For those who consider todays wildfires in CA and the rest of the west, it would be good to consider what science says about the extent of wildfires prior to the heavy settlement of the west in the 20th century. The extent of wildfires in terms of land burned was many times greater in the past than occurs now. This was, of course, prior to any anthropomorphic climate change and the heavy settlement of many areas. To see the actual paper, go to:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2018EF001006
The biggest problem with wildfires today is the heavy settlement of rural areas.
2
I am a structural engineer in California. Here, we build resilient buildings for earthquakes. We can do better also with planning for fires. This article talks about building resilient cities for fire danger and having fire zoning maps. I wish this would happen more in California. These fires are so tragic for so many.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/366655-californias-record-breaking-thomas-fire-should-teach-us-to-build?fbclid=IwAR0rqieExzty5Ctm81clSnZRZiZyIVeGL0M0f7Sejeh7ojB3qZgsUDNr8vc
We lived in northern California for 10 years before retiring to New Mexico. One of the first things we noticed was how often a single road leads into and out of remote areas like Paradise. Where we lived, in the Sonoma Valley, Highway 12 --- a 2 lane road --- is the single road between Santa Rosa, population ~175,000, and Sonoma. And I mean it is absolutely the only road connecting the 2 cities. Where we lived we were warned that in the event of an earthquake or fire we would be blocked from using Highway 12 to escape because it wouldn't be able to handle evacuation traffic and emergency vehicles.
This scenario is common in northern California. Pull up a map of Paradise --- a place we've visited --- and look closely at the road system. There are no roads, absolutely none whatsoever heading east; 1 road heading north; 2 roads heading southeast; and 2 roads heading south. Of these, only Highway 191 is something more than a local street. The simple fact is, like where we lived in the Sonoma Valley, there are no viable escape routes from Paradise --- how ironic does that sound?
California prides itself, rightfully so, on its natural beauty. But the infrastructure is a relic of the 1950's, when a single 2 lane country road was all you needed. When the Tubbs fire tore through Santa Rosa last year, we feared for friends and family we'd left behind, knowing they could easily be trapped. Our daughter managed to escape --- on a 2 lane road headed out of town.
60
And the President, right on cue, ignores the horrendous destruction of American peoples lives and livelihoods and property. Not even a "thoughts and prayers" for this one, since it is California and they are a blue state, not worthy of anything but his scorn, with threats to withdraw federal funding and assistance his only response to this tragedy.
112
Individuals as well as each community has to have a plan of action each and every day, in that ravaged state. Hanging out between fires will not cut it, political and governing infighting as well as greed won't allow change to happen. Private and municipal property owners? It's on those shoulders. My daughter drove through San Luis Obispo last week and the huge acreage on the side of the road was filled with goats. Being put to work. As far as I can tell, each and every bush and tree in the state needs to be clear cut until the developers with unfettered power as well as climate change, is addressed.
14
As someone who has evacuated her home due to the encroaching fire, I find it unthinkable-- and yet not surprising-- that Trump is threatening to not give financial aid because he hates our blue state. Blaming forestry?
After a tragic week here, this is a body blow we do not need or deserve.
I'm sickened by this person even more than I was last week.
129
I have an idea, California. Let’s BUILD A WALL along our borders to reduce over population and keep out the Washington bureaucracy that is largely responsible for the “mismanagement” of our forests Trump cites. It has been the federal government that has fought fire for years, allowing the density of our forests to increase.
Maybe Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska will join. Then we’ll be a force to be reckoned with ( as if we weren’t on our own). Resurrect the old proposal for Cascadia and we’ll be done with Trump.
33
What better place to administer the bitter pill of climate change mitigation than California.
> End the sanctuary state and reverse in-migration as one step in depopulating the State;
> Start removing impervious surfaces like school and mall parking lots and even bike lanes so that moisture doesn't runoff, but gets back into the aquifer;
>Order CO2 filters to replace those in home, office and car air conditioners;(Katahdin Energy Works has them)
>Limit the water supply from the Colorado River routed to So.Cal. and then no water furnished to new developments which would have to generate and ration water from local sources;
>Replant and maintain forests so burnable wood is limited. Burned forests have regenerated themselves for thousands of years and have a unique flora for this purpose.
>Involuntary rationing of air conditioning when temps. go over 72 degrees. Filling hot air with heat extracted from homes and offices only makes matters worse.
>Order homeowners in vulnerable areas to maintain adequate underground tanks of rain water to fight fires and to replace roofs with terra cotta or similar unburnable materials, perhaps even solar panels.
23
Four federal agencies—the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) within the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) in the U.S. Department of Agriculture—oversee roughly 45.8% percent, 45,864,800 acres of the 100,206,720 acres in California. Maybe Trump could help instead of blaming the state?
42
So Trump dangles Federal funds over California provided they "clean up the forests", not knowing that these fires are mainly over grass and brush lands. He cares not a whit for the people despite their tragedies. I wonder what he would have done if the fire was burning in a red state.
37
There is a price to pay for changing our climate. As we heat up our swirling blue globe, as sea levels rise and climate refugees push northward, forest fires will continue to get bigger, hotter, and more explosive. Tropical storms will continue to become more furious. Almost every successive year for several years in a row have been the hottest on record.
Climate scientists are in broad agreement that we are quickly approaching tipping points that will be irreversible for a lifetime, or many lifetimes. We desperately need leadership on this preeminent issue, but we have none at the federal level, where Trump and the Republican Congress fiddle about, as the nation burns. It's time for the state's to take definitive action; it seems very unlikely that Washington will.
39
I'm surprised that the world's 5th largest economy cannot find the means to deal with the problem. Especially in a state as progressive as California. Surely, California has the resources and the manpower to deal with the problem. If not, New York City and other cities in the Northeast (low hurricane risk, low earthquake risk, low fire risk) will welcome Californians to move there.
7
I'll never understand why these articles get a comments section..while pertinent current events that demand commentary do not.
Whats to say about this tragedy? Its tragic, the destruction is beyond imagine, and the clean-up and rebuild is gonna be ridiculously costly, and a burden on taxpayers. And many will never recoup their losses. And more then likely if there was lower cost housing, or low income neighborhoods lost, it will not be replaced. Instead higher priced McMansions of some sort will be built...only to be left partially occupied, and the structures will be ripe for the next fires that come thru...rinse, repeat.
Beyond the usual and trite, thoughts and prayers...whats to say?
As a culture and nation we're not learning from these tragedies.
12
Let's see, what is the bigger threat? A caravan of impoverished, desperate, destitute migrant families, or out of control wildfires consuming hundreds or thousands of acres of forest, devastating whole communities, and killing several people? And yet Trump spends millions to send troops to wait for the future arrival of this rag tag "invasion" and next to nothing on the current incendiary apocalypse. If there were only a way to blame Democrats for the fires...
35
I've been wiping away tears ever since I opened my laptop this morning. I certainly don't want to politicize this tragedy (the people questioning why the military is being deployed at the border when they could be helping in CA already did that); but given that climate change and overpopulation are being cited as the primary reasons for these disasters, I'm starting to think that the immigration discussion is less about the noble sentiments of the Statue of Liberty and more about the cold hard facts of science.
14
California is over-built and over-populated.
The fires are going to get worse due to climate change and over-population. Our natural systems need to reach a new equilibrium based on our numbers. What we knew, our past ecology and land carrying capacity, is no longer reliable.
The planet cannot sustain 10-11 billion people. Nature will adjust our numbers for us if we decide to do nothing. It won't be pretty- but neither is California which is a cesspool of humanity.
15
The fire came to West Hills at the wild, far western edge of the San Fernando Valley. My sister sent me a photo of it from the parking lot of the grocery store as she loaded her car. She was outside the evacuation zone which was only a few blocks west at Valley Circle Drive but she assured me the wind was blowing the fire away from her neighborhood.
I woke up before dawn worried about the latest boundary of the evacuation zone. But the first thing I saw as I logged in was the sickening abomination that is Trump sitting in France, hate-tweeting California and threatening to pull our federal disaster funds for “mismanagement” of NATIONAL forests that are starved for federal funds due to the tax cut for the 1%.
I’m just beside myself with rage and grief that the “leader” of our country, who should be laser-focused on the anniversary of the The WWI Armistice, can’t even manage one gram of competence and clarity about the functioning of his government, let alone a microgram of any compassion for the people of the largest state that pay the most to line federal coffers. He is a disgrace and a threat to us all. How I long for the day I wake up to the news that he is gone...
75
I don’t live in the US .I just wanted to say, I hope this comes to an abrupt end very soon for you all.
Also. I am quite offended buy Trumps comments. Does he have a heart. Threatening to take federal payments away, without even a note of sympathy for the dead and homeless. That was truly shocking to read.
Please be safe, and take your animals too.
57
Here we go again. More forest fires are similar to more gun massacres. Both are horrible problems where the main causes: climate change, in the case of one, and guns, in the case of the other, are known. Both problems have solutions that remain unused. The greed of the fossil fuel and weapons industries and their enablers stands in the way.
31
Once again Trump is blaming the victims of this disaster for causing it. The man has no empathy and certainly no soul.
34
In the face of such a terrible disaster, you'd think he could at least tweet the conventional, meaningless "thoughts and prayers". But no: instead, he assigns misleading blame and threatens to withhold funding.
Mr. Trump has recently called for a display of "respect" for the White House and the Presidency. I give him "all due respect", which is less than zero.
23
I look at California today and I weep. I was born there seventy six years ago and have a picture of myself with my aunt at a beach in Malibu, not a person or a home on the cliff in sight just a sign in the sand, “ Malibu State Beach” L.A. in my youth was a quick flight or beautiful drive five hours south from San Francisco, maybe a little shopping on Roberson Blvd. or Rodeo Drive in what was still a very charming little town, in the forties there were actually oranges groves in L.A. and the beaches were gorgeous, now they are closed often due to effluent from the South. My friend, still working reluctantly at seventy selling condos for a Chinese developer to mostly Koreans tells me about the homeless tent city’s along the freeway across from the million dollar pads they are selling to absentee owners. In Northern California it’s even worse, San Francisco’s homeless problem warrants constant coverage in both New York and European papers. I still speak to two old friends in “The City”on a regular basis one Chinese one Cuban, very liberal in the sixties and are now questioning the wisdom of our choices. There are to many people and not enough tax dollars generated to support them. Everyone blames it on prop 13( true on the commercial side)but for most Californians who in the seventies were just about all “ middle class” it was the only thing that kept them from losing their home to the taxman as wave after wave of people arrived. BTW Buffett sold his Malibu home last month.
20
Barely a peep from the President about any of this incredible disaster, but he has plenty of time for hateful comments on twitter. God bless and save the people, animals and beauty of California!
15
Video unwatchable because of that annoying "dramatic" background music.
2
I just heard on the news that Trump's response to this tragedy was to tweet that it was all the forest service's fault. yeah, right. Meanwhile, he is in France trying to take Europe apart while the country he has sworn to protect is burning - and suffering from so many others abuses foisted upon it by his malfeasance, neglect, and disgraceful actions. Is there no limit to what an awful person he is?
15
With such a terrible disaster, you'd think he could at least tweet the conventional, meaningless "thoughts and prayers". But no: instead, he assigns misleading blame and threatens to withhold funding.
Mr. Trump has recently called for a display of "respect" for the White House and the Presidency. I give him "all due respect", which is less than zero.
7
I was shocked to read tRump's comment. What he knows about forest management can fit inside a peanut shell with room left over for his soul.
