early wet snow

Yes, your eyes are working. :-) We had a very sloppy day with some wet snow in my area. I had to drive to a mall about 25 miles away to pick up my computer from the Apple Store and it was a messy drive to the mall with a heavy wet snow falling for most of the trip. By the time I left the wet snow was beginning to taper off. I saw two trucks from my local roads department sanding the roads.

I would say that we had a coating of wet snow on our lawn and by the time I got home from the mall, a very light slushy accumulation on the roads.

Go here for some pictures.

I copied this public information statement with a 7:45 PM time stamp on Oct. 28 from my local noaa webpage. If you need help locating this public information statements on this noaa webpage, click on the text products icon and then go to public information statements. The current statement will be displayed and you can easily select prior statements.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
SPOTTER REPORTS
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOUNT HOLLY NJ
745 PM EDT TUE OCT 28 2008

THE FOLLOWING ARE UNOFFICIAL OBSERVATIONS TAKEN DURING THE PAST 24 HOURS
FOR THE STORM THAT HAS BEEN AFFECTING OUR REGION. APPRECIATION IS EXTENDED
TO HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTS...COOPERATIVE OBSERVERS...SKYWARN SPOTTERS
AND MEDIA FOR THESE REPORTS. THIS SUMMARY IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON OUR
HOME PAGE AT WEATHER.GOV/PHI

********************STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL********************

LOCATION STORM TOTAL TIME/DATE COMMENTS
SNOWFALL OF
(INCHES) MEASUREMENT


NEW JERSEY

...ATLANTIC COUNTY...
POMONA T 250 PM 10/28 ACY INTL AIPRORT

...BURLINGTON COUNTY...
MOUNT HOLLY 0.1 245 PM 10/28 NWS OFFICE
CROSSWICKS T 1048 AM 10/28
MOUNT LAUREL T 420 PM 10/28

...HUNTERDON COUNTY...
LEBANON 12.0 500 PM 10/28 950 FT
CHERRYVILLE 5.0 400 PM 10/28
HIGH BRIDGE 2.4 130 PM 10/28
CLINTON 1.7 300 PM 10/28
FLEMINGTON T 825 AM 10/28
FLEMINGTON T 420 PM 10/28

...MERCER COUNTY...
HOPEWELL 2.5 425 PM 10/28
EAST WINDSOR T 1030 AM 10/28
EWING T 915 AM 10/28
HAMILTON SQUARE T 1032 AM 10/28
MERCERVILLE T 1052 AM 10/28
PRINCETON T 900 AM 10/28

...MIDDLESEX COUNTY...
NEW BRUNSWICK 1.5 130 PM 10/28
EDISON 1.0 1130 AM 10/28

...MORRIS COUNTY...
MOUNT OLIVE 11.5 520 PM 10/28 AT 1000 FEET
LONG VALLEY 8.0 420 PM 10/28 AT 1200 FEET
FLANDERS 5.5 730 PM 10/28
LAKE HOPATCONG 3.0 730 PM 10/28
MOUNT OLIVE 3.0 130 PM 10/28
BUTLER T 730 PM 10/28

...OCEAN COUNTY...
TOMS RIVER T 100 PM 10/28

...SOMERSET COUNTY...
HILLSBOROUGH 1.2 130 PM 10/28
PEAPACK 1.0 1117 AM 10/28
BRIDGEWATER 0.3 130 PM 10/28
BEDMINSTER T 1045 AM 10/28

...SUSSEX COUNTY...
HIGH POINT STATE 14.0 400 PM 10/28
WANTAGE 4.5 420 PM 10/28 AT 1020 FEET
BARRY LAKES 3.0 725 PM 10/28
NEWTON 2.5 730 PM 10/28
SPARTA 2.0 725 PM 10/28 UP TO 5 HIGHER TRRN
LAFAYETTE 0.5 130 PM 10/28

...WARREN COUNTY...
HACKETTSTOWN 4.8 420 PM 10/28
HACKETTSTOWN 4.0 645 PM 10/28
ALLAMUCHY 3.0 1105 AM 10/28
BLAIRSTOWN 0.5 730 PM 10/28
STEWARTSVILLE T 420 PM 10/28

PENNSYLVANIA

...BUCKS COUNTY...
JAMISON 3.0 230 PM 10/28
CHALFONT 2.0 400 PM 10/28
FAIRLESS HILLS 1.5 736 PM 10/28
FURLONG 1.2 230 PM 10/28
DOYLESTOWN 1.0 130 PM 10/28
LANGHORNE 0.8 230 PM 10/28
BENSALEM 0.5 230 PM 10/28
LEVITTOWN T 1040 AM 10/28
SPRINGTOWN T 720 AM 10/28

...CARBON COUNTY...
ALBRIGHTSVILLE 6.0 1115 AM 10/28 ELEV. AROUND 1700 FEET
JIM THORPE T 700 AM 10/28
PALMERTON T 700 AM 10/28

...MONROE COUNTY...
TOBYHANNA 16.0 700 PM 10/28 POWER OUTAGES
POCONO SUMMIT 4.5 1100 AM 10/28

...MONTGOMERY COUNTY...
MONTGOMERYVILLE 2.0 420 PM 10/28
SOUDERTON 1.5 1140 AM 10/28
WILLOW GROVE T 700 AM 10/28

...PHILADELPHIA COUNTY...
PHILADELPHIA T 1124 AM 10/28 NE

***********************PEAK WIND GUST***********************

LOCATION PEAK WIND TIME/DATE COMMENTS
GUST OF
(MPH) MEASUREMENT


DELAWARE

...KENT COUNTY...
DOVER AFB 47 513 PM 10/28

...NEW CASTLE COUNTY...
WILMINGTON 47 510 PM 10/28
NEW CASTLE 45 457 PM 10/28

...SUSSEX COUNTY...
LEWES BEACH 47 900 AM 10/28 BREAKWATER HARBOR

MARYLAND

...CAROLINE COUNTY...
RIDGELY 44 100 PM 10/28

...KENT COUNTY...
TOLCHESTER BEACH 44 1100 AM 10/28

...TALBOT COUNTY...
EASTON 39 1053 AM 10/28

NEW JERSEY

...ATLANTIC COUNTY...
ATLANTIC CITY 50 416 PM 10/28 INTL AIRPORT
ATLANTIC CITY 44 400 PM 10/28 MARINA

...BURLINGTON COUNTY...
MOUNT HOLLY 38 339 PM 10/28

...CAPE MAY COUNTY...
CAPE MAY 66 258 PM 10/28
CAPE MAY 59 730 PM 10/28 FERRY
WILDWOOD 50 255 PM 10/28

...CUMBERLAND COUNTY...
NEWPORT 48 700 PM 10/28
MILLVILLE 47 220 PM 10/28

...MERCER COUNTY...
TRENTON 36 1229 PM 10/28

...MONMOUTH COUNTY...
KEANSBURG 47 1100 AM 10/28
BELMAR 39 235 PM 10/28

...OCEAN COUNTY...
BARNEGAT LIGHT 50 400 PM 10/28
TOMS RIVER 36 435 PM 10/28

...SUSSEX COUNTY...
HIGH POINT STATE 52 250 PM 10/28

PENNSYLVANIA

...BERKS COUNTY...
READING 54 430 PM 10/28

...BUCKS COUNTY...
DOYLESTOWN 37 531 PM 10/28

...CHESTER COUNTY...
COATESVILLE 51 240 PM 10/28

...LEHIGH COUNTY...
ALLENTOWN 43 537 PM 10/28

...MONROE COUNTY...
MT. POCONO 43 445 PM 10/28

...MONTGOMERY COUNTY...
PHILLY WINGS F 44 520 PM 10/28
POTTSTOWN 38 202 PM 10/28
WILLOW GROVE NAS 38 534 PM 10/28

...PHILADELPHIA COUNTY...
PHILADELPHIA/NE 43 531 PM 10/28 NE AIRPORT
PHILADELPHIA 40 551 PM 10/28 INTL AIRPORT

final update on Sauders Ditch Fire

Sorry for the delay in posting this update. The forum thread about this fire on wildland fire reported yesterday morning (27 October) that the fire is 100% contained after the area received .58 inches of rain over the weekend with some smoke. Mop up continues. Acreage burned is 1,950.

