Structure fire Saturday, March 27

Early Saturday morning, the Idyllwild Fire Department was dispatched to a house fire on Highway 243 between Country Club Drive and Tollgate.

The fire was controlled fairly quickly according to IFD interim Chief Mike Mullhall. And no injuries were incurred. However the structure was severely damaged. The cause is being investigated.

The residents were taken to Idyllwild Fire station where Red Cross volunteers met them and began offering help and alternative places to stay.

According to Mulhall, a smoke detector woke the male resident who got his partner and dogs out of the burning structure.

From the pictures below, one can see that the bedroom, where the fire started, and the roof were completely damaged.

"If this occurred later in the year with lower fuel moisture and different winds, it might have spread quickly," Mulhall warned. The pictures show the fence behind the house which is only a few feet from the rear of the structure and the trees which suffered fire burns too.

















There was still smoke late Saturday morning.

Truck drives into lake Fulmor – hazmat cleanup

By Marshall Smith, Staff Reporter

According to California Highway Patrol (CHP) Public Information Officer (PIO) Scott Beauchene, early Tuesday morning March 23, at about 5:30 a.m., a white pick up truck heading south on Highway 243 crossed lanes, hit the edge of the Lake Fulmor bridge and careened into Lake Fulmor. According to the CHP incident report, the truck is registered to an Idyllwild owner who said she was unaware her truck had been taken and declined to file a theft report.

Beauchene said at this point that the CHP incident report is complete.

Shortly after the incident, the U.S. Forest Service, within whose jurisdiction the lake falls, notified Riverside County’s Office of Emergency Services to dispatch a Hazmat group to the scene. Clean up began Tuesday and was continuing through Wednesday. Cleanup, because of possible gas and automotive fluid leakage into the lake, has been extensive with crews from the Forest Service, Riverside County Hazmat, the Forest Service Hazmat specialist, Forest Service Fire Prevention, and Forest Service Recreation Officer John Ladley — in all about 10 people in addition to CHP initial responders.

Miller expects cleanup to finish on Thursday, March 25 and for the lake to reopen on Friday the 26^th. Clean up costs will exceed $23,000.

The footbridge on the north side of the lake near the highway was damaged from the vehicle’s trajectory and will remain closed for the immediate future. There is no current repair schedule for the footbridge, but the car owner and the driver, should that person be found and identified will be liable for cleanup and bridge repair costs, according to Miller.



top photo courtesy of John Miller, Information officer San Bernardino Naitonal Forest.


Bottom photo by Idyllwild Town Crier

Weather snow Sunday Afternoon

From the National Weather Service, Sunday afternoon,

Winter Weather Advisory

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA
117 PM PST SUN MAR 7 2010

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON ABOVE
5000 FEET...

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Forest Service roads

Good news just in from the Forest Service. All roads, except Black Mountain Road, will be open to public use tomorrow:

On Thursday, March 4, the San Jacinto Ranger District will open Forest Service Roads on the North-West section of the Forest as well as Santa Rosa and Thomas Mountain. Forest Service Roads that will be opened are: 4S05 (Mellor Ranch Rd), 4S06, 4S10, 4S19 (Angelus Hill Rd), 4S21 (Indian Truck Trail), 5S06 (Control Rd), 5S07 (Bee Canyon), 5S09 (San Jac Truck Trail), 5S10 (Red Hill Truck Trail) and 5S24 all part of the Cottonwood and Esperanza burn areas, as well as, 7S02 (Santa Rosa Mountain) and 6S13 (Thomas Mountain).

These road closures were for public safety because of the chance of ice, mud, rock slides, washouts, flash flooding, slippery road surfaces and/or snow. The closures also serve to protect the road system itself. The Forest Service has a responsibility to minimize damage to the road system in case of an emergency or disaster.

Even though the Forest Service maintains the road system on an annual basis, our limited capacity to do so often results in road maintenance not being completed until well into fire season. Therefore, under unusual or extreme winter weather conditions, it sometimes becomes necessary to temporarily close the road system in order to minimize damage to the roads, thereby allowing access to fire suppression and emergency responders earlier in the fire season before the road maintenance is completed. These roads are subject to possible future closures pending any additional inclement weather.

Forest Service Road 4S01 (Black Mountain Road) will remain closed at Hwy 243 until further notice.

Thanks you for your patience and understanding.

Local teens arrested for tagging Idyllwild School with white supremacist graffiti

Two local teens, former Idyllwild School (IS) students, tagged 7 IS middle school campus buildings with white supremacist symbols and text, including swastikas and hate messages between 8 and 10 p.m., Monday March 1.

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IFPD Special Mtg tomorrow

The Idyllwild Fire Protection District will hold a special meeting tomorrow, March 4 at 1 p.m. The meeting will be in the conference at the station and the subject is the purchase of the Zoll Medical equipment.