Re: California Wildfires

176
The fires are right on Mt Wilson at the moment. It was something to see all the smoke and flames lapping the radio towers when driving home on the 605N this afternoon.

Again, thank the gods the winds were still today.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: California Wildfires

177
A firefighter was killed battling the El Dorado fire in San Bernardino County, which has burned nearly 20,000 acres. Few details were immediately available about the death.

“The name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Our deepest sympathies are with the family, friends and fellow firefighters during this time,” the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement released Friday.

The fire broke out Sept. 7 near Yucaipa. Officials said it was caused by a smoke-emitting pyrotechnic device that was part of a gender-reveal party in a park. Such devices typically shoot off blue or pink smoke to signal the gender of an expected child. The cause of the death is under investigation.
Meanwhile in L.A. County, the Bobcat fire opened a new dangerous front as it barreled toward homes in the Antelope Valley on Thursday, prompting new evacuations and further straining exhausted firefighters.

For 12 days, the fire has menaced the San Gabriel Mountains, including foothill neighborhoods in Monrovia, Arcadia and other cities, as well as the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where a team of firefighters is standing guard to protect the historic structures.
Evacuation warnings were issued Thursday evening on a different side of the fire for Wrightwood and Pinon Hills in San Bernardino County.
Residents in parts of the Antelope Valley were ordered to evacuate as the fire moved toward Juniper Hills and burned downhill toward Devil’s Punchbowl county park, officials said Thursday.

About 60 deputies have been dispatched to the area, along with some California Highway Patrol officers, to help facilitate evacuations, said Capt. Andy Berg of the Sheriff’s Department’s San Dimas station.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... a-wildfire
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

181
CDFingers wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2020 1:44 pm Heck, I could plant radishes in my HVAC filter, and they'd grow.

CDFingers
:lol: I think I'll pass, never been fond of radishes.

I changed my filter at the beginning of the month. Just saw the headline, another fire is spreading quickly down here in one of the national monuments, back to Home Depot to buy some more filters.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

183
The Bobcat Fire is barreling through chaparral, brush and tall grass in Antelope Valley in LA and San Bernardino counties. Over 1600 personnel are fighting it and it's already burned about 73,000 acres. The new fire Snow near the El Dorado Fire is also human caused, a car broke down and set off a brush fire and temperatures are over 100 there.
Nine national forests and three national parks in California will remain closed this weekend, including Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino national forests in Southern California.

The temporarily closed national parks are Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

The shutdowns, forced by wildfires and some of the worst air quality the state has seen in years, cover every national forest in Southern California. They also include Inyo, Klamath, Sequoia, Sierra and Six Rivers national forests — millions of acres of public lands ordinarily available to hikers and campers.
U.S. Forest Service officials said in a release that “this decision will continue to be reviewed daily with evolving fire and weather conditions.” In an update Friday, state fire officials said 27 major wildfires remain burning statewide.

Meanwhile, authorities said Friday that nine other national forests in the state will open at least partially: Eldorado, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta-Trinity, Stanislaus and Tahoe. At all of those parks, campfires, camp stoves and “the use of any ignition source” are forbidden.
https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/20 ... ill-closed

Yosemite Valley filled with very unhealthy smoke. Sequoia and Kings Canyon are near the Creek Fire.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

184
The Giant Sequoia requires fire to propagate. Coast Redwoods can take fire, but not like the Big Boys.

I'm sad to know so many folks are breathing smoke. I can totally sympathize. Brandy can take the sting out of the throat from time to time.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: California Wildfires

185
CDFingers wrote: Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:17 am The Giant Sequoia requires fire to propagate. Coast Redwoods can take fire, but not like the Big Boys.

I'm sad to know so many folks are breathing smoke. I can totally sympathize. Brandy can take the sting out of the throat from time to time.