35
Why not pipelines to pump water from East coast hurricanes to the west coast.
7
The fires in Thousand Oaks and Malibu are not areas that would be forested - They are mostly scrub land with some small oak trees.
For Trump to blame forest management for these fires is a complete and utter lack of knowledge of what he is talking about. Once again, trump attacks California for no reason except we didn't vote for him.
When a president attacks people as they fight a natural disaster, this shows you what kind of person he is. Just one more reason out of thousands of reasons trump is unfit to hold office.
23
We have really gone insane if we blame this on Trump.
11
Apparently `thoughts and prayers' is only invoked when the nation suffers an all-too-frequent mass killing.
This from the National Embarrassment, now in Paris. If you find a word of condolence for the victims of this fire, let me know?
``In a tweet from Paris early Saturday, Trump said, `There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.'
``Trump also threatened: `Remedy now, or no more Fed payments.''' (Credit: HuffPost)
Don't for a minute suggest it can't get any worse.
17
I believe California may be making a serious mistake by refusing to listen to Trump’s wise counsel concerning the wildfires.
He is a man who has already experienced a few.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tower-fire-second-2018-blaze-in-sprinkler-free-residence/
6
90,000 acres and counting have burned. Also they are reporting that PG&E was working on a problem in the exact area the fire started, off Camp Road in Paradise, 15 minutes before the fire started. PG&E had announced a schedule power outage for the area to work on lines but then didn't follow through with the outage. Also I heard on PBS last night that they were reporting that this fire was "caused by a campfire"- wish reporters would bother to investigate their stories before reporting nonsense like this.
There are reporting that the town of Paradise, 27,000 people, has been "leveled".
4
Maybe we should send the Army, Marine Corps, and National Guard to go fight fires instead of all the border fiasco.
11
The President of the United States offered hate and threats to the people of California today.
Not sure why...possibly he scores points with his base?
25
That Trump is tweeting his usual sociopathic invective on Saturday morning while the fires rage on and the burned bodies are still not counted is pushing me beyond my limit at the end of a week where he has relentlessly assaulted reality -- not to mention decency, norms, and laws.
His sociopathy and narcissism = no ability to empathize or have compassion. This man is by no stretch of the definition a "leader" -- and neither is a single Republican in Congress. I am beyond sick with grief for the mass shooting victims in Thousand Oaks, the victims of these fires. Trump's offensive blame game simply reveals his total lack of understanding of the natural world, as well as his lack of human feeling.
I have a solution of the Acosta issue: news outlets should stop covering Trump. Starve him of the nonstop attention he craves. The press is treating our lives and deaths in the raging reign of Trump like a reality show.
96 Americans dead each day from guns is not a reality show -- it's reality. A president who whines and quips over citizen's burned bodies is a disgrace. Don't publish the stream of consciousness tweets of this man who is playing the press like a fiddle. We don't have to play along with his twisted game.
32
good old President Trump just can't resist kicking us when we're down in CA. mass murders? devastating fires?
no soup for you!
7
I don't want to put dispersions on anyone, but I'd like to ask a few questions:
1) Do you really think it's a good idea to build a house out of wood in an area that is prone to be engulfed in a forest-fire?
2) Do you think it's a good idea to put your wife and children into a house that is so much in danger?
3) Did you do all measures that could prevent your house from being burned down, like building it in concrete and cutting down all trees within 200 yards?
4) Did you make sure to have a rescue/flight plan in place and communicated it to your family, including training and drills?
5) Did you answer any of the above questions truthfully?
America is a dangerous country, with all the hurricanes and tornadoes and wildfires. But the PRIMARY cause of death in these situations is STUPIDITY!
You may not like or believe in Darwin, but you (collectively) prove him right Every. Single. Day....
8
This is what a right-wing dystopia looks like: fleeing gunfire and wildfire at the same time, brought to you by (1) the corporate fossil fuel deplorables and their wholly-owned subsidiaries in government, who've lied about climate for profit for decades; (2) the NRA/gun manufacturer deplorables who put profit over lives, and (3) the know-nothing deplorables who buy all the lies.
14
Today, instead of telling the people of California that we are all Americans and the US is there to help, Trump screamed that he's taking federal funds away from California because they mismanage their forests.
Trump has no heart, no soul, and possibly no brain.
28
My niece with her two kids slept at our house overnight last night, here in Pasadena forty miles away, after being mandatorily evacuated from Calabassas for yet a second time because by now all the hotels and shelters around the area were full. I remember as a kid growing up here over fifty years ago, Thousand Oaks and that part of the Valley was nothing but bare rolling hills of dry grass and oak trees, hence the name. Now it’s all completely built out. Fire and Santa Ana winds is nothing new, just what’s in its way when it does burn is. There’s much more to change than just climate, but Mother Nature is and more convenient and satisfying to blame than our own habitations.
19
One way to reduce the incidence of fires is to move electric transmission lines underground. The cost will be high, but not as high as the cost of fire damage. Several bonuses of moving the lines underground will be improved aesthetics, as well as reduced avian injury and death.
10
@Bruce, not to mention banning all cigarette butts, weed whackers, chain saws, power tools of any type, all automobiles with potentially heated parts . . . All of which and many others are often cited as possible sources of ignition. As far as arsonists, mandatory background checks of any suspicious purchase of matches. I’ll leave it to someone else with more moxy to have a talk to God about his idiotic lightning. Who is he trying to impress anyway with such heavenly theatrics?
8
I wonder when the property insurance industry will outspend the fossil fuel industry in Washington DC. If we reach that point, maybe we'll have more elected officials acknowledging the obvious role of climate change in fires, floods and hurricanes.
17
1 out of every 8 Americans is a Californian.
California produces “ 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots.”
https://slate.com/technology/2013/07/california-grows-all-of-our-fruits-and-vegetables-what-would-we-eat-without-the-state.html
California is the world’s 5th largest economy.
California contributes 13.3 % of the United States economy. That is the largest percent of any state in the Union. Texas has the next largest a 9.5 % and New York the third largest at 8.1 %.
We feed (Central Valley & more), entertain (Hollywood), and innovate (Silicon Valley) for the entire world.
Please stand by us and give us your support! Thank you.
122
California has been environmentally stressed for years, well before Trump and of course, all the while governed by Democrats. Having lived in San Diego for more than a decade, the state has never managed this environmental stress well. It is overpopulated, public transportation is scarce, water is scarce yet lush landscaping abounds, homes are built on unstable and receding shore lines, wood shingle roofing and structures are allowed in fire zones, forest management is widely curtailed etc. etc. Blaming this on Trump instead of taking responsibly for their own actions is simply California avoiding looking in the mirror. At least Prop 65 is alive and well, too bad air quality can't be labeled.
17
California is just a sign of the devolutionary path on which we find ourselves.
As we evolved, we destroyed all life in our path. Our numbers however were small so our impact on the planet was small. Then with the bronze/iron/agricultural age we accelerated this destruction, now to include non life. Again our numbers were small so our impact on the planet was small.
Then, with the Industrial Revolution (At the beginning we numbered about 700 million and now we are seven billion plus) we accelerated the pace; pillaging all life and nonlife, burning all of the coal, oil and gas we could find; thereby releasing enormous amounts of CO2 into the biosphere.
As this was taking place, the impact on the planet became no longer small. And to make matters worse, we began destroying our forests and in doing so limiting the amount of CO2 being absorbed back. The result: Carbon dioxide levels today are beyond what they were 3/5 million years ago; well before our evolutionary beginnings. And they continue to rise with worrisome effect. The heat produced is causing far more potent Methane (CH4) to bubble up in the warming Arctic.
How can we be so naïve?
www.InquiryAbraham.com
41
There is no situation so bad that Trump can’t make it worse.
109
The irony with Trump's assinine remark is Butte County is Trump country. Too bad for us to have a natural disaster during Trump's temper tantrum. Maybe he should turn off Fox and switch to The Weather Channel.
In Mendocino County, the hardware stores were out of N95 masks by 10 am. The smoke yesterday was unbearable even 100 miles west of the fire. Indeed, we are in danger of running out of safe placed to evacuate to. None of the old rules apply.
46
Trump knows nothing about forest management and his threat to withhold federal emergency aid, given his constant attacks on California, is criminal.
The man lies about climate change and embraces those who perpetuate the lies (who then are chosen to lead agencies and departments). He sues California for its strict vehicle emission laws.
Given the legacy he'll leave for us and for future generations, I think this man is an accessory to mass murder.
Would that be grounds for removal from office under the 25th Amendment? I think that should just be the beginning.
71
I am sorry for the loss of live. However, it's time to build house in hot places from blocks or brick and other than wooden frames.
In other parts of the world where the climate is hot like in California or the South West, they don't build wooden houses.
5
@Templer, good idea, but a large proportion of the homes in CA were built long before the current level of fire danger existed, so please lose that undercurrent of blame in your comment.
9
@Templer Not many people want to live in a concrete bunker. Bricks houses typically have wood framed roofs. Tile instead of shingles might help but once the temperature get high enough the framing will ignite.
6
wood frame houses, typical of CA building, are much more resistant to earthquakes; masonry crumbles. that said, most houses in CA are mass produced by developers motivated to build low and sell high and the absolute quality of the buildings is guaranteed only by our extremely strict building codes.
7
The president of the United States actually published this:
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” he said on Twitter, adding, “Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”
This is an individual devoid of empathy.
84
Fires, mudslides, earthquakes, no reliable water source.....
Might be time to find another place to live.
How many times do we have to see this before we say, Hey, maybe this is a place where we should be living and building "
Talk about doing the same dumb thing over and over,,,
6
@There
"Might be time to find another place to live." And thus begin the first waves of climate change refugees. There are just too many people and our resources are becoming limited and our environment is dying. I hate to sound negative but we need to open our eyes.
12
@There And yet, people keep rebuilding their homes where tornadoes strike routinely, or where flooding happens every other year, or where hurricanes happen; one shouldn't be so quick to judge where others choose to rebuild their homes. Leave politics out of it and accept that a natural disaster could happen where you live too!
8
@There
“Talk about doing the same dumb thing over and over,,,”
I’m amazed by the sanctimony expressed in these comments.
California has a population of 40,000,000. Land mass over 150,000 square miles. Only about one percent are affected by the current disasters. Everyone else is going about their productive lives including helping our frightened and grieving neighbors. Rebuilding will provide jobs and solutions.
8
California should model electrical grids in Europe. Bury the lines underground and prevent a short circuit from lighting yet more fires.
I can't imagine that a big company would spend any real amount of money fixing "risky" situations until it's too late.
13
Europe is dense, California is broad. Can youbwrite a check to bury our power lines? Didn't think so. P.S. Wait till Maine burns: News at 11.
4
Pennsylvania is the third largest state producer of greenhouse gases as it sits on top of the Marcellus Shale. Our state legislature is totally owned by the gas industry having accepted over $60 million in political contributions over the past decade. Our choices for Governor in the last election were between drive and turbo drive for fracking. The largest tax break in state history was to give $1.2 billion over the next 25 years to build an ethane cracker to make the precursors to plastic.
I work with a tiny non profit working with small environmental groups trying to stop fracking in the state but it is like being a fly being swatted by a cow tail. We truly believe fossil fuels need to stay in the ground, but even as I write this, the state is being crisscrossed with pipelines built on properties taken by eminent domain to move this gas to overseas ports around the world to be burnt or turned into plastic.
Reading what is happening in California just makes me so angry. I grieve for our state which still is green and oblivious to our contribution to this destruction.
