Local roads, beautiful no more

[GB500guy]

Like many areas my favorite neighborhood roads suffered devastating damage from the recent LNU Complex fire. Here are some before and after horror shots. Very sad to see, and this is just the vegetation loss. The burned out homes are heartbreaking.

-Bill

 

[Slow Goat]

My god, such beauty lost.

Thanks for posting these; you know what they say about pictures and words.

 

[Johndicezx9]

Maybe you can look forward to chronicling the robust rebirth that's sure to follow... :dunno

I know I will. :thumbup

 

[ScottRNelson]

There are a lot of areas that I ride through where you can see evidence of a past fire. Not quite as discouraging as what you guys are posting. At least you should get some green again next spring.

 

[kuksul08]

Give it 6 months and it'll be popping with wildflowers and new life.

 

[Johndicezx9]

Might be a few mudslides along the way, but yeah....

 

[berth]

Yea, these areas come back surprisingly fast.

 

[GB500guy]

Yea, these areas come back surprisingly fast.

Sadly what often comes back first is flammable brush rather than more fire resistant trees. That's the case in the area I showed, which up until a big fire in 1982 was a mix of oak and other large trees with some understory. Afterwards very few trees came back and brush dominated. The other likelihood is erosion and slides if winter rains come too fast, too soon.

-Bill

 

[CDONA]

The black & white of the burned, reminds me of photography class in high school.
Working with grainy Tri-x film and my bike, I was up Gates, Mix canyons, Green Valley highlands, Suisun, Wooden, and Pleasants Valley, Rockville park and out to Pope valley.
I haven't gotten my head around all this yet, but from what I hear, all of that is back in black.

 

[budman]

Thanks for sharing Bill.

Amazing beauty lost.

Rebirth will happen and seeing that will be interesting.

 

[GAJ]

Of course this has been going on for millennia but the before/after is indeed stark.

 

[auditude]

The brush and foliage is not nearly as devastating as the homes lost; having worked the Santa Rosa Tubbs fires, my heart still aches each time I come across such scenes.

On a recent flight back to the bay, I could clearly see thousands of acres of California ablaze from 30k feet up.

This year has adversely impacted more people that I know; from covid, to fires, to social inequality, to despicable inhumanity than I care to count.

I pray daily this all will end, but I’m aware that it takes more than prayers during times like these...

Count your blessings, brethren.

 

[EEEliminator]

The brush will grow back soon enough. The trees, well not in my lifetime...

 

[DataDan]

The first time I rode SR-229, "Rossi's Driveway", was in 1988, weeks after a devastating fire that left the area charred to the ground. But I've ridden it often since and watched it grow back. Though the oaks might have looked dead at the time, they weren't. They did what oaks do--they sprouted new leaves and resumed growing.



In the picture above, zoom in on the big tree on the left. THAT is a dead tree. And look around at the dead brush. It's all fuel for the next fire, which will eventually come, as they always do, and make it more intense than it needs to be.

 

[CDONA]

Fire crews were out piling dead fuel for small burn piles for my last romp on 299, March/April. Must be maint. for the pipeline, not PG&E