Fires in Southern California

Davis quite rightly points out a the class differences in civic services that occurred during the 1993 Malibu fire when the fire trucks rolled to protect the multi-million dollar homes, but did nothing to protect the poorer areas. Obviously there's only so many resources to go around, and you can't protect everything but still...

Lastly developers STILL build houses with wood shake shingle roofs out here which is just fucking insane. My mom's place has always had a rock roof and we were very meticulous about keeping the brush around our house clear and planting ice plant on the hillside below. Not to get all smug about it, but when the 1993 firestorm came through Laguna, we were fine while half of the houses on our street burned to the foundations.

I'd say! Do the developers consider that to be more cost effective? If so, I can't see how....

My mom's place has always had a rock roof and we were very meticulous about keeping the brush around our house clear and planting ice plant on the hillside below. Not to get all smug about it, but when the 1993 firestorm came through Laguna, we were fine while half of the houses on our street burned to the foundations.

Yeah, those pics of yours spoke volumes. Afterward, did the neighbors rebuild with rock roofs?

at 12 pm i went home for lunch and the smoke had rolled in so thick that you could stare straight at the sun - our visibility was down to maybe 500m. everything looks like you're looking through brown-tinted sunglasses. you park your car and when you come back it's covered in fine white ash. the air is so bad it makes your head spin just walking around in it.

and i live a mile from the beach, about twenty miles west of the fires.

It just makes me sad to think of the flames enveloping my city...sigh

http://www.impawards.com/1989/posters/miracle_mile.jpg

http://abclocal.go.com/images/102803_Satellite_View_map.jpg

Crazy stuff.

(x-post)

an argument in favor of high density living. it's okay to hear your neighbors before you get to know them or after you know them. or have fewer possessions and move around a lot. jess's ideal city - anonymity.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/space/0310/gallery.fires.space/4.nasa.seawifs.jpg

Yeesh.

I'll tell you who I'm glad I'm not -- the hunter in San Diego County who, apparently being lost, set a small fire to summon help. This is a perfectly understandable move in the case of distress and if you need to get attention, but a few VERY basic precautions on the hunter's part in terms of setting up such a fire -- and even then it would have to have been an incredibly calculated risk since the dry weather and miles upon miles of ready to burn fuel in all the parched plants and the winds are, as noted earlier, the ultimate conditions for a blaze to burn in -- and nothing might have happened. If he followed those precautions as best he could -- well, he rolled the dice and we've seen the result. The hunter in question has been arrested and will face felony charges, but besides all the lost homes the blaze he sparked up has claimed the bulk of deaths so far -- not something I would want on my conscience at all.

More on the guy who maybe started the big San Diego fire. Looks like the story is more complicated than it first appeared -- it's not positive if he actually started it yet, and it seems he was suffering from a major lack of food and water. Hrm.

"I asked him what he started it with, and he wouldn't comment," Weldon added. "He just remained quiet."

Perhaps, some part of his consciousness realised he started off something major (even in his delirium)?

Can't help feeling sorry for him on some level: if karma truly exists, his line has just gotten screwed for generations.

At least with hurricanes, earthquakes, or tornadoes, you know it would be quite difficult for bored 23-year-old shitheads to just "start" them.

Indeed it is striking to what extent the current fire map (Rancho Cucamonga, north Fontana, La Verne, Simi Valley, Vista, Ramona, Eucalyptus Hills, Scripps Ranch, and so on) recapitulates geographic patterns of heaviest voter support for the recall.

I really, really, really do not want to gloat over a catastrophe that has killed a number of people and left many, many more homeless...but sometimes karma in action can be an astonishing thing. Still, once the fire has died down, what are the odds that people will take this issue seriously?

"Fire, as a result, is politically ironic. Right now, as I watch San Diego's wealthiest new suburb, Scripps Ranch, in flames, I recall the Schwarzenegger fund-raising parties hosted there a few weeks ago. This was an epicenter of the recent recall and gilded voices roared to the skies against the oppression of an out-of-control public sector. Now Arnold's wealthy supporters are screaming for fire engines, and "big government" is the only thing standing between their $3 million homes and the ash pile."

More than just an area of Arnold support, these are all areas that have traditionally and consistently have voted against property taxes which are used to fund things like more firefighting resources.

http://a1022.g.akamai.net/f/1022/8158/5m/images.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/photo/2003-10/10017117.jpg

The look of courage on that fireman's face hopefully won't be the last we see of him. I could almost feel the heat on my face through the terminal screen.

Feds Turned Down Request to Fight Beetle
Thu Oct 30, 9:39 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!

By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Just as the Southern California wildfires were beginning late last week, the Bush administration quietly turned down a six-month-old emergency request by Gov. Gray Davis for help in removing dead and dying trees in the same forests now being consumed by flame.

In April, Davis asked for a federal emergency declaration in three counties where bark beetle infestation had left thousands of acres of dense woodland vulnerable to fire.

If approved, the presidential proclamation would have paved the way for millions of dollars in federal support for clearing dead trees in San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

"We made the request in the hope of making a horrific situation less serious and we were turned down," Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio said.

A spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which handled the Davis request, said it decided against the proposal largely because Congress had already agreed to provide $43 million this year for fighting the beetle infestation in Southern California and the sum seemed appropriate at the time.

But state officials say the money represented only a small part of the $450 million needed to clear the forest of dead trees and eliminate the fire danger.

State officials have estimated the fires — which have burned about 2,600 homes, blackened about 730,000 acres and killed at least 20 people — could take a $2 billion toll on California's economy.

After four years of drought, nearly a half-million acres of dense woodland in Southern California had become infested by the bark beetle. Local and state officials had warned that the forests were a disaster waiting to happen, and some have criticized Davis for not moving more aggressively to combat the problem.

In an April 16 letter to FEMA officials, Davis said, "Supplementary federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health and foster safety."

A response from the letter has still not been received by the governor's office, Maviglio said. The state was notified by the office of Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., last Friday that the request had been turned down.

The FEMA denial came a few days after the first of the major fires began to rage out of control in San Diego and San Bernardino counties.

"I don't want to second-guess that decision," said Chad Kolton, FEMA spokesman. "They were asking for federal resources and federal resources were being provided."

State Sen. Jim Brulte, a Republican whose district includes big parts of the fire-ravaged area, said that it was not fair for Davis to suggest the federal government has not been doing enough.

"The Davis administration twice rejected San Bernardino's request for a state of emergency to be declared and we had to beat up on them to finally get it," he said. "The fact is that everyone has been late to this party."

The beetles, which are native to California, drill into bark, seeking the moist inner layers to feed on. Typically, they can kill only drought-weakened trees.

Healthy trees are able to expel the invaders by flooding the infestation with resin, which drought-stressed trees can't produce. Once the infestation has begun the trees are starved of water and nutrients and quickly die.

or northern california, as the case may be

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/us/california-fires-evacuations.html?_r=0

we recently stayed at some nice farmhouse rentals in Sonoma, i'm worried about the owners bc it looks like at least one of them is on the border of the evacuation zone.