It seems bears aren’t the only thing to hibernate over the winter – fires apparently can too.
Smoke is rising from the already charred landscape of the Happy Camp Complex – one of the biggest fires to rage in the North State last year. Burning more than 130,000 acres in the Klamath National Forest last August, the Happy Camp Complex was thought to be put out, but it’s now known that four small areas are still smoldering within the fire’s perimeter. Kerry Greene, public affairs officer for the Klamath National Forest, explains how it’s possible for a fire to burn that long.
“Once the firefighters have checked the spread of the fire it’s completely put out by snow and rain in the winter,” Greene said. “We didn’t get the snowpack or precipitation that we normally are accustomed to here and coupled with several years of drought conditions, as well as hot temperatures and dry weather, those smokes in the interior of the Happy Camp Complex have actually started to show up.”
Greene says most of isolated smoke spots are small and are coming from “snags” like dead burned trees that were able to trap latent heat. She said she expects more smoke to rise from the area, but residents shouldn’t worry as any fire should stay within containment lines.