And see this newspaper article.

I expect that the received more rain today, not as much as I did, but perhaps they received enough rain to help the remaining firecrews who are mopping up.

Sauders Ditch Fire - 70% contained

I have been relying on reports posted to wildland fire as my primary source for my posts about this fire. According to this mornings report (8:30 AM EDT on 10/24/08), 1,950 acres have burned and the fire is 70% contained. The main problem has been heavy smoke conditions made worse by inversion. Heavy smoke lead to the closure of U.S. Route 206 at 10:30 PM last night. Schools in nearby Hammonton Township are closed today as well.

Officials expect to reopen the highway once the inversion lifts this morning. Weather reports calls for winds from the east which are expected to clear the smoke for the highway and from the nearby town of Hammonton, NJ.

Sauders Ditch Fire update

According to a Star Ledger report around mid-day, the fire is at 50 percent containment and is not expected to spread outside of the remote area where it is burning unless there is "sudden increase in winds."

Route 206 in the area of the fire may be reopened today.

Sauders Ditch Fire (Pine Barrens, NJ)

The fire that I wrote about last night, aka the Sauders Ditch Fire, continues to burn tonight according to reports on wildlandfire.com. The fire jumped U.S. Route 206 last night, and the areas of greatest concern are to the east of the highway. Winds are an issue.

The report (written about noon today) reports that air support in the form of two helicopters and a fixed wing aircraft were scheduled to be deployed around mid day for water drops.

The Star Ledger reports that the fire has charred 1,800 acres and is 40 percent contained. Residents in four houses who evacuated yesterday were allowed to return today. Rain is not expected until this weekend so the fire may not be controlled until then or later, depending on the rainfall.

If I understand what I have been reading on wildlandfire about this fire, the fire started on the west side of U.S. 206 in the Atsion area before jumping the highway to the east side. The graphic is from google earth with a (kml) file from the modis active fire mapping program of the U.S. Forest Service. I can't speak for how up to date this information is as the modis files shows no fires east of U.S. 206 yet the latest reports that I saw all speak of fires to the east of the highway. At the very least this gives you an idea of the locale of the Sauders Ditch fire.

Fire in NJ Pine Barrens

There is a wildfire in the NJ Pine Barrens in the Warton Forest area. See this report from the Wildland Fire website. And see this article.

Early reports say this is a fast moving fire capable of burning 1,000+ acres. Part of the area was burned in August 2007 reducing fire behavior in that area.

Not a surprise, it has been dry recently and I was on the NJ Forest Fire website earlier today where they reported a high fire risk for the Pine Barrens.

Revisions to yesterdays post

For those of you who are interested and may have already read the post I made yesterday on Burned Area Emergency Response, I just made some modifications that I hope will provide further clarifications.

Burned Area Emergency Response

In July, I wrote about the Basin Complex fire that burned portions of the Los Padres National Forest. I wondered what was heppening in Los Padres in the aftermath of the Basin Complex and the Indians Fires. These two fires burned a total of 240,170 acres broken down as follows.

National Forest Service acres: 197,497
Other federal lands: 13,066
State: 5,248
Private: 24,263

In checking out the Los Padres website, I learned about the U.S. Forest Service's Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Program.

After a fire on U.S. Forest Service lands, the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) program kicks in. The goal of BAER is to to protect

life, property, water quality and deteriorated ecosystems from further damage from flooding and other natural events after a fire. A Forest Service BAER Team was convened in August to assess the entire burn area. Members included specialists in hydrology, soil science, geology, biology, botany, archaeology and engineering. The Team coordinated with local, state and other federal agencies to discuss assessment findings, values at risk and treatment options.

The objectives of the BAER program are to:

* Determine if emergency resource or human health and safety conditions exist.

* Alleviate emergency conditions to help stabilize soil; control water, sediment and debris movement; prevent impairment of ecosystems; and mitigate significant threats to health, safety, life, property and downstream values at risk.

* Monitor the implementation and effectiveness of emergency treatments.

In August, the Forest Service released this rehabilitation and emergency response update where the BAER team reports there early findings including a summary of acreage burned and post-fire ecological vulnerabilities.

In late September, the U.S. Forest Service released the BAER plan for U.S. Forest Service properties burned in the Basin Complex and Indians Fires. The approved initial BAER report may be found here (adobe reader required).

One of the responses under BAER is applying hydromulch to burned areas. According to the current conditions page of the Los Padres website:

Hydromulch will be applied by aircraft to about 1500 acres in the Gap Fire area. Hydromulch is an all-organic mix of paper/wood fiber, water and a binding substance. It helps hold the soil in place to minimize erosion, trap moisture and create an environment in which the native seeds and roots already present in the soil can sprout. The green dye in the hydromulch helps the pilots see where they have made their drops, but the color will fade to a light brown within a short period of time. Treatments are scheduled to begin on September 24 and will take 3-4 weeks to complete. The treated areas will be closed to all public entry for the first year to protect the hydromulch cover.

The first phase of hydromulching was completed on October 6. A map of the hydromulched area may be found here.

Not that the 1,500 acres that were hydromulched in this first phase account for only a very small percentage of total acres burned (197,497) in June and July on National Forest Service Lands. If my understanding of the Approved Initial BAER Report is correct, many high to moderately burned acres in Los Padres were on very steep slopes. Hydromulch can not be applied if slopes are very steep, so many high and moderately burned acres do not fit the rules or conditions for hydromulching and will not be treated.

I expect that the Forest Service will continue to provide updates on the Los Padres current conditions page. I'll be checking this page from time to time.

November 19, 2015: Unfortunately all or most of the links in this article are outdated and no longer available. The USFS page for Los Padres did have information on the BAER for the Station Fire that have since been removed. I am sorry. 

Santa Ana Winds

I found this webpage with a good brief description of Santa Ana winds by Robert Fovell, Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also includes a model of a typical Santa Ana event in California that you weather buffs might enjoy. Finally he has a good FAQ page.

California wildfires

Some of you may have heard about the recent wildfires in California on the news. Capt. Mike of the Firefighter blog has been writing about these fires. He has labels on his blog, so to make it easier for you, I used his label to provide you with what I hope is an easy to use link to his writings about Santa Ana winds and wildfires, including the recent wildfires in CA. This will take at least a couple of minutes to load, perhaps longer if you have a slower internet connection.

