If you cut back on personnel and training and combine that with cyclical (and climate change) dry conditions, you get what you see here. Just like you can't live in a dry riverbottom and be surprised when you lose your house in a 40 year flood, you can't live in urban-wildland interface without being scrupulous in how you live and take care of the vegetation around you.
No one deserves to lose their home in a fire. Ever. That said, people can't live where there's not any water and wonder why they can't get any when the poo hits the fan.
I grew up in Southern California and spent the majority of my career working for CDF (now Cal Fire). These are good people who would do the job for free if they could figure out how to pay their bills. We take huge advantage of that by not voting in taxes that would pay for services, and making sure the funding is such that just the barest minimum can be provided. Not saying 'told you so', but maybe consider a change in how you vote for where your money is going in California.
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or stop the law suits from environmentals preventing proper management of our public lands and create firebreaks
What I am not seeing or reading anywhere about these Fires is: What was the cause of so many fires to start in so many separate Counties, and all at the same time ?
Beyond the deaths, and devastation, there were no lightning strikes to ignite this horror.
This, to me, looks like a coordinated Arson attack, on a scale of Terrorism. I hope the FBI will help local Law Enforcement on this, and find out what happened.
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According to Cal Fire they are more focused on containment of these fires than investigation of the causes right now, and rightly so. Given current weather conditions, there's a good chance that high winds brought power lines into contact with bone-dry trees and brush. That with the heat & low humidity is a perfect recipe for wildfire. The only conspiracy I am willing to buy into right now is Mother Nature's.
Complex fires (more than 3 in the same area) happen every single year since time began. Firebugs, carelessness, even a weed whacker can cause a spark that sets the brush on fire. It only looks like coordinated terrorism because these took off so rapidly and have caused so much damage. The pattern that they are burning is usual. The intensity, size and scope of the fires is not.
Meanwhile, Trump is focused on his juvenile tweets with regard to Senator Corker. And, golfing.
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Perhaps someday California, (and the rest of our nation), will start taking a closer look at immigration and population control measures. Natural resources, most importantly water, are not infinite. Where do we keep cramming more and more people into housing, schools, on the highways, etc.? Right now there is none.
And the Dems are only squarely concerned right now about DACA. Those seeking help after this fire will have to get in line and wait behind hundreds or thousands of illegals with their anchor babies. And if they need medical care they will have to wait as well. How is this fair to US citizens?
When or if your time comes and you and your family needs or requires the safety net you will then understand.
3
On a much less serious note, what I want to know is, if you uprooted a Cook pine, turned it 180 degrees around and replanted it, would it "correct" its lean?
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The huge scale of destruction from these fires looks like the ruins from a blast furnace on a gigantic scale. The degree of heat must have been massive, whipped up by the winds to tremendous intensity.
My heart goes out to survivors, now refugees, as well as to friends and family either mourning or fearful of mourning.
On top of the massive hurricanes and flooding over the past month, this is a huge time for grieving as a nation, for reconsidering policies and for the need to come together.
I am worn out from grief and worry for this nation. We need to heal. But that is so difficult at a time of such political danger. We can only hope that the desvestation from these terrible fires is not a portent of worse to come on an international scale, given the lunacy rampant in the White House.
The official spiritual readings these past two days come from the Book of Jonah, a prophet called to preach to Nineveh that its end was near. We might do well to consider these warnings for ourselves.
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Feinstein running for another term is news, but not good news. It really is time for these folks to step aside and give the "younger" generation (i.e., democrats in their late 40's and 50's) time to develop and lead. Having a war chest of cash shouldn't qualify you to run a campaign but unfortunately in this country candidates are bought and paid for. Shameful.
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we spent 65 billion on a train to nowhere rather than a fleet of fire-fighting aircraft that we need every year. Aircraft that could be used to fight fires elsewhere when not needed at home. Canadair makes them, the Chinese make a flying boat, the Russians have a fleet but we have a bullet train to burned-out towns. We do nothing for weed abatement along to roads and the back hills are covered with fire fuel. Electric weed whackers anyone? H1B visas for weed control? Positive decisions are to be avaoided at all costs, so they can get elected next year to finish up what they didn't do last year. Ms Feinstein, are you reading today?
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Thank you New York Times for acute, empathic reporting It seems Mothers Earth & Nature parallel & behave creating a mirror theater for the edgy unrest within fearful humankind. The hurricanes previewed Imbalance & the heart of darkness. This nightmarish zeitgeist might have some alleviation with writing fpr those who can't actively help the firefighters & workers handling the inferno. Service & volunteerism can take the form of processing this mayhem into some order to be controlled. Creative disaster is a term for morphing melancholy & madness inti a text. Dr. Larry Myers, a Professor at St. John s University & Director of the Playwrights Sanctuary is counseling & mentoring the scrawled reactions of new dramatists & poets into forms/ Dramatist Edward Albee endorsed the Sanctuary. Myers composed a poetic, prophetic work in a playwriting jihad -- "Fire Eaters In Napa." This is no puff just a shoutout of a potential way to help the challenged.
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You have too many people living in places that they should not be living, end of the story. Instead of global warming may be the talking heads should focus on population growth and zero immigration policy.
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I was with you until you got to the "zero immigration policy." Our issue in the Northbay is too much housing in/too close to chaparral and other ecosystems in which wildfire is natural and important. These plant communities are 'built to burn', and unfortunately, when they do burn, they don't discriminate between brush and fancy houses or humble trailer parks.
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Let's see we have people living where there are fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions and floods. Where should they live on this wild planet? As far as populated areas-- This summer we had a 56,000 acres wild fire just out of town here in Pocatello. If it would have made thru mink creek or city creek drainage we would have been in big trouble. As it was we had ash falling out of the sky like when Mr. St Helens erupted in Washington. Idaho is about as unpopulated as you can get...
Welcome to "The Trump Years" - chaos, death and destruction - not only around the world, but in California. Now we can see what it's like to live in our own war-zone-esque environment, not too unlike, say, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, just to name a few.
And, by the way, as we kiss the EPA regulations away, remember that climate change is only an illusion. Just ask The Donald.
14
Just as a point of reference: Called the Oakland hills firestorm or the East Bay Hills Fire. The fire ultimately killed 25 people and injured 150 others. The 1,520 acres burnt destroyed included 2,843 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units. The economic loss has been estimated at $1.5 billion.
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Part of the town of Paradise was evacuated yesterday. Cell phones are down. However, the internet has become the major source for information. Facebook has information on evacuation plans and serves as a means of communication between folks. This is the upside to social media.
It is also the upside of government from Cal Fire, police, the county, and our town. The fires are awful but we do have systems that work. Thank god for the taxes that finance this.
8
How horrible for the families who lost their homes and everything they owned. This is just another example, like Las Vegas, or Puerto Rico, that our country has some serious problems that need to be solved like gun violence and climate change. And yet, this is barely a blip on the national news.
Why? Because it is more entertaining to watch Nero and his fiddle.
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Hopefully things have changed since the Oakland Hills Firestorm, but the current anti-regulatory mood has me very concerned.
During that fire, I was fighting it at a wood-structured school in a hollow of eucalyptus trees. We had a fire plug, and a fire company dropped off a 4" hose for us to use. Unfortunately, the threading was different on the hose and the hydrant. I headed for the command center and got a coupler from some other firefighters. That didn't fit either. I went back six, seven, or eight times, each time getting a different coupler. None fit!
Try standing in the middle of a fire, flames going over your head in the trees, with a hose in one hand, a water source in the other, and no way to connect them. Do that, and then you can tell me about the evils of government regulation.
One other incident from that Oakland event, this regarding government regulations and inspections. I went to connect "garden" hoses to the water spigots on the outside of several buildings, but when I turned the faucets nothing happened. I crawled under a couple of buildings and discovered the spigots had never been connected to water, shrinkwrap still over their internal ends. Neither the building contractor nor the city inspectors had done their jobs. Building and operating a safe school should not require a faith-based initiative. That's why we have government, not anarchy.
Hopefully that is all ancient history and the current horrors are not exacerbated by ideological stupidity.
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Steve, people just aren't paying attention to what they're supposed to be doing. Or make careless errors. Or don't give a damn. That's why the hoses weren't connected. That's why no one stopped to think that connectors are meant to connect.
That's why, in a smaller way, the bookcase I purchased a couple of years ago had misaligned holes which I had to putty closed and then drill new holes so that the shelves would lie flat. Or why the picket fence guy was about to put the fence diagonally across my garden instead of making a right angle around it. Or why there was a loose screw in the bindings of my cross-country skis, resulting in the release not working. Or why almost no roofer knows how to flash a chimney properly. Or why the contractor doesn't drill a deep enough hole in the doorframe for a deadbolt to actually go through and lock.
English teachers don't correct their kids' essays. The guys who install light posts in Brooklyn put them in the middle of the sidewalk so that mothers pushing baby carriages have to go out into the street.
I could go on.
Maybe it's that all of us are so disgusted with stock brokers who pay 15% tax compared to our 33%, or with CEOs who reap hundreds of millions and then cut their workers' salaries and benefits, that we say to hell with it and just don't do our jobs. Or want their take-home pay for no work. But then there are those of us who keep our heads down, keep slogging to do our best, and think, Well, at least, I do my job okay.
19
Thanks B. from Brooklyn for adding to the discussion. Perhaps it all started when they tore down Ebbets Field, to which (the field, not the tear down) I still have stubs.
1
I have made this comment on several stories related to these fires and, so far, no on has said whether or not the problem of incompatible equipment has been dealt with in a mandated regulatory or even statutory manner.
1
You know as terrible as it is this is basic Northern California ecology. A massive wet year, mudslides and all, spurs the growths then the warm dry winds of the fall or maybe the fall after dry everything to tinder. Something ignites it and you get a sort of hell on Earth. It's an ages old cycle. It is why there is Chaparall. People in their hubris think they can control it then they let their guard down and the dragon attacks and Paradise is lost for a while. Hopefully next year will be wet and Paradise will begin to return and the cycle will begin again. There is just no soothing the devastated lives. Nature is brutal.
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