A tragedy beyond words

 

The Station Fire. 127000 acres burned. I have been so worried about my
situation that I never realized.......

My beautiful Angeles Forest is gone. An area so beautiful that I moved my
family to Sunland Tujunga in 1976 to ride the roads of the Angeles Crest.
That's 33 years that I have lived here and ridden and loved the roads of the
Angeles Forest.

I have just found out that Newcomb's Ranch Inn has burned to the ground. 33
years.

I have just found out that Hidden Springs Cafe has burned to the ground. 33
years.

And I'm crying.



Thumper

 


That *is* shocking.

Hidden Springs Cafe is razed
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire-notebook2-2009sep02,0,6733091.=
story

Hidden Springs Cafe, a haven for bikers, a coffee stop for commuters
and a home to owner Jim Lewis and his family, has been consumed by the
wildfire raging through the Angeles National Forest, authorities
confirmed Tuesday.

"It was completely razed," said Tom Zeulner, information officer for
the Station fire. "The fire's burning so intensely that everything is
consumed."

On Tuesday, Zeulner said, an inspection team went to the punch bowl-
shaped canyon where the beloved cafe once stood and discovered that
all area buildings had burned to the ground.

With no more fuel to consume, the fire had moved on, sparing only a
couple of trailers, Zeulner said.

Lewis, who ran the cafe for 32 years, said a number of his customers
and friends called him to say they saw the cafe site on a television
news broadcast Tuesday morning.

People recognized the lone, old-fashioned phone booth standing amid
ashes because it is the only phone booth in the Angeles National
Forest, he said.

Lewis said he was riddled with guilt for not having been able to save
any of his mother's belongings.

On Sunday afternoon, Lewis and his brother Otis had tried to save the
cafe with hoses and pumps until they saw a wall of flames coming over
the ridges and were forced to flee.

"I was too arrogant to think that I could win," he said. "I should've
known better. I should have known I can't win against something like
that."

 

In 5 years it will look fine. In ten you will find few signs of today's
fire. California used to burn regularly until we messed it up, and recovered
even faster.

 


Yebbut... the cafes. Let's hope the owners have the will and ability
to rebuild.

 


According to the owners, Newcomb's was always a marginal operation
from the profit/loss viewpoint. If this is accurate, I'd be surprised
to see it rebuilt.

There are also a host of new State and County requirements that the
powers that be are imposing on anyone wanting to rebuild after a fire.
The added cost and complexity of threading all those building-code
needles explains why only 55 of the 336 homes burned in the Cedar Glen
fire of 2003 have yet been rebuilt.