1994 Highway 41 Fire Anniversary
When:
Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Where:
Santa Lucia Mountains - San Luis Obispo County
Description:
On this date in 1994 the Highway 41 Fire began during an unusually intense heat wave on the Central Coast. It began along the eastbound side of Highway 41 near Cerro Alto Campground between Atascadero and Morro Bay. It quickly spread throughout the area scorching over 3,000 acres and forcing evacuations of residents and the closure of Highway 41 and Cerro Alto Campground. It blew up during the pre-dawn hours of the following morning due to a wind increase and wind shift and made a run at Morro Bay and the hills east of town and above Highway 1. During this time it cut vital 500kv high tension power lines knocking out power to large areas of the Central Coast. Later in the morning the winds shifted and the fire directed it's fury inland at Atascadero. By this time the fire was well-established in heavy 50 year-old chaparral with up to 40 tons of fuel per acre, most of it desiccated from years of drought (1984-1990) with lots of fallen limbs from two snow storms in 1988 and 1991, an epic freeze in 1990 and then in this year one of the driest winters (Winter of 1993-1994) ever recorded and now on this day triple digit temperatures (hundred-teens inland) with single digit relative humidities. The firestorm that ensued burned up 2 acres per second or over 7,000 acres per hour at it's climax when it ran out of the Los Padres National Forest like a tsunami of fire and washed over the hills west of Atascadero jumping Highway 101 on the southwestern margins of town and southward burned throughout Santa Margarita Ranch and around the town of Santa Margarita. During the peak of the firestorm, winds were blowing strongly out of the northeast in downtown Atascadero (as they NEVER do in Summertime) and feeding directly into the fire to the west and southwest. Both sides of Highway 101 were burned from about the southern city limit of Atascadero just south of Santa Barbara Road all the way to part-way down the bottom of southern face of the Cuesta Grade outside San Luis Obispo. Most of the destruction of property occurred in Tassajara Canyon where it was described as looking like a blow-torch oriented horizontally. The fire ultimately burned into Upper Lopez Canyon and was stopped a few days later when the fog rolled and coastal drizzle finished the fire. The final figures for this conflagration were 48,352 acres charred, 42 homes destroyed, 61 outbuildings destroyed, and 91 vehicles were destroyed. Damage totaled more than $10,000,000.
Source: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article189260279.html and others sources
Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wR1KqpbrMg
Vimeo video: https://vimeo.com/96150610
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