{"id":76759,"date":"2017-07-18T12:01:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T19:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=76759"},"modified":"2017-07-18T12:01:42","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T19:01:42","slug":"washouts-and-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=76759","title":{"rendered":"Washouts and Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided to wait on a blog-worthy chain of events to share for my next post, and, on the day of the CLM reminder email, a field day like no other provided the perfect opportunity to share an experience with wildland fire, teamwork and communication.<\/p>\n

After an amazing Tahoe 4th of July and Yosemite weekend with my family, I was ready to kick off the week with a multi-day fieldwork stint of seed scouting and collection.\u00a0 Our mentor whipped out the topo maps and directed us on areas of interest to cover over the next two days.\u00a0 We planned to scout a large swath of BLM land north of Reno in the Virginia Mountains for populations of Psuedoroegneria spicata<\/i>, Leymus cinerus<\/i>, Tetradymia glabrata<\/i>, and Purshia tridentata<\/i>, with an end goal of camping on the western shores of Pyramid Lake.\u00a0 After reading about the current Red Flag Warning (conditions ideal for wildland fire combustion and rapid spread) in the region, my team and I ran a few concerns by our mentor.\u00a0 Using a live updated ArcGIS Online map to review the current fires in the region, we agreed that the benefits of a scouting\/collection trip into Long Valley outweighed the chance risk of running into an active fire.\u00a0 This was the start to an exceptionally long day.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Current Fires in the CCDO Region<\/p><\/div>\n

We reached Long Valley in the Virginia Mountains just east of Doyle, CA by mid-morning and called Minden Dispatch to inform them of our field plans and location.\u00a0 In the hope of finding collectible populations, we searched flats, hillsides and swales for signs of our priority species. Unfortunately, most of the target populations we found were outside of the optimal collecting period.\u00a0 We continued making notes and collecting baseline data on the status of the local populations as we made our way to the northwest corner of Pyramid Lake.\u00a0 Pyramid Lake is a diamond in the rough, almost unbelievable at first sight.\u00a0 The vast blue lake covers a surface area larger than Lake Tahoe and in the middle of a mixed Sagebrush-Salt Desert Shrub system! Fascinated by the pyramid-esque rock formations jutting out of the vibrant water, we proceeded south along the western shore of the lake until encountering road-closed highway blockers fencing off a washed out drainage line.\u00a0 The unusually precipitous winter gouged out a large section of road and flow infrastructure across a stream leaving the only south-bound road impassable.\u00a0 We decided to backtrack for cellular service to contact our mentor with an update.<\/p>\n

Driving back north and west, slightly frustrated with the washout, one of my co-interns excitedly yells out “Super-Scooper!!” and points out over Pyramid Lake.\u00a0 A medium sized aircraft lined up with the water surface and dipped down to fill its 1600 gallon holding tank with water, all without reducing speed or landing!\u00a0\u00a0 Three of these amphibious firefighting aircraft, recently deployed by regional fire offices, continued to make water runs right over our heads.\u00a0 It took a second for the “WOW this is so cool” excitement to pass before we realized where they were heading.\u00a0 After filling up on water the planes headed west over some nearby hills towards a new column of smoke, directly in line with the areas we surveyed earlier that morning.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Long Valley Fire from the North<\/p><\/div>\n

We returned to the far edge of Long Valley, overlooking a full playa lake, to gape at the growing fire less than 10 miles away.\u00a0 We scrambled to turn on our handheld radios as the updates came in from the local station flooded with activity.\u00a0 We heard the road names Hacks Cross, Turtle Mountain and Fort Sage OHV Area, the exact route we used to enter from the 395 freeway.\u00a0 Super Scooper after Super Scooper arrived to dump thousands of gallons onto the fire lines to prevent the fire from reaching Doyle.\u00a0 With the nervous energy rising among the team, we called our mentor to inform him of the situation.\u00a0 We pulled out our land cover maps to find an alternate safe route back to 395.\u00a0 We called in to Minden Dispatch to update them on our position.\u00a0 We contacted the fire lead for our field office, who thought our planned route out of the area safe and gave us the go ahead.\u00a0 After an hour of phone tag, map routing, and fire gazing, we started on a long drive north out of Long Valley, around Honey Lake almost to Susanville, and back south on 395 to Carson City.<\/p>\n

\n