We’ve had some good rains so far this winter with 8 inches total as measured in my back yard.  Already that’s 4 times the total rain fall compared to last year.  But then, last year was the driest year on record.  Two inches – that’s desert weather.

We had a storm come through Wednesday night and yesterday with another due to grace us today and over the weekend.

The effect on the hillsides continues to amaze us.  I reported below that grass was growing on the flatter, more level areas.  Now some of the slopes are starting to show hints of green.

Also, large areas were hydro-mulched.  There’s no seed in hydro-mulch.  It’s just ground up newspaper stained with a green dye.  (Read the post.)  The green stain has quickly faded away and now those parts of the hills are a rich brown.  It’s really beautiful at sunset.

So I can’t really say that looking out our back yard the scene is one of devastation any more.  It’s really very beautiful.

For more photographs visit http://RalphNordstromPhotography.com/santiago_fire/santiagofire01.html .

We had some more good rain this weekend.  It was a huge storm but most of the precipitation came down up north.  The Sierra got as much as 10 feet of snow!  The state really needs it.

The aftermath in the Santiago Fire burn area relates to the green grass that is growing in profusion all over the hills.  Well, “all over” is something of an overstatement and here’s the interesting observation.  Where there was grass before the fire, these areas are covered in lush, vibrant green.  But where there was chaparral before the fire the ground is bare.  I suppose that makes sense.  That seems to be one of those things where when you know the answer, the answer is pretty obvious.

If you haven’t seen the photo journal of the days of the fire, click here.

Rain is on the way.  We’ve been warned about a huge storm that will hit over the weekend.  The National Forest people have been mulching the hillsides.  The hope is it will at least slow erosion and runoff.  I talked to a couple of National Forest rangers yesterday and it’s not seed. 

In the past they have seeded burned areas with rye grass which, being non-native, has caused more long term problems (in the form of a greater fire threat) than the short term ones it solved.  So they’re mulching the hillsides instead.  We should get a good test of how that works this weekend.

Click to enlarge

The First Surprises 

The recovery after the burn holds one surprise after another.  The first surprise was how quickly the thistles started growing back.  They didn’t even wait for rain.  It only took a few weeks and they were sprouting.

 The second surprise was how quickly the grasses came up with just a couple of inches of rain.  And they’ve been nurtured with additional rain and are growing rapidly and spreading.

With the grasses growing the color combination of the hills was rapidly becoming green and black, not a combination of colors that I found particularly appealing.  The colors looked harsh.  I longed for the more familiar greens and browns typical of Southern California hillsides in spring (at least when we’re not in the midst of a drought year).

Well, as they say, be careful of what you wish (or long) for.  You just might get it.

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There are more hillsides turning green besides the ones behind our house.  Further up Saddleback Mountain there is a growing patch of green.  But it’s not the natural green of tender shoots of new grass.  It’s artificial green.

 It has something to do with the crop dusters that have been flying over the canyons and ridges the past week.  These sturdy little planes have been circling above the mountains and then swooping down, much like the ariel tankers that were diving on the mountains two months ago.  But the material that comes out of this time is not water or the red fire retardant, it’s that same artificial green.

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Last night marked two months since the fire came through our ‘back yard.’  Since then we’ve had about four inches of rain.  In fact, there was more rain in one storm than all of last year.  As a result the scorched hills are starting to turn green.  We’ve seen crop duster planes flying over the foothills and mountains seeding the slopes to help control erosion.

Last night’s sunset was spectacular!

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There are several miracles related to the fire.  One is an apple tree at the stables.  It’s about five feet tall, just a small thing.  But it produces tiny apples every season.  Rumor has it that it was planted by a grieved person who lost a beloved horse.  What better gesture than to plant an apple tree.

So we all had a big question in our minds after the fire, “What happened to the apple tree?  Was it destroyed?”

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The fire really changed an important part of our life in an unexpected way.  We were leasing a horse at the stables not far from our house.  When the fire roared through Monday night it continued on and burned through the stables.  The big wooden barn burned to the ground. 

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The rain this weekend wasn’t as bad as expected.  It was cold by Southern California standards.  But that doesn’t affect runoff.  We were treated to snow and ice atop Santiago Peak (over 5000 ft).  All the radio towers up there glistened in a sheath of ice.  Modjeska Canyon was under mandatory evacuation again due to the fear of mudslides.  But rumor has it that only 30% of the people actually evacuated.  When it was all said and done, there wasn’t much mud on roads this time.  There are signs of minor erosion in the hills behind our house but no gaping chasms.

The 2007 Santiago Fire was about seven weeks ago now.  The fire left the hillsides behind our house bare and covered with ash.  There were two kinds of ash.  There was the black ash that pretty much covered everything.  Then there were patches of white ash where a larger shrub or small tree had once stood.

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