At 11:32 AM 6/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:
According
to the article in the Arizona Repugnant...uh...Republic yesterday (please
consider the source), the Mount Lemmon Cafe was not destroyed by the
fire. The article stated that they lost the roof to the patio and
the plastic furniture melted but otherwise it made it through.
Hopefully we'll be able to have pies there this winter after all!
The Lodge next door was a total loss. Nothing but two feet of
rubble remains.
It will be interesting to see what happens as a fallout of all
this. I have seen some stories where Pima County says that they
will make it tougher for the businesses to rebuild. There are
problems with building codes, endangered species and ridge/summit codes
down here. I have heard that the Forest Service has really been
dragging it's feet on allowing people to rebuild their cabins.
Instead of 99 year leases for the land they will only offer 20 year
leases and people can't get mortgages to build on land that they do not
own. From what I have read, the FS has yet to issue a permit in
California to rebuild any cabins from fires over the last few
years.
Only time will tell what happens up there, but the one thing that I think
we can be sure of is that the mountain will never be the same.