‘This Is It’: The California Fire, Up Close

Prescribed fire during the winter months is not discussed enough.
In other parts of the country it's very effective as fuel is burned under wetter conditions

My sister darn near lost her home in the Butte Fire. She self-evacuated last Thursday and only was able to get a peak of the home (no access yet) this morning. The road she lives on is Fricot City Rd, was the fire line for miles. We didn’t know for days, and there was so much activity in the area it was impossible to know if it was ok. Some terrifying and impressive photos of the firefighting along Fricot City Rd. It is very likely that some of her neighbors perished as they did bring dogs out to look for bodies. No evacuation notice was given in their area.

Tomorrow most likely she’ll get to go home, and get the now rotten week-old meatloaf out of the oven. The friends she was cooking it for lost their home.

This is a story?

"This is it" it in another way. On the third day of the Butte Fire I checked in with some firefighters at a staging area in the evacuation zone. I wasn't supposed to be there but my house was threatened and I was staying. They were manning the area with inmate strike teams. We talked and I heard their stories of fighting the Rocky Fire and the Jerusalem Fire, both huge fires in Lake County. They were from Lake County and one said he had slept in his own bed only two nights in the last two months. The next day the Valley Fire blew up in Lake County. Both of these guys and their crews were obligated to fight the Butte Fire and the resources committed to the Butte Fire were not diverted, which means these crews were fighting a fire away from home while their backyard burned.
This is Cal Fire, the best government agency in California, bar none. They are first responders and they are responders of the first order.
I had a kind of "This is it" moment the first night of the Butte Fire. It was more of a "We're goners" moment. Cal Fire was there. I couldn't see them, couldn't hear them, but by the fire was beat back from a contingency line. I know they were there. My home is still here and I owe it, I really owe it all to Cal Fire.

It breaks my heart to witness the ruin these fires leave behind them and the ways they devastate people's lives. I wish my fellow citizens would use this close-to-home tragedy to ponder the destruction caused by our government's bombing and drone warfare and weapon sales around the world.

I live 2.5 to 3 hours away from the fires. I wish:

*Every American could smell the smoke and see the red/orange sky from those fires. Even though I am far away, I have these experiences.
*Every American could see the very few malicious opportunists who are trying to take advantage of vulnerable people who live in the fire areas and make sure they get punished severely.
*Lastly, Every American can see first hand, that good can triumph bad, that even though too many have lost their homes, there are millions more who are reaching out to provide and take care of those without homes and will be there to help them rebuild. I know this experientially from living through the heart of the Oakland fires in 1991. It is quite humbling and hopeful.

This article warrants several photos to show the destruction. The NYT has photos galleries of some of the most mundane news stories. Where are the photos here?

Since Mr. Healy gives no indication WHERE he is reporting from, the term "local paper" is not useful. Is it WHERE Walter and Judy Magness live? Whatever happened to the five W's that are taught in Journ. 101?

I hope towns' planning boards refuse to allow any more growth as this will be happening for a long time to come, I fear. There is not enough water. Even with the El Nino coming, there will not be enough water, either for people or for fighting the wildfires.

An interesting article, but after an opening that lauded journalists' "up close" access, I had expected to see and read more of the work of those journalists. A missed opportunity.

"Reporters can’t get in the way of rescuers and firefighters who are actually, you know, saving people and battling the elements," Don't you really mean, "Reporters can't get in the way of rescuers and firefighters who are actually,
like you know ... " A blast from the grammar of the sixties. Like .. you know ....

"...report on how the complicated, 24-hour effort to battle a wildfire has unfolded..."

I would be much more interested in reading about that than about the "human interest" aspect -- people's sorrow at losing homes they bought or built in a forest where fires sometimes happen. While I'm sorry for their losses, they took calculated risk and all the whining and tear-shedding over that risk turning out to have been a bad one...well, it gets old. Media are always going for that boo-hoo moment, skipping over their real job, which is to report the facts.

Odd The media report this as a tragedy as a bagatelle while disasters in other countries are , well, "it happened to foreigners." And our losses are covered as shame, 45 minute CBS, NBC, ABC 2 minute morning news bite. Who cares? Have not yet seen a story like on Red Cross, like Sandy or Katrina.

Thanks Jack for your coverage. As an avid Times reader based only an hour or so southwest of Middletown it has been interesting and horrifying to watch this story unfold. We noticed the smoke Saturday afternoon but that has been a common occurrence this summer unfortunately. It wasn't until I looked at the Press Democrat online late Sunday am that I realized the scope of what was happening. THe PD embedded a Twitter feed #ValleyFire into their lead story and I quickly realized that was where I was going to get the real scoop on the fire, aside from trying to reach friends in Lake County which I wasn't able to do till Monday. Some people I know lost everything. Some still don't know but got out alive with their horses and dogs. I first saw the terrifying video of the escape from Cobb through flames on Twitter and that made its way into the news media over the next 24 hours. Eventually by Sunday evening and filtering in to Monday it became a national story eventually eclipsed by other tragedies such as the flash floods in Utah. Many of us have donated funds and resources and offered pasture for horses and whatever help we can. I realized how close to and affected by this particular story. I also appreciate at for every other similar story on your pages there are those who feel equally close and affected by them.