Briefly, as I understand it, Santa Ana winds can make wildfires in CA worse. I believe that this time of year, early fall, is (one?) of the seasons for Santa Ana winds. Dry conditions and Santa Ana can lead to deadly wildfires, ones that are difficult to fight. Sometime in the coming days, I'll try to find some specific information on the web talking about the relationship between Santa Ana winds and wildfires for you. In the meantime, take a look at this wikipedia link.

I am going to work on going back and putting labels in my blog, at least going back for the last three months in hopes that it will make easier to follow the topics that I am writing about.

What is happening at Lost Padres?

I went to the Los Padres National Forest website recently to see what has been happening in the aftermath of the Basin Complex Fire that I wrote about in the Summer. There were, I think, two fires at Los Padres, the Basin Complex and the Indians Fires. For the moment, I am going to post the link to this page at the Los Padres National Forest where current conditions are discussed, including but not limited to post-fire responses in the aftermath of the June 2008 fires.

wildfire terminology

I was looking around on the internet last week for some basic information about the anatomy of a wildfire along with some definitions of some of the terminology that is commonly used by those who write about wildfires. I found this short reference on wildfires produced by the South Carolina Forestry Commission in 1994.

The graphic that I am including in this post is from the SC Forestry Commission, they are also the source for the terminology discussion below.

A wildfire is any outdoor fire (forest, brush, grass, etc) that is not controlled or supervised.

Fires need fuel, heat, and oxygen (aka the fire triangle) to burn. Structural fires are typically attacked with water to reduce heat or foam to take away the fires oxygen supply. Wildland fire fighters remove flammable materials from the path of the fire, attacking the fire's source of fuel.

A variety of tools are used to remove fuel from a strip of ground called a fire or fuel break. One tool that I have frequently seen referred to is called a backfire or drip torch that is used to widen firebreaks by burning out fuel between the firebreak and the oncoming fire.. It consists of fuel canister filled with a mixture of diesel and gasoline with a wick-like burner attached to the canister by a long tube. The fuel ignites as it passes the burning wick dropping on the ground to ignite leaves, pine needles, and other detritus on the ground.

The head (see graphic) is the fastest moving and most dangerous part of the fire. According to the SC Forestry Commission, "since this is the portion of the fire that causes the most damage, firefighters try to stop the head first." On large fast-moving fires, several firefighters may plow side by side to create a firebreak wide enough to stop the head.. After the wildland fire fighters have stopped the forward progress of the head they construct firebreaks around both flanks and the rear to contain the fire. The next step is to mop up the fire by putting out any remaining hot spots and/or other spot fires, and reinforce their firebreaks. A fire is not considered to be controlled until the mop-up phase is completed.

Addendum: I am adding this addendum a few hours later. I have already been on another web page from the State of Maryland where they say that "firefighters usually start building a fireline at the place where the fire originated and work along the sides of the blaze toward the burning front." Note the use of the term fireline, which they say "looks a lot like a trail or small road, is a strip of land cleared of flammable materials like plants and shrubs."

To this novice, a fireline seems to be synonymous with a fire or fuel break. Moreover the folk from Maryland seem to have different take on where the wildland fire fighters start to build a fireline or firebreak to work towards containing the fire. Perhaps the point is that the methods for fighting a particular fire including where firefighters start building a firebreak, if indeed they even do this first, will vary depending on the characteristics of the wildland fire itself. All I am aiming to do here and in later posts is to get a handle on some of the terminology used in fighting wildland fires and related issues and to offer this to you along with links for you to peruse at your leisure.

Condor Chick survives Basin Complex Fire

I am starting to poke around on the various websites that I was following last July when I wrote about The Basin Complex Fire in Los Padres National Forest. One of the blogs that I heard of in the course of my wonderings is a blog called the firefighter blog. The blogger is Capt. Mike, ret(ired), and my take is that he is a retired fireman. I never really checked out his blog in July, rather I decided to go back to this blog at a later time.

The time has come for me to check out this blog, which I am in the process of doing as I write this. I found this interesting post: From the ashes; Condor chick survives The Basin Complex Fire including a you tube video from the Ventana Wilderness Society reporting their discovery of the chick.

I am awed by the tenacity of nature, how nature -- in this case a Condor Chick and parent(s) -- survived the fire. Nature does find a way, if we let her.

Since I have been promising to post some follow-ups about what is going in Los Padres National Forest following The Basin Complex Fire, I thought that the story of the Condor chick is a good place to start.

Delaware River (part 3): a culvert along the canal

I took a drive down to check out a section of the Delaware and Raritan Canal about two miles south of Lambertville, NJ yesterday afternoon. I wanted to check out some markers that I first saw when I went to that section of the canal last March. The markers, near a culvert, turned out to be uninteresting.

But I was interested in the culvert, so I am attaching two photos of the culvert, one from each side of the culvert. When I went back yesterday, I was struck by the much lower level of the Delaware River as compared with March 6, 2008 (bankfull). I am including two pictures looking from the towpath along the canal at the culvert looking towards the Delaware River. One, taken in March, shows the River at bankfull. The other, taken yesterday from about the same spot, shows the River at a significantly lower level, probably more along the lines of a "normal" level if not a tad on the low side.

Delaware River (March 2008): part 2

Both pictures were taken in Lambertville. One was taken on March 6, 2008 when the Delaware was at bankfull and the second was taken nine days later on March 15. I tried to go to the same spot on March 15 from which I had taken the earlier photo, but you can see that I was off a little. Nevertheless, I think you get the idea.

Delaware River (March 2008): part 1

Last March (March 6) I was out for a walk along the Delaware River when the River was at what is known as bankfull. We had just had a significant amount of rain and there was the possibility of even more rain a couple of days later. Bankfull is as what you think. This is when a river or stream is near the top of its bank, just shy of flood stage. Residents in floodprone towns including but not limited to Frenchtown and Lambertville prepared for the floods by sandbagging vulnerable areas.

So, if the substantial rainfall that was predicted a couple of days later, the river would flood for (I think) the fourth time in four years. The predicted significant rainfall did not materialize, fortunately.

By March 15, the river was back down. I drove down with my friend to get some pictures of the River at more normal levels to provide a contrast with the pictures I got on March 6 when the River was at bankfull. We saw the sandbags that I photographed, in either Lambertville or Frenchtown. I got these shots. I was interested in the culvert which may have been the source of flooding in the adjacent parking lot.

I'll post the before and after pictures tomorrow.

Trees in Delaware River floodplain near Frenchtown NJ

I wrote a few days about my walk along the Delaware River south of Frenchtown NJ along the Delaware and Raritan Canal Towpath. Now I am not a Forester or otherwise an expert at tree identification, I am an amateur at this. And I have books that I use to help me. In particular, I found this book in our home library a few days ago:

Collins, Reryl Robichaud and Karl H. Anderson. 1994. Plant Communities of New Jersey: A study in Diversity. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

They have a chapter on freshwater wetlands in northern New Jersey. While not specifically describing the Delaware River floodplains, perhaps because it forms the western border of NJ and PA, they do describe the floodplains of a river that is in the same physiographic region of NJ. Broadly speaking there are four physiographic regions in New Jersey, the portion of the Delaware River that I visit and the town I live in are in the piedmont region.

