Cache To Burn

[+PlasteredDragon]

Recently I found a cache in an area that had seen a wide ranging brush fire (here's my log of the find). The fire was all around the cache container in it's hiding crevice, and the cache had been cooked.

 

It was an ammo box, and most of the contents survived, including a lego travelbug who had like 2000+ miles on him! The things that didn't survive were a roll of packing tape and a heat pack. The tape melted into a glob, and the heatpack ruptured rather grossly.

 

I cleaned the cache out best I could. The logbook and so forth appeared to have survived unscathed.

 

My daughter selected a toy matchbox truck from the cache. It had a name emblazoned on the side: FIRE EATER.

 

Does anyone else have any stories about recovering caches after a fire or some other disaster?

[+Jennifer&Dean]

Our log for a cache in Iowa that we discovered a few weeks after the area had burnt.

What, No Goose!?

Cute drive by cache turned into cinders inside an ammo can. Picture:

-Jen

[+Prying Pandora]

This cache was burned and survived.

 

[+Kit Fox]

This one didn't make it. Welcome to Angeles National Forest

 

[+Mr. Fantastic]

These pictures come from Wasco Zookeeper's Fall Frolic #5- On Golden Pond. I reached the location shortly after the controlled burn began. This is approximately the former ground zero of the cache.

 

[+ohgr]

This Cache Semi-Survived the fires that came through Southern California a while back. But the ensuing rains over land that didn't have anthing to hold it together anymore have caused so many new canyons that it it has made this cache a fairly difficult hunt now.

 

So sometime's it's not the fire, it's the aftermath that screws up a good cache for people.

 

 

[+Cow Spots]

Here's one where the cache survived though the logbook's a little worse for wear : that's the plastic pen melted into the logbook.

 

[+Ladybug Kids]

The Taiga Cascade Cache was a casulty of the fires that burned >6.5 MILLION acres in Alaska last summer. I unfortunately did not get a better photo of the cache, but in this picture you can see the charred log book preserved for the new container in a plastic back, and a glass liquor bottle that was presumably boiled empty. The gasket was burned out this ammo box, so we CITOed it and replaced it with a new ammo box so the cache contents would stay dry.

[+Gambrinus & Crew]

This one was apparently intentionally burned between hide and FTF. The first finders found it burned up (they posted pictures in their log).

 

The hider rehid somewhere nearby and it has survived so far (not 2 months yet).

[+CYBret]

Here's an old thread with a couple interesting pictures.

 

Bret

[+Team Dromomania]

This past fall a large fire raged for a few days and swept over several geocaches. I was the first person to survey the damages to the caches at two locations. Each location required several hours of hiking to reach.

 

The first location had one micro, one jar and two ammo boxes. The fire reached all of them. The two ammo boxes were undamaged because of their placements. The jar was also undamaged thanks to it's hidding place but everything around it was destroyed. The fire reached the micro and warped it but everything inside was fine.

 

The next location had three caches. The fire missed the ammo box. The fire reached up to the cliff edge of the second hide but didn't climb down and under the rocks so it was saved. The third cache was tupperware and it and most was destroyed including a TB. Actually, only a "lucky token" survived.

 

 

 

 

[+Team Dromomania]

Whoops. My images are way too big. I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to size them for the forums.

[+Miragee]

Download Irfanview. It is free and you can resample your image files using it.

 

Those of us on dialup will appreciate it . . .

[+Team Dromomania]

I figured it out. Size should be much better now. Thanks for the advise. I was about ready to burn these pictures!

[+Dan-oh]

Thats a no for most plastic containers.

 

 

GCGGZH

Edited May 26, 2005 by Dan-oh