8/24 Eagle Lake, California, Fire (2018)

Eagle Lake is as far north and east as you can get to in California. I was here a couple of years ago and decided to come back here this year for a few days because it is so pretty here and super-quiet. 

I noticed this very large area of burned forest when I drove here three days ago, but could not get good photos.  Today, I drove back there, about 3 miles from the Merrill Campground where I am staying and got some better photos.  This place is so out-of-the-way, by the way, that I drove 10 miles and passed only one other vehicle, so often I just stopped or almost stopped in the middle of the road to take photos! 

Most of the forest here consists of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir, intermixed with some scrubby areas with only occasional trees. Eagle Lake is very large, surrounded by wooded forests, and elevation is 5,200' so it is cool up here. It is really a beautiful place, but I will take more photos tomorrow to show you the lake and the bike path.   

This fire was referred to as the Whaleback Fire, and it burned 18,000 acres o f Lassen County and Lassen National Forest in July and August of 2018.  All four campgrounds in the south end of the lake and several small communities in the northern end of the lake were evacuated for several days.  The fire came very close to the campgrounds and the communities, but luckily the area has few homes and almost no businesses.  (Don't miss the interactive map link at the end of this posting. It shows a current fire east of this area.)

So here are some photos I took. This is the road leading west from Merrill campground.  Very nice and green with big trees. 

In the distance, you can see that this whole mountain has been burned.  Note that the trees closest are only partly burned, meaning the fire singed the lower branches and the trunk of the trees but did not burn the crown and kill the trees.

Not all of this area is dense forest.  In this photo you can see the lightly burned grassy areas.   The lake is a few hundred feet to the right in this photo.

This area was mostly scrub, with a few trees. 

Notice how the earth itself has been burned off these rocks.  This area is highly volcanic, so I don't think the soil is very thick anywhere around here.

The fire must have been hot here because these smaller trees are black and dead, all the way to their crowns.

These bigger trees will not survive either.  I noticed that they have been cutting some of the lesser damaged, but dead bigger trees and hauling them away for lumber.  These larger trees might have good lumber in the middle, but the smaller ones in the previous are toast, literally.

Not sure what these shrubs were, but all of their bark has been burned off.

I used this forest road as a turnaround.  The little sign points to a lookout about 9 miles down the road.  On the tree just in front of the sign, there is a symbol for a snowmobile trail.

Here is what a "good" forest fire remnant should look like--lower trunks of big trees burned, but crowns green and trees survived the fire.  Many of the older trees around here, by the way, have blackened trunks from old fires.

I am heading back to the campground now.  This area is on the opposite side of the highway from the lake, and you can see where someone has cut and removed some of the trees that are salvageable for lumber.  This was obviously the edge of the fire when it was put out. 

A stump that has been cut and removed from this area.  You can see that the center of the tree has unburned wood. 

A few trees have been removed from this area across the highway, but the lack of stumps shows it did not have many trees in any case. 

Another area right on the edge of the burned lands. 

The next two photos show a shrubby area on the lake side of the road where it was mostly burned.  No stumps from big trees here. 

This is a similar area, but with very little burning having taken place.  Green, unburned trees are in the distance. 

Directly across the highway is an area showing no burning, but a variety of trees and a lot of scrub growth.  

Photos of the campground in a couple of days!  In the meantime, here is a website that shows the location of Whaleback fire and current conditions:  https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/wildfire/incident/50640/california/whaleback-fire 

Merrill Campground is at the far south end of the lake, about three miles from the edge of the fire.  Temps are very pleasant here with daytime temps in the 70s and nights dropping to 49 degrees, as it did last night.  

If you click the link that says "Back to fire map," you will see a map with all fires in the U.S.  Clicking on the menu link in the upper right will allow you to select a time frame and other parameters.  If you zoom in to northeastern California, you will see a green icon showing a fast-growing fire north of Susanville and east of Eagle Lake.  Neat!!!  I did see a Cal Fire truck in a hurry today go past the campground with lights flashing.