Creek Fire

[hank4elk]

Bummer. This one will be very bad.
It started right below Huntington Lake where I had a cabin for many years. Half the tiny town of Big Creek is gone from reports. Looks like from Inciweb map that my old cabin is in area where it has burned. I was going to retire there,til 11 yrs ago. Work part time for Edison out of Big Creek....
Looks like it is in the Kaiser Wilderness and reached Mammoth Pools & beyond. Heroic rescue of trapped campers @ Mammoth Pools by CA Nat. Guard.
73k ac in 2 days,0% containment. Thousands of campers in the Sierra Nat. Forest.
It is to Shaver Lake now & heading for Yosemite.
The very heart of the Sierra's. Old fir forests. Steep country,very steep. 1st US Forest Reserve,later 1st US Forest,Sierra Nat. Forest. 1st Forest Reserve Ranger Station was at Billy Creek where Huntington Lake is now. I helped save ,move & restore that little cabin. Cabin owners gave artifacts found thru the years. 1st leased USFS cabins in the country in the Basin. Largest group too. Spent many years working USDA Forest Issues there.
I hope that everyone is safe,but I fear the toll will rise with this monster.The videos of the plume are nothing short of astounding.
I spent most of my 65 years hiking ,fishing & hunting the Sierra's. Mostly right around there. Bummer.

 

[matt0550]

Terrible.

 

[Brandon270]

I've been worried this area was going to have a bad one soon with so many beetle killed trees. This area won't look the same for a very long time. Those people that got saved by the helicopters in the mammoth reservoir was an amazing story in a tough situation.

My wife's grandparents have a cabin in Shaver a couple blocks from Dorabelle campground. They stay there all spring and summer, they had to evacuate Saturday night. The fire already went through the area but no word if the cabin made it or not.

The pictures of this fire look like something out of a movie.

 

[44hunter45]

My brother guided and packed out of D&F Pack Station at Huntington Lake for a couple of years in the early 1970's. The Fikes are old family friends. I was too young and hung around the station being a pest.

 

[hank4elk]

My brother guided and packed out of D&F Pack Station at Huntington Lake for a couple of years in the early 1970's. The Fikes are old family friends. I was too young and hung around the station being a pest.

My buddy is Brad who owned the station til a few years ago. I used to move stock up over Kaiser Pass to Edison with him occationally,hairball drive. He also ran the stables @ Shaver. He would drop me off at Whitebark & I would hunt down the mountain to Huntington. I know the Fike clan too.

 

[Exhausted]

Is this the one that was started by another stupid gender reveal thing?

 

[hank4elk]

I've been worried this area was going to have a bad one soon with so many beetle killed trees. This area won't look the same for a very long time. Those people that got saved by the helicopters in the mammoth reservoir was an amazing story in a tough situation.

My wife's grandparents have a cabin in Shaver a couple blocks from Dorabelle campground. They stay there all spring and summer, they had to evacuate Saturday night. The fire already went through the area but no word if the cabin made it or not.

The pictures of this fire look like something out of a movie.

View attachment 153180View attachment 153181View attachment 153182View attachment 153183View attachment 153184

That shot of the dam & powerlines looked like the small dam @ Huntington Lake and the light cabin in pic the one below my place in Doweville West. We had a trail to the point & I would fish the tiny beach away from the dam. If I didn't catch a limit in 45min,the fishing was no good.
Watched a video this morn and it was of the flames going up from the same dam up the hill into Doweville West with fire raging over the top.
My dad worked for Edison as a surveyor Eng. in 50/60's and he surveyed the second set of powerlines down to the Big Creek plant along Huntington Lake there.

 

[Brandon270]

Is this the one that was started by another stupid gender reveal thing?

That was somewhere in southern california, I don't think they have found the cause for this one yet.

 

[Gynaroo]

Is this the one that was started by another stupid gender reveal thing?

I read that the as the El Dorado fire. Near San Bernardino.

 

[hank4elk]

Just talked to Brad who is now heading back to his home in Auberry.Foothills. He took grandkids to Bakersfield & his son & wife will fight for their home. They got evac. orders this morning. He will call back me back.We have not talked in a couple years. He said it is bad. Very bad. Fire going all directions now.

The above pic is from across lake from my cabin area. From the Christian camp docks. The whole opposite side is now toast. The camp maybe too.
My old cabin is now most likely toast too. Sad.

 

[hank4elk]

135,000+ac & 0% containment. Very bad. Hundreds of cabins,homes & business' most likely gone. Rescues continuing.

 

[jryoung]

BFRers

 

[hank4elk]

Still growing. 175,000+- ac.The whole Huntington Lake Basin will probably burn,same with Shaver. 300+ structures burned or damaged as of last night. Only 1 non fire fatality, so far.
Good preliminary news is I got word that only 5 cabins in my old tract burned above & behind my old one. Mine was still there as of yesterday. Built in 1955,year I was born,by another Park Ranger.
How they have saved any is beyond me with fire to the shore most of the way around it. Same with Shaver Lake.
Hundreds of campers & backpackers hunkered down @ Edison Lake ,China Peak ski area,Hidden Lake,Shaver Lake area are being evacuated by air & when possible on 168 by convoy thru flames.....
I was happy to see my old friend,Brother Donally of the Huntington Lake Vol. Fire Dept on the news & still going strong. Him and others like him in area.The Shaver Lake Vol. Fire Dept.,Fresno Sheriffs & Fire Depts, High Sierra & Sierra Forest crews, Calfire.
Have seen many familiar faces doing what they do. Their job. A hard job.
They make me proud I was once part of that clan.

 

[hank4elk]

2 Type 1 Incident Commands now in place. Unreal. North & South.
North Fork,Bass Lake,Hume Lake on up towards Yosemite being evacuated now.
Heading towards Kings Canyon to the South.
Burning to timberline in east.
Too many small towns along the foothills to the west to name. No word from Auberry....but fire is near there.

 

[Wildabeest]

True heroes all!

 

[Runnin_Chupacabra]

The aerial photos look like an atom bomb went off!

 

[hank4elk]

Good news ,sort of.
My old cabin made it thru fine. 5 next to it did not make it.
3 other friends cabins also made it with lots lost around them.
176,000 ac , 6% containment , thousands evacuated still. 365 structures gone.