#apple fire

San Bernardino County has issued evacuation warnings in the Apple and El Dorado burn scar areas in anticipation of a major storm event. 

Wildfire sunset.

I’ve been following the Palm Springs local newspaper, the Desert Sun, to learn and worry about the Apple fire and a smaller, but personally more significant fire, the Water fire. Each of those wildfires is burning (or has burned) within close proximity to our house in Palm Springs. Because of the pandemic, and because I generally escape the desert in the summer, I’m safely (and wetly) tucked away here in Illinois, so I observe and worry from a distance.

The Apple fire is running into the populated area north of Beaumont and is spreading into the San Gorgonio Wilderness area. About 27,000 acres have burned and 7,800 people are under mandatory evacuation orders. It was about 5% contained this morning. My personal worry is that the fire is awfully close to the Oak Glen headquarters of the Wildlands Conservancy and its Oak Glen Preserve. One of my closest friends is the lead executive of the Conservancy, and he’s worried. Here’s the link to a story in the Desert Sun, a photo and an excerpt. The photos show you that the burn area is rugged, making firefighting tough. (Plus, it’s hot out there. Forecast to be 112 this afternoon in Palm Springs.)

The Apple Fire near Beaumont grew to 26,450 acres as of Monday morning as its intensity sent smoke drifting to Arizona and continued to threaten thousands of homes in Riverside and San Bernardino counties over the weekend.

The fire "burned actively" overnight in "very steep, rugged hillsides which is not accessible to firefighting vehicles," fire officials said in an online update.

The massive blaze, which began Friday evening as two smaller fires that eventually merged, was fed by low humidity, a slight breeze, thick vegetation and triple-digit temperatures.

The Apple Fire had destroyed three structures and was 5% contained as of 7 a.m. Monday. About 2,296 firefighting personnel were battling the blaze and dropping water and fire retardant from the air.

About 7,800 people from 2,600 residences had been ordered to evacuate over the weekend. No injuries had been reported as of Monday morning.

The other fire that worries me is the Water fire, which was burning the Whitewater Preserve. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that the Whitewater Preserve is my favorite spot in the SoCal desert. Whitewater Preserve is owned and operated by the Wildlands Conservancy, which is also concerned with the Apple fire because of its headquarters and another preserve up there. I do a lot of volunteer work at Whitewater, including being a docent taking little ones (elementary school kids) on two-hour exploring field trips in the Preserve to learn about the environment, the desert, water, botany, wildlife, etc. The manager is one of my best friends. So I’m taking this fire very personally. The fire is under control right now (70%), and about 50-60 acres were burned. Was an ember from the Apple fire lofted this way by the winds? Arson? Idiot tossing a cigarette? Here are some photos. The photo with the active fire was sent to me last night by the manager. End photo is one of mine, during the happy time last October after the floods had receded, access had been restored, the bighorn herd was on the rebound and there were no fires. Also, a link to a story in the Desert Sun.

This Preserve has a Charlie Brown dark cloud hovering over it. About a year and a half ago, the Preserve was inundated by the Whitewater River (which runs through it) from the Valentine’s Day storm. Access to the Preserve was broken because the flood took out the bridge and a lot of the road leading into it. While that happened, about 2/3 of the bighorn sheep herd died from pneumonia. As the humans were denied access to the Preserve, a herd of feral cows took over the Preserve, wrecking a lot of it. (They hired cowboys to capture the cows.) Then the pandemic, which closed the Preserve, which has been closed to the public since March. Now this........

Here, photos from the Desert Sun taken of areas recently burned in the Apple fire. The Apple fire is contained, but the visual damage is apparent. Analysis may tell us that the fire damage in places is minimal because of soil conditions, etc. But what we see tells us what we feel, and if we’re not scientists, we go home with the nightmare images in our heads.