Posted on 10/31/2004 1:34:49 AM PDT by Thinkin' Gal
Area burned in blazes last year relieved by snowfall.
By Tim Molloy
Associated Press
BIG BEAR LAKE — A sign welcoming visitors to the San Bernardino National Forest features a panicked Smokey the Bear with a wall of flames raging behind him. "All because of a little match!" the sign warns visitors, invoking the near-constant fire threat in the drought-choked mountains east of Los Angeles.
But this week, the sign was covered with snow.
After months of worries that this could be the worst fire season ever, the danger has been buried at least temporarily under the surprising 24 inches of snow that have fallen since Wednesday.
People who were fleeing the catastrophic Southern California wildfires a year ago were unpacking skis and snowboards to enjoy the earliest snowfall in recent memory.
"This time last year we were getting evacuated," Morgan Dominguez, 14, said as she picked up a pass at the Snow Summit ski resort.
"This year is gonna be awesome," added her mother, Connie Dominguez.
Last October, the family packed up photographs and clothes and fled the mountain. They took their 14 horses but had to leave a cow and duck behind. Their house was still standing when they returned.
They were among the 80,000 residents evacuated last fall from the resort area of Big Bear one of the hardest hit places in Southern California when waves of wildfires charred more than 750,000 acres, destroyed 3,650 homes and killed 24 people.
Snow Summit usually opens around Thanksgiving, but this year skiers and snowboarders will hit the slopes a day before Halloween, the earliest opening in about 30 years.
Bear Mountain, another resort, opened Friday the earliest start in its half-century history, spokesman Brad Farmer said.
No one was expecting the early blanket of snow dropped by a big Alaska storm, but there were few complaints. Kids threw snowballs, residents took pictures of each other shoveling snow, and teenagers swamped the resorts earlier than planned to pick up job applications.
David and Cameron Barrett drove up from Newport Beach so Cameron could have a winter experience like the ones she missed after growing up in Providence, R.I. The snow finally convinced her California was the place to be.
"I'm gonna go home and dip my toe in the Pacific tonight," she said as her yellow Labradors tromped through a pile of snow. "You can ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon."
Firefighters and forest officials were also glad to see the snow. Throughout the year, they have raced desperately to thin deadwood and brush from the mountains, where at least a third of the trees have died from drought and bark beetle infestation.
Tony Ives, a rescue crew leader at Snow Summit, stood at the top of a peak and pointed down the mountain to an area where thousands of trees had been removed. He was heading a crew that put pads on ski lift chairs in preparation for the rush of customers expected Saturday.
A year ago, he led a crew trying to take down the same chairs so they wouldn't be destroyed if fire raged through the resort.
He said the community has been on edge all year until long-awaited rain finally fell earlier this month.
"You heard a fire truck down the road, and you're like, oh my God, do we have to evacuate?" he said. "You're listening for more fire trucks. In the middle of the night, in the day, any time at all. I don't want to go through that again."
In recent months, officials in Angeles and San Bernardino national forests set restrictions on open flames and closed some areas to prevent what many feared would be the worst fire season on record. The rain last week led them to lift the regulations and reopen.
Still, fire officials said the danger hasn't completely passed.
In Northern and Central California, extra crews hired for the fire season have been sent home because of cool weather, said Janet Marshall, spokeswoman for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
But seasonal firefighters are still on the payroll in Southern California, where the fire risk routinely extends into winter.
"In Southern California I remember fighting fire down there on Christmas," Marshall said. "Even in Northern California, I remember a fire on Thanksgiving where we had turkey on the fire line. You never can tell."
Big Bear Lake ping.
Uhhh...geee....it snows every year up in Big Bear...must be a reeeeeaaallllyyy slooow news day in the Ol' L.B....lol.
The early snow is unusual. And it's not just a dusting. I thought it was interesting. Besides, I had a vivid and disturbing dream about Big Bear shortly after 911. Not sure if it was a reference to the literal place or something celestial, or perhaps it related to another country.
It was too weird and/or prophetic to be blamed on pizza or MSG.
I blame Bush
November, though, has some of the driest and nastiest Santa Anas...that moisture could get sucked out of the ground and vegetation in a matter of hours.
I always enjoyed the weather of the Santa Anas, but they had such an ominous sense about them, due to the horrid fire conditions created.
When I moved out of So Cal, it took a long time for me to get used to small brush fires and backyard bonfires. I grew up equating any outdoor fires with incipient raging infernos. Even a whiff of smoke was enough to spike the blood pressure.
Our house in OC was at least 20-30 miles from Saddleback Mtns, but Santa Anas would whip up the smoke and often bring it our way, with the occasional burning embers. Amazing how dry the air was.
We had a second home/business in Big Bear Lake, and a few times we drove up 18/330 when the roads were open only to residents, due to fires. Talk about unnerving. Winding up a desolate mountain road with smoke and fire and crackling sounds all about, was not fun.
How about the FOG?But then again going up the hill on a clear day is breath taking, and then sometimes the clouds were just below the rim of the road. I live in West Tenn. now, a hill is what an ant has made. I love to go to the eastern part of the state on our way to Virginia. there are the Smokey's and the Blue Ridge.
Oooh, I won't forget that. I can't even count the number of times we left BB in order to "beat the weather", only to end up in zero-visibility conditions up in the summit area. Nowhere to go but down... hopefully while remaining on the road.
We went off the road once. Fortunately it was only into a ditch (still needed to get pulled out by a tow truck), and not a few hundred feet down into the abyss. We didn't even know at first if the car was at risk of going further down a cliff, or if it was "securely" off the road. A tow truck happened along in a reasonably short amount of time, but it seemed like eternity. I was paranoid that at any moment, a car would come around a curve and plow us into a worse situation.
I do not have fond childhood memories of Big Bear Lake. ;-/
You'd think the people that wrote these stories would know what they're taking about. In reality, they haven't a clue.
Big Bear was not involved in the fires last year. There were no homes lost or anyone killed in the Big Bear Valley. As a matter of fact, the fire didn't get within 12 miles of Big Bear. All the fire damage was to the Crestline, and Arrowhead area. A long ways from Big Bear.
BTT!!!!!!!
Thanks. I didn't know what exactly had been burned last year. They are playing fast and loose with the geography, lumping Arrowhead and Crestline into "Big Bear", when these towns are located lower down in the San Bernardino mtns.
I was just there this morning.
Nice day, but chilly.
CO
BTW, this is the first El Nino winter after the shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (a cyclical thermal inversion in the ocean). My expectation was that it would move the usual pattern south or split it. Looks like so far I'm not proven wrong.
It was 28 degrees this AM at our ranch in Tuolumne County; not exactly October weather!
Two weeks ago we rebuilt the spillway on one of our ponds, figuring that this winter was likely to be somewhat wetter than last. We weren't wrong. The new spillway is covered in debris that spilled over, and the the two lower ponds are full too. That hasn't happened before Christmas for at least five years.
The roadside ditches in Twain Harte are full of snow, and it isn't melting. Lots of cabins have snow on their roofs; must be global warming :o)
Didn't know you lived so close. I used to live over that way when I was young.
The roadside ditches in Twain Harte are full of snow
Boy did you bring back memories.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.