I guess this happened on Wed. but I just saw it today. This is from the Inyo Register web site and was written by an old friend of mine Mike Bodine.

Loss of visitor center shocks, saddens many

Thursday, 04 September 2008

A forest service firefighter hand-pumps water on the last smoldering remnants of the visitors center this afternoon. Photo by Mike Bodine By Mike Bodine Register Staff 9-6-2008 Fire has destroyed the visitor center in the Bristlecone pine forest, sending sadness and shockwaves throughout the Owens Valley and beyond. Calls first came into Big Pine and Forest Service fire departments at 8 a.m. Thursday morning that the Schulman Grove Visitor Center in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, located 24 miles east of Big Pine on White Mountain Road, at an elevation of more than 10,000 feet, was on fire. By the time tankers and engines arrived on the scene at 10:30 a.m., the center was a total loss, according to Inyo National Forest Public Affairs Officer Nancy Upham. Along with the building, the blaze destroyed about 50 feet of boardwalk and 3-4 Bristlecone pine trees. John Louth, the center’s manager and ranger for the forest, said the destroyed trees weren’t that old, but were gone none the less. Most of the boardwalk, a few picnic tables and signs and the rest rooms were all that remained. A charred boardwalk once served as a way for handicapped individuals to maneuver and enjoy the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest and Visitor Center was destroyed by fire today. Photo by Mike Bodine The scene Thursday afternoon resembled a funeral pyre. The center was reduced to a heap of curled roofing that looked like grey ribbons wrapped around black splinters and small puffs of smoke. Solemn staff and Forest Service personnel would look to the smoldering rubble then look away, heads shaking in disbelief. Interpretive displays and signs that once informed the nearly 30,000 annual visitors lay twisted and deformed. The handicap-accessible boardwalk that lined the outside of the visitor center was blackened at several ends, dropping off like a ship’s plank into the ash. The smoky destruction looked out of place against the backdrop of the oldest living trees on the planet, the forest silence broken by the sound of water hoses and diesel truck tankers. The visitor and interpretive center was built in a log-cabin style in 1995. Construced with Forest Service funds to replace the old interpretive center, a long, aluminum trailer affectionately known as “The Silver Bullet,” the new center cost approximately $500,000 to build, according to Upham. Upham said the center was insured, but by the self-insured U.S. government, meaning it will take a Congressional appropriation to acquire the needed funds to rebuild, unless the forest service finds an alternative funding source. She estimated a new center would cost $750,000. The center housed a small theater where the film “Living History: The Ancient Bristlecone Pines” was shown, along with a book store and Bristlecone memorabilia like maps and photos for sale, original artwork and one 3,000-year-old Bristlecone pine display slab – now all gone. “This is a huge loss, we’re all still in shock,” Upham said Thursday, surveying the damage alongside Margaret Wood, acting district ranger for INF, and Debbie Eilts from the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, a partner with the Forest Service. “The center was loved by visitors around the world,” Upham explained. “It was a world entity,” Louth said. “Just in the last few days, people have told me what a great opportunity the boardwalk was,” Patti Wells, 26-year naturalist for the center, said with tears in her eyes. “This is devastating, mostly for the public. It was designed to be enjoyed by everybody.” Words and phrases like “devastating,” “in shock,” and “what a shame” were used by many at the scene. The cause of the fire is under investigation by fire marshals and Forest Service investigators who arrived on scene Thursday afternoon. Ben Leach, a member of the investigative team, explained that the cause of the fire, once determined, will define how the investigation will proceed. If foul play is suspected, the matter may be turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, since the center was a federal facility. In trying to determine a cause, investigators will be taking an inventory of the center itself, including its infrastructure. There is no electricy at the site, only solar power used to run the cash register and a few lights. There are kerosene heaters and an adjacent tank at the facility, but Louth said they hadn’t yet been fired up for the season. There is no camping in the forest or in the parking lot. Speculation abounds on mountain and recreation web site forums with many blaming the incident on arson and citing a clear connection between this fire, the vandalism at White Mountain Research Summit Lab and recent vehicle damage in the Big Pine and Bishop Creek areas. Some say these  incidents are in retaliation for new wilderness designations or roadless rules. The sadder comments come from people stating they never want to return to the Eastern Sierra for fear of vandalism or worse. Inyo County Sheriff’s Investigator Jeff Hollowell said any connection between this incident and recent, local acts of vandalism is purely speculative. This year would mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Forest Service’s designation of the 28,000 acre Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. At the same time a special area within the forest was dedicated to Edmund Schulman, pioneer dendrochronologist, or tree-ring age researcher. Schulman, who discovered the oldest living inhabitant on the planet, the “Methuselah” Bristlecone pine tree dated at 4,770 years-old, died in 1958, the same year his ground-breaking research was finally published about the trees. Methuselah is reported to be in Schulman Grove, but its exact location had always been kept a secret. Louth was hesitant to leave Thursday’s scene. Appearing sick with grief, he muttered, “I helped build this place. I helped design the place and design the displays … This was my life.” Even though the visitor center is gone, the forest is still open, with a staffed, temporary interpretive center to be up soon, according to Upham. The longer Methuselah Trail will be closed temporarily, but the 1.5-mile Discovery Trail will remain open. Upham said Friday she has already been receiving calls from organizations like Friends of the Inyo and its president, Paul McFarland, asking what they can do to help, what they can do to help rebuild. Upham said this kind of response helps reinforce the fact that the center was loved by many, and what a great resource the center was to so many. She added that while many are still in shock, “We’ll be pushing ahead soon, rising from the ashes.”

Very sad indeed.

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