Collins and Anderson describe the plants located in the floodplain of the Raritan River in the piedmont regions. Two of the trees that they say are found in these floodplains are the River Birch, and the Sycamore. The links that I have provided are from a wetlands plants database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They have a web interface that allows you to narrow your search of wetlands plants to your specific state and by plant type. If you are so inclined, check out the information provided on each of the links I provided for River Birches and Sycamores.

Speaking of Sycamores, I got to know Sycamores because they were numerous Sycamore trees located in the Hundson County town where we used to live. They line many of the residential streets in this town, and are also located in the parks, including the green area along the Passaic River.

I wrote about these two trees, because these were the common trees located in the region between the towpath that we were walking on and the Delaware River. Other trees that we saw were species of Maple and Oak, Hickory and/or Ash and Sweet Gum.

A word about Hickory and Ash. Both have what are known as compound leaflets (5 to 9 leaves). For more information on leaf terminology, see this webpage. There is an important but perhaps subtle difference between the leaf structure of Hickories and Ashes. I'm not sure that I can explain this in any way that will make sense. You will have to trust me that this difference can make it sometimes difficult to distinguish between Ash and Hickories, at least for me. Any tree guide, I have several tree guides including some very good guides put out by the Audubon Society, will have a chapter where they discuss various leaf types and other basic terminology used to identify trees.

Anyway, it was hard for me to distinguish between Ash and Hickory because the foiliage was too high for me to distinguish between the leaf structures of Ashes v Hickories. As for identifying trees by their bark, I am getting better, but it is still hard, sometimes requiring more study. Having read up on Ash and Hickories on my tree guides, when we go back, I may be better able to distinguish between the two.

Walking along the Delaware River

We are frequent visitors to the Delaware River in Hunterdon County, NJ. Usually someowhere between Frenchtown and Washington's Crossing. We pick a spot, park our car and walk for an hour or more usually along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. We share the path with bicyclists and the occasional jogger.

Given how much I love trees, I have been bothered that I have not been paying much mind to the trees that we pass. So, this week I paid attention to the trees as we walked. Given that this area is in a floodplain along a major river in the Piedmont section of northern New Jersey, I had an idea of what to find. And later ran through my list cross checking it with my Audubon tree guides and a book I have on NJ Plant Communities.

I would not call myself an expert at tree identification. When most of the tree is tall and most of the foliage is upwards of twenty feet or more high, it is sometimes hard for me to identify a tree off of the leaf structure. But between my friend and I, we at least have a good idea of some of the major trees that we saw on this walk. I'll write about these later, with links to pictures and the like.

I wish I was brave enough to wonder through the undergrowth between the canal path and the River to poke and get a closer look at the trees. However, the thick undergrowth of poison ivy discouraged me. And I was wearing shorts.

So, stay tuned . . .

Ballons

I'm taking a short break from my writings on the Pine Barrens, in part because I need to finish up another writing project. So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to post some photographs that I took at the 2006 and 2008 Quick Check Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport in New Jersey.

Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

In recent years almost every day trip we have made to the Pine Barrens involves a visit to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest (formerly Lebanon State Forest). We first visited this forest sometime in the late 1980s during our annual late summer visits to relatives with a summer home in a nearby town. I expect that it was during this time that we were first introduced to the 49.5 mile Batona Trail.

The Baton Trail goes through the Byrne State Forest and its terminus is in nearby Ongs Hat, a short drive from the forest office. In addition to this trail, there are a couple of other trails in the forest. The trails go through a pine/oak forest, along side a pond known as pakim pond and an atlantic white cedar swamp. We have hiked in all these areas but I only have digital photos of the pine/oak forest within two miles of the forest office.

I don’t have pictures of Pakim Pond, but I did find this set of photos of pakim pond on the flikr site. These photos are incredible, of much better quality then anything I could do with my little digital camera. These photos are almost as good as being there in person, if not better.

In my recent wonderings on the internet, I found that the NJ Forest Service has an initiative to restore Atlantic White Cedars. Information on this initiative can be found here, and here is a related site, a paper on restoring the Atlantic Whites.

fort dix fire contained

The small fire in a remote section of Fort Dix that was burning last Thursday while we were in the Pine Barrens was contained either last Thursday night (Aug. 28) or early on Friday morning (Aug. 29).

See this news account.

Interesting

I had a dream about fires last night. I was either a fire fighter or an observer, there was no actual fire only the expectation of a fire. Interesting. This says something to me about my involvement in the writing and research that I am doing about wildfires. A few years ago I was a member of a research group doing some research about remediating the nuclear weapon production complex in America. At the time I would sometimes dream about nuclear waste. And at other times in my life, my work or school activities, coworkers, school buddies and friends would show up in my dreams.

Our visit to Penn State Forest

We did make it to Penn State Forest this past Thursday afternoon. We walked about three-quarters of a mile (or 1.5 miles round trip) up one of the sand roads into what appeared to a forest with normal sized pitch pines, smaller oaks, and blueberry bushes. We did not walk longer because we had already walked a couple of miles earlier in the day and were getting a little tired from a long drive. Anyway, the walk through the forest on this sand road was very soothing, quieting my soul. I saw the beautiful simplicity of this forest, and found all my cares being lifted. I suppose you can say that I feel replenished after our day in the pine barrens.

I think that the Pine Plains with the dwarf or pigmy pines would have involved a walk of at least three or four miles one way, or over eight miles round trip. Our hiking book suggested allowing five hours for the hike. Considering the length of time it takes us to get to this part of the pine barrens, this is more than we would want to do in one day.

When we did longer hikes in the pine barrens we were staying in the Tuckerton area, not far from Penn State Forest and other close by areas where we did longer hikes. The Tuckerton option is no longer available to us. Perhaps we will stay over a night in a hotel/motel next spring or summer and do a longer hike.

Anyway, I promised pictures and here they are. There are two pictures of Oswego Lake and another shot taken looking down the sand road we were walking on.

When we got to the parking area there was a group of young people getting ready to leave and a couple of kayakers on the Lake. When we left, about 1.5 hours later, the young people had left and there were one or two new cars in the parking lot. Otherwise, we had the place to ourselves except for the Park Police making a routine patrol. There is a small sand "beach" with a couple of picnic tables and a new composting toilet. There were no life guards so if you swim, you swim at your own risk. The most I have done was more along the lines of wading and otherwise cooling off and that was about fifteen years ago.

For those of you who are interested, the turn off for Penn State Forest is about seven miles south of Chatsworth NJ (intersection of County Rtes. 563 and 532 on County Rte, 563. The turn off, Lake Oswego Rd, will be on your left and is a paved road. If you get to Mikes Canoe rental or County Rte. 679 you have gone to far.

My trip to the Pine Barrens

We had a great day in the Pine Barrens yesterday. I got many pictures that I have to go through before I post my first batch. I hope to have the first batch ready tomorrow.

We walked for almost four miles in two different places, one of which was Penn State Forest, the one I wrote about recently. Those will be the first group of pictures that I post.

As for chigger prevention. Knock on wood is all I will say right now. . . I sprayed my socks, the skin under my socks and the bottom of my jeans. Then I tucked the jeans into my socks, and looked like an idiot. But I hope it kept those nasty little creatures away. When we got home, I took what I call my "uninvited guest" shower to wash off chiggers and ticks.

We drove about 300 miles all told, and we were both tired when we got home.

