Kettle Morraine south fire

[draconis dave]

I got an e-mail recently:

Hi fellow geocacher. You may want to go and check your cache(GCM8TM). I was one of the firefighters fighting a large fire in the area. My crew went in the forest near the location of your cache. I dont know all the areas affected by the fire but I do know that someone had started 4 different fires in the area on thursday. The fires were spend out from old world wisconsin all the way to hyw H. I also heard firefighters talking over the radio about a geocache they found and it had been damaged. I do not know what happened to that cache, or what area that came from. Just thought I would give you a heads up. Its one thing if this would have been a natural thing but the fact that some one started these fires realy makes me mad. Hope you caches made it. Krazykarl05

I think that this firefighter and geocacher went beyond the regular job description by letting me know about the possibility of damage to my cache. Great guy. Also, there wasn’t any other info about the other damaged cache. My cache is at N 42° 52.079 W 088° 30.890, and is near, but in the woods behind the McMiller sports complex. Anyone with caches near where he is describing, should try to find out about it.

[This message has been edited by draconis dave (edited 04-30-2006).]

[Ray]

We havn’t been there to see. This is really upsetting. Nearby caches should be checked too. ~tb

[GrouseTales]

I received that email also, but it sounds pretty far away from my caches. I appreciate the emails though .

[LightningBugs Mum]

Wow. I had heard about the fire at Old World Wisconsin, but not about the other KM areas being affected. It’s one of my favorite areas to go caching – what a shame.

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Team LightningBugs
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[greyhounder]

I was working at Old World Wisconsin the day after the fire. There is no noticeable damage to the area — at least from the way I took in and out (hwy NN to hwy 67). So caches on that side should have been okay. At OWW I was told that the fires were primarily north of hwy 59. So if you have caches between those area….time for a maintenance check!

[draconis dave]

We(jd and I) went out and checked on our caches in the area of the ‘kettle’ near the town of Eagle. We checked Knots 2 U, and Pain in the Cache – Painless, and we were amazed by what we found. The area by Knots 2 U was undamaged, same as usual, and we made a maintainance check.

But near PITC-Painless, we found some burned up areas, and these had the look of a controlled burn, as it ended right at the edge of the road and at the edges of the trees, with no burn off into them. This area came within 6 strides of the cache.

This area was inside the turn as Hwy N goes past Paradise Springs and heads north west. Along further, we saw another area to the west of the road across from Wilton road.

We drove around and looked at a lot of areas, just out to scout and enjoy the scenery, but no other areas seemed damaged.

[Cathunter]

The Scuppernong habitat areas are subject to regular controlled burns. If you have been granted permission to hide caches in the area, it should be easy enough to maintain a regular line of communication in regards to when and where the burns will take place.

[greyhounder]

I got a little more information on the grass fire near Old World Wisconsin. It started near the railroad tracks at Hwy S. It is believe that the train “sparked” the fire.

Bec

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There are no shortcuts to any place worth going

[GeoPink]

I love the word Scuppernong!

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Team GeoPink – Co-conspirators to make the world a better place…
– Jeff Rahmlow
WGA President
geopink at wi dash geocaching dit com

The comments and opinions above are those solely of Team GeoPink (arcangl7) and are not those of the WGA, the WGA board, or its other fine members.

[LightningBugs Mum]

quote:

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Originally posted by arcangl7:
I love the word Scuppernong!

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And it’s not far from the Koshkonong area either.

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Team LightningBugs
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[greyhounder]

I think someone’s found a causualty:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=6e30ea93-f23f-4ecc-a627-f42ef48f1771

Bec

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There are no shortcuts to any place worth going

[Team Deejay]

This is the third fire site I have found in Vernon Marsh. The first is right by the south entrance, and the second is at ground zero of the Spawned by Stonehaven cache, but the cache is ok. These all look intentionally set by DNR personnel, as in very well defined (and straight) boundaries, evidence of water saturation just past the burn areas, and evidence of accelerants used(at least at this last one). The trees in this last area have been cut, but not completely, like the fire was supposed to knock the trees over. In at least one case, the fire didn’t topple the tree, so now there is a tree with a sawcut 90% of the way through, just waiting to fall over on someone. I probably should have pushed it over, but I was busy trying to find the cache and forgot to do it. I believe the DNR is implementing an active “cutting and burning” program to restore the prairies/marshes to a more natural and primitive state.

[Author]

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