38
Rhetorical question:
Why hasn't the "leader" of the US not flown to CA to be on the ground, to thank first responders, to offer solace and support to traumatized citizens, to maybe see for himslef the unbelievable and devastatign effects of climate induced wildfires?
Does he even care? I think not.
41
@r mackinnon
Of course he doesn't care. He can't even be bothered to tweet the conventional and meaningless "thoughts and prayers".
All he cares about is that White House reporters should show him the appropriate "respect".
8
Because he knows he isn’t welcome here.
13
This is so incredibly sad. The forests are one of the contributing factors to the amazing natural beauty of California (and the country as a whole). There is a lot of high quality research published that finds robust evidence of a link between climate change and wild fires. Too bad we won’t do anything to address the cause. In the meantime we are content to let people die. Wonder when we became so heartless as a nation.
21
Nan Socolow
7:36 AM (2 minutes ago)
to me
Tragic, but no surprise that the Camp Fire and other out of control massive wildfires in Southern California are raging as the worst fires in California history. Climate change is ravaging our planet while Trump's Republicans and anti-diluvians call it a hoax. We are no longer safe in our homes. Planet Earth's history -- before Sapiens -- is repeating itself. Orange skies, drought, floods, the "new normal" isn't abnormal, just a reminder that "The Ends of the Worlds" (h/t Peter Brannen) are recurring on Earth.
22
Now the occupant of 1600 is an expert on forests! And of course if California is on fire then it's now revenge on all the Democrat women, and their voters, who have been so mean to him.
50
Our country is on fire, Old Jewish people are murdered in their synagogue, young people who come to dance will never be seen alive by their parents again, and the country’s leader is busy dismantling news reporter’s credentials.
Tell me this is anywhere near normalcy.
102
“Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” How can President Trump be so incredibly callus? Talk about kicking people when they are already down. These people need nothing but compassion not rants from a crazy man. Republicans do something!
49
@Myrnalovesbland How about that kind of response the next mass shooting incident? Remedy now, or revoke all federal firearms permits!
13
Is it stucco or dryvit?
Environmentalist Jerry Brown leaves California in a mess.
11
Re Bill
Jerry Brown did not create the mess nor could he fix it alone or in the space of his tenure as governor. Your swipe at the Governor is unfair in light of history. As you are in the Bay Area, remember your drinking water comes from far away on a now submerged valley on Federal land that makes the population density in your area possible. Nature was destroyed so that you could have water to drink, bathe and cook.
California as a state has been living as if nature needs no consideration for a very long time. I suggest you read Cadillac Desert by the late Marc Reisner.
Nature bats last.
16
Man, there are some really dumb comments about this tragedy.
Selfish, ignorant of facts, snide.
While our fellow Americans suffer.
Nice.
Let's just take one thing.
These fires are wind driven.
It's warm and dry and very windy.
I live not far away.
Once a fire starts, the embers - big burning embers - can be blown miles away.
Yeah, miles, according to firefighters.
They land on a roof or dry brush near a home and there it goes. Now the embers from this site get blown to the next site.
It's the wind.
Repeat, repeat, repeat and you see the result.
Buildings no where near any forest interface burn and they chain out to other buildings.
Uncontrolled.
It's the embers, the wind, the dry, warm weather.
Do you expect people to live in only urban areas with no trees?
Big parts of Santa Rosa CA burned last year and it's an urban area.
Burning embers carried by the dry wind.
Get it?
79
@Paul King: It's human-induced climate change, caused by burning fossil fuel. It's too many people. It's building flammable homes and towns in the midst of forests, with too many above-ground power lines supplying them. It's too much population for the available water. I'd say it's failure to restore a natural sequence of forest life by conducting controlled burns, but it may now have become impossible to have a controlled burn, because we've made the climate too hot and dry.
10
How remarkable: the man in the White House threatens to cut off help to American citizens in California. What leadership.
41
Condolences to the people of California who are suffering the ravages of devastating wildfires.The pictures look like the opening of the "gates to hell".i lived in California for years on the St.Andreas Fault and was certain that an earthquake was in my future.The beauty of the area dulls the fear of natural disasters.We are all climate challenged- parts of Washington and Virginia flood in heavy rains.Let's all work to make our country more livable.Too bad Trump cannot mister the empathy that is due you for all you have suffered.
25
Every tragedy and Trump looks to deflect blame. Now forest fires are the fault of California!
9
The idea that Californians are doing something wrong and bringing this destruction on themselves with poor policy is, at best, only part of the story. THE CLIMATE HAS CHANGED. And it is still changing further.
Yes, development has sprawled too far, and forest management could improve. But in my 45 years in Northern California, the idea that large suburban tracts could be consumed by a newly started fire in only a few hours has gone from rare to almost expected.
The Oakland Hills fire was mind-blowing because it was large AND suburban. Most fires were one or the other, but not both. Now it's happening multiple times per year. And in most of the extreme cases, it is due to a reversal of the usual wind pattern, pushing inland air toward the coast. When Californians started developing these communities, those winds patterns were less common. THE CLIMATE HAS CHANGED.
35
Thanks for the reality check for Dump and the commenters here who ignorantly blame Californians for these disasters.
It's a GLOBAL problem that happens to hit CA so hard because of geography and latitude - a Mediterranean climate used to mean significant winter precipitation, and that and other variables no longer apply. All Mediterranean climate bands are being hit like this: see, for example, Greece, and the destructive, deadly wildfires there.
10
Even in Marin County, which is over 100 miles away from the Butte County fires, the sky is yellow, and ash is falling on us. Sadly, this is the third time in two years that we have experienced this.
14
Meanwhile Mike Francesa of the NY sports station WFAN, a Trump/GOP supporter who considers himself intellectually superior to most people,
has been bemoaning the lousy rainy weather in the Northeast these days (yet far, far preferable to those terrible wildfires, or hurricanes) - something is happening, he keeps saying, but of course, never considers global warming.
Can you say cognitive dissonance ?
15
As I evacuated my home in Malibu,
only to drive up to friends in NorCal,
we found out it is also being evacuated.
...it made me wonder if people will start to believe climate change is real when everywhere is an evacuation zone and there is nowhere to evacuate to anymore.
29
Midterms are over, so don’t expect Trump to visit and pay his respects like he did in Pittsburgh...
12
Sadly, California will get no federal help unless and until the fire reaches the Trump National Golf Club in Ranchos Palos Verdes. Until then, California will be on its own. Sad. Good luck fighting the fires and know that at least the decent people of the rest of the US all are praying for you.
16
@Steve
Let it burn to the ground. No one wants it here anyways.
4
Once again the president's response rather than being empathetic is accusatory.
16
A picture too sad to watch. Despite the fact that California remains, without a doubt, one of the most attractive states in the entire country, it's rather hard to come to grasp of how, given recent developments affecting this state over the past decades thus strictly akin to this over-recurrence of wildfires sweeping through this part of the country, that people haven't made up their mind and vacated this whole place by now. Just, in light of the physics and specifics of this state, there isn't much room to believe that this epidemic is to recede any time soon unless proper regulations get implemented otherwise, things are more likely to go on the uptick with inhabitants left to sit and watch it happening all over again. There won't be always enough firefighters to put those fires down. At stakes, this state of affairs is no stranger to "global warming" conflated with other factors like the depletion of water resources that are being, for too large a part, mismanaged and instead redirected towards ramping up phony agricultural projects in a land rather unfit to support it. So, how would one want to remain domiciled in such combustible country unless radical steps are being taken to adapt and come to peace with Nature's ways?
2
I lived in CA for 40 years and through four major fires. There is no water to manage - California is in a drought - the countryside is a tinderbox and the Santa Ana winds, from the desert, at 50-60 miles per hour drop the humidity to 2-3 percent and make the fires uncontrollable. Millions of people from the east who settled in CA brought their water guzzling lifestyle with them. Agriculture pumped the ground dry. Compounded with no rain, the Santa Ana season is fire season. And many fires are started by arson. Raging hurricanes on the east coast, fires on the west - and our politicians play with peoples lives.
33
The new normal for me was to become an expatriate fifteen years ago and move to a more civilized country. Bush starting two wars was enough for me to find a new country.
For those of you who are enduring a trauma in your life like a massive fire or a mass murder in your community, take the opportunity to consider reinventing your life in another country.
You may not have the opportunity to speak to expatriates about their new lives but they usually report that they are very happy and would not move back to America.
Consider spending three months living in a country of your choice and then decide whether you would like to start a new exciting life!
22
I'm not sure a huge influx of Americans would be so great for Europe. Things are different here.
11
@michael kittle My wife and I have seriously considered this, but healthcare is the main sticking point. We have friends in Canada, but permanent resident status, which gives access to their healthcare system, is almost impossible to get.
9
@michael kittle
Appealing but consider the source.
The same Michael Kittle who commented his support for Marine le Pen in French elections.
(Web posts are forever)
If we moved to a France ruled by Trump in a skirt would we be in a better country?
le Pen.
So, where will you move next?
6
California has over 40 million people. Over 6 million added since 2000. That's not just bodies and housing which an estimated 114,000 don't even have. It's natural resources and socioeconomic strains.
Of course that effects nature and amplifies what is already the natural process of that land to begin with. So long as California keeps adding people, their natural disasters will continue to get worse.
15
I’m surprised at how little coverage these wildfires are getting. In the first 24 hours of the Camp Fire, over 6,700 homes and buildings were destroyed. Why are we not getting more updates? I know of dozens of people missing. The air quality at UC Berkeley (150 miles away) led my son and many other students to evacuate. People as far south as San Jose are a posting photos of the smoke. Trump is blaming our state, and the media is doing nothing to explain the causes of these disasters I’ve seen little mention of climate change and little investigative reporting into PG&E outage that occurred immediately before the fire started.
25
@Laura Colban
Haven't you heard? Hating Trump and trying to get everyone else to hate him has taken precedence over EVERYTHING else important these days. And it definitely diverts from anything Democratic-run (like California) that's faulty.
14
A wildfire that spreads at 80mph is not a partisan issue. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can get firetrucks to drive through fires over 50’ high or helicopters to fly through extreme smoke/ember infested no-fly zones. Yes, PG&E, which had a power outage in the area that the Camp Fire started immediately before the fire was reported, needs to be regulated more heavily. But neither party has done much on that front.
17
@Mr. Slater, in a word, no.
1
'On Saturday morning, Mr. Trump blamed “gross mismanagement of the forests” for the fires and seemed to threaten to withhold federal funds from the state. “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” he said on Twitter, adding, “Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”'
And yet, Mr President, 35.7% of California is under the "control" of the National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. I think it might be very telling to see an overlay of where these devastating fires are occurring relative to that 35.7%.
16
Jean, Jean, Jean. If I may translate for you, “mismanagement of forests” is Koch-approved code for “this wouldn’t happen if we clearcut the entire US Forest Service and BLM holdings until there isn’t a tree left and handed every acre of wild land to (insert your favorite extractive industry here) for ‘highest and best use’.”
9
What a comfort to those in California faced with this to have a president threaten them financially, especially those who went to school, got a job and went about the business of being a hard working American.
We saw in the midterms half of this nation voted along the lines this president has drawn. So add it to your list along with mass shootings, wildfires and voters who put this guy and McConnell and Ryan and Cornyn and Cotton and Cruz and Graham in to sell bombs starving out children in Yemen while 715 families whose children have been caged by Jeff Sessions haven't seen each other for months after a court ruling says they should.
That half the country desires to live with this reality of a "new normal", as firefighters call it, should become a term. Part of the New Normal of half American voters.