As we were driving home, I kept thinking that I saw smoke that looked an awful like smoke coming from a fire. And it turned out I was right, I saw a small article about the fire in my local newspaper, The Star Ledger. It turns out that the fire was in a remote section of the Fort Dix military base, located near the Pine Barrens. See this article and a second updated article, that will be freely available for 14 days or through September 12. At this point, the blaze is confined to a couple of hundred acres wholly within the military base and is no threat to the public.

At least I know that my instincts were right about the smoke that I saw yesterday.

Dwarf Pitch Pines

I have already mentioned that what makes the pine plains unique are the dwarf pitch pines (pinus rigida Mill.) that stand about five feet tall. Also present in the pine plains are blackjack oak (Quercu marilandica Muenchh.) and scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia Wang.). The pine plains ecosystem is specially adapted to fire.

The authors of the first chapter in Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands (B. R. Collins, N.F. Good, and R. E. Good) provide a good explanation of the relationship between the dwarf pitch pines and fire. In the pine plains, the dwarf or pigmy pitch pine has adapted to fire in that the seed bearing cones are closed or serotinous. These “serotinous” cones open only in high heat of the sort that occurs during a fire.

The distinctive character of this dwarf forest is probably the result of very frequent fires over hundreds or even thousands of years. Under such conditions the tree oaks, which are not found in the dwarf forest, would not have been able to maintain themselves, because they bear viable seed only on stems twenty years or more in age. The pitch pines present in this forest are genetically differentiated from other populations of the species. They are less upright, of shorter growth form, and produce cones at an earlier age. Unlike other pitch pines, whose cones open top disperse seed normalyy at maturity, the pitch pines growing in the dwarf forest have closed (or serotinous) cones that open to dispers seed only at high temperatures, such as those occurring during a fire (B. R. Collins, N.F. Good, and R. E. Good “The Landscape of the Pine Barrens”, p.15, in Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands: A New Direction in Land-Use Management edited by B.R. Collins and W.B. Russell, New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press. 1988).

See this link for images of the pine plains taken just after a fire, along with images of growth after the fire.

A more detailed description of the pitch pine, including sections on fire ecology, is found on this usda webpage.

To the Pine Barrens

Tommorrow I am making a day trip to the NJ Pine Barrens. I hope to get to Penn State Forest so I can post some pictures for you. I don't think that I will walk to the pine plains in Penn State Forest, but there is a section of the pine plains on one of major roads, Rte. 539, that traverse the Pine Barrens where I may be able to get some pictures if there is a pull off.

If the gypsy moths have not been bad this year, then I hope to get pictures of the young oak with the very large leaves to show you.

So stay tuned.

In the meantime, check back tomorrow for a post that will be automatically posted around 10 AM.

Penn State Forest

Our first trip to Penn State Forest, not far from Chatsworth NJ was to follow a hike we had read about in our Fifty Hikes in NJ book (by Bruce Scofield, Stella J. Green, H. Neil Zimmerman. 1988. Woodstock VT: Backcountry Publications).

We were attracted to the hike, in part because of the promise of seeing a dwarf pine forest where the pines are about four to six feet high. We had seen dwarf pines, also known as the pine plains, along Rte 539 in Burlington County near Warren Grove. This was a chance to see the dwarf or pigmy pines as they are sometimes known up close and personal. At least more up close and personal then is possible in a car.

Thanks to Google Earth, I have posted an image of what I hope is Penn State Forest and Oswego Lake at the top of this post. We parked in a parking lot near the Lake and walked north on the sand road. It was late August, and it was hot. Sometimes sand roads in the pine barrens are firmly packed and easy to walk on and sometimes the sand is not packed, making walking a little more difficult. Sinking an inch or so into the sand as you walk along these roads on a hot day is not always a easy walk. I think that we got about half-way into our five mile hike before we turned around. To be honest, I'm not sure if the reason we turned back was because we were hot and tired or if we were under a time constraint. We may have made it to the outskirts of the pine plains in Penn State Forest, I don't recall. But I did enjoy the pine forest. For me there is a simplicity and elegance in these pine forests.

Side bar: LA Times Big Burn Series

A while back I posted a link to a five-part series, Big Burn on different aspects of wildfires. I admit that it took me about three weeks to finish the series mostly because I kept saying "I'll finish it tomorrow." Well, I finished the series the other day.

I admit that when I read articles such as the LA Times Big Burn series, I don't always read the comments. There are 195 comments. I had been thinking recently that while I admire and respect the reporting job done by the reporters and the photographers, that there was probably another side to the stories they tell. It was my interest in another side of the story that lead me to read the comments. For example, in the first story, they write about the high cost of fighting fires using the example of the 2007 Zaca fire in California near Los Padres. The cost, according to the article was $140 million, in terms of monetary costs, this is at the higher end of U.S. Forest Services fires. The reporters also discussed the camps that the fire fighting crews slept in complete with what the reporters referred to as "sleeping trailers."

Of course, I know nothing about fighting wildfires. And not being from the fire prone western States, I know that I can not conceive of what these wildfires are like. We have wildfires in NJ, e.g. in the Pine Barrens, but even the biggest wildfires of recent years do not, in my opinion, compare with those in western States such as California. But the reporters were talking about a fire that cost a lot of money to fight and a fire that was near a populated area, Santa Barbara.

My point being that perhaps fires in more remote areas far from areas populated by humans are less expensive to fight. And perhaps the fire fighters don't live in the fancy and expensive sleeping trailers referred to in the article. Perhaps they sleep in tents as I had imagined. Do such fires cost less in dollars to fight than fires such as the Zaca fire? I am tempted to guess that the answer to this question is "yes", but what do I know?

So with these thoughts in mind, I decided to take the time to read all the 195 comments to the Big Burn article. Perhaps I could get some different points of view from those of the reporters. And I'm glad I did. I learned something, which is what this is all about. Some of the comments ripped the reporters and the LA Times, others applauded the LA Times. There were comments by wild fire fighters and comments by people who chose to live in areas at high risk for fires. Did I agree with all the comments, no. But I feel like the comments are an important part of this five-part series. As important as the articles, the photographs, videos, and graphics. For me, and I can only speak for myself, one of the ways that I learn about issues facing people in different parts of the country or the world is by reading the words of people who live in and/or write about issues of local concern. In this case wildfires in CA. If I want to continue learning about wildfires I know that I need to continue reading and the like, the LA Times article and comments along with the links I posted in late July regarding the basin complex fire are just a start.

So for those of you who are interested and have a couple of hours to spare, go read the comments to the Big Burn article. While they are still publicly available.

stay tuned

Sorry for the tease. We are leaving in about five minutes to go back to the Hunterdon County Fair to watch pig races at 4 PM and then a 4H drill team (horses) demonstration at 5 PM.

I have been wanting to write about an undeveloped State Forest, Penn State Forest that we went to a few times in the Pine Barrens. I was fortunate to remember that we first found about the Penn State Forest through our trusty and now old Fifty Hikes in New Jersey book byBruce Scofield, Stella J. Green, and H. Neil Zimmerman. A hike on the sand roads in the Penn State Forest was featured as one of the hikes. So, remembering the name of the Forest with the nifty little map from the USGS topological maps (Woodsmansie and Oswego Lake Quandrangles), I was able to find this on google earth and downloaded an image.

But I have run out of time, so this will be next entry.

