Back when I was living in LA, had an acquantance driving down from San Louis Obispo along the 101. He was driving down a hill and could see the fire at the top of a ridge above the freeway a couple miles away. By the time he got there, the fire had gone down the hill, and jumped the freeway. He said flames were 50 feet high. That same year (+/- 1 year) there was a huge (in those days) fire in the mountians above Pasadena (I think he was knownn as the Altadena Fire). A couple of guys I hung out with went out a played about half a round of golf as the fire was blazing on the hill above the golf course. Sorry to say, but these fires, as bad as they are, have been fairly normal to me since I lived there - about 20+ years ago. That should tell y'all about often this occurs.
What we are seeing is not normal from decades ago. I hate to send people to an 18 post twitter thread, but he explained it well: If Northern California had received anywhere near the typical amount of autumn precipitation this year (around 4-5 in. of rain near #CampFire point of origin), explosive fire behavior & stunning tragedy in #Paradise would almost certainly not have occurred. (1/n) #CAfire #CAwx pic.twitter.com/2LBKjSVBMF— Dr. Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) November 10, 2018 Bottom line: low fall precipitation trends have extended the fire season into offshore wind season, creating conditions for the devastating fires we have recently seen.
It's tough to watch all of the videos and see photos. WATCH: Father sings to 3-year-old daughter to keep her calm as they drive through the devastating Camp Fire. https://t.co/CF8OrNG8yM@GadiNBC and @Miguelnbc will have the latest on the #CaliforniaFires tonight on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. pic.twitter.com/1eTdP0S1s0— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) November 9, 2018
We live about 20 miles from where the fire in Santa Rosa was last year and the smoke is just as intense from this fire 100 miles away, wind directions have just been as detrimental as possible. This map of the smoke over the state is just nuts considering there are only a few major fires.
Last year we had a ton of evacuees from Santa Rosa staying in Petaluma and we'd hear heartbreaking convos like that even at neighboring tables in a restaurant. My son plays on a Santa Rosa based club and about 50 associated families lost their homes, including a couple on his team. And so I can't even imagine what it would be like for virtually EVERYBODY in a town to lose their homes plus all its infrastructure.
I think I remember that Altadena fire, or it may be another one that hit east of there. A friend of mine lived in Sierra Madre and he and his neighbors were out in lounge chairs watching the fire from their yards. But what's different about these fires now is the speed with which they advance and the way they're descending into areas that were previously thought to be fairly safe. Like it wouldn't surprise me if the area they were living then is someday overtaken by a fire that doesn't stop at the border of the mountains.
Which is something I get, though my memory of the Altadena fire was that it was somewhere over the mountian as we went to bed and expected to reach homes sometime mid-morning, but they started evacuating people in an emergency sense middle of the night. Relative, it was crazy. I was also downtown during jury duty and we were watching the smoke. The hills on the east side of the 110 blocked our view of the flame. As for these, I get how fast they are moving, but as I said in some previous conversation, mom and I had disaster plan, and the one time we though there was a fire, we put it into action while all our neighbors stood around looking and the rising smoke. The other side of this was the Oakland Hills Fire of 1991.
I figured the rich folks of Malibu wouldve built some kind of barriers or a moat to keep the flames away from their mult-million dollar homes.
Nothing you can do, really - the embers flying in that dry wind can catch pretty much anything on fire. I'm sure someone in there used some space-aged fire-"proof" technology to build an entire house - we'll see afterward if it worked or left the place looking like all the wooden structures nearby. I'd guess the latter. I saw some places (during a previous fire season) that had systems that sprayed house/pool water over the tops of their houses that might work if a small fire blows past - but it was useless against these types of large raging dry-wind-blown fires. I know you can build houses in round shapes to protect against wind, not sure if even concrete is immune to fire - especially when you put carpet or hardwood floors inside or dare to have asphalt shingles. There's a reason many religions use fire to scare you.
A buddy of mine lost his garage to a fire a few years ago, ember blew onto it and it went up in flames. House was ok though. He then ran his yard sprinkler system up onto his roof with sensors to activate it if smoke/fire is nearby.
More than just California, but hey. Science The Simple Reason That Humans Can’t Control Wildfires “The fire, to me—it’s like an ocean. It’s so strong that we don’t really stand a chance of doing much to https://www.theatlantic.com/science...wildfire-why-humans-cant-control-them/575740/
This is worth reading: PG&E outlook ominous if utility found responsible for California’s worst wildfire From everything I've seen so far, it sure sounds like PG&E is responsible.
Once again, California shows that when we set our minds on something, we can achieve anything. For a limited time only, the five cities experiencing the worst air pollution right now are all in California. #CaliforniaFires #CampFirehttps://t.co/fBjbSgLuM8 pic.twitter.com/ecGk5HZAUW— Dr. Robert Rohde (@RARohde) November 16, 2018 Suck it, India, China and Bangladesh.
Despite what I said earlier, the Camp Fire is horrendous. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/6685...ple-now-missing-in-californias-deadliest-fire More than 1,000 people are listed as missing in the wake of the Northern California wildfire known as the Camp Fire, authorities say. It's a number that has ballooned rapidly and is expected to continue to fluctuate. The Butte County Sheriff's Office had said on Thursday evening there were 631 people unaccounted for. However, that number may include people who escaped to safety and do not realize they are being searched for. The death toll also rose after eight sets of remains were discovered on Friday. At least 71 people have died in the fire, which has burned through more than 220 square miles of land and consumed the town of Paradise. 71 dead and over 1000 missing? Stunning...
The Cal vs Sanford game in Berkley had do be postponed because of poor air quality. Here's what the San Fran skyline looked like last Saturday (on what otherwise would have been a crystal blue sky day):
Disturbing how many of the missing are elderly. Hopefully the number of missing is a result of the inevitable confusion following a disaster of this scope.
CHICO, Calif. (AP) — Sheriff says human remains of five more people found in Northern California wildfire rubble, bringing death toll to 76.— Juliet Williams (@JWilliamsJourno) November 18, 2018 CHICO, Calif. (AP) — Northern California sheriff says nearly 1,300 remain on list of unaccounted for in the wake of deadly wildfire.— Juliet Williams (@JWilliamsJourno) November 18, 2018
Paradise is (was) largely a retirement community so it's not much of a surprise. And they're the ones least able to evacuate quickly.
Found this opinion piece in FORBES. Can anyone with more knowledge vouch for the article? https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckd...but-not-in-the-way-they-tell-us/#22c4b3f870af
Anyone who is trying to sell you on a single-factor explanation has an agenda. There are at least three factors as I understand it. 1. Decades of fire suppression. 2. Climate change. 3. Urban sprawl into fire prone areas. The logging argument goes like this: done properly (no clear cutting, etc.), logging replicates what the natural cycle of forest fires would produce over time, namely wide open forests with big, widely spread trees, and limited fire prone undergrowth. So if you're going to suppress forest fires, you should be thinning forests and selecting trees through logging. Loggers should create artificially the kind of forests that fires create naturally. That's true, but to say the fires we are experiencing today are due to a lack of logging in California isn't remotely the whole story. It was a combination of factors all coming together in recent years to form the perfect fire storm.