Doug Firman said
Here are a couple of photos which ODOT says were taken along Hwy 224. They didn't say exactly where.
It kind of looks like that second one could have been taken from that Lazy Bend work area (which I think burned up) - it was kind of up on a hill above 224 a bit.
That is kind of what I expected to see a lot of - total burnage - nothing left - there will be white forests in a few years (assuming they don't salvage log them). These photos had to be in a high severity burn area.
I looked on tripcheck.com tonight where I saw these photos, but I also found this comment in the road 46 closure (last sentence emphasis mine):
Forest Service Road 46 is closed from Ripplebrook to Detroit due to fire damage, tree damage and possible slides. This is expected to be a long-term closure.
I wonder what "long term" means? Like the Memaloose road "long term" (years)? That would close off a HUGE chunk of the forest long term.
I looked on tripcheck.com tonight where I saw these photos, but I also found this comment in the road 46 closure (last sentence emphasis mine):
Forest Service Road 46 is closed from Ripplebrook to Detroit due to fire damage, tree damage and possible slides. This is expected to be a long-term closure.
I wonder what "long term" means? Like the Memaloose road "long term" (years)? That would close off a HUGE chunk of the forest long term.
Maybe there is hope. This was posted on the Riverside Facebook page today:
Planning for hazard tree mitigation along roads maintained by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management is being finalized and should begin next week.
Road 46 is a primary road for access to a big part of the forest from both the north and south, so it would seem like clearing it would be a priority. Let's hope so anyway.
Doug Firman said
I looked on tripcheck.com tonight where I saw these photos, but I also found this comment in the road 46 closure (last sentence emphasis mine):
Forest Service Road 46 is closed from Ripplebrook to Detroit due to fire damage, tree damage and possible slides. This is expected to be a long-term closure.
I wonder what "long term" means? Like the Memaloose road "long term" (years)? That would close off a HUGE chunk of the forest long term.
Maybe there is hope. This was posted on the Riverside Facebook page today:
Planning for hazard tree mitigation along roads maintained by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management is being finalized and should begin next week.
Road 46 is a primary road for access to a big part of the forest from both the north and south, so it would seem like clearing it would be a priority. Let's hope so anyway.
I wouldn't even mind if they opened it and said "you have to clear the road yourself if you find any down trees" 🙂 I know they would never do that, though.
I would imagine some of the smaller roads and spurs might need some clearing to get down them - just like most winters. But until 224 and 46 is reopened, there are a LOT of trails that cannot be accessed at all. If my quick counting is correct, even if they opened 224, 48 trails would be completly inaccessible if they kept 46 closed. That statement you found gives me some hope - I have a whole list of trails I want to go explore to see how hard they got hit by the fire. I was hoping to see at least a few of them before the snow flies this year.
I did notice that there are almost no firefighters assigned to the fire now. It is down to only 24 people - from a peak of over 1,000. I think it is being managed by local people now. So any work they were doing is now done it appears.
In this video from ODOT, he says it won't be safe for "several months, ...minimum" for the public to be on 224. 
I was hoping, but am not surprised by the comment. Looks like next year at the earliest to check things out.