After I return from the fair.

time out: more on tractor pulls

For those of you who have not seen a tractor pull before, I have a short video plus three still pictures that I took at last night's tractor pull at our local County 4H-Ag fair. The video should be self explanatory. The pictures include a shot of the pulling sled, the pulling "track", and what I call a worker bee tractor.

The "worker bee" tractor in the picture, a John Deere pulling a load of concrete blocks, tamps down the track before and after each pull. In the photo here he is tamping down the track before the start of the evening pulls. After each pull, two worker bee tractors go out and prepare the track. First (not picture) a tractor pulling a "grader" smooths out the track after the pull. The tractor pulling the sled then tamps down the section of the track that the grader smoothed over. Graders, for those of you who are unfamiliar with this equipment, are used to smooth out dirt roads. Rural towns with dirt roads will have a piece of road equipment called a grader. That is, a grader does not have to pulled behind a tractor, it can come with its own engine.

Getting back to the tractor pull. Last night's pull was fun. It started a little late, and we stayed for about 90 to 120 minutes. It was a lot of fun, especially the "open" classes were the tractor engines were souped up, complete with dark smoke and in a couple of cases, some flames coming out of the exhaust pipe. These souped up tractors could pull much longer distances than there weight equivalent "stock farm tractors."

Between each pull, the two worker bee tractors came out while the next tractor was being loaded on the sled. By the way, the sled had retractable wheels. The chain link fence that you notice in my still images and the video is there for safety reasons as required by NJ State Law.

One of the things that I like about tractor pulls is that it speaks to the agricultural heritage of counties such as the one that I live in. While my county has been suburbanized for a couple of decades, with people commuting to near by office complexes as well as commuting longer distances to "older" towns and cities, it has a long agricultural heritage. Recently, a friend asked me what was the dominant industry historically? I said agriculture. By agriculture, I mean farms as well as supporting businesses. Of course, there were factories here and there, a paper factory along the Delaware River, an old beverage plant down the road from me, and the like. But when I read about the history of my county, I read about the importance of agriculture.

The late fall fair has important traditions in many agricultural areas, both currently as well as historically. Historically, the fair in a rural county was a place where local farmers could show their animals and possibly win prize money or perhaps sell a prize winning animal. Produce, baked goods and the like were also given prizes. Currently, one of the focus points of our local fair is on the role of youth in agriculture with much the same contests where the youth are competing. And then there are the fun and games, including the tractor pulls. A chance to play before going back to the fields.

So, when I see the tractor pulls, not only am I having fun, but I am also thinking about the celebration of my county's past and present agricultural tradition.

time out: tractor pulls at County Ag Fair

Today is the first day of our local 4H Agriculture Fair. This morning we went to see the farm tractor pull. The concept is simple, tractors are grouped into weight classes and pull a weighted sled. I went to my first tractor pull at the Orleans County Fair in Vermont several years ago.

I suspect that some of you are wondering what a tractor pull is, I found this brief piece giving an historical perspective as well as this wikipedia article. The tractors competing in the tractor pulls at my local 4H Ag fair are what they call farm stock tractors. They are not souped tractors but ordinary farm equipment with stock engines. For more information go here.

There were a fair amount of people at the tractor pull this morning. Some like us were just spectators, others were rooting for their friends or family members.

The farm tractor pulls are going on all day into the evening. We are going back to the fair this evening for dinner and to watch more tractor pulls. I'll try to get some pictures.

chiggers and gypsy moths

One of my favorite sites in the uplands of the Pine Barrens are the young oaks. The young oaks have these really huge leaves. I mean really huge. Well last year I went to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in the Pine Barrens armed with my digital camera. I was going to take some pictures of these young oaks. Well, we went and most were either stripped of leaves or the leaves were all chewed up. It was very depressing. And it wasn't just the young oaks, the scrub oaks and the oak trees had chewed up leaves, very small leaves, or were otherwise defoliated. I asked in the park office what had happened and they told me it was gypsy moths. It was quite depressing. So, I couldn't get any pictures for you. I hope to go back to the Pine Barrens in the next few weeks and perhaps I'll get some pictures of these young oaks for you if they haven't been eaten by gypsy moths.

But I did bring back some guests, unwanted guests. In the form of chiggers. Nasty things. For years, I wondered why I got what I thought was poison ivy while I was walking in the pine barrens, especially when I did not see anything that looked like poison ivy. Well, an internet search revealed that these itchy welts on my legs were chiggers. And noooo, I did not wear insect repellent. I think I was wearing long pants but the little nasties managed to get on my legs in spite of my long pants.

Now that I have figured out about chiggers, I will be sure to spray with insect repellent the next time I go to the Pine Barrens.

sand roads in the NJ Pine Barrens

Before I begin, I want to spend a very brief time on terminology. I have always used the term “NJ Pine Barrens” or the “Pine Barrens” when writing about the area some refer to as NJ Pinelands. I am going to continue to do so as I write about the Pine Barrens here unless what I am writing calls for using a more formal designation.

The Pine Barrens have miles upon miles of sand roads traversing the area.. Some go through designated State or Federal preserves, and others, well they just go where they go. The first time I spent some time driving on these sand roads, before I knew any better, I was not paying any attention to whether these roads were on State or Federal land. I saw a sand road, or what I incorrectly referred to as a “dirt road” and I wanted to drive on it.

At the time, I would spend time driving on various dirt roads in northeastern Vermont. These dirt roads were tough on the muffler on my little Honda Civic. I went through one or two mufflers thanks to Vermont. I quickly found out that these roads were a some times hard packed sand, not the rough and potted dirt roads that I was used to in Vermont.

My first tour on these sand roads was through what I now know is a pine forest, probably pitch and shortleaf pines. We had no map, so what I recall doing is driving in on this road for a while, then turning around and going back the way we came in. I was afraid to turn off on the intersecting sand roads fearing that I would get lost. And these were in the days of no cell phones so we would have been up a creek without a paddle. I loved the forest, love at first sight so to speak. There was something calming about the pine forest.

Then there was the time we were exploring other back roads, including sand roads not far from Tuckerton where we were staying. We started out going through another pine forest, and spending some time on sand roads. After several minutes, we passed through a small community. Perhaps a couple dozen houses give or take. It felt like magic and I was enthralled, a small community nestled among the pine forests of the Pine Barrens. We were never able to find this particular small community. I have even wondered if I am misremembering something. But I know what I saw, and I saw these houses.

As I spent more time in the Pine Barrens, I used more discretion in driving on sand roads in the Pine Barrens. Especially after walking on sand roads that I could not begin to imagine driving on. It takes effort to walk through loose sand! And there were a couple of times when we did a “k turn” on narrow dirt roads because we knew that if we went any further we risked getting stuck in loose sand.

I will get back to the Everglades

I have not forgotten about the Everglades, and I do intend to write more about the "Glades. I promise. In the meantime, I want to turn to my own State of New Jersey where I have started to write about one of my very favorite places, the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

New Jersey Pine Barrens

I first spent time in the New Jersey Pine Barrens over twenty years ago. For a period of about ten years, we used to spend a few days each summer at a shore town near the Pine Barrens, so I was able to get to know and love the Pine Barrens. For various reasons, our time in the Pine Barrens has been limited to a day trip here and there, but my love for the Pine Barrens has not diminished.

