Hang in there, California: wild fires

[Aktungbby]

The McKinney Fire is now 95% contained, having destroyed 98 square miles, 30, 000 game-fish from ash runoff, the hamlet of Klamath River and four victims, all in their 70's; identified thru dental records. One in particular was Kathleen Shoopman who for decades had served faithfully in fire watchtowers, devoted giving advance warning against such hazards. An article in today's paper points up an issue in post 200 of this thread. California's inmate training program, at $180,000 per trainee, is still failing to provide the manpower for fighting the the infernos. Their criminal record curtails their employment prospects!!? As a result, the US Forest Service is short 1200 smoke-eaters, 500 of them in California and the Dept of the Interior is short 450, 150 of them in California. Early release due to prison Covid epidemic threat is also a factor in this manpower shortage. Legislators are working on bills to expunge records of trainees to ease their post-incarceraton employment issues-we need these guys on the front line choppin' trees, cuttin' brush and setting backfires to combat the flames. This season has 1670 inmates in fire camps; down 40% from 2019. The Correction Dept. was budgeted for 152 crews but fielded just 51, each with 15-18 firefighters.

[Aktungbby]

The current extreme heat wave which hit 114F. yesterday, and set the all-time record for Santa Rosa since 1913: (115F.) where my daughter resides w/o AC; has created the grave situation of "flash drying" of both dead and live fuels which only increases the already extreme fire hazard throughout the state. Lightning strikes are expected in Siskiyou and northern rugged counties which have trigger'd several large fatal conflagrations. Rolling power shut downs throughout the state due to record setting AC demand on PG&E's decayed transmission lines are ocurrring...

[fireftr18]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

The current extreme heat wave which hit 114F. yesterday, and set the all-time record for Santa Rosa since 1913: (115F.) where my daughter resides w/o AC; has created the grave situation of "flash drying" of both dead and live fuels which only increases the already extreme fire hazard throughout the state. Lightning strikes are expected in Siskiyou and northern rugged counties which have trigger'd several large fatal conflagrations. Rolling power shut downs throughout the state due to record setting AC demand on PG&E's decayed transmission lines are ocurrring...

Prayers for you buddy. I can't imagine that hot, dry air with that much vegetation. Here in Kentucky, we feel like it's dry if the humidity gets down to about 50%.

[Aktungbby]

...with smoke from big fires in northern CA forests; and smoke emanating from Washington state and now blowing south into the Bay area. If that's not enough, Hurricane Hillary, now downgraded to a tropical storm, has inundated LA., Palm Springs, turning northerly thriough the middle of the state along the I-5 and Hwy 99 axis. Las Vegas is expected to be affected in turn! This is the first tropical storm to hit CA since 1939! Just the major flooding on TV, particularly in customarily bone-dry desert areas is looking bad. Reaching the inlaws by phone is impossible. Torrential deluges being insufficient, the city of Ohai, 50 miles inland from the port of Santa Barbara, suffered a 5.1 quake around 2PM-no deaths reported....

[Jeff-Groves]

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

...with smoke from big fires in northern CA forests; and smoke emanating from Washington state and now blowing south into the Bay area. If that's not enough, Hurricane Hillary, now downgraded to a tropical storm, has inundated LA., Palm Springs, turning northerly thriough the middle of the state along the I-5 and Hwy 99 axis. Las Vegas is expected to be affected in turn! This is the first tropical storm to hit CA since 1939! Just the major flooding on TV, particularly in customarily bone-dry desert areas is looking bad. Reaching the inlaws by phone is impossible. Torrential deluges being insufficient, the city of Ohai, 50 miles inland from the port of Santa Barbara, suffered a 5.1 quake around 2PM-no deaths reported....

At least the smoke is keeping the locusts from invading.

[Platapus]

All that rain all of a sudden will result in a lot of mud/landslides.


When I lived in CA we were more concerned with mudslides than earthquakes.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Platapus

When I lived in CA we were more concerned with mudslides than earthquakes.

