Just a little preparation for the images... here is an arial photo of the Pine Hills area
taken shortly after the fire was out, or mostly so... the image is from
a county file, originally in infrared color, but re-colored to green for better understanding.

the ruins of the barn-studio are at the tiny light dot at the head of a fire tornado...
this image is of an area about 3.5 by 5 miles, Julian town is just off the image at the upper right.
Pine Hills was rather lucky as you can see, the main fire storm passed north and south of the
hill leaving a lot of green. The path of the main fire was from the lower left to the upper right and
completed most of that run in less than a day.

this detail of the fire image shows two of the five fire tornados that came up the south side of
Pine Hills. As you can see, the barn was at the top of one of these. this image is about 2000 feet wide..
The fire devils, as they are called, are spawned at the edge of the main fire storm by inrushing winds.
The smaller black patches through the trees are parts of the ground fires that follow the tornados,
sometimes rushing as fast and often doing as much damage. It was the ground strorm that got
the Artists' Loft shortly after the tornado hopped over. the winds on the ground near
the fire are very strong as a result of the hot air rising and the cooler air rushing in.

so, if you want to see the images af the remains, click IMAGES and a page will
open in a new window... if, instead, you want to go back to
the Artists' Loft home page, click: