RON HENGGELER

A view looking down on Danville, taken from the South Gate Road at Mt. Diablo State Park.

Another view of Danville, taken from the South Gate Road at Mt. Diablo State Park.

The fire began on Sunday, Sept. 8, and by Tuesday, more than 3,200 acres had burned.
This is a view of the burn area, from the Summit Road looking up to the Museum on top (center), the Devil’s Pulpit (far right).

Entering the burn zone, we were met by Cal-Fire workers who were assessing the damage and overseeing the clean-up.

A burned out Manzanita forest seen from the Summit Road at Mt Diablo

Old growth trees and the remaining scorched pine cones.
Some pine trees on the mountain require flames for their cones to pop open.

A detail of the burned tips of Manzanita trees

A burned out valley seen from the Summit Road on the way to the top of Mt Diablo

The immediate benefit is clear to the mountain lions, coyotes and red-tailed hawks for which Mount Diablo has suddenly turned into a gigantic, flame-broiled buffet. The thousands of ground squirrels and other lesser critters they victimize for chow are so dazed and displaced that their scurrying little bodies are more available than ever.

In the end, the fire is just part of the normal life cycle of a chaparral landscape, where occasional blazes are required to clean out scrubby overgrowth and regenerate environmental diversity.

The fire here burned right up to the road, and fire fighters were able to keep it from crossing the road at this location.

Mount Diablo is sacred to many California Native American peoples; according to Miwok mythology and Ohlone mythology, it was the point of creation.

The biggest victims in the fire were oak and buckeye trees, and a long list of smaller creatures that couldn't fly or scamper away quickly enough.The biggest victims in the fire were oak and buckeye trees, and a long list of smaller creatures that couldn't fly or scamper away quickly enough.

The fire burned right up to and within 15 feet of the Museum’s foundation on the summit.
On a clear day the Sierra Nevada is plainly visible from the summit.
(The best views are after a winter storm; a snowy Sierra shows up better, and summer is likely to be hazy.)

A lone man stands high atop the Devil’s Pulpit looking out over the burned landscape.

There are historic claims that the mountain's view shed is the largest in the world—or second largest after Mount Kilimanjaro. It boasts one of the largest viewsheds in the Western United States and it played a key role in California history. Countless peaks in the state are taller, but Mount Diablo has a remarkable visual prominence for a mountain of such modest elevation. (The Devil’s Pulpit appears on the bottom right of this photo)

The Devil’s Pulpit surrounded by burned areas, seen from the Mt Diablo Museum on the Summit.
Mt Diablo is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,864 feet (1,178 m), visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area and much of northern California.

Next spring is when the visual feast comes in. The burned mountainside will be carpeted with two types of flowers not seen since the last big wildfire in the state park, in 1977: orange-colored fire poppies and yellow-colored golden eardrops.

These beautiful wildflowers grow only after intense fires, and there will be millions of them in the burn area.
They will all be gone again in a couple of years.

A view of the Mt Diablo Museum as seen from the Devil’s Pulpit

The Devil’s Pulpit appears on the top left in this the photo.
The conventional view is that the peak derives its name from the 1805 escape of several Chupcan Native Americans from the Spanish in a nearby willow thicket. The natives seemed to disappear, and the Spanish soldiers thus gave the area the name "Monte del Diablo", meaning "thicket of the devil." Monte was later misinterpreted by English speakers as mount or mountain.

One attribute that also makes the name Mount Diablo appropriate is that the mountain glows red at sunset.

A view of the burned slope leading up to the Summit Museum, as seen from the Devil’s Pulpit.

The blaze burned just a fraction of the mountain, but left a huge imprint by charring the highly visible south face of Diablo.

Channel 7 News preparing to do an Evening News report on the aftermath of the fire on Mt Diablo

A partially-burned picnic table at one of the camp sites on My Diablo

The photos were taken by Ron Henggeler on © September 16, 2013
To view other photos of Mt Diablo that I’ve taken over the years, visit my web site and click on Mt Diablo.
http://www.ronhenggeler.com/