Nah! FEMA, having requested my appraisal files for the massive 1979 7.2 Loma Prieta quake and the Santa Cruz/Love Creek massive slide(bodies never recovered) disasters;(for the house fotos); massive Napa fires(within 8,000 ft.) and two quakes since here in Napa: 2000's 5.2(epicentered 500 yards away destroying my chimney & chinaware!) & 2014's 4.1, seriously wrecking downtown bldgs. but sparing me!... all of which compelled me to keep up the license-req'd E&O insurance on my files 5 years beyond my 13 year's career retirement date in case of lawsuits...it's fires 1st; quakes 2nd; and mudslides 3rd;...no IMHO 'bout it!

[Onkel Neal]

I watched some footage of the LA fires, man, this is devastating. I hope no one here is affected.

[Skybird]

Copied over from the US thread.
-----------------
"Impressive" fires at the Palisades area in L.A., now described as the most destructive fires in the history of California. I feel sympathy with the people who have lost their homes, rich and poor. Such things simply are nothing that should ever happen to anyone. But they do.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I watched some footage of the LA fires, man, this is devastating. I hope no one here is affected.

One thinks of Dante when seeing this.

[Skybird]

[Die Welt] Natural disasters inevitably trigger the climate change industry to profit from them. Politicians, activists and the media are now also blaming global warming for the fires in the Los Angeles region. But the claim is untenable.

It is true that studies show that the affected region must expect more droughts as a result of climate change. But as one of the authors of these studies, climatologist Patrick Brown, analyzes, other influences dominate the forest fire events, including poor forest management and the increasing number of people who trigger forest fires.

The current fires are unlikely to have anything to do with global warming: The “moderate drought” in the affected region, according to the weather service, is normal, as is the second meteorological disaster ingredient, strong downslope winds from the northeast.

The so-called Santa Ana winds are fanning the fires and causing them to spread rapidly. In the course of climate change, however, the winds are likely to weaken because the mainland of the USA is heating up faster than the oceans - and the pressure difference causing the winds would therefore decrease.

If strong downdrafts prevail, all that is needed is arson. “In the Southern California region, 100 percent of all fires during Santa Ana winds are the result of human ignition, intentional or accidental,” write forest fire researchers in the scientific journal ‘Science Advances’.

If strong downdrafts prevail, all that is needed is arson. “In the Southern California region, 100 percent of all fires during Santa Ana winds are the result of human ignition, intentional or accidental,” write wildfire researchers in the scientific journal ‘Science Advances’.

California is wildfire country; in fact, the vegetation needs fire to thrive. Although the state has experienced huge fires in recent years, the historical classification takes away their peculiarity: studies show that more than a hundred years ago, fires often burned just as much and far more intensely.

“California's forests are suffering from mismanagement”, wrote an expert commission in 2018, calling for the government to change its strategy. Donald Trump also recently complained about a deliberate lack of firefighting water in California.

In a 2018 study, researchers from the University of Berkeley also complained about wrong policies. “We are not at the mercy of climate change”, summarizes co-author Van Butsic, ‘there are known practices that can be successfully applied’.


https://www.welt.de/debatte/article2...el-schuld.html

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I watched some footage of the LA fires, man, this is devastating. I hope no one here is affected.

...My brother-in-law a carpender in Altadena had to 'bugout' on 15 minutes notice in his
work van and is now in Palm Springs at my sister-in-law's house. He's pretty sure his carpender shop, from which he hastily grabbed some items, is toast but his apartment has survived. I'm also checking on an old prepschool classmate, an orthopedic surgeon, who lives in Pacfic Palisades on the coast. As of this AM's Wall Street Journal frontpge, practically the whole town of very highend homes is obliterated.

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I watched some footage of the LA fires, man, this is devastating. I hope no one here is affected.

That shows pretty well how strong the winds are.

