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It appears that the trees and the camp at Cherry Lake will be burned to the ground. We as a family, along with extended family and friends have camped here for the past 12 years. It will be a depressing sight next year.
Although, as this will have a slight affect on our family. This is ruining the lives of some. My heart goes out to those living in the area and truly living a nightmare.

Spent the weekend in Tuolomne kayaking, drinking, climbed Johnson, drinking... The plume from atop Johnson looked horrendous! Back into the Meadows a light smoke comes and goes. Trail crew from the western side has been evacuated to Tuolomne without much warning. All in all, it is a gorgeous day in the Meadows.

Rim fire online map - Fire perimeter, hot spots, wind data

The link below will always display the most recent perimeter of the Rim Fire and current hot spots straight from the GeoMAC server. This is the same server that also provides data to the crews on the fire line. Sometimes the data on the InciWeb site is not as current as the data that comes from the GeoMAC server. (The InciWeb site gets its data from GeoMAC.)

The map also shows wind speed and direction. Note that the wind data is always 3 hours old.

For more information regarding this map, you can follow the “About” link in the upper left corner of the map.

http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/fires/2 ... e_map.html

Joseph, the Gmap4 guy

We had clean air last week in Tuolumne, but could see the smoke from near Columbia Finger

Marmaduke wrote:It appears that the trees and the camp at Cherry Lake will be burned to the ground.

Yeah ... but on the other hand, it will revitalize and open up the forest for a much healthier elk and deer population.

Deb wrote:Spent the weekend in Tuolomne kayaking, drinking, climbed Johnson, drinking...

Deb, I'm assuming you're drinking WATER ?

I'm pretty sure there isn't any Elk in the area. Ranchers do have leases of some sort and thousands head of cattle graze on the U.S. and Federal lands. The terrain in some areas is extremely steep, many steers will be lost. Also, around the lake itself there is granite everywhere. There are remnents of a past fire and the "forest" will not revitalize quickly.......And the town of Tuolumne is being threatened. Today looks much better but those folks aren't going to be sleeping any better anytime soon.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_eGiGG1B-Q[/youtube]

Here's a pic of the new elk habitat from the Rim fire


Also, they are spending millions to put out this fire which is burning the watershed and major power source for San Francisco (Hetch Hetchy). Should the city of San Francisco have to foot the bill?

It's depressing to see the smoke even from Mammoth. Landing in Reno (and driving down) was surreal. My schedule calls for Mt. Dana tomorrow -- but it might be too far north. We'll see.

In the meantime, how's the Bishop area looking these days? Is the fish fire sending smoke there?

Mt Dana was fine on Saturday, not sure if thats still the case.

Updated trail closure map

tbaranski wrote:It's depressing to see the smoke even from Mammoth. Landing in Reno (and driving down) was surreal. My schedule calls for Mt. Dana tomorrow -- but it might be too far north. We'll see.

In the meantime, how's the Bishop area looking these days? Is the fish fire sending smoke there?

Looking pretty clear in Bishop today, of course it did drizzle. The clouds were settled on mountain tops most of the day; no smoke. Yesterday afternoon the smoke DID creep in just a bit.

We went to the south lake area instead. You could smell some smoke there and it came in over Johnson's north ridge in the afternoon. For some reason, Lone Pine was smokey too; couldn't even see parts of the mountains. That was Sunday. Guessing some other fire?

willytinawin wrote: <snipsnipsnip>

Also, they are spending millions to put out this fire which is burning the watershed and major power source for San Francisco (Hetch Hetchy). Should the city of San Francisco have to foot the bill?

Hmmm...unsure if you watched the video that Fedek (thanks!!!) posted above; you can skip to ~4:00+ mins to see the ferocity that the fire exhibited.

Why would you suggest that SF foot the bill for battling this fire???

Are you also suggesting that the fire be allowed to burn if those vital (to SF) resources did not exist?

Decisions were been made many years ago to use Hetch Hetchy as a power/water resource for SF. While the decision was not unanimous, it was blessed on state and federal levels, which IMHO precludes local government from being responsible for costs associated to battle a wildfire of this nature.

"Why would you suggest that SF foot the bill for battling this fire???"

The residents of Groveland, effective in 2011, now pay, are required to pay a $150 annual fee to the State of California for "fire fees". This fire has burned all the way to hetch hetchy, a water and power source for San Francisco. It has done a lot of damage to the watershed as well, which will cost millions to restore and clean up. This will benefit SF.

So I answer your question with a question: Why should the California taxpayers foot the bill for San Francisco for the fire and clean-up/restoration? If Groveland residents in the California SRA are required to pay the State every year now, why should SF be exempt and make the taxpayers pay ?