7
Please pass this message along to Thomas Fuller ... I am not sending this to you for publication, in any firm. Thank you.
Hello, Tom --
It is always interesting for me to read your reporting in the NYT, to which I have maintained a subscription for decades. I read the newspaper wherever I am, in the paper pages, or online, throughout the year.
I'm sorry to read yet another article on a catastrophic California fire, and I regret I have read your submissions when that is the subject.
I send you my best regards from Paris, with pleasant recollections of my meeting you, and our numerous conversations.
All the best, George (Wanklyn)
1
Can I suggest Australians may help in this situation.
Copies of pictures from friends might help.
The worst bushfire of family photographs lost are never burnt if held by others.
The American bush fires are terrible and I suggest that images of marriage, baptism are held by mates.
Never ever try to grab any trophy at the last minute during a bushfire.
Bush fires are part of the Australian landscape and can be judged as normal.
styleman
San Jose, CA1h ago
Mate I saw the pictures.
My view is that Australian fire fighters are aware of the situation and have assisted wild fires in California this year.
Feel safe mate.
Australians keep an eye on things.
Stay calm.
Americans have friends.
The manager of Fawlty Towers a hotelier has a similarity to Mr Trump concerning guests.
9
"On Saturday morning, Mr. Trump blamed “gross mismanagement of the forests” for the fires and seemed to threaten to withhold federal funds from the state."
You have to give DJT this. He never disappoints. No matter how low the bar is set, he goes lower.
What manner of "president" awakens after a cataclysmic fire that threatens hundreds of thousands of his citizens and immediately has a temper tantrum in which he blames the victims? Who, in his right mind, having a nearly infinite array of words and possibilities of what to say to help heal and offer hope chooses -- not words of praise for the courageous fire fighters like the man interviewed here who rescued a wheel-chair-bound woman; not words of sympathy for the grit and courage of the survivors of a gun slaying who had to flee for their lives, again; not a word of condolence for the thousands who have lost homes, schools, cars, and their livelihoods--but cruel, sneering words meant to fan the flames?
The man is unfit to serve. He is the natural disaster we have to contain. Apparently, there really is no limit to the ways he can tell us this, yet still we do nothing to safeguard ourselves from this bonfire of the vanities.
53
The Times coverage on the Camp fire is lagging. For one thing, the article says Paradise is a "retirement community," which makes it sound like a neighborhood with a few dozen homes. The article seems surprised there were even 6700 structures there in the first place. 27 thousand people lived there, and they weren't all retirees. There were three grocery stores and a hospital. It is the most destructive fire in state history, but the article leads with Thousands Oaks as the location, apparently because it is better known.
The Camp fire was so fast and in an area that's not that well known nationally, so it is easy to blink and miss it, between all the other news. There was no anticipation of it like there was with recent Hurricanes. But what happened there was truly catastrophic.
And it's not done. High winds are forecast to return Saturday night and Sunday, possibly pushing the Camp fire toward Oroville.
9
I love California, my former home, where my greatest joy was backpacking in the Sierras and along the coastal trails. It breaks my heart to see it so endlessly dry, the forests dying and burning.
Climate change. I'm reading here about people thinking of moving away. You're not alone. In fire-prone areas, California is headed for a crash of property values.
But there are no safe havens from climate change. All across the country we're suffering increased drought, severe storms, flooding, forest blights, and at the coastlines rapidly rising waters.
The IPCC says we have 10 years tops to get a grip. But that's nonsense, We have to run like the wind away from fossil fuels immediately. Make sure you say this to every legislator and put it into every conversation you have. We're looking at climate collapse, and the horror and heartbreak are going to do nothing but intensify.
24
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” he said on Twitter, adding, “Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”
Way to go, Trump, the people love a supportive, empathic POTUS, who stands with them in their time of great suffering (and has the sense to discuss problems, if any, later).
38
@Anne-Marie Hislop
It's California. They've shown nothing but hate towards Trump. Are CA Democrats even willing to work with him in times like these?
5
I'd like to see a scientific analysis if the large scale pumping out of groundwater from the oversized agricultural industry in California (don't berries grow anywhere else?) is exacerbates the drought problem. it is one thing for there to be no rain - but a lot of the vegetation and soil seems dry in way that suggests also some other issues - at least to a lay person.
8
Of course it’s not helping. The water they’re pumping out is in some cases a million years old. That doesn’t just get replaced in one wet season.
5
@CitizenTM
Sorry for the poor grammar. I wish the NYT would allow us to edit after publishing. Some sites allow this for a certain period of time. The mistakes occur during editing one's posts before publishing - at least that is the case with me.
2
I moved from the East Coast to California 45 years ago. It was exciting for me at the time. I now live in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma County – God’s country. But our home narrowly escaped the Sonoma County wildfires in 2017. It’s no longer a freak occurrence like earthquakes. Now we live with “Reg Flag Warnings” almost constantly. Wildfires in Butte County and Ventura Country once again are bringing wide destruction to thousands of acres and homes in what has become a perennial danger. While we first thought living here would be our final stop, my wife (who has lung problems) and I are now very seriously considering moving out of state – to rainy climates of western Washington or Oregon or desert climates of Arizona and Nevada. Sad – we love California but what choice is left to us?
125
@styleman
Lots of fire and smoke in WA and OR this year.
54
@styleman. Yes, it would be smart to"get out of dodge".
10
I thought the same. I moved here 4 years ago. I think I will be heading back to Northern Virginia when I am ready to move.
20
We in California live with risk of earthquakes. Can't do much about that (yet).
Increasingly, we live with risk of immolation. We know what to do about that. CO2 reduction through renewable energy and energy applications, etc.
And that's not gonna happen. Not with the criminals currently running our nation.
But don't think you're safe if you don't live in California. Midwest - tornados/drought; East/South - hurricanes. There isn't anywhere - even for the 1% - to hide. Not on Earth, anyway.
Ironically, as I'm typing this comment, I've received a text alert from Sam Mateo County. My neighborhood, specifically, is under a "Red Flag Warning" regarding wildfires.
Gosh. If only we could find the will to use technology we already have to stop global warming.
See you later. I hope.
34
God help the people of Paradise and surrounding hills. 6,500 lost homes in 2 days is staggering, coming from someone who survived the Tubbs/Nuns (the previous record-holder for most destructive in state history).
This is the new normal.
Non-Californians say move away. Non-Californians say, manage your forests better and don't live so close to trees, bury the power lines.
Send your kind words and support, please. This is our home and we're trying to make it better, trying to find a way to raise our families safely here. The solution is not so clear cut.
As man-made climate change continues, we're all in this together, globally.
335
@Will
Climate change is something the President barely acknowledges...some Americans don't like to think of being part of the world community....when it comes to climate change there's no arguing the fact. I'm afraid of the floods and fires becoming the new normal, rather than something we have to deal with in a pro-active way.
15
@Neela C.- Trump does acknowledge climate change- as fake news.
10
@Will
“Non-Californians say move away”
Where?!
To ever increasingly violent and frequent hurricane corridors? To financially desperate red states unwilling to spend money to educate their kids and awash in opioid abuse? To the increasingly financially prohibitive great cities of the East Coast? To Bible thumping communities obsessed over the sexuality of others? To climate-change denying regions that are the laughing stocks of the developed world? To racist lands still stuck in a Civil War mentality?
No way! I’d rather face down a fiery death in the land that stands for all the values I embrace, that opens its arms to the rest of you who have been storming our Golden Gate since the Forty Niners arrived no matter your status, race, religion, or orientation, that embraces a future based on science, human rights, and the evolution of humanity, and that’s so incredibly beautiful it moves me to tears when I stand on sandy bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean at sunset. I was born here and I will die here.
62
The weather has been perfect for fires. The patterns experienced are unlike those back half a century ago. It should be colder with more precipitation. The camp fire area should have received rain from the North Pacific by now. The temperatures in Malibu should have dropped and the Santa Ana winds should have subsided by now. The fire season should have ended. But those patterns have broken up. The excess energy in the air and water are making drought and warmer weather on this side of the continent and dropping a lot more precipitation in the eastern half.
22
@Casual Observer
I am not sure what past you are remembering. For several years in the mid-70s to early 80s we experienced a long multi-year drought in northern California. East of the Oakland Berkely hills temperatures were above 90° day after day the entire summer. September and early October saw strong Santa Ana winds. Rains started very late in the year and were meager.
It seems like in these tragedies of fires, people are immediately ready to blame politics and they brag about CA being the 5th wealthiest nation on earth.
Where was this braggadocio when agitation should have been to bury powerlines, to clear CA of 130,000,000 dead trees. from this drought and to exercise diligence by clear dead brush and kindling around our homes as we spread deeper into the grassland.
1
Remember the picture of the house that withstood the hurricane? Houses and communities in fire prone areas should be built to with stand these kinds of events. Who pays is a problem though.
7
It’s a catastrophe, but there’s a haunted beauty in the landscape exposed by the ruins.
2
My question is: if there are three major wildfires burning in California, why are firefighters wasting their time moving someone’s vintage car out of harms way?! How about saving people, or land or houses first?!
13
(In reference to moving the car)
Maybe they are moving the car because it has a tank full of gasoline that is a fire accelerant. Moving the car to keep it from burning not only limits property damage, it keeps fuel from the fire.
32
@Jill Caceres
It's common practice to move objects, like cars, out of the way so that fire equipment, like trucks, and firefighters can freely get through and move around.
4
@Jill Caceres this type of pandering to a rich person with toys is what feeds precisely into negative stereotypes of California. My own recollections of a flight from Oklahoma City to LA that featured several leather-teddy wearing groupies on New Year's Day, one of whom whined memorably that "she just couldn't smile agin until she was back in her California sun" delivered in the flattened Valley Girl vowels of Frank Zappa vintage reminds one pointedly of what a cult Californiams make of their state and living in it. Almost to the degree that Texans do about Texas.
5
Tornadoes, hurricanes and floods on the east coastal areas, unusual snow in Iowa early this year with farmers struggling with the unusual weather patterns and friends in the southern borders and Hawaii complaining about their climate also. This is climate change, poor planning in housing development, resistance to reduce pollutants in the farming communities, and cities with poor transportation systems to name a few. In the meantime the Evangelicals see end times, The Trump Party (Previous GOP) denies climate change and the conservative media confuses it all for people in rural areas. Time to wake up Folks, time to wake up. At some point no one will avoid climate change... try famine next as a result of the changes that have happened.
56
Time for these folks to move. And time for better forest management practices. The time is coming when everyone will not get to live where they want. Fires in Cali, no water in Colorado, coastlines disappearing due to climate change.
We need to be practical. There won’t be enough insurance in the world to cover these disasters. And I don’t think the taxpayers should have to cover these folks.
11
@Female I think that we are better off buying a smaller than needed house, paying it off quickly and saving any excess money in case a tragedy befalls it so that you have funds available to move somewhere else. Insurance deductibles for things such as wind blowing your roof off are much higher than they used to be. Ins. companies have adjusted their deductibles for climate change.
7
@Female
And where should we all move?
Paradise has not had a fire like this in its entire 170-year history.
Where is safety now?
2
Ok, as long as you say the same thing to unemployed coal miners in West Virginia and Kentucky - time to move to where the jobs are!Or do they get some special dispensation to continue in a profession that wreaks havoc on the earth so they can live where they want to? The price we will pay and are paying for that particular indulgence far outweighs payments to CA wildfire victims. True victims.
5
Anyone convicted of starting fires should be sentenced severely.
In the meantime is there anything the state can do to thin these forests to reduce the threat?
