By Andrew Edwards
San Bernardino County Sun (California)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
JOSHUA TREE, Calif. — Another fire ignited in Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday. Mere hours after fire officials declared the Covington Fire fully contained, lightning sparked a new blaze dubbed the Whispering Pines Fire.
Tom Sensintaffar, a center manager at the U.S. Forest Service’s San Bernardino office, said the fire started at about 6:45 p.m. Saturday.
There’s a saying that lightning never strikes the same place twice, but it came awfully close to doing that Saturday. Fire officials said the Whispering Pines blaze burned close to the Covington Flats area in the park’s west side.
The Covington fire burned about 300 acres before it was contained Saturday morning.
Sensintaffar said the string of wildfires that have scorched Joshua Tree National Park this summer is not an ordinary occurance.
“This is pretty intense,” he said.
The Whispering Pines fire ignited as firefighters worked to contain a 400-acre fire in the Cajon Pass. That blaze started shortly before noon Saturday and was about 50 percent contained by 10 p.m.
About the same time, the Whispering Pines fire had burned 200 to 300 acres and firefighters attached to eight engines had rolled out to stop the flames. No structures were threatened by flames at that time.
In addition to the new blaze in Joshua Tree, lightning was to blame in the ignition of about 35 fires, many contained to single trees that were set aflame, in and around San Bernardino County, said a U.S. Forest Service dispatcher.
Of note, however, was the Schuh Fire, a .5-acre blaze that Sensintaffar said was burning in the “middle of nowhere” well east of Lake Arrowhead.
Lightning started the Schuh Fire at about 11:10 a.m. Saturday.
Sensintaffar did not have containment estimates for the Schuh or Whispering Pines fires late Saturday night.