of the State’s grass, brush, and tree covered watersheds in SRA from wildland fire. CAL FIRE is a “conservation agency” with origins stemming from the “Conservation Movement” of the last century.”
Cal Fire provides a number of online resources:
“InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident information management system. The system was developed with two primary missions:
Provide the public a single source of incident related information
Provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public Affairs community
A number of supporting systems automate the delivery of incident information to remote sources. This ensures that the information regarding active incidents is consistent, and the delivery is timely.”
InciWeb Resources:
PreventWildfireCA.org Fire Infomation