3
@Bernard Bonn
Do you have any idea of how much forest there is in California? California is undergoing the process of desertification. This was recognized years ago. President Trump does not recognize that what is going on in California is the direct result of human impact on the environment--like the big hurricanes that are hitting the eastern half of the USA. But Trump is drill baby drill, and taking away all the rules to protect the environment, and exiting from the Paris Climate accords. We will see if who he blames when a hurricane hits Mar a Lago!
5
There have never been so many been mandated to evacuate homes due to fire season. Many, many evacuation centers have been opened and each quickly reached capacity.
Too many residents were slow to heed initial evacuation recommendation, instead waiting for sheriff to knock on door and notify of mandatory evacuation. By the time they did, all roads out of Conejo Valley (which contains Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Oak Park, Agoura Hills) were closed. This community is familiar with these fires, yet has lost few structures over the years. Past good fortune caused many to believe "this too shall pass." Thankfully, for most, that is true. Yet, why risk it and complicate firefighting?
4
Slow to heed warnings? What warnings? The fire spread too fast. Most people woke up when they heard cars honking at 6am.
2
No longer can my neighborhood and town of Santa Ros claim the top tier as California's most devistating fire. We haven't even begun rebuilding and now we're questioning, where in CA is it safe to live? The fire "storms" of yesterday and today mirror our own horrors.
When you experience it first hand you know a fire that is 10 to 20 miles away can come raging throught your neighborhood within a few short hours. Our operations of emergency services and CDF need a new strategy to address mega fires.
What's more devastating reading today's fire news or knowing we didnt claim enough seats in the Senate to put the fires out for at least two more years.
16
@awatkins Maybe California should stop building so many houses in the fire prone areas, there are too many people living in California.
4
@Sam C.
The next time there is a storm surge, we will tell you there are too many people living in New Jersey., NYC , etc..
No one would ever have dreamed that Santa Rosa,the Napa Valley, or Sonoma would burn. I visited a friend in Sonoma the spring before the fire. Sonoma and Napa were so green and beautiful. The fire came very close to the house I visited in Sonoma. The fire department set a fire to burn down the hill, and block a fire coming from a wooded area across a ravine. They burned the back fence of the house, but the blocked the fire and saved the houses. They were lucky. But they live in a sparsely wooded area with large green pastures across the road, and some low brush land down to a ravine. Who would ever have guessed that these areas could become so dangerous due to fires starting miles away? This is climate change. Climate change is making ferocious fires which now blow cinders over a mile away, due to hurricane strength winds. What areas of Califonia can be thought of as "fire prone" has changed with climate change! Just as you in New Jersey will find out that what areas could be called storm prone, has changed!!!
6
This is so sad. Between natural disasters and political ones, is there any desirable place left to live in America?
California would be my first choice - so much of it seems like heaven. But the fires, the earthquakes - plus overpopulation, taxes and housing prices.
Florida - coastal flooding, sink holes, hurricanes - plus shady elections and Stand Your Ground law.
Our way of life is disappearing before our eyes. We are throwing it away with both hands.
26
What’s this annual affair going to be like in 10 years? The trendline is very worrisome.
7
At least Nero had the good taste to fiddle while Rome burned. Our fearless leader spends his time tweeting about how successful his massive loss in the House was.
31
My house burned down today in Malibu. I'm reading commenters blaming Trump for inadequate fire protection. That's absurd. California has been Democratic-party controlled for a long time, with the highest taxes in the country. Yet, we don't have fire protection. There wasn't a single fireman at my house. We take care of 40% of the nation's homeless, but no one could help me or my family. We can't stop the developers from building even more condos and homes when there is inadequate water, and in fire zones. We can thank Jerry Brown and the Democrats for this mess.
20
@Ocean Blue Don't blame the Dems; if the Repubs had been in power, the problems would have been the same, and you know it. Money talks, and CA is no different. Blame greedy developers and people who just HAVE to have their slice of the wilderness. Nothing to do with politics and who runs the state. Also, look at the power companies, and ask why they follow the builders and then don't monitor their facilities? Also, blame those who deny climate change! Seems the Republicans are the ones in that camp.
26
Zoning is not the function of Jerry Brown- that is usually handled by the county or city government, so let’s keep the political finger pointing out of it.
Fire is a natural part of the environment in that part of the world and was so before the first development happened in your area. Most of the homes in your area are not built or landscaped to the Firewise standards that can greatly increase the likelihood of a given home surviving a wildfire. Wooden framed structures closely spaced in an area prone to seasonal wildfires is not a forum a for happiness or success.
There is a way to live with the natural world and many ways to live like you are immune to it. To be honest, many houses in California have been built where there should have been no large scale residential development. Reasonable efforts to limit development have been fiercely opposed and largely on political lines for many years.
Now we can add in the impacts of climate change which has just amplified everything.
Just as people who insist upon building on barrier islands in hurricane country, people who insist upon building conventional structures in fire country are going to have to be told you do so at your own risk. They should be required to go bare as in no insurance. Zoning and building codes need to be far more stringent.
I wish all out in the fire ravaged areas well and all the firefighters and EMS people working safety as they do their jobs.
21
Wildfires that spread at speeds of 80 mph are not a partisan issue. Helicopters can’t fly through areas with excessive smoke and embers, so they can’t drop water in the areas that need it first. Fire trucks can’t drive through a 40’ wall of fire. I’m sorry for your loss, but these fires can’t be stopped easily. We should be examining the causes, such as the PG&E outage that seems to have caused the Camp Fire, and the drought and high winds that appear to be exacerbated by climate change.
11
The tremendous momentum of Earth’s energy system and climate means a lot more warming in the pipeline.
I think the forests around me in the Sierra Mountains are going to just keep burning hotter and faster until they are all gone.
7
I thought drought was bad in west Texas, but what the people of California have contended with is far beyond. Hopes for better conditions and recovery but with short sighted government policies that is a tall order.
78
Having friends, family and classmates in the Chico/Paradise area, and hearing that virtually ALL of Paradise is wiped out from the Camp Fire is heartbreaking. Our thoughts are for those who have lost family and friends. Paradise will never be the same. Ironically, scenes from Gone with the Wind were filmed in Paradise.
25
When I was in Jr High many years ago, a popular read was about the population explosion and the subsequent problems. While some may only consider keeping the number of social security payers greater than recipients or continuously increasing the world's consumers for retail goods there's obviously a greater need for responsible family planning. Just maybe, because we love our children, there are many good reasons for having one or two children.
29
I live most of the year in California and have done so for decades. One element of all this that many people have overlooked is the dramatic change in the climate during the winters throughout the state but especially in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. For a decade now winter as we used to know it is gone. Up until the late 90's winter set in around this time with unrelenting overcast skies, high humidity, fog, and chilly temperatures. We would not see the sun for weeks on end. That is over. Now it is just the opposite: no overcast, relatively low humidity, no fog, sun every day, warmer temperatures. You might say "sounds great." But this significantly increases the dry conditions and adds to the fuel conditions for massive fires. We are past the point of no return and this does not end well.
193
@James Durante
Santa Ana winds were always there in the fall but are later into the season. The Sierras cant hold the snow now so the water supply from rainfall is evaporated and lakes have been filled in.
24
@James Durante I lived in San Francisco for 12 years in the 70s and 80s. Though San Fran didn't get fires, I do recall knowing/reading about them in other parts of northern California, but not at this time of the year -- in the late spring and summer after the rain stopped. Likewise, by this time of year you could pretty much count on some rain and, as you point out, fog in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.
24
Today was eerily similar to the old Novembers we used to have in the Sacto Valley. Bone chilling cold (for CA), no sun all day and a soft fade to darkness at 4:45.
But it wasn't because of fog. We haven't had fog for over 10 years. This time it was because of smoke from the Camp Fire. Welcome to the new world of year-round wildlifes.
21
California seems to be getting drier and drier. Unless the rains and snows come this winter, they will be facing a very tough 2019. Meanwhile in New York, we are getting more rain than we need. If only today's deluge, the second in a week, had occurred over California.
53
@Navigator Lots of rain in Georgia also - too bad there isn't a way to correct the imbalance.
1
@Navigator Too bad California doesn't get hurricanes.
In the words of Milton, Paradise Lost.
39
The California fires are man-made disasters of the worst kind. The leaders of the State and large contingent of loonies created this through their policies. They ignore the fact that living space in California is shrinking fast. In the last six years alone California added nearly the combined population of present day Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont.
So much about legal counts.
With a porous southern border and the insane State policies like sanctuary cities and no ICE war cry from recent governors, the State is cutting down trees, mowing down hills and mountain sides, and squeezing in illegals wherever they can. Fueled by the incentive of citizenship by birth and later claim for family members of US citizens, the illegal entrants have larger, much larger number of children exacerbating the economy and environment.
The growth is greater in areas surrounding major cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. These regions are suffocating the tiny green space such as the Griffiths Park, the park is burning down as I write this.
Water needed to fight fires is an increasingly rare commodity. So, the fire fighters fill the landscape with fire retardant chemicals from the sky creating an ecological nightmare for years to come.
This phenomenon affectionately known as Californication is hugely responsible for the annual destruction by Mother Nature through fires, drought and landslides.
Mr. Trump tells the truth but Sacramento turns a deaf ear to the President.
30
@Appu Nair: So now illegal immigrants are the cause of California wildfires? Nonsense. About 6% of the California residents are undocumented, which by the way, does not necessarily mean they are “illegal”, and the California population is expected to decrease in the near future. The wildfires start in sparsely populated wooded areas and threaten smaller communities in those areas, not the densely populated and agrarian areas where most undocumented immigrants can be found. California has always had wildfires, just like the midwest has its tornadoes and the Gulf Coast its hurricanes, and all increased in intensity over the past decade because of global warming. Or do you think tornadoes and hurricanes should also be blamed on illegal immigrants?
17
I was under the impression immigration is great; have you provided a potential counterexample?
@Appu Nair not a single thought about climate change and its effect? And honestly ... Trump rarely speaks the truth - about anything.
2
It could now be said that climate denial kills.
90
@Cab
It's global warming and climate change, and it's been killing people around the world for many years. Don't forget the deaths from tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. It's a lot more than drought and fires.
2
Is it known what started this fire?
2
@Meredith Russell in northern CA it was a camp fire....I don't know about Southern CA.
The air quality is the worst we have seen in centuries (probably). Schools and college football games have been canceled. Really, you can't imagine how overcast and bad the air quality is and I (supposedly) live 300 miles southwest (although, my guess is it's more like 200+ miles)
2
@Meredith Russell I may be mistaken, but I believe I heard on the news tonight that the fire up in northern California is known as the Camp Fire because it started from a camp fire.
2
@Meredith Russell
Noted in the article is a power transmission tower owned by PG&E which malfunctioned minutes before the fire alarms were called. Due to winds coming from Nevada and Idaho, the air is extremely dry and vegetation was already very dry making excellent fire starter and explosive growth carried in winds which have been gusting up to 70 miles per hour. This brings embers miles from what's burning. Keep in mind the current fires are in mountainous areas which causes all sorts of swirls and vortexes of wind as well as firenadoes (fire tornadoes).
Fires in California are named "Every year in California thousands of wildfires start throughout the state. In most cases, the dispatch center sending the initial resources to a wildland fire will designate a name for the fire, but the first on scene engine or fire official can also name the incident. Fires are usually
named for the area in which they start – a geographical location, local landmark, street, lake, mountain, peak, etc. Quickly naming the fire provides responding fire resources with an additional locator, and allows fire officials to track and prioritize incidents by name." Cal Fire fire.ca.gov
This northern California fire started on Camp Creek Road.
