The need for timely and accurate assessment of post-fire dangers was underscored on Christmas Day 2003, when torrential rains on burned watersheds unleashed flash floods and debris flows that killed 16 people -- including nine children -- in Waterman and Cable canyons just outside the city of San Bernardino.
"The urbanized areas below the Station Fire are of course a focus of the report," [USGS project manager Sue] Cannon said. "But as we learned in 2003, the interior canyons are especially vulnerable."
Alpine-trained volunteers and a helicopter crew today plucked two overdue climbers high off the north face of Mount San Jacinto, one of the steepest escarpments in the continental United States.
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The rugged drainages of Snow Creek and Falls Creek rise from about 1,400 feet at Snow Creek Village to San Jacinto's summit at just over 10,800 feet elevation. The north face direct route requires more than 9,000 feet of walking, scrambling and technical climbing - including snow and ice in ideal conditions.
"It's a classic alpine route when the snow is right," said RMRU volunteer Pete Carlson, 59, of Lake Arrowhead, who has climbed the north face route a half-dozen times. "You can do it in 12 hours when the route is hard underfoot."
Guy McCarthy has been covering the fire near Porter Ranch and the winds that are whipping up flames across the Southland:"It was hell, hell in the mountains," said Abdessamad Elyamani, a doctor who feared for the lives of his wife and children as Santa Ana winds hurled a storm of flames and embers into their hillside community.McCarthy also gets the photo credit.
Another dispatch from K2
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