CDFingers
I bow to your expertise about medicinal brandy, after the Paradise Fire and now the Bear Fire you've been through the worst of the wildfires. The new fire down here has added to the fog like smoke and my throat is raspy, I don't have brandy but I'm sure I can find another medicinal beverage. :D
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

186
As the Bobcat Fire now threatens the community on the “other” side of the mountains (Palmdale). But the amazing sight of blue skies and seeing Mt Wilson completely clear if smoke and fires was truly uplifting this morning.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: California Wildfires

187
Bisbee wrote: Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:15 pm As the Bobcat Fire now threatens the community on the “other” side of the mountains (Palmdale). But the amazing sight of blue skies and seeing Mt Wilson completely clear if smoke and fires was truly uplifting this morning.
In my area yesterday winds blew from the southwest and pushed the smoke north, hazy blue skies but it was much nicer than it's been in a long time. Looks like the Pacific Northwest has cleared some, but the CA Central Valley is still bad.
https://aqicn.org/map/northamerica/

The Bobcat Fire is still roaring north.
Roland Pagan on Saturday stood knee-deep in swirls of smoke on a mesa where the two-story home it took him nine years to build once offered commanding views of the desert flatlands below. Almost exactly 24 hours earlier, Pagan, 80, stood on a nearby hill and peered through binoculars, watching his house in Juniper Hills collapse in flames. “The ferocity of this fire was shocking,” he said, shaking his head in sadness. “It burned my house alive in just 20 minutes.”
As of Saturday, the fire had burned more than 93,842 acres and was threatening some desert communities along Highway 138. The fire lines stretched across 30 miles of rough terrain on the northern flanks of the San Gabriel Mountains.
“Yesterday and through the night, the fire made a dramatic push due to the windy conditions,” Capt. David Dantic, public information officer for the fire response effort, said Saturday morning.

Several homes in the remote foothills community were lost, Dantic said. The extent of the destruction wasn’t immediately clear. “We’ll get a better assessment once our teams go out, but we were in an active firefight yesterday,” he said. He said firefighters were continuing to work to protect homes on Saturday.

Though the fire approached the high desert community of Valyermo, a Benedictine monastery there appeared to have escaped major damage.
The fire has more than doubled in size in just a few days, growing nearly 20,000 acres from Friday to Saturday alone. Officials said the fire has been so challenging because it is burning in areas that have not burned in decades, and because the firestorms across the state have limited resources.

There are now more than 1,600 firefighters on the lines. They have relied upon helicopters and water dropping airplanes to deal with heat, erratic winds, low humidity and flames sweeping across vast swaths of inaccessible mountain terrain.

Compounding problems for firefighters trying to defend lives and property in sparsely populated areas has been what L.A. County Fire Department Capt. Sam Bashaw described as a lack of responsibility among some residents to prepare for fires. “The price of living in a rural area comes with responsibility — be prepared for the worst,” he said. “Do they take that to heart? Absolutely not.”
Crews are trying to stop the blaze from marching east of Highway 39 and, to the west, working to protect Mt. Wilson, topped by its namesake observatory as well as numerous communication towers. Firefighters have put a containment line around part of Mt. Wilson but are “still not out of the woods” because hotspots could flare up, Dantic said.
The North Complex fire, which has killed 15 people and damaged or destroyed more than 1,450 structures in Butte, Plumas and Yuba counties, was at 289,951 acres and 58% contained. Fire officials said they expected an increase in fire activity Saturday due to dropping humidity and warmer temperatures.

To the south, the 22,071-acre El Dorado fire was burning in San Bernardino County along Highway 38 and in the Angelus Oaks area, officials said.
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... eavy-winds
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

189
Trump doubles down on ‘exploding trees’ being the real cause of California wildfires — not heat or drought

President Donald Trump doubled down on his “explosive tree” idea as the cause of the California wildfires.

Speaking to Fox News host Mark Levin, Trump explained that trees apparently explode, but trees in other countries are far worse than U.S. trees.