I want to set the stage for my posts on the NJ Pine Barrens with a brief discussion of different designations for the Pine Barrens. What do I mean by different designations? Ok, I’ll try to keep this simple. The federally designated Pinelands National Reserve covers about 1,719 square miles or 1.1 million acres. In 1981, the New Jersey State Legislature designated a smaller area of 1,460 square miles (934,000 acres) as the Pinelands Area, managed by the NJ Pinelands Commission. These two smaller delineations sit within the larger historical area that many in New Jersey still refer to as the Pine Barrens (2,250 square miles or 1.4 million acres). As I write this paragraph, I would like to mention a book that I am currently (re)reading about the NJ Pine Barrens from which I got these numbers as well as some maps that I am referring to as I am writing this.

For online viewing, the New Jersey Pinelands Commission has a Geographic Information Systems webpage with links to various maps, including this map which also includes the area included in the Pinelands National Reserve (PNR). If you go the PNR website, http://www.nps.gov/pine/ and click on the view map link near the top of the page, you will get a really cool map of the PNR that you can manipulate using online controls. If you do not already have it, I believe that you will need to download the freely available adobe flash player (v.9) in order to view this map.

Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands: A New Direction in Land–Use Management. 1988. Beryl Robichaud Collins and Emily W. B. Russell, editors. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

As some of you are no doubt aware, there is a story behind the federal and state designations that I have referred to above. A brief history of the Pine Barrens including a timeline may be found here.

Conserving the Everglades

Wow.


Speaking of conserving the Everglades, yes there is plan to the restore the Everglades, known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). There is a website that you can go to for information on the CERP, here.

And the site referenced in the above link, Everglades Plan, has a wonderful exposition on why we should restore the Everglades. It is a nicely written, multi-part piece that is easy to read. Please go and check it out.

Finally, Everglades Plan website has a FAQ page, a learn and teach page, news and events, etc.

Don't forgot about the group that Marjory Stoneham Douglas started, the Friends of the Everglades.

I want to put a plug in for the staff of the Everglades National Park (ENP), I had the privilege of talking to a couple of staff from the ENP when I was doing my research all those years ago as well as going on an ENP staff lead tour. All ENP staff that I spoke to were committed to conserving and preserving the Everglades.

Everglades History

I want to say something about the history of the Everglades. And yes, I could post something in my own words, based on the work I did on the Everglades in graduate school all those years ago. I still may, but not today.

Even when and if I do, I would want to point you to some information that you yourself can look at online. So, I am starting with a culture and history page from the Everglades National Park Service's website. Here you will find four links:

1. native peoples.

2. pioneer settlement.

3. development in the Everglades.

4. conservation.

Another brief history of the Everglades may be found here.

I'll point you to some online resources about conserving the Everglades in my next post, so stay tuned!

Everglades: habitats and vegetation

I want to give you with some places you can go to view pictures of the Everglades:

1. vegetation and habit images are from the Everglades Park Service.

2. The Florida Museum of Natural History has this webpage on the Everglades. I have not had a chance to check it out yet, but it looks really cool. I found it about it from the links page of the Friends of the Everglades.

Everglades wildlife

Well, I spent some time yesterday looking through my house for the pictures of the Everglades that I took on my 2001 trip to no avail.

We did see alligators reasonably close up, which means that we saw them in some wetlands from a trail from a safe distance of several feet.

I also recall seeing a couple of herons close up. We had just turned onto one of the dirt roads off of U.S. Rte 41 to drive north. Just after we turned, I saw a couple of herons standing in some water. I stopped the car, at first wanting to try to get a picture. They were pretty close, perhaps 5 to 7 feet away. I decided that this was not one of those photo moments because I did not want to risk having them fly away. Instead, I watched the herons go about there business for a couple of minutes. The image if forever etched in my mind. We drove away after a couple of minutes not wanting to disturb them.

Here are some links where you may go to view Everglades wildlife:

1. A page with wildlife photographs at the Friends of the Everglades webpage, and

2. The Everglades National Park maintains a wildlife image gallery that may be found here.

Visit to the Everglades over Christmas 2001

I had a chance to visit the Everglades over Christmas of 2001. We left early on a Saturday morning and drove to Lorton VA outside Washington D.C. where we caught the over night auto train to Sanford Florida, not far from Orlando. We stayed near Kissimmee, within a stones throw of Disney World and related theme parks. This may sound horrifying to some of you, but we were not all that interested in Disney World and the other theme parks. Rather we spent a quiet day or say at the complex where we stayed. Our plan called for us to leave on the day after Christmas to drive down to the Everglades, staying over night about 30 miles east of Naples. Instead, we called the hotel, added a night onto our stay, and left Christmas day.

The next day was our day in the Everglades. We got on U.S. Rte. 41, that I think may also be referred to as the Tamiami Trail. Our first stop was a tour boat service officially sanctioned by the Everglades National Park Service (ENP). I don't recall the exact nature of the affiliation of this tour boat service with the ENP except that I had the impression that it had some kind of "stamp of approval" from the ENP. It was a little cool for Florida and windy, so we were glad that we had some light jackets aka windbreakers with us. We spent about one hour touring around the islands and the water ways near Everglades City. I was awestruck. I have pictures from our day in the Everglades, but they are not digital. One of these days, I may try to dig them up and get digital copies made.

We grabbed some food, and drove back to U.S. Rte. 41 continuing our drive across U.S. 41. My friend drove, and I looked outside the window at the "river of grass." It was magical to see the "river of grass". I thought of Marjory Stoneham Douglas' words. I saw the canals and the infrastructure for various water control projects that changed the shape of the 'Glades. I tried to imagine what the 'Glades were like all those years ago.

After 90 minutes or so, we came to our next stop in the ENP where there is an observation, some short trails, and a chance to sign up for a tour. We walked the trail and took the tour. Again, I rejoiced in seeing the "river of grass", and seeing the wildlife that I had read about. We finished the tour and headed back east, spending a little time on some of the dirt roads off of Rte. 41 and stopping at a trail head and walking through a forest.

I wish that I had kept a written diary of that day, I did not. Nonetheless, the images of what we saw live on.

More on Horseshoe Crabs

A while back I wrote about horseshoe crabs in my blog. I recently got my summer edition of the Nature Conservancy's magazine. In May and June Nature Conservancy participated in a horseshoe crab census near Cape May, New Jersey. There is an article about their work with horseshoe crabs here.

Five part LA Times series on wildfires

The LA Times has a five-part series on wildfires. Not being a regular reader of the LA Times, I'm not sure how long these articles and associated videos will be freely available. Part 1 is dated 27 July, and part 5 is dated 3 August. By the way, the thumbnail of part 5 refers to Australia fighting wildfires differently then Americans do.

I first heard about the LA Times series a couple of days ago and only just know remembered to post the link. I have not read these articles yet, and intend to do so. Perhaps while I listen to the Yanks play the LA Angels. Anyway, I wanted to post this link now so that any of you who are interested can check it out.

As a frame of reference, I just checked the link for the article I referred to in my post on Apple Pie Ridge on July 19. The article is dated July 7 and as of today (August 2), the link is still active. Perhaps this will provide a frame of reference for how long this five-part series will be freely available

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

It was sometime in 1990 or early 1991 when I began reading about the Everglades for a research project I did as a part of my work in graduate school.. It did not take long for me to hear the name Marjory Stoneman Douglas in connection with the Everglades. I don't remember where I first heard her name, it may have been someone from the Everglades National Park. Not that it matters.