10
Apocalypse turns out to be man-made.
36
@graygrandma
Seems like denying global warming and climate change is nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecy to usher in the end-times.
From the president's Twitter machine; as of present:
"President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!"
(He's confused, in more ways than one, as his ritual always portrays.)
Five previous tweets suggest malfeasance re the elections Tues eve. . . Nothing about CA. . .
Yo, Donnie: People are burning to death on your watch; a town is smoldering. We'd expect nothing more from you, though, than juvenile, unfounded proclamations about those who may be at your political doorstep.
Jail for you would be lenient.
308
@JC I seem to recall he didn't (or only briefly) mentioned past fires in California as well.
5
This is how things are going to be from now on, progressively larger fires will keep happening. California is lucky in a way, other areas on earth will lose so much fresh water they won't be habitable (like Arizona, the Middle East, and the outskirts of every major desert), and many islands and coasts will go underwater, eliminating smaller nations like Tuvalu completely.
Still, nobody should think this fire was the last of it, or that anyone is doing anything important to prevent the next one. And it might be appropriate to change the name from Thousand Oaks to Thousand Stumps.
29
My brother & sister-in-law have their go bag ready to evacuate nearby Simi Valley if needed. While this is going on in California, Mr. Trump is tweeting about fictional election corruption. Someone needs to remind him that Californians are Americans too.
Perhaps the military personnel down at the border should be re-directed to California to help the more urgent need there.
234
@JCAZ:
No, the military should not be used to fight large and dangerous fires like this, unless a few of them happen to be trained fire fighters.
3
@JCAZ
Keeping others out is more important than helping those in need.
4
@RLiss As someone has already suggested. The military could be of use without directly fighting fires in a bunch of ways.
6
THE AIR QUALITY IS THE WORST EVER! Schools in Marin Country and the East bay are closed. I live almost 300 southwest of the fire and my town is totally socked in....probably the worst it's ever been.
Also, we just learned that the NC fire was started accidentally by a camp fire.
7
@Dolly Patterson The fire started on Camp Creek Rd near the hydro powerhouse, thus the name "Camp Fire". No official notice yet on how it started. Best info I've seen blames power lines damaged in heavy winds.
34
@Robert Martin
Read the Times every day, but having grown up in Paradise and reading the NYT readers response to a disaster is very, very disturbing to realize how insular, locally oriented we all are.
4
In addition there were 2 wildfires 30 miles northeast of Ukiah in Mendocino County yesterday. 50% and 90% contained today.. When it happened the sky turned dark brown and the sun glowed dark orange until it faded. Today, why is air quality listed as 'hazardous' in Ukiah but 'moderate' in Chico? Ukiah is almost same distance from Hill Fire that Chico is from Camp Fire.
9
@Michael shenk
Air quality is measured by particulate matter in a specific location. It is Hazardous in San Francisco and will remain at this level for at least two more days until all the Mendocino County particulate has passed over and is in the Pacific Ocean. There are many maps online showing where the smoke and particulates have spread.
4
The sky here in the San Francisco bay area is once again a eerie shade of yellow orange and the sun a dusky orange globe. The acrid smell of smoke fills the air and burns the eyes and lungs. This is November in California, far past the usual fire season. This is the bay area, miles from the fires. This, it appears, is our new normal, and it isn't pleasant. How many of our towns will burn, how many people displaced? This is a tragic way to start the holiday season.
265
@Carole Grace
Forget the holidays, just concentrate on praying that the wind shifts and blows most of the smoke away towards the East from where it came. I cannot see the homes across the street from me and am confined to indoor activities. And yes, this 'Disaster Theme Park' is our new normal. This is why 50% of the people living here are thinking about moving elsewhere. This really is dystopian.
14
If you cut down and trim more trees, all will be well. NOT.
There is not enough wet stuff falling from the sky onto the land where it used to fall. Human-caused climate change has shifted atmospheric movement of moisture.
If people stop building their homes in wilderness, all will be well. NOT.
The wilderness is drying up and dying whether people have houses there or not. Human activities create more opportunities for sparks, but vegetation would still be dying from a lack of rain and too high temperatures.
If people build fireproof homes, all will be well. NOT.
As forests and brush die off faster than plants from hotter climates can be introduced and take hold, the homes lose the surrounding features that made them desirable—trees for shade and windbreaks, roots to hold soil into place and prevent dust storms, views of vibrant greenery rather than rows of dead tree trunks--and thus lose economic value.
Just a bit of myth-dispelling. You're welcome.
111
@Heather climate change has nothing to do with this. California has had wildfires since forever. People gotta stop building near hills and brush which are always going to catch on fire.
10
@Heather:
Curious, what the sources of your statements?
5
@RLiss
Swan, Daniel L et al, “Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California”, Nature Climate Change 8, 427-433 (2018).
Allstadt, Andrew J et al, “Spring plant phenology and false springs in the conterminous US during the 21st century” Environmental Research Letters 10 104008, 14 October 2015.
Westerling A L et al, “Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity”, Science, Vol. 313, Issue 5789, 940-943, 18 August 2006
If you go to the American Meteorological Society website, you can read thousands of articles in professional, peer reviewed journals that discuss what is happening:
https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/journals/
57
Many people from all over the country and world are reading articles in the NYT for information relating to their loved ones. For the sake of clarity please write separate articles about simultaneous disasters happening in differing locales. Either that, or have clear distinctions about locations within your articles. The headline of the first paragraph says THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. and then after some general comments proceeds for several paragraphs to report the Camp Fire in Paradise near Chico-which is northern California. Only about 5 or 6 paragraphs down does it start to report on the Thousand Oaks fire- in southern California- and shooting tragedy.
108
@sagebrushgal:
Why, in this age of social media, cell phones, etc would anyone go to the NYT for news and updates about their specific loved ones?
4
Waiting for something from the WH....
So far, not even thoughts and prayers.
Nothing.
Unless I missed the tweet ?
Heartfelt and sincere condolences to to all of our fellow citizens in the fire zone who have experienced such devastating loss. New England is sending you rain (soon!) and love.
113
No, he never says anything when we burn. More importantly, he tried to withhold FEMA aid after the Wine Country fires, the most destructive in history.
3
The voters of Washington State just turned down a historic opportunity to enact a carbon fee, having been bombarded by tens of millions of dollars of negative ads paid for almost entirely by petroleum companies. Every time you put your key in your engine, you are contributing to these fires, to the floods drowning Venice, to the hurricanes decimating our coasts, etc. Walk, bike, use public and surface transit.
147
@felixfelix
IMO, the Washington initiative would have passed if it had included solid information about the body that would have distributed the billions (yes, that's a b) the measure would have raised, and the purposes the money would have served. As it was, voters saw the measure as an ill-defined money grab by the usual bureaucratic suspects. I hope proponents come back with a better measure that has a clearer purpose.
20
@felixfelix no we're not. you overblowing one aspect of a huge ecosystem. cars have an effect but compared to other co2 producing systems they aren't as bad. plus wiht the modern car theres less in the air now then before. Fires always happen in california and people keep spreading so they are stepping into not safe territory for housing. I expect this to get worse as californias keep pushing inland from the coast.
7
But why shouldn’t the money go into the general fund? Specifically allocating money from different taxes to different purposes in voter initiatives voted on by the general public, who have not even the slightest clue what different parts of government cost or where resources are best allocated, just leads to severe government inefficiencies and overspending in areas where money is mandated to be spent combined with shortfalls in areas that are less sexy and don’t get attention from voters.
8
Your reporter/fact checkers need to do a better job. Certainly, many folks retire to Paradise and other environs up on the Ridge (as it's referred to)--after all, that million-and-a-half you'll get for that three bed, two bath tract home in the San Francisco suburbs buys a lot of home in rural California--but Paradise is hardly a "retirement community". It is--or, sadly, was--a vibrant mountain town hanging above the agriculturally-rich Sacramento Valley. It has--or had and we hope will again have--a diverse, engaged population spanning all age, racial, religious, and socioeconomic groups. To call it a "retirement community" is to mischaracterize what is/was one of the north state's most pleasant little towns.
118
What I want to know: why are firefighters expending resources rescuing this obviously rich guy’s Shelby GT350, when people’s homes are burning and civilians need to be evacuated asap?
41
@SteveZodiac
perhaps so it doesn't catch fire and explode?
30
@SteveZodiac
Caught that, too.
5
@SteveZodiac I assumed they were moving it out of the way so that the fire truck could get closer to the burning house.
5
I hope those firefighters brought a trailer for the GT 350.
17
48 years ago I was born in the City of Los Angeles, in Chinatown. I still call this city home. I have seen the rise in population, the traffic become more congested, the homes developed in canyons, foothills, and open areas where before there were none. Wildlife and our environment have been encroached upon by human development. Our firefighters are fighting fires and rescuing families in terrain that they never had to before, endangering their lives as well. Wildfires have been a constant in our State, however we used to have a 'fire season', with climate change and more people than we can handle, sadly 'fire season' is year round. We have been in a severe extended drought for many years. This cannot continue to be the new normal. Science/Academics and our government need to work hand along with the public to address and combat climate change. Humans are responsible for all this and we need to figure it out, otherwise we will no longer have a place to call home.
203
Growing up and teaching in New York City, snow days kept us home and we could choose to play. Living in Northern California, I am now hiding indoors on smoke days that sadly follow high alerts for wind and dry weather. Denying climate change destroys natural life and quality of life in ways that only criminally people can ignore. Today’s eerily dull skies and post-women walking the streets in masks seem prescient and apocalyptic.
80
I guess our embarrassment in the White House is too busy fending off illegal payments to hookers and scam artists that he accidentally nominated to the Dept of Justice to even wish these poor folks well. And its in Trump land, but he'll still never give them the time of day, because he did not win the state.
165
@hllstrthr:
Maybe because the article says the Governor of Cali asked Trump for Federal disaster aid and received no answer?
5
northern CA? Surely I've misread the headline! The Camp fire: 20,000 acres [& counting]; Woolsey fire: 10,000 acres [& counting]; 75,000 homes evacuated [this number has grown]; 10,000 acres from Calabassas to Malibu; LA Griffth zoo; Hill fire: 10,000 acres. Incidentally, President Trump is heading to France for observance of 50 anniversary of WWI. Wouldn't it just be nice if the President could rearrange his schedule to come out here?
32
actually I think it would be better if he STAYED in France!
115
@M.Wellner It is the 100th , not 50.
25
@M.Wellner - the camp fire was 20K acres last night, this mornings report it was 80,000 acres.
3
Santa Susana Field Laboratory ceased research and development operations in 2006. The years of rocket testing, nuclear reactor testing, and liquid metal research have left the site "significantly contaminated" per Wikipedia. This would suggest significant radiation in the wildfire smoke in this area. Are the people being warned?
40
@Jacquie:
What would "warning" people do or cause to be done differently?
5
@RLiss Make them aware of additional hazards they may be exposed to which may cause cancers down the line or other health issues. Exposure testing, hosing down and disposal of contaminated clothing after exposure to radioactive particles could also be done to protect those and their families from radioactive particles.
11
@George Washington:
Yes, I can see your point, but in an emergency such as this who would have the time/ ability to wash off their clothes/ bodies and so on?
Western U.S. wild fires used to be waaay worse (see link below), in frequency and extent. Now that there is more man made structures and fire suppression, pop culture declares the fires as unprecedented.
https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article220810830.html
7
@Seldom Seen Smith
I have lived in California for 45 years. No, the fires were not worse 30 or 40 years ago.
