skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, May 30, 2017. Dry weeds are taller and more dense than they were just a year ago. Although the trees are recovering from the 2016 Silver Lake Fire. Note the dry brush on the slope. Neighbors are asking, once again, "How do the large lot owners get away without doing brush clearance by May 1, EVERY YEAR?" (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo: Diane Edwardson, May 17, 2016. A month before the June 19, 2016 fire, the dry weeds on the flatter part were sparse and the dry brush on the slope was mashed down and not as thick as normal years due to the lack of rain.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, June 20, 2016. The day after the Silver Lake Fire, the trees didn't look so bad. Lots of water poured on the fire from the air and by hose washed much of the charred debris from the slopes. The following weeks would not be good.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, October 12, 2016. Four months later, neighbors questioned if the trees would recover. The protected native Black Walnut and Coast Live Oak Trees, in particular, had shown signs of recovery, but with a desolate post-fire landscape, if you didn't look closely while walking the property, you did not see the new growth. It doesn't help that the Black Walnuts and Chinese Elms drop their leaves for winter, so the growing season was all screwed up for these poor trees.
After the fire, CalTrans clear-cut so many trees adjacent the Red Car Property and Corralitas Drive, there was a dramatic temperature shift in the immediate neighborhood with the loss of so much morning shade. The street is hotter, sunnier and dustier. It did not rain significantly until shortly after LAFD contractors did brush clearance in December.
