20 years ago here in Big Lake Alaska, and specifically here on Wicked Raven Farm (before it became Wicked Raven that is) a fire broke out at Millers Reach, which is actually a road about 5 miles from the farm. The fire came on a June day after a winter nearly devoid of snow and a spring that was drier than a popcorn fart! At the time of the fire we lived off of Knik Goose Bay Road which is about 10 miles as the crow flies but takes about 30 minutes to drive to from the farm. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the fire path and the fire came within about 1/4 mile from the house we lived in. Hubby had the sprinklers on the roof of the house and the garage and we had ash and floating embers landing on the house for days. In Big Lake it was an inferno.
Photo by Brent Johnson
The fire burned hot and fast. It burned across the property here at Wicked Raven Farm hot enough that it burned off all of the organics in the soil. What was left was the clay for about 6 inches, then a 3 inch layer of ash and then sand and thats about it! The house survived because it has a steel roof and the helicopters were able to drop water from the lake on the roof and keep it from catching fire- that and the homeowner at the time took a dozer and pushed all of the trees off of the property from the lake to the road. The resulting brush pile completely burned away - we cannot even find the spot where it sat.
The Government came in and declared the area a disaster. They offered trees for planting in any of the fire areas, paper birch mostly - we call the 16 birch in our yard our "government trees" and we laugh about it a little. We don't laugh about the lack of soil quality here - I have to bring in dirt for anything I want to do - as you read about in my Wicked Birthday Dirt post. Keep in mind we didn't move here for the property - other than the lake and we never imagined that the soil would have burned off so badly.
Above photo shows our "Government Trees" lining the driveway - of course with our dogs enjoying the fall day!
We also don't laugh about the fact that it has been 20 years and the beavers have not returned to our area! Trees have grown up and we have seen many muskrats, an otter, and other great wild life but no beavers have come back to a system of 5 lakes that all have Beaver in the name! We are on Little Beaver, next to us is West Beaver, then Big Beaver, and a little to the right of that is Beaver Tail and just plain Beaver Lake. Obviously there were a large number of the beaver in the system before the fire ravaged the food sources. We also find tons of the beaver chewed tree leavings in the lake as we are paddling around in the small boat. Where did they go and why have they not come back?
Im hoping to find some research about the area since we are at almost 21 years later and a number of studies surely have been done about what this fire did to the area. I can't find anything about the beavers though. Ill keep looking and keep you posted! Stay tuned!
