Mt. Diablo Morgan Fire Recovery

We headed up to Mt. Diablo Easter Sunday, to see some greenery, wild flowers, fire damage, and environmental recovery. The Nerds for Nature project has launched a monitoring program that utilizes social media and nerds like me to record Mt. Diablo's comeback from the September, 2013 fire. The fire was accidentally started by a still-at-large target shooter and burned 3,111 acres.

There's four camera stations along an old fire-interpretative trail from a 1977 lightning-strike fire, that burned 6,000 acres. (I only found one station because I didn't study my Google map thoroughly beforehand, and no, I still don't have a smart phone.) Once photographed, the views are posted to social media with their proper hash tags and over time, a stop-motion animation will be created, showing plant regrowth of the region. Exciting!

Here's view #4 for the project:

And some general shots of the area.

The picnic area just below the summit is fried, but it's making a comeback.

A big ol' tree, most likely not going to survive, but note the shoots at the base.

And ground cover below.

Still lots of California Poppies scattered all over the mountain—hurry or you'll miss them.

And other flowers as well, although not as abundant as hoped, due to the ongoing drought. Hopefully we'll get more rain this year.