23
@Seldom Seen Smith Worse or not, it doesn't change the current situation.
6
You didn't read the article, but I'll reply anyway. Waaay worse means before Europeans started building millions of structures, millions of miles of roads, this that and the other thing, suppressed countless fires.
Nature bats last.
1
Amazing no one is willing to pin the tail on the Donkey . . . The Donkey being the Sierra Club et al.
2
@Gary Greene Sorry, Gary, the Donkey is more likely Smokey the Bear, who preceded the Sierra Club by years. Bad Forest Management practices.
13
@Gary Greene
The Sierra Club didn't encourage planting of eucalyptus trees and other fire prone plant materials. Nor did they encourage thousands of people to decide to move to California and use up what water was there.
4
@Gary Greene:
You are blaming the Sierra Club for this?
Wow.
Google "Sierra Club and Calif. wildfires"
I did and I got a list of articles such as this one:
https://www.sierraclub.org/california/cnrcc/wildfire-protections-for-homes
which discusses how to retrofit a home to reduce chances of wildfire destruction;
or : this one:
https://yubanet.com/regional/the-wild-after-wildfire-sierra-club-presentation-on-thursday-october-4/ in which the speakers are:
"Daniel Shaw Senior Environmental Scientist for the Sierra District of California State Parks and Christy Sherr Wildlife Biologist and Education Coordinator for the John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute " (yeah, I know, just a couple of tree-huggers).....
You get the idea (I hope)
"The deadly fire decimated a retirement community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada."
A couple of questions: Does any of the authors of this article know what the word "decimate" means? And if not, does any of the authors have access to a dictionary? Finally: same questions about their editors.
14
@polymath You might want to think about your grammar.
"...does any of the authors have access to a dictionary?" I think don't, not does, would be a better choice. The same for the following sentence.
15
@polymath Do YOU know what decimate means?
decimate: to destroy a great number or proportion of
14
@Nightwood
Actually, the correct usage that would do the least damage to the original construction would be "do", as in "Do any of the authors.....". That's if he means it truly as an interrogative and not as a rhetorical criticism.
The following sentence has subject-verb agreement and is fine for casual commenting, even though the sentence starts with "[a]nd".
Finally, my grammar died a long while ago. I loved her dearly.
19
Be safe Californians. Take care of your loved ones.
I thought wildfire season had ended and rain/mudslide season had begun. Seemingly always wild in CA.
19
@Lynn in DC- because of climate change, "fire season" is now year-round in CA.
14
@Debbie
Not so. But the outer boundaries in time for fire season have certainly expanded. When I arrived in California in 1991, "winter" meant about 3 1/2 months of semi-constant rain, with another month of intermittent rain. No more.
13
@Wine Country Dude I lived in Los Angeles for 39 years. It rains intermittently from January to March. Some years it doesn't rain at all. Every now and then it rains in the summer, for about 10 minutes, if there is a hurricane in Mexico. There is serious rejoicing among the population, which now exceeds 10 million people (Los Angeles County). I don't know where you were living, but there is no such thing as "semi-constant rain"....... you must be talking about Northern California...? Whatever way you look at it, there are too many people in California now, and the environment cannot support the overpopulation.
2
Fire, Flood and Famine. Just as Nostradamus predicted.
4
@Julie
Not helpful to bring your astrology to frightened and grieving people.
21
@Julie 2012 already passed
8
The Woolsey fire started near the Santa Susanna Field Lab, site of some of the worst nuclear contamination in US history. Four of ten experimental reactors suffered accidents at Santa Susanna and numerous radioactive burn pits were in use during the 1950's. Later, the Field Lab served as a rocket fuel and liquid metals development site. As a result of this work Santa Susanna is extremely contaminated. The soil, vegetation and property burning at this site is likely to be radioactive and highly toxic. Firefighters and residents should be warned.
For more information on this subject from someone who lives there please click on the link and pledge your support.
https://tinyurl.com/y7gow6eo
41
Be safe California! Thank you too, to the responders for getting in there to rescue people, animals and property.
It would be nice to see a consoling tweet come from his highness, but that would be too much to ask. Just sign that hideous signature on emergency funding would be a good start.
59
Nearly 20 years ago, a friend in northern California treated me to a rambling, beautiful day in Sonoma County. I vividly recall a drive through a forested canyon where my friend mentioned there were houses on the road far above us, and that this road was the only way out of that area in a fire.
There are two places in the United States that will become inhabitable in 50 years: coastal communities, and the forested canyons and hills out West. Obviously, as we saw last year in the Sonoma fire, not even settled areas are safe anymore, but at least it's easier to evacuate when people are not trying to drive out the only escape route from a remote region.
If the federal government does not start to impose monetary incentives to discourage rebuilding in devastated areas (yes, you can get insurance, if you can afford it, which you will not be able to do), then state governments have to realize that all of us are paying for someone's desire to have a beachfront home in the path of the past five and the next 10 hurricanes.
It will take a lot of backbone for states to do this. The real estate industry is a powerful lobby, and anyone who wonders why the original World Trade Center was built with so few stairwells, and why those that were built were mostly clustered down the center of the building, should look into the changes to NYC's building code as the WTC was coming on line. All that floor space was so much more valuable if it was not broken up by those pesky stairwells.
135
@DLM Few California politicians of any stripe or rank can resist a real estate developer's charms. The fact that they now must squeeze the last bits of blood (or water) out of this stone will only feed the slicks' resolve and the pols' obeisance. Though I'm still in my 50s I wonder whether I will live to see measurable change.
18
Do you mean uninhabitable? Most of the US between the coasts is quite lovely, by the way.
6
@DLM-What about coasts and areas along rivers subject to flooding?
Clarification please (and pardon my ignorance) but ...
"California’s governor-elect, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency Friday in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. On Thursday he declared emergency in northern Butte County and asked President Trump for federal assistance."
Isn't it solely the governor's responsibility to declare such an emergency?
6
@Positively . He's also acting gobernator.
5
@Positively Governor Brown is traveling this week. As Lt. Gov., he becomes Acting Governor in Gov. Brown's absence.
21
As the current lieutenant governor, Mr. Newsom is the acting governor in the absence of Governor Jerry Brown.
23
The two tragedies occurring so close in time and proximity, underscore the urgent and timely need for two pieces of legislation largely ignored and actually held in contempt by the GOP, a whole state under fire as a result of global warming, underscoring the need for immediate legislation to roll back greenhouses gases and another mass murder-suicide located in the midst of the fiery hell, emphasizing the imperative need to curb a nation armed to the teeth regardless of the mental health of its population.
51
@Windwolf Watching my students and the veterans, just 100 miles from Thousand Oaks, they honored today at our Veterans' Day assembly made my heart ache for the suffering of untreated vets and our collective collateral damage.
12
Congress: Blood on your hands. Stop hiring federal judges that deny the impact of climate change and protect corporations from operating outside the bounds of the law. It's real, and people are sick and dying.
189
@Devin Greco:
Fed. judges are not "hired".
5
@RLiss No. Rather they are bought and paid for.
9
I live in the only area so far that has had the evacuation order lifted. Car is still packed. It's hard to appreciated this level of destruction until you've seen it up close. I'm retired from Paradise High but my wife still teaches there. Some news reports say the high school is still standing but, with over 2000 other structures gone, where will the students be?
My wife drove through flames to get "down the hill", buildings both sides of the road aflame. She tarried at the school organizing the evacuation of the last 50 students. Her sister watched over the carfull she brought down the hill until parents made contact. The devastation is heart wrenching but the ability and willingness of others to step-up is incredible.
308
@bpedit Thank you for sharing. Stay safe.
35
@bpedit My heart goes out to you and your community. My mother spent many happy times as a teen in Paradise. She is recently deceased and I'm glad she is not here to hear of the destruction of a place that brought her such joy.
13
"The Woolsey fire also shut down the 101 freeway, a major transportation artery ... "
To give some perspective - particularly for East Coast folks unfamiliar with Southern CA - shutting down the 101 Freeway (because flames have jumped across eight total lanes, and a wide median!) is roughly akin to closing I-95 in both directions. For several hours.
To make matters worse, this part of the region is suburban-bordering-rural; there's no quick alternative parallel roads or freeways as there are closer to Downtown LA, Hollywood, LAX Airport, or Long Beach. This 101 segment is *the* main thoroughfare to urban Los Angeles (and to Santa Barbara, north-westward).
I used to commute this portion of the 101 for eight years. Rarely in all those years did I see any sort of lingering greenery on both sides of the freeway. It's (mostly) dry brush on thirsty small hills, a dangerous tinderbox waiting to erupt.
Both the sharp, acrid smell - and the very strange, grey-brown color, twinkling with sunlight - of the air during our many fires are unforgettable. Strength and safety to all affected, and deep gratitude to all first responders.
259
@David I made that drive a couple weeks ago, from Oakland to Laguna Beach via 101 most of the way. Yep, it's a tinderbox.
23
@David Yes, and it's hard for people unfamiliar with mountains and wilderness to understand the phrase there-is-no-other-road-there. When 101 closed after the Montecito mudslides last winter, the only way to travel up the coast from Southern to Central California was to drive 70 or 100 miles – depending on your tolerance for no-guardrail mountain roads – out of the way.
32
@David
To add just a little more: I'm originally from Maine. I grew up in the woods.... but even there there were a hundred roads in or out, most not on a map, most ancient logging roads or a forgotten road to a long-ago burned out camp.
When I came west I HATED trying to get around.
There was one road within a 100 miles, at the top of a ridge, if you were lucky it wasn't dirt, if it was dirt you were lucky if your lane didn't evaporate and who dreamed up a switch-back!?!
There's a saying in Maine: Well, come to think of it, you can't get there from here!
But that's a lie - there's a dozen ways and everyone can think of at least three.
But the West? Never happen. There's one way in, there's one way out. Hope that there's no mudslides and no fires.
My best to you in LA.
26
this article begins with Thousand Oaks California which is in Ventura County. the campfire is in Butte County and the town of Paradise was devastated last night. I'm in the eastern part of Chico California and it is so Smoky here it's dark. 70,000 areas, 5% contained.
57
@Wendi- in Santa Cruz this morning the smoke is thick, and that's next to the ocean!
13
@Wendi, I looked at google maps and found the same Thousand Oaks in southern California. There is a town called Paradise in northern California, near Chico.
2
It's heartbreaking that so many Californians who live in truly paradisiacal areas, are being so devastated by fires, from north to south and in between. There is so much beauty in this state, and country/rural homes get to enjoy that, but the risk of losing it all in a fire, grows greater each year.
I suppose that homes in barren desert areas, such as the Mojave desert to the east, though hotter, are actually safer, because there is virtually no plant life there to provide fuel to fires.
25
@Oakbranch All true, I left NYC for Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley Desert.....no wildfires here but the Summer temps keep reaching higher and higher historic highs ie 127' w/ an ongoing state of drought......no matter what we are all suffering weather extremes.
12
If you don't build it, they won't come. Stop the endless construction of new homes and stores in and near forests. A large military base separates the San Diego region and the huge area commonly called LA (Los Angeles) and is home to native plants and animals that evolved to survive fires.
5
There are 5000 military sitting on the border along with national guards waiting for an invasion of babies and women who may show up in a couple weeks. This army could be used to fight fires instead of wasting tax payers dollars on a Trump vanity project.
