Photos and an extended update: After the Tassajara Fire, questions linger.

The super moon would glow fiercely after nightfall, but a week after the Tassajara Fire roared through Cachagua Valley, the lunar effect was already intense during the day.

The gray crust of the soil crunched underfoot.

Hillsides resembled cratered stone.

The dry river bed looked like an alien wound.

Trees stood like ghosts, their bark burnt to white ash.

Not too far down the valley the jays, oak tit mouses and squirrels chirp, chatter and squeak. Here the quiet matches the bleakness of the viewscape.

The heavy CalFire vehicles make up half of the traffic. 

They rumble past where Cachagua resident Lance ("LT") Thompson and his wife Jenni first happened upon the fire, at the 10-mile marker on Cachagua Road, when it was about as big as a 1/3-fraction of a football field's end zone.

He remembers yelling as loud as he could, "Heeeeeyyyyyyyyy! Heeeeeeyyyy? Anybody here?!"

The video is spooky: crackling sounds, then his wife asking, "What is happening?"

For local music fans who recall his longtime local career as frontman for groups including Serpico and Red Light Nightmare, they know how booming that would be.

He couldn't see the man on the ground next to the car that sat adjacent to the fire—more on him in a second—or as he says, "I didn't realize I was yelling at a burned body."

After he and his wife called in the fire they set off for town as they originally planned. But when they reached the ridge and looked back to the fire, they changed their plans. 

"It was small and I was confident they'd put it out, so I couldn't believe how quickly it spread," he says. 

"Looking back at the big black smoke plume, we wondered what we'd do with our lives," he adds. "It got so big so fast it was mind-boggling." 

He retrieved the family's pets, tax documents, family photos, two guitars and a box of rare 45 records. By then the column of smoke was ominously large. 

Winds swept the fire east, away from their home. The fire would ultimately claim well over 1,000 acres. 

But by Sunday they had returned, and were enjoying brunch with their daughter Georgia Olive and her grandmother Sally Balesteri at Cachagua General Store. 

Balestreri was there to deliver a $1,400 check to the Cachagua Fire, an amount raised by the staff and customers of Il Vecchio Italian restaurant where she works, and where 25 percent of Sept. 23's receipts went for the volunteer group.

That same night the Cachagua General Store itself was awash with well-wishers as Chef Michael Jones and company hosted the local firemen and whoever lost their homes, for a free feast.

Attending eaters were asked to donate to a relief fund. After Jones circulated a hat, they counted more than $4,500.

Also on hand: Supervisor Dave Potter, Office of Emergency Services support staff and financial advisors to help those who lost their homes find resources.

Like CalFire Chief Mark Edria, who was in charge of the first shift of fire response, says: "It's a pretty resilient community." 

Some healing, however, will take longer to gain momentum.  

The family of Jim McAlpine released a statement Friday saying he had caused the fire by self-immolation.

It came about an hour before the Monterey County Coroner announced his identity and cause of his death.

"The McAlpine family suffered an unthinkable, unexpected and tragic loss of our father, Steve McAlpine, due to suicide resulting from his long and painful struggle with mental illness. It was a horrific series of event that has left out family in shock and utter disbelief at what we are still trying to process," the announcement read.

Kristina Chavez Wyatt of Farmhouse Communications, who is representing the family, declined to elaborate on the "series of events" that led to the tragedy or the nature of the mental illness with which he was reportedly struggling.

Later she adds they're doing their best with the grieving process, caring for his surviving family and arranging a memorial, and want to focus as much as possible on how to address mental illness better as a society.

"They feel that things could've been better for Steve and his care could've been better and that could've help stave off the ultimate end," she says. "They want to help other families in dealing with illness and preventing these things from happening."

The family is also encouraging friends and loved ones to donate to the newly established Tassajara Fire fund, administered by Community Foundation for the Monterey Peninsula at no cost, with the monies to be distributed among the area's 501(c)(3)s.

A Weekly investigation turned up no evidence of financial distress for McAlpine. 

He had one traffic ticket on his record.

He and his wife Jill McAlpine owned The Travel Bag in the Carmel Crossroads for years, vending upscale items handy for travelers like Bluetooth speakers and other tech gadgets. The pair closed the shop last fall and retired.

Understanding why he would choose to set himself on fire presents a daunting—and haunting—challenge.

CalFire's Mark Edria is among those grasping for answers.

"I've been doing this for 26 years now, and it's one of those head scratchers," he says. "A lot of people have a hard time understanding it."

Uncovering how the family and investigators were able to categorize it as a suicide with such conviction also remains unclear.

Edria referred the Weekly to CalFire investigator Catey Trenner.

She declined to discuss what items were found near the body that may have suggested suicide and deferred to Monterey County Sheriff Detective Sargeant Terry Kaiser, who adamantly refused to comment. 

Meanwhile, Edria is among those bracing for El Niño weather that could wreak havoc in tandem with scorched soils.

A low intensity fire over a large area allows for greater plant recovery. An intense fire like Tassajara has damaged soils and wiped out any growth with such extreme temperatures growth appears a long way off.

"With that soil, nothings going to be growing in that for a while," he says. "Fingers crossed when we do get rain, it's a little bit at a time."