“I meet with foreign leaders of countries, and they have an expression, ‘Sir, we are a forest nation.’ But they say, ‘we have trees that are far more explosive than the trees in California. We don’t understand how a thing like that can happen. You have to manage your forest,” said Trump.

It’s a similar claim that Trump made while in California last week, claiming that the drought, heatwave and global climate change wasn’t the cause.

“You have forests all over the world. You don’t have fires like you do in California. You know, in Europe they have forest cities. You look at countries, Austria, you look at so many countries, they live in the forest. They’re considered forest cities, so many of them,” said Trump. “And they don’t have fires like this. And they have more explosive trees. They have trees that will catch easier. But they maintain their fire, they have an expression, they thin the fuel. The fuel is what’s on the ground, the leaves. The trees that fall, that dry, they’re like a matchstick. After 18 months. If they’re on the ground longer than 18 months, they’re very explosive. And they have to get rid of that stuff.”

Trump went on to say that there was a water problem because of fish coming through the California aqueduct that Democrats wanted to save. It’s unclear what he’s talking about as fishing on the aqueduct is plentiful.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/trump ... r-drought/

We can have major cut the defense budget by substituting the exploding trees for bombs.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: California Wildfires

190
But they say, ‘we have trees that are far more explosive than the trees in California. We don’t understand how a thing like that can happen. You have to manage your forest,” said Trump.
Most of those forests are Donnie's, they are on federal lands.
_______________________________________

The Bobcat Fire is still moving north, 04,000 acres have burned from an unknown source in the Angles National Forest (USDA).
The Bobcat fire was one of 27 major wildfires that nearly 19,000 firefighters were battling across the state Sunday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.[Cal Fire]

The fires together have killed 26 people and destroyed more than 6,100 structures since mid-August, Cal Fire said.

Fifteen deaths have been linked to the North Complex fire, which had burned over 293,000 acres in Butte, Plumas and Yuba counties as of Sunday. Crews reported progress, with containment increasing from 58% Saturday to 64% by Sunday night.

To the south, a firefighter died last week while battling the El Dorado fire in the San Bernardino National Forest.

That fire, which officials say was sparked by a pyrotechnic device used during a gender reveal party, had burned 22,489 acres and was 59% contained Sunday, down from 66% last week. The drop in containment reflected both the growth in acreage and a controlled burning operation that caused part of the fire line to be reclassified from contained to uncontained, said Cathey Mattingly, public information officer with Cal Fire in San Bernardino.
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... -la-county
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

191
Mt. Wilson is once again under threat! Unbelievable how persistent this fire is.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: California Wildfires

192
Bisbee wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 2:24 am Mt. Wilson is once again under threat! Unbelievable how persistent this fire is.
Yes, the historic Observatory on the mountain is again endangered along with over $1 billion dollars worth of TV and radio broadcasting equipment. It's still barreling into the Antelope Valley, it's almost reached the Pearblossom Highway, then Palmdale and Lancaster. You said it earlier, they didn't get enough firefighting resources at the beginning.
____________________________________________________
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is handling the investigation of how a firefighter died last week while battling the El Dorado Fire, which continues to burn in the San Bernardino National Forest for its third week. The firefighter was Charles Morton, 39, the Big Bear Interagency Hotshot Squad boss, the San Bernardino National Forest said in a statement Monday night. He died while "engaged in fire suppression operations" late Thursday, the statement said.
A hotshot crew is a group of 20 or so firefighters that respond to large wildland fires across the country and are assigned to work the most challenging parts of the fire.

Morton had been with the Forest Service for 14 years, joining the team in San Bernardino in 2007. He worked on both the Front Country and Mountaintop Ranger Districts, for the Mill Creek Interagency Hotshots, Engine 31, Engine 19, and the Big Bear Interagency Hotshots.
The investigation is at its inception and it's too early to say whether death-related charges could be recommended against a family suspected of igniting the fire with a pyrotechnic device during a Sept. 5 gender reveal gathering near Yucaipa, sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said.

