If you had told me last year that our mountains would have so much snow this close to spring, I’d have been thrilled. The forests of Southern California have suffered immensely from years of punishing drought and record high temperatures, and good winter soakings provide the best protection against fires in the dry season.
It was just September when the residents of Big Bear, the San Bernardino Mountain community where my wife’s grandfather built her family’s cabin more than 70 years ago, watched as the Radford fire advanced perilously close to homes and a ski resort. Two years before, a Big Bear firefighter died in the nearby El Dorado fire. The national forest enveloping the community has been closed to visitors twice in the last three years from fire danger.
Snow should be a blessing to mountain villages besieged by wildfire, especially one like Big Bear, where its lake hasn’t been full since 2011. But not this kind of snow.
