“You could tell which direction the fire was coming from by looking at the needles,” Cole said. “All of the needles were pointed east. It’s something called needle freeze. It’s really unique … the fire was burning through so fast and so hot and it flash-froze the needles.”

The only thing that survived on the trailhead sign was the metal that framed it.

Even with the recent rain, Cole said there was a still quite a lot of smoke coming from tree trunks and downed logs in the area.

“That little bit of rain that we got was nice,” he said. “It’s slowed things down for a few days, but by this weekend it will be hot again and we’ll see more fire activity occur.”

When firefighters do their mop-up work, they focus their efforts on the first 200 feet in from a fire line. Beyond that, Cole said people are going to notice that there’s quite of bit of material still smoldering.

“When we were at the trailhead today, around us 360 degrees, we could see stumps burning and other material smoking,” he said. “It’s going to take a season-ending event to put this out. I think people may have a false sense of hope right now. They might think that this fire is out. While that would be nice, it’s not true.”