As the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department handles the firefighter's death investigation, Cal Fire is investigating the cause of the El Dorado Fire. Cal Fire Capt. Bennet Milloy on Monday reiterated it could take weeks for investigators to determine the exact cause of the fire, including whether the family would be held culpable for igniting the blaze. "There is still a lot of work to be done," he said.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/en ... 857221002/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

193
Beleaguered fire crews made significant progress overnight on the Bobcat fire burning in northeastern Los Angeles County. After weeks of struggling to keep up with the fire’s erratic, multidirectional growth, crews had achieved 38% containment of the blaze as of Wednesday morning — more than doubling the fire’s containment from the previous day.
Crews successfully placed several direct containment lines — barriers created with bulldozers and mechanical equipment to hinder the spread of flames — along the fire’s edge, Gilliland said. The fire’s growth is also slowing. After ballooning to twice its size in the course of one week, it is now increasing in slower increments, growing by a little more than 1,000 acres overnight. The total acreage burned Wednesday was 113,307, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Progress was so significant that the estimated containment date for the fire has been moved up by one month, to Sept. 30.

“We finally got the resources, we got favorable weather, and the fuel transition was big,” Forest Service spokesman Larry Smith said Wednesday. “Once it came out of the really steep timber [of the Angeles National Forest], we were able to get more mechanized.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... obcat-fire
Creek Fire, Fresno County
Northeast of Shaver Lake (Sierra National Forest)
*289,695 acres, 32% contained
*Evacuations in effect
*Heavy tree mortality in the area
*855 structures destroyed

El Dorado Fire, San Bernardino County
West of Oak Glen (San Bernardino National Forest)
*22,601 acres, 68% contained
*One fatality
*Evacuations in place
*10 structures destroyed

Butte/Tehama/Glenn (BTU/TGU) Lightning Complex, multiple Counties
Butte, Tehama and Glenn Counties
*19,609 acres, 97% contained
*14 structures destroyed
*While no growth is expected, fire suppression repair work is ongoing.
https://www.fire.ca.gov/daily-wildfire-report/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

194
The Pacific Gas & Electric Co. may cut power to about 21,000 customers in parts of Butte, Plumas and Yuba counties this weekend as dry, unseasonably hot conditions and strong winds are expected to increase fire danger in the region.

Utility officials said Thursday that a “public safety power shutoff” could be necessary because “hot and dry conditions, combined with expected high wind gusts, pose an increased risk for damage to the electric system that has the potential to ignite fires in areas with dry vegetation.” Though there’s “still uncertainty regarding the strength and timing of this weather system,” according to a PG&E statement, “high fire-risk conditions are expected to arrive Saturday evening, continue through Sunday evening and subside Monday morning.”

David Sweet, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, previously said that a large area of high pressure covering almost the entire West Coast is expected to build over the weekend. Temperatures could climb 10 to 20 degrees above normal in some areas. A fire weather watch is in effect Saturday through Monday for a somewhat horseshoe-shaped swath of Northern California, stretching from just above Redding southeast into the Sierra foothills, as well as down into and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

A red flag warning has also been issued Saturday through Monday for the North Bay mountains, East Bay hills and interior valleys in the area, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Officials said the forecast conditions — which include sustained winds, low humidity and summer-like temperatures — will make it easier for fires to both start and spread.
That’s unwelcome news in an area of the state where crews are still working to contain some of the largest wildfires in California history.

Those include the North Complex fire northeast of Oroville — which has burned more than 304,000 acres and has also become one of the deadliest and most destructive in the state’s history. Containment on that fire is at 78%. The mammoth August Complex fire has also charred a state-record 867,000-plus acres in and around the Mendocino, Shasta-Trinity and Six Rivers national forests, southwest of Redding. That blaze was 38% contained as of Friday morning.
PG&E previously implemented widespread power shutoffs — affecting roughly 172,000 customers in 22 counties — earlier this month on account of severe wind.

