[hinckley buzzard]

I recall hiking the Gila Wilderness forty years ago. Mogollon was functionally a ghost town back then, with only a few local part-time/longtime hangers on: a rockshop, a general store, that was about it. Beautiful country, sad to see it burn; but if the idiots of the FS will just leave it alone, it will return to former grandeur soon enough.

[Carthego delenda est]

“but if the idiots of the FS will just leave it alone, it will return to former grandeur soon enough”...

Mogollon has been evacuated and the buildings wrapped in ‘foil’. As far as the wilderness is concerned, I would tend to agree with you if it were not the whole dang forest going up in flames at once.

This ‘Wilderness’ was the first designated in the country. It is/was the largest in the lower 48. The Gila watershed feeds thru Pheonix into the Colorado to feed LA.

This fire IS catistrophic.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “but if the idiots of the FS will just leave it alone, it will return to former grandeur soon enough.” <<

.
10,000 years?

It’ll be brushlands for the forseeable future, unless some seed trees survive. (not likely judging by the photos posted.)