Palomar Mountain News

Quite the summer storm today!  I was driving across Crestline and saw lightning strike out near Morgan Hill area.  I came in to my office real quick and unplugged my computer.  unplugged a few other things then ran up to our Round House property to unplug some more and had a great view of the planes going over wetting down the fire.   (My camera was not with me – darn – thought it best to stay put!)  Lots of drama in the sky but the rain skirted our property! 

I did wonder if High Point was manned today, and sure enough, here is the message from Brad with the run-down from Bill and Bill. 

From: Brad Eells Subject: FW: 8-25-10 at palomar

 Bill & Bill,

 Thanks for the great report! We are experiencing much more thunderstorm activity than normal in my recent memory. I was listening to the radio this afternoon and I can tell you there was fire activity all over San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. They ran out of aircraft and frequencies at one point.

You got to see some close up aviation activity…awesome!

Keep up the great work…Friday is still open if anyone wants an opportunity for some real fire detection action…

I think you deserve a 100% pay increase…unfortunately 100% times $0 is still…$0…

Cheers,

Brad

 —–Original Message—–
Subject: 8-25-10 at palomar

Brad-today we earn our keep. We are thinking we should go on paid status. (only kidding).
 
Arrived early for Palomar, and uneventful until approx 10:30 AM. We reported a fire/smoke at sunderland lake/carral mountain. We believe we may have been the first from the forest service to report the fire. Dispatch reported SOMEONE had reported smoke, but no one ID’D. Five minutes later we reported location and smoke, dispatch advised we were in close proximity to location. No other report before that. Was approx a 100 acre fire.
 
At approx noon time, we noted major changes in the weather, with thunderheads over Mt. San Jacinto, heading south, which came over red mountain and toward palomar. As the storm, or storms neared palomar multiple thunderclaps and straight lighting strikes were noted. we noted approximately 90 strikes during the storm, and due to many, many strikes were unable to record all strikes, but got approx 60 strikes noted on the lighting strike report, approx 4 pages, and tried to note generally where the multiple strikes were.
 
For about an hour we were bombarded with rain, heavy, and wind. It appeared some of the rain may have been hail, and some of the rain almost looked like snow, since not falling as hard drops to the ground.
 
We also reported a lighting strike smoke on Morgan hill, then the rains came heavy and may have drowned the smoke, But we believe the smoke returned later after the rain.
 
Many, many, forest service helicopters and water drop planes in the area. A later lighting strike smoke was noted further along the aqua tibia ridge, but forest service helicopters were pursuing the fire.
 
Upon reaching the palomar forest service fire station, both forest service fire trucks and cal fire trucks were noted.
 
It was a WILD, WILD day. bill luedeke/bill ulmer