Scott G.
07-19-2003, 05:45 PM
Thought I would share something interesting that happened out here over the past 72 hours at Ford Ort, site of the Sea Otter Classic.
Navy SEALs were out practicing attacking what is called the "impossible city", a urban mock-up used to train for anti-terrorist assults, hostage situations etc, right over the ridge from the race course. Well, apparently after their exercise, they went to set off all their unused smoke canisters and ordinance, etc. and set off a wildfire out here that consumed almost 1000 acres.
The bottom line is a lot of vegetation went up, a lot of buried ordinance exploded, we could not ride for three days, and some singletracks now look like a strip of dirt through scorched earth. The good news is that most of the area that was burned was closed to riding because of unexploded ordinance from time when it was an army training base. This land was not slated to be cleaned up for some years, but it looks like the SEALs mishap may open up some land to trails and biking a lot sooner than expected:D
Navy SEALs were out practicing attacking what is called the "impossible city", a urban mock-up used to train for anti-terrorist assults, hostage situations etc, right over the ridge from the race course. Well, apparently after their exercise, they went to set off all their unused smoke canisters and ordinance, etc. and set off a wildfire out here that consumed almost 1000 acres.
The bottom line is a lot of vegetation went up, a lot of buried ordinance exploded, we could not ride for three days, and some singletracks now look like a strip of dirt through scorched earth. The good news is that most of the area that was burned was closed to riding because of unexploded ordinance from time when it was an army training base. This land was not slated to be cleaned up for some years, but it looks like the SEALs mishap may open up some land to trails and biking a lot sooner than expected:D