A Tour of the KNP Complex North Zone
A Wilsonia Times exclusive
by Neal Mixter
A couple of days ago, I inquired with Mike Theune (the North Zone Incident Management Team Public Information Officer) about getting some photos of Wilsonia and the surrounding fire area to share with readers. As the Wilsonia Times Editor for the past 21 years, including five Special Editions and over 100 fire updates on Facebook in the last four weeks, he said I was completely qualified as a journalist to get inside the Complex today for a tour.
I was surprised and pleased to learn that the Evacuation Order was lifted just as I was heading up the hill this morning. I met my official escort, John Ziegler, at my cabin. To enter the Complex, I needed to don full nomex gear, hardhat and gloves, which he provided for me. Today we toured the edges of the KNP Complex that came closest to Wilsonia.
We started by touring Wilsonia. Fire hoses still encircle the village, where they have been set up for the past week, as a precaution for the advancing fire. Hotshot crews had performed additional defensible space clearance work, moving flammable materials away from buildings and limbing up trees along roads. This was a supplement to the work that has been done by the Wilsonia community over the last several years. Structural fire strike teams were positioned in Grant Grove to move where needed at a moment’s notice. Thankfully, none of those extra precautions proved necessary.
We then moved out of Wilsonia and towards the fire. On the fireline, crews are performing the dirty job of mop-up. This basically involves digging through the dirt and breaking open downed logs to find and extinguish hidden hotspots. At the firebreak along the Generals Highway, just half a mile from the Wye, four USFS service trucks and crew were working on tree felling and mop-up work, looking for any active embers.
Below the Generals Highway, the scene was smoky and charred, but there were clearly many survivors, majestic Sequoias among them.
We ventured up a fire road just to the left as we entered Quail Flat. We drove, then hiked, up until we met up with the Cobras2, a wildfire type 2 team out of Porterville. They were also performing tree felling and mop-up on the Northern Edge of the fire, one ridge east of Park Ridge.
We then headed back through Wilsonia, where we met and talked to several of the structural strike team members. This team of 10 engines and 40 firefighters out of Sacramento has been working in Wilsonia for the last week, laying hoses, doing structural evaluations, and patrolling for hotspots.
Our final destination was Park Ridge Lookout. At the lookout, a contract crew was doing mop-up on the fire-blackened area just yards from the Fire Lookout and communication tower. There was a clear distinction on the horizon between the smoldering fire edge and the clear forest leading north toward Wilsonia.
The weather today was an October classic in the high 40s, with a nice northwest breeze keeping the skies over Wilsonia deep blue. Rain and possibly snow is in the forecast for Tuesday, and temperatures may drop into the mid 20s overnight.
I am relieved that we are looking so much safer today, and am ever grateful to the hardworking firefighters and support personnel who fought valiantly and at personal risk to battle this monster. It was such a relief to set foot on Wilsonia soil again today. I hope to see many of you there very soon!
Thanks to all of the readers and Facebook followers who share information and ask great questions. Thank you to WVI Board President Katie Wilson Padrick and the rest of the Board for trusting me to represent Wilsonia as the Point of Contact during this event. Thanks to Mike Theune, KNP North Zone PIO, for arranging this opportunity, and to John Ziegler, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks FMO, for escorting me today.
|