BrianEdwards said
The rain today should help.Also, the drive up the beginning of Road 45 is gonna be radically different with no trees blocking the view from the cliffy perch.
I'm hopeful that there will still be trees on that road - scorched trees, but hopefully still living trees. I'm guessing it will definitely look different, though.
Thursday evening I received good news related to the 36 Pit fire from a representative with PGE. He stated that the burn is almost entirely ground fire with very little torching and no extensive areas with dead tree canopy. Nearly all the big firs will be standing and green for all to see once the road opens. The shrub layer likely will be gone so views into the forest will be much more open for a few years anyway.
Expectation is that two hot dry days won't be enough to kick the fire back into high gear, especially after the burnouts and extensive line work that has been done but not yet reported. More drizzly weather next week. They have let all evacuees back into their homes or RVs.
That is good news, Bryon. Thank you for passing it along. After seeing the news footage from their helicopters of big trees torching, I had expected the worst, and the maps seem to paint a worse picture. The map I saw this morning shows it all the way to 4610 and essentially surrounding Silver Fox RV park, but maybe some of that is due to the back burns they have set. It didn't expand too much last night for sure. It definitely sounds like the worst is past for this fire. The next big question is how long it will take to re-open 224?
Thank you for the great info. It is hard to see the Clackamas burn, almost painful - like losing parts of an old friend. I can see why fire suppression was so intense for so many years. Now with all this fragmentation there is little recourse.
Let's hope this is a nail in the coffin for many of these messed up shoot-em-up quarry hell holes...
Here's the link for the latest infrared map. Scroll down a bit. Most of the burn area has cooled down a lot but some active spreading still is going on to the south, including a small area above Carter Bridge Campground, with most hot spots south of the river. The areas closest to Estacada have cooled substantially. Weather over the weekend will favor fire growth but with 40% containment and the large areas basically out north of the river scary fire growth is not likely. There may be torching of groups of trees however. And its back to light rain on Wednesday.