Ike's

[Jim]

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6475/

North Rim, Powell Plateau Area, with some trails like North Bass closed.

Mostly I am posting for curious and interested parties, as it is late in the season and few are likely to venture to this area to hike between now and the HWY 67 road closure. That said, the closure area for Ike is 53,000 acres and includes some areas like Powell Plateau. It might be interesting to see Ike back across it over the next week or so. Unless there is a lot of duff build up from many years of accumulation, this would be a very beneficial fire like the trees up top would have experienced 150 years ago.

[chumley]

It's funny that they somehow continue to claim this is lightning caused.

When I was there a month ago, the closure area was much smaller, but firefighters were actively igniting along all the roads within the management area at that time. Now they've expanded the management area and are sure to be performing additional ignitions. With cooler weather and some recent moisture, it may turn out ok if it keeps to the ground.

But the 2014 Galahad Fire, which was another lightning fire that was "managed for resource benefit" burned through the canopy and is now regrowing with a ponderosa density that I doubt any educated observer could argue was healthy or beneficial. But I wouldn't know because I'm not an educated observer. Where's flagscott when we need him?

[Jim]

While I can't comment on the 2014 fire, lighting along roads is normal for fire management, especially when establishing a perimeter. Since I highly doubt you were within the closure area, you would have observed them lightning along the external areas doing that. This is essentially the exact same indirect approach used to "fight" a wildfire which is being suppressed, except that the area would be much larger,and they tend to delineate the boundary using existing features like roads to keep from creating fire line with bulldozers or other mechanical methods.

The "lightning caused" refers to the origins, not the methods used later on. However, I think you already know this. The alternative would essentially be to let the fire just blow with the winds, as happened 200 years ago. While I essentially advocate for that within large wilderness areas such as the Gila, and areas where there has been a history of lower intensity fires, this is not practical most places.

The fire backing out on to the Powell is interesting to me, but the rest of the area I have no idea about. I would love to see some post fire pictures from the Powell next summer, since we have a few pre-fire sets.

[chumley]

Side note: the NPS has not instituted a closure area such as the FS has. NPS has closed only roads and trails within the fire management boundaries. It's almost as if they don't realize that people hike off-trail.

[toddak]

I was on my way to mountain bike the Rainbow Rim trail a couple weeks ago when winds kicked up and the trail was closed. Glad the winds this past weekend didn't increase the fire much, hope mother nature puts Ike to bed soon.