This administration has demonstrated that it has no concept of what makes Americans safe. Flooding and hurracaines get the paper towel treatment. Fires get a sanctimonious spouting from the climate denier uninformed President who probably can’t tell a tree from a corn stalk. Trump is the unnatural disaster stalking America.
I was lucky to get out of Paradise early. I don’t know if I still have a home. I do know I have a President incapable of handling public safety.
885
@Llewis The US military is neither trained nor competent in fighting forest fires. I am. The training is long term, and the work is very dangerous. If you want to kill a bunch of people, your idea is great. I do not want ONE of my friends in the military forced into a dangerous situation that they are not trained to deal with. And, the problem there is not manpower shortage, it's much bigger than that. That fire will have to burn for another week before it has lost its intensity.
48
@Llewis Trump has made it perfectly clear he is only the president for a minority of Americans. Also, it must be perfectly clear by now that the Republican Party only represents a minority of Americans. In both cases, it is red states that are served by the Federal government. Blue states are the sworn enemy of Republicans.
Climate change legislation is not going to happen under the Republican minority rule! It is not going to happen with right-wing ideologues on the courts who only serve the interests of the wealthy, including and especially Big Oil and those industries dependent on oil.
68
@Ernest Montague: That is an eloquent letter, making a good point. But what is "the problem there"? Explain to us non-experts why the fire will have to burn for another week before dying down. Thanks!
10
This article cries out for a map or maps, but, as all too often happens in the Times, there is none. Yes, I can use Google to find out just where Paradise, CA, is, but I shouldn't have to.
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@Riverwest
The National Fire Interagency Map satellite and remote generated. Will give you access to location, spotting, status.
https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/%3F/34.1137/-118.8153/12
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@Riverwest So true. Why can't NYTs team with Google or Garmin or NWS to show where? Isn't "Who?" What?" "Where?" "Why" the basis of journalism (and surely the basis of editing)? People need context and we need it organized. Frustrating.
6
“God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, the fire next time!” -James Baldwin
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@ubique
Not helpful for frightened and grieving people.
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Paradise may have a retirement community within its environs but to describe it as a retirement community is wrong. It is a small city/town of 28,000 people, and what's happening is tragic....
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@Michael 20 odd years ago I was working in N. Cal. at a remote hydro electric plant. My journey to San Fransisco took me within a few miles of Paradise. As I had plenty of time I made a detour to see the town, intrigued by the name. To me Paradise to lived up to its name and really was lovely. Alas not any more.
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This is horrifying. All I can say is that we MUST do something about climate change! This is unreal!
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@LM Are you really serious?
This isn't about climate change.
It is a tragic fire, revisiting a place nearly impossible to defend. Yes it has burned before when fewer people lived there. Just like the Atlas fire repeated history in 2017. After 70 years in California, we learn about history repeating itself.
2
One after another, we are witnessing catastrophic events caused by nature perturbed by humans as well as catastrophes caused directly by humans. And our Commander in Chief is Donald Trump. Given all of these events during a Trump presidency, I have no doubt that our country and its citizens are in much greater danger because the federal government is working less and less to serve its citizens.
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@Emergence You can bet they are working hard to serve their wealthy donors.
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@Emergence-Indeed. And we have folks like the Koch Brothers funding campaigns to oppose plans to build light-rail trains, new bus routes, and other traffic-easing initiatives in cities across the U.S. — Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix, Ariz.; southeast Michigan; central Utah; and in Tennessee.
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html
4
@Emergence
Trump is a perfect example of a catastrophe caused directly by humans. His Presidency is a catastrophic event.
8
From what I just briefly skimmed over on wiki, lightening strikes are the main culprit that start the fires in CA's dry season. If this is the case, in addition to combatting the ongoing climate change initiatives, wouldn't it be prudent to erect hundreds of lightening rods?
Simple question.
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@Coffee Bean
Actually, there have been several large fires started by the electrical grid. PG&E is working hard to prevent fires this year including shutting down lines during fires. Thursday was a day with high winds and bone dry conditions. Several counties got notices that the power would be cut Thursday due to those conditions. The cause of the Camp Fire is unknown at this time v
Lightening is only one fire starter.A lawn mower started one fire because the flat lander mowed in the afternoon. Chains dragging on vehicles, horse shoes, and arson can cause fire. It’s dry here and getting dryer in the summer.
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@Coffee Bean I direct you to a post on accuweather: "The Idea was brought up in a Forest service meeting here in Montana where we see 10's of thousands of acres burn every year and the Pine Beetle is destroying even more than that every year by drying out the pine forests to a box of standing match sticks waiting to burn.the forest service decided to put large rods(50to100ft) on the tops of mountains and hills. and we saw absolutely no decrease in fires or effectiveness in the plan. in fact in one location near a Ranch by Wisdom 4 small fires were started due to the rod attracting the lighting and hitting the trees or going down the pole and jumping to a tree. need to say the poles are no longer in use and we just pray when a storm approaches."
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@Coffee Bean
This is supposed to be our wet season--and it's close to 80 today with incredibly high winds. Not sure yet what caused this fire. We've certainly not had any wet weather with lightning roll through. Just very sad.
15
These pictures are really scary, even from a safe distance of 3,000 miles away.
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So sad
3
The greatest consumers in earth history complaining about the environment.
See Merriam-Webster dictionary, Hypocrisy.
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No one is saying how these fires started...I hope it's not arson. I get the dry conditions but somebody had to start a flame...?
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@Dolly Patterson Suspected downed power line. Not yet confirmed.
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@Dolly Patterson I learned on news tonight it was from a campfire , at least for N. CA..
Readers you cannot imagine how horrific the air quality and visibility is 200+ miles away. I've lived her 40+ yr and never seen anything like this.
2
Call the humancaused effect anything you want to, including non-existent, but Mother Nature always wins.
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The doubling of population (from 20 to 40 million over the past 40 years) is the major cause of the disasters (over-use of water, cheap homes built too close together in both forest areas and flood zones). The Department of Water Resources, for Agriculture, and the State Water Resources Control Board, all other needs, in Sacramento had their responsibilities strongly reduced by Jerry Brown, as early as 1974 when he took over from Ronald Reagan, constantly referring to State Government Officials as "The Intestines of Society."
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Kind of an odd comment. I've read it and thought Gov Brown meant they were unseen but essential. Maybe I was wrong?
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@rudolf, And the population will double again in 20 years time if things keep growing as they are.
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@rudolf
Perhaps a discussion about overpopulation and it’s religious and GOP political proponents in general would fit here. California provides only a small part of the worlds excessive and resource devouring population growth.
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There have been fires, droughts and Santa Ana winds in California for centuries or more. No doubt climate change has accentuated the problems, but the real issue here is population growth and settlement expansion into wilderness areas. In my lifetime the state’s population has grown from under 10m to 40m.
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@David Hilditch
Not to mention the massive overgrowth of brush and scrub timber in areas that were previously clear-cut, where many towns have expanded. Decades of policies preventing thinning of trees have led to dangerous conditions in much of the West, not just California. For the last two weeks we have had smoke in the Tahoe Basin from controlled burns where this undergrowth is being cleared out so the older trees will survive wildfires, and the heat and destruction levels of the fires will also be much lower. Far better to have this smoke than the choking clouds resulting from the recent Yosemite and Santa Rosa fires, just to name a few.
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@David Hilditch America should have legislated zero population growth 40 years ago when it was obvious that essential resources would be under pressure from population growth. Population growth has pushed people into areas of the country that should not be populated at all. Population growth is a factor in increasing demand resulting in an increase in the cost of living - think housing, food, & utilities. Imagine too how that would have countered growing unemployment as the result of downsizing, automation, and jobs going overseas.
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@OldLiberal:
So, truthfully, how do you feel about unlimited immigration?
I'm a liberal and life-long Dem, but frankly, what if next time its 3 million Chinese ?
2
I'm east of San Francisco.
In the last 7 months I have had one afternoon of rain.
The 'rainy season' is overdue, for the winds can't shift with the persistent high in place.
In Florida there is a governmental ban on the phrase, "climate change", and the Dept of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency are wiping every report from their computer sites. Anything that is negative to the Koch Industries or to oil, say a report on the pollution from fracking that is coming out of a person's kitchen sink, has been scrapped, disappeared.
We are going to pay BIG TIME for the ignorance of this government, but some are already paying, like the folks who used to live in Paradise.
The only "Paradise" that trump/pence care about is the imaginary one between their ears.
My very best to those to my north. Stay safe, please.
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@rosa
Thank SCOTUS for Citizen's United which helped the Montgomery Burns brothers turn on the money faucet.
I'm thinking the SCOTUS crowd were good readers, but sucked at science.
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I cast just as much blame on the willfully ignorant everyday people (peasants) who parrot whatever the king and his court say is the truth.
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@Everyman:
But us peasants RARELY if ever make the policies that lead to such disasters, to how they are to be prevented or fought.
6
Well, just build and sell more autos so we need more petrol to burn to create more climate issues, then whine and cry when our lives turnout badly. Then ignore the way we are destroying ourselves, and try to blame someone other than ourselves. That's the human way
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Please see Socrates comment below.
5
@hapibeli-The Koch Brothers funded campaigns targeting voters in "cities and counties across the country — including Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix, Ariz.; southeast Michigan; central Utah; and in Tennessee" to oppose plans to build light-rail trains, new bus routes, and other traffic-easing initiatives.
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html
3
Over ten years ago scientists spoke out and predicted that this was the future for our state: fires burning hotter than ever before, more erratic, moving so swiftly that people would have very little time to escape the flames; they said that climate change would be the cause. As I write this I just received an alert on my phone that all the animals at the Griffith Park zoo are being evacuated. And yet many of our politicians turn a blind eye to what's happening. I weep for our planet.
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@Claudia
Our planet will continue, most likely more happily, without us, Claudia.
5
I wonder when California will be proactive about fire risk. They could desalinate water to reduce those dry conditions, build fire breaks and clear brush, and many other things. Yet they have plenty of money for a train that will be bankrupt in the future. Silly Dems.
15
vulcanalex
https://www.edf.org/climate/california-leads-fight-curb-climate-change
California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), landmark legislation that set an absolute statewide limit on greenhouse gas emissions, and confirmed California's commitment to transition to a sustainable, clean energy economy.
The only ones fighting climate change damage is the Gas Oil Pollution party.
Trump's Environmental Pollution Agency wants weaker auto emissions rules and more desertification from climate change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/opinion/california-climate-change-cap-trade.html
How's it feel to have your head buried in the science-denial sand and to blame the victim ?
Nice GOPeople.
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@vulcanalex
Desalinating water to spray on our dry plants! What a great idea!! Cost-effective, efficient, logical, and a comprehensive solution to a 700-mile long problem.
Firebreaks! Thanks for that one too - I'll drive over the hill and suggest it to the professional firefighters, I'm sure it hasn't come up yet.
I'll keep checking in throughout the day for other brilliant suggestions that nobody has thought of until you anonymously suggested them in a strangely politicized comment on a NYT article.
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@vulcanalex
No need to desalinate when California dumps billions of gallons of water into the ocean every year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2015/04/15/why-does-california-let-billions-of-gallons-of-fresh-water-flow-straight-into-the-ocean/#1c56fe96517c
Californians are too busy applauding themselves for their ideological environmentalism and completely ignoring what's going on in their back yard.
Another major cause of the fires that is completely ignored is homelessness. Most fires are caused by campfires of homeless people living outdoors. But California recently passed a law saying it's illegal for police to move or even bother homeless people camping outdoors. So there you go. Fires.
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