Wildfire In The San Gorgonio Wilderness Off Of Highway 38 (Update)

According to news reports, fire fighters have been successful in combating the Lake fire, which started burning last week. U.S. Forest Service officials on Tuesday began scaling back the fight against the 17,525-acre Lake fire, sending 57 fire personnel home by day’s end and raising containment to 33 percent. The Lake fire broke out the afternoon of June 17, 2015, in the Barton Flats area and has been moving east through dense timber in a wilderness area that hadn't burned in a century.  But the eastward spread began to slow over the weekend when the fire hit an area where the vegetation had been thinned by the Sawtooth Complex fire of 2006. Aside from some drainage channels with thicker fuel, the fire is mostly burning grass. For full story on the Lake fire, see the Press Enterprise Article, Here. (Photographs credited to the Press Enterprise)

It is great news that the Lake fire is in the process of being contained, its spread slowed and is hopefully on the way to being putout, however the damage to the San Gorgonio Wilderness has been done and currently when this section of the San Gorgonio Wilderness will reopen to hikers is unknown. The following closure still remain in effect: Highway 38 from Angelus Oaks to Lake Williams, Jenks Lake Road,  Maple Lane in Big Bear Lake (for fire equipment movement), and all hiking trails into the San Gorgonio Wilderness including the Pacific Crest Trail from Whitewater Preserve to Onyx Summit.