[vienna]

Being here in LA, in particular in Hollywood, I thought I'd share what I've observed and heard over the past few days; the winds were fully expected a number of days before the fires, with forecasters showing maps of the expected wind paths and strengths; in the area of Pacific Palisades, gust of up to 100 MPH were forecasted and, indeed, gust of 98 MPH were recorded on the fire day; Pacific Palisades is (or was) a seaside community tucked away in valleys in the coastal mountainside; there is really only one wide road into the enclave and no "backdoor" to use for escape; in addition, developers laid out the housing in a sort of meandering manner resulting in a large number of culs de sac and narrow streets and roads; when the fire in the Palisades started in the brush surrounding, the winds just tore through the flames, spreading them like flamethrowers over the entire area, bathing houses and businesses with sparks, embers and flame; it was really very fast and the residents didn't have much time to prepare for such an onslaught; the streets were clogged with cars and trucks trying to get out to the main road out of the area; first responders were stymied by the clogged roads and, eventually, ordered the drivers and passengers to grab what they could carry and abandon their vehicles; the firefighters had to resort to using bulldozers to shove a path through the vehicles in order to get their vehicles through to fight the fires; the smoke from the Palisades fire was visible from all the way to past Downtown LA, a distance of some 20 miles...

The Palisades fire has leveled the entirety of Pacific Palisades, for all intent and purposes, with precious few structures surviving; the devastation is near total; embers and flames even jumped over the coastal highway and consumed beachside homes and businesses that had been there for decades ...

There have been a few other fires breaking out in the past couple of days in the area; night before last, a fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills in an area known as Runyon Canyon, about a mile and a half from where I live; in ripped through the Canyon and did a lot of damage before the firefighters could get handle on it; it was something to walk out my buildings door and see the sky full of smoke and the red glow just a short distance away...

Another really major fire broke out in an area known as Altadena and has been called the Eaton Fire (fires are generally named after landmarks or major street and roads in the fire area); this fire really exploded in the high winds and is still raging; like Pacific Palisades, the fire has leveled whole sections of residential neighborhoods and, at one point, was threatening critical telecommunications facilities (TV, Radio, cell, etc.) on Mount Wilson, located above the fire area; the Mount Wilson Observatory was also in danger for a long while, but firefighters were able to make a stand and save Mount Wilson; the Eaton fire is particularly bad because Altadena sits in a sort of geographic ,bowl' in the foothills of the mountains; when the wind storms hit, the winds passing through the valleys and passes surrounding Altadena formed a swirling vortex over and around the city, swirling flames and embers in all directions; the situation was exactly what one would describe as an out of control firestorm...

The wind have been settling down in the last 24 hours and there is an awful lot of manpower and equipment on the scenes; fire crews from all over the state, and out of state, are here trying to help the local fire first responders; as is often the case with situations like this, there are those who are stupid or evil enough to just add to the woes of the authorities; a water dropping plane was grounded after some ass decided it was a good idea to enhance his social media by flying a drone into an active fire fighting area and their drone collided with and punched a hole into the plane; the plane had been sent down from Canada to assist in fighting the fires; I hope they catch the ass and throw the book (and bookcases) at him...

Another problem that popped up, particularly in the Eaton fire; looters were spotted and arrested by Sheriffs' Deputies and a request was put out to activate the CA National Guard to provide troops to secure fire areas and interdict any lotters or other criminals; the Guard is now on duty and the local governments have issued curfews for the fire areas from 6PM to 6AM daily to make it more difficult for criminals to roam about and to make it easier for first responders to move from scene to scene as they fight the fires...

I've got to say one thing about the response thus far; I was skeptical of the various local governments (city, county, state, and Federal) and the various Fire and Law Enforcement entities to function smoothly without turf fights or pettiness, but the lot of them have been coordinating with surprising smoothness and efficiency and have been responding quickly to changing conditions; kudos to them all...

Previous wildfires in this area have mainly been in remote rural areas, not rather more urban areas such as the most recent fires; it is really a shock to see neighborhoods similar to those in which one lives being leveled and in such proximity to here...





<O>