{"id":18960,"date":"2012-09-07T09:34:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T16:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=18960"},"modified":"2012-09-07T09:34:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T16:34:55","slug":"waiting-for-the-smoke-to-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=18960","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for the Smoke to Clear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several times this summer, my co-intern, Patrick, and I have been up to Lake County, CA to scout and collect seeds\u00a0on BLM Land. The interior chapparal surrounding the San Joaquin Valley\u00a0is the best habitat to look for unique plant species in the region, despite being decimated by the intense drought this year.\u00a0\u00a0In Lake County, we\u00a0had our eyes on a particular population of Western Redbud (Cercis orbiculata), <\/em>and we had already factored it into our SOS list. We kept ourselves busy as we patiently waited for the seeds to mature, but we were definitely anxious to go back. Redbud has these excellent qualities that only other SOS interns can appreciate: the plants are\u00a0easily identifiable and difficult to\u00a0confuse; the fruits grow at eye level; there are plenty of seeds per pod and\u00a0plenty of pods per tree; there are no spines, resins, or\u00a0irritating hairs; and bags of seed are lightweight, pest-free, and odorless. Yesiree, we wanted that seed.\u00a0 So when the time came to pack up the truck and head out, we were\u00a0horrified to hear that the night before, two wildfires had spung up on either side of the\u00a0collection site.<\/p>\n

The Wye and Walker fires blazed for nearly a week and we had no idea whether our areas of interest had been swallowed by the conflagration. Any attempts to contact the field office were answered only by messages of staff on fire duty. When the fires had been contained, there had, luckily, been little damage. Only two structures were destroyed and\u00a0there was only three injuries. \u00a0The acreage burned, 7,934, was a flash in the pan compared to the larger fires seen in Colorado and elsewhere earlier this year, and all BLM areas were reopened almost immediately.<\/p>\n

Being from the east coast, fire has never been on my radar.\u00a0I had no idea what to expect.\u00a0We drove up to the area and everything seemed normal, but as we rounded a corner, the\u00a0scenery\u00a0suddenly changed. The rolling uplands we had seen before had been transformed into an otherwordly landscape blackened, charred and covered with ash. What really piqued my interest was the realization that the fire had only engulfed one side of the highway. We were subsequently fortune in being\u00a0able to complete our collections, but I couldn’t help but picture the fire crews working tirelessly to hold that line. It was amazing to me, truly-eye opening to see how a small stretch of pavement could make that difference as a fire break\u00a0and how close this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

had come to looking like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Marc Bliss<\/strong><\/p>\n

California Plant Materials Center USDA – NRCS<\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several times this summer, my co-intern, Patrick, and I have been up to Lake County, CA to scout and collect seeds\u00a0on BLM Land. The interior chapparal surrounding the San Joaquin Valley\u00a0is the best habitat to look for unique plant species … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18960"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18973,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18960\/revisions\/18973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}