She wrote a book, first published in 1947, called The Everglades: River of Grass. I was urged to read the book. I found a copy at my University's library and read it. I later picked up a revised edition (1987) with an afterward, from the Everglades National Park Service.

The Friends of the Everglades was founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, you might want to check out their bio of her here. Their mission is to protect and restore the Everglades.

At the time I did my research, I had never been to the Everglades. In reading her book, especially her first chapter, the Everglades came alive to me. She had the gift of painting a wonderful visual picture of the 'Glades. Her first sentence is poignant:

There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, never wholly known. (Stoneham Douglas, 1987, p.5)

I felt her sadness as she told of the destruction of large portions of her beloved 'Glades. It was her advocacy on behalf of the 'Glades that was, in large measure, responsible for the establishment of the Everglades National Park in 1947. She died at the age of 108 in the late 1998.

Nature Conservancy

I met with some of the wonderful folk at one of the New Jersey offices of the Nature Conservancy today. I am going to be doing some volunteer work in their skylands office and perhaps help out with some field work once or twice a month in the warmer months. They do good work both within the United States and globally. For more information about what they do, go here.

I am honored to have an opportunity to help out the Nature Conservancy locally in whatever very small ways that I can. I may not be able to write more than this here, but be assured that I am looking forward to volunteering with the Nature Conservancy.

Global Warming and wildfires

I have been thinking about global warming for a few weeks now. I have known that the southwest is among the regions in the United States that have been experiencing an extended drought. I have to be honest that I had not thought all that much about the relationship between wildfires, the extended drought in the southwest, and global warming until I first heard about the wildfire outbreak in California in June.

When I began to spend more time reading about the wildfires in CA with a special focus on the basin complex wildfire, I started thinking about wildfires and global warming. Not that I'm in a position to make any sort of "educated" statement equating the recent wildfires in California with global warming. I'm not. At this point all I have are questions that I can only answer with hunches.

On the question of the relationship of the CA wildfires and the extended drought, it seems to me that there has to be a relationship between the two. It only makes sense. In my way of thinking, it is not exactly rocket science to say that when there is an extended period of drought conditions that their is a greater risk of wildfires. Are these wildfires more serious and occurring earlier? I seem to recall seeing something to that effect on either a National Park Service or a U.S. Forest Service wildfire website within the last couple of days. I'll need to go back and check this out to find my answer. What are the folk researching global warming and/or wildfires saying about global warming and wildfires? I'll have to check this out.

As I explore these and other questions over the coming weeks, I'll fill you in on some answers with links for more information on this blog, so stay tuned.

containment

The researcher part of me got the better of me this afternoon when I tried to find a definition of what it means when, for example, it was reported that the basin complex fire is 100% contained.

I finally found this glossary with short definitions of many of the terms that I have been reading about.

After reading some definitions in this glossary and the much longer Fireline Handbook (I should warn you that this Handbook is over 400 pages long and comes in at over 3 MB). I decided to keep it simple and not to worry about precise definitions of containment as used in connection to the basin complex fire because I was getting into multiple definitions. I also started asking myself questions like does the meaning of containment vary with measures used to fight individual wildfires? And does containing a fire in the NJ Pine Barrens mean something different than containing a fire such as the basin complex fire. I decided that the important thing is that the basin complex fire is contained.

The map was obtained on July 29, 2008 from http://165.221.39.44/incident/maps/large/1367/0/

hoses

For those of us who have had to deal with managing garden hoses . . .

After reading this post from Kelly O'Brien's blog I have different view of what I used to call my battles with my garden hose:

http://thefirelane.blogspot.com/2008/07/and-you-think-that-your-garden-hose-is.html

basin complex fire contained

A very brief update on the basin complex fire. kusp radio posted a report from the U.S. Forest Service reporting that the fire is at 100% containment. More work has yet to be done.

I had company this past weekend so did not have a chance to report that the voluntary evacuations were lifted either late Friday night or Saturday.

I'll post more on this in a day or so.

Photos of Basin Complex Fire

Speaking of Incaweb, here is a link to photos of the Basin Complex from Incaweb. You will also find photos here. If you take time to look at Life in the Firelane, you will also find photos. If you check out some of the other links that I have referred to in my earlier postings on the Basin Complex Fire you will probably find other photos.

Fighting Wildfires in the Everglades

I found this slide show of fire fighting equipment on the Everglades National Park website. If you put your cursor at the top of the photo during the slide show you will see the caption.

I suspect that some of the equipment is the same for all wildfires. However, one piece of equipment that you will see is called a flapper. It looks to me like it is made to fight fires in grasslands. Then again what do I know?

For photos of the Mustang Corners see incaweb and this photo gallery on the Everglades National Park webpage.

Maps of the Mustang Corners Fire

At the time that I am writing this, Inca web has some maps of the Mustang Corners fire posted. Go here for a map of the fire's progress as of May 22.

A map of the fire's perimeter is found here.

Wildfires in Florida in May 2008

On or about May 14, 2008 wildfires started burning in the Everglades National Park in South Florida. By the time the fires were contained in early June, just over 39,000 acres were burned. Known as the Mustang Corners fire, this fire followed a series of fires in the Palm Beach area, in Brevard County south of Daytona Beach, that burned 12,000 acres. Other fires included about 19,000 acres on the south end of Lake Okeechobee, 1,300 acres in the Florida panhandle near Apalochicola, 257 acres in the Ocala National Forest in Central Florida and a couple of smaller fires in the Everglades National Park.

Information on the Mustang Corners fire in Everglades National Park may be found here and here. The two smaller wildfires in the Everglades National Park are very briefly referenced in this press release. A CNN report on May 18 reviews the then current status of the Mustang Corners fire as well as other Florida wildfires. What is probably the final incident report on the Mustang Corners fire may be found on InciWeb. Inciweb goes down periodically so if the link does not work, try back again later.

Damage reports for the Brevard Çounty wildfires may found in this press release issued by the Brevard County Office of Emergency Management. They report that 194 buildings were affected by these wildfires with 42 residences being destroyed.

CNN reports on the arrest of a man alleged to have caused some of the Brevard County fires. Both InciWeb and the National Park Service report that the Mustang Corners fire was caused by humans.

Coming attractions

I am going to continue posting updates on the basin complex fire here and other issues related to this wildfire.

I am however going to start moving to writing about the Everglades. I believe that I mentioned several days ago that a couple of months ago there was a major wildfire in the Everglades caused, I believe, by an arsonist. I first got interested in the Everglades for a project I did in graduate school, beginning a long love affair with the 'Glades. So it seems fitting to devote some time to the "Glades.

No, I have not forgotten about New Jersey. I want to write about the Pine Barrens, but it might take me a couple of weeks or so before I get to this.

update on basin complex fire as of July 22 AM

kusp radio is reporting that the basin complex fire is 72% contained with over 137,000 acres burned to date. Voluntary evacuation orders remain in effect. I have not yet mentioned that one of contributing factors to the spread of this fire is sudden oak death in tan oaks. Stands of dead tan oaks have provided fuel for the fire. For more detail see this summary from the U.S. Forest Service (posted on July 22). Forest Service map obtained from http://www.kusp.org/fire/images/map_basin_7_22.jpg on 22 July 2008.