Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

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bobcat
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Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by bobcat » July 18th, 2021, 11:54 am

The Bootleg Fire, once again distinguishing our state as the currently the nation's largest, has consumed most of the Gearhart Mountain Trail and reached Palisade Rocks - only a mile or so to go before it's all incinerated!

https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guid ... ntain_Hike

bushwhacker
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by bushwhacker » July 18th, 2021, 4:23 pm

I was down at the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness 10 years to so ago and you couldn't help but notice all the pine beetle killed trees and how impossible it would be to control a fire if it got started in all those dying/dead trees. Probably got way worse in the last 10 years. This fire was a predicable result by most folks that visited that area. Bet most of the pine beetles are gone now :D .

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BurnsideBob
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by BurnsideBob » July 20th, 2021, 4:11 pm

July 20, 2021.

According to today's Bootleg Fire perimeter map, the entire Gearhart Wilderness has burned. The fire has continued to burn eastward and has entered several of the Chewaucan River's headwater drainages, including Diary Creek, Deer Creek, and Elder Creek.

Much of the main stem Chewaucan River drainage burned in last year's 51,000 acre Brattain Fire, but the Brattain Fire spared the Chewaucan's headwater drainages. It looks likely that the Bootleg Fire will continue to burn the Chewaucan River headwaters all the way to the Brattain Fire's burn scar, leaving little, if any, of the entire Chewaucan River basin unburned.

On a further, disheartening, note, a lobe of the Bootleg Fire has nearly passed the Sycan Marsh on it's West, and another lobe to it's east. Unless there is a change in weather conditions the fire may continue north and east, crossing the low saddle area formed by Bear and Antelope flats. A paved two lane highway connecting Hwy 97 and the Klamath Marsh Wildlife Refuge with State Hwy 31 and the community of Silver Lake runs thru this area, but with the fire's long range spotting and extreme behavior, this barrier may not be enough to stop the fire.

Burnside Bob

Brattain Fire Map: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/photos/ORFWF/2 ... 1-CDT.jpeg
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bobcat
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by bobcat » July 20th, 2021, 5:25 pm

BurnsideBob wrote:
July 20th, 2021, 4:11 pm
According to today's Bootleg Fire perimeter map, the entire Gearhart Wilderness has burned.
Yep, right after my post the fire decided to rage through the rest of the wilderness and fry every living thing.
bushwhacker wrote:
July 18th, 2021, 4:23 pm
you couldn't help but notice all the pine beetle killed trees and how impossible it would be to control a fire if it got started in all those dying/dead trees.
I was there in 2018 and there was lovely healthy forest between the southern trailhead and above The Dome. The higher ridges and Gearhart Mountain itself were a mass of dead and fallen snags, the reason I decided not to summit the mountain but just stick to the trail.

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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by justpeachy » July 21st, 2021, 6:33 am

Dang, I never made it there before the fire. I know fire is a natural part of the forest, but it is disheartening to see our wilderness areas get burnt to a crisp one after another. It feels like more wilderness will be burned than unburned in the next few decades.

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drm
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by drm » July 21st, 2021, 12:24 pm

and fry every living thing
We don't know the intensity yet. When winds are high and/or grass is fairly continuous, the fire sometimes moves so fast that more resistant things (i.e. trees) don't burn. That's less likely if they are beetle kill, but still, we just won't know till later on.

And it seems like Steens Mtn, Boise, and New York City are getting the smoke from this one.

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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by bushwhacker » July 21st, 2021, 4:53 pm

Playing around with some satellite images you can see what has transpired. Blue Lake is the easiest land mark to spot but I marked some others for reference.

Gearhart Mt area on July 18th 2021. Brown in the 2021 image burned. Still a few (very few) green areas in the 2021 image.
july182021-gearhartmt.jpg
Gearhart Mt area on July 18th 2020. Light green are dead trees or some previous fire (weren't any previous fires in the Gearhart Mt Wilderness at least as far back as CalTopo goes).
july182020-gearhartmt.jpg
Gearhart Mt area on July 18th 2020 natural color. Brown are dead trees or some previous fire.
july182021-gearhartmt-natural.jpg

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Charley
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by Charley » July 24th, 2021, 3:58 pm

That is really disappointing. (All the usual caveats about fire is natural, etc.)

1. There is a TON of beetle kill down there:
IMG_6053.jpg
2. But there are also beautiful old growth forests, which are so rare these days that it seems to me ecologically unwise to simply let burn uncontrollably:
IMG_6031.jpg
IMG_6029.jpg
3. And there are also beautiful old ponderosa woodlands that might have a chance of surviving the fire, so here's hoping:
IMG_6023.jpg
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naturallog
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by naturallog » July 30th, 2021, 12:44 pm

drm wrote:
July 21st, 2021, 12:24 pm
and fry every living thing
We don't know the intensity yet. When winds are high and/or grass is fairly continuous, the fire sometimes moves so fast that more resistant things (i.e. trees) don't burn. That's less likely if they are beetle kill, but still, we just won't know till later on.

And it seems like Steens Mtn, Boise, and New York City are getting the smoke from this one.
A great reminder. I'm guilty, myself, of having the mindset that everything in the perimeter gets lost/destroyed. It is true for some areas, but the opposite in some cases as well, and I think the Eagle Creek Fire is a great example of this. I've never been to the area and I know it has been dry as hell, but I'm optimistic that at least some of these special areas will just be altered and not scorched earth.

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Waffle Stomper
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Re: Bootleg Fire: Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Post by Waffle Stomper » July 31st, 2021, 1:05 pm

I guess time will tell how things go.

Here is interesting research about ponderosa, for anybody who is interested.
https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/ ... r198_n.pdf
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

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