In case you saw some smoke on Spring Mountain on June 24, here’s what happened.
At the western end of the Ritchie Creek Canyon, at about 1:30 pm, a fire was observed. CalFire sent several ‘bombers’ almost immediately and St. Helena Fire was also on the scene with their trucks. If you were on the Mountain, you saw the skies busy with planes and helicopters. The fire was contained within about two hours using fire retardant.
Access was difficult; the fire was in a remote corner of Bothe State Park. Two D6 bulldozers arrived on the scene to clear the long-forgotten road to the fire area. The problem was identifying a long-abandoned old road, now overgrown, to gain access to the fire. Locals think this was once a property belonging to the Beringer family in the nineteenth century.
Our thanks to CalFire and St. Helena Fire Chief John Sorensen.