Officials said Thursday that the utility later found more than 80 instances of damage or hazards on power lines that were de-energized from Sept. 7 to 10 and that “any of these could have potentially led to a wildfire had the lines not been turned off.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... ire-danger

California has two fire seasons. The first occurs during the summer, when long, hot days suck the moisture out of vegetation and prime it for ignition. A spark from any source can set off a burn, and natural sparks—such as those from the lightning storms that swept across Northern California in early August—are more common in the summer. (Humans also cause plenty of ignitions). Because winds are generally light during the summer, burns are not as likely to travel, which in turn means firefighters have a better chance of containing them quickly. The second fire season comes on summer’s heels. In the fall, the state experiences the onset of winds like the Santa Anas in the south or the Diablos in central and northern California.
Climate scientists predict that the fire season is likely to push deeper into late fall and early winter. Already, the timing of those crucial winter rains has shifted later, stretching out the long, risky autumn season. Precipitation is predicted to get more extreme in coming decades: rain events will be rainier and droughts drier, and the annual summer dry season will likely become longer.

“Even if the winds do nothing but stay the exact same, that’s a recipe for future fire disasters,” says Kolden.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... rnia-risk/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

195
Two new wildfires grew by nearly 10,000 acres in a day in California, where more than 3.6 million acres have burned this year.

Fueled by dry conditions and high winds, the Zogg Fire in Shasta County and the Glass Fire further south in Napa County had torched 7,000 and 2,500 acres, respectively, by Sunday night after starting earlier in the day. The Glass Fire tore through vineyards and structures Sunday evening, roaring over hills and jumping across both the Silverado Trail and the Lodi River, despite fire crews efforts to contain it, according to CNN affiliate KPIX. "It's a cremation," Craig Battuello, whose family has raised grapes in St. Helena for more than a century, told the station.

There have been more than 8,100 wildfires in the state this year and firefighters continue to fight 25 major blazes, CalFire said in a news release Sunday.
It took about 14 hours for the Glass Fire to burn through more than 2,000 acres, according to an incident report from CalFire. The fire is threatening about 2,200 structures, the incident report said. More than 1,800 people have been forced to evacuate their homes and about 5,000 people are under some form of evacuation notification, Napa County spokeswoman Janet Upton told CNN Sunday night.
Additional evacuations were also ordered about 40 miles west of Napa County in Santa Rosa late Sunday night because of two new fires in that area, the Santa Rosa Police Department said in an emergency message. Residents in the line of fire were told by police to "leave immediately and head south!"
In Shasta County, the Zogg Fire had charred about 7,000 acres by Sunday night, prompting mandatory evacuations in several areas.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/us/calif ... index.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

197
featureless wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 11:13 am The Glass Fire started near Saint Helena Sunday morning at around 3:30 am. It has now burned into the easterly areas of Santa Rosa. It's followed a parallel path to the Tubbs Fire but a little to the south. The only reason this isn't as bad (yet) is less wind. Unfucking believable.
Was thinking of you, Shinsen and CDF with the PG&E shutoffs and now more fires in the Bay Area. That Glass Fire is fast moving, over 11,000 acres already.

Stay safe !

Cal Fire isn't involved in the fires down here any longer, they are NFS and county operations. Still have a lot of smoke though.
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: California Wildfires

198
I think Shinzen is clear of direct threat from this one, thought I don't know specifically where he lives. I'm clear of it as well. But it is burning toward/into the outskirts of a very heavily populated area of eastern Santa Rosa. The smoke is awful again. But the predicted winds this morning are calm, at least in my hood to the north. Let's hope they can get a handle on this quickly.

Re: California Wildfires

199
We're lucky that all we get is smoke. Today was the first day the air quality (42) let me ride my bike. Dang, I missed it. I have a link to local air quality monitors, so I check to see if it's safe to ride.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Semrush [Bot] and 3 guests