Wildfires and environmental obstructionism
Update 5:20pm Eastern. The Blame Bush brigade blows its hot air.
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Photo via The Gulbransens
Nearly 300,000 Southern California residents have now been evacuated as wildfires spread across the region:
Thousands more residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday, bringing the number of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames that have engulfed Southern California to at least 270,000.
The dozen wildfires have burned more than 700 homes and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday’s forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts.
The blazes bedeviled firefighters as walls of flame whipped from mountain passes to the edges of the state’s celebrated coastline, spreading so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters for evacuees had to be evacuated.
Wanda Tomkinson, 79, fled the Doubletree hotel in Del Mar with her husband and their Boston Terrier after employees called each room to tell customers they had to leave. The couple, carrying medication, clothes, tax records and a dog bowl, said they were relying on a family friend to take them in.
If not, Tomkinson added, “the Lord’ll take care of us.”
As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger, more fearsome ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, some gusting to 70 mph.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling up the National Guard and asking for military support. President Bush has declared a state of emergency.
We’ve been here before and we’ve been warned that these disasters will continue. Just last month, experts were calling on Congress to expedite forest thinning and other forest managment alternatives:
Wildfires thrive in hot, dry weather. But the conditions also contribute to the die-off of trees, which must compete for water in forests that have become unnaturally dense because of a century of misguided fire suppression. Once dead and brittle, the trees become more fuel for catastrophic fires.
The panelists testified that more resources are needed to keep up with necessary tree thinning and removal campaigns. One witness, University of Arizona Professor Thomas Swetnam, said even that won’t be enough to reverse the trend.
“I don’t think we can thin our way out of this,” Swetnam said.
He said more prominent use of intentionally set fires to mimic naturally occurring blazes has certain risks, but is less costly than mechanical thinning with hand crews and chainsaws.
Environmentalists blame global warming for the problem, but guess who’s standing in the way of a solution?
The GAO examined 762 U.S. Forest Service (USFS) proposals to thin forests and prevent fires during the past two years. According to the study, slightly more than half the proposals were not subject to third-party appeal. Of those proposals subject to appeal, third parties challenged 59 percent.
Appeals were filed most often by anti-logging groups, including the Sierra Club, Alliance for Wild Rockies, and Forest Conservation Council. According to the GAO, 84 interest groups filed more than 400 appeals of Forest Service proposals. The appeals delayed efforts to treat 900,000 acres of forests and cost the federal government millions of dollars to address.
Forest Service officials estimate they spend nearly half their time, and $250 million each year, preparing for the appeals and procedural challenges launched by activists.
“The report demonstrates that the appeals needlessly delay federal efforts to prevent wildfires, and if the process is not streamlined, millions of acres will be lost this summer,” said Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico).
“The American people will no longer tolerate management by wildfire,” Domenici added.
“This finding is nothing short of appalling, especially when you think of the catastrophic losses suffered in last year’s [2002] horrific fire season alone,” said House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-California).
“These were not only losses of forest, endangered species, and wildlife habitat, they were losses of human life and family property,” Pombo said.
Same old, same old. Lawsuits have tied up the president’s Healthy Forests Initiative passed in 2003.
Prediction: Look to the Bush-bashing Left and the nutroots Democrats to mimic the Kossacks and blame the wildfires on the Iraq war–even as the environuts continue to litigate while the West burns.
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More:
N.Z. Bear has set up a helpful page of wildfire web and blog resources.
Mark Jackson blogs the view from Oceanside.
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- Good Morning Ashes « Mark’s Soap Box
- OpenMarket.org » Thousands Flee California Fires Fostered by Red Tape and Lawsuits
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits
Ed Driscoll
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Nothing new here the biggest threat to the Western US are the environmentalist. My wife is from Central Oregon and every time we travel through the Blue Mountains you can see stacks of dead undergrowth and diseased dead trees (beetle infestation). All it takes is a lighting strike and the whole forest will go up. The enviro-facist will not allow the Forest Department or Bureau of Land Management to take care of these issues. The town she grew up in had 5 lumber mills cut down to one due to a mutated barn owl suddenly becoming an endangered species. Logging roads are no longer maintained which greatly limits the ability of fire fighters to get to wild fires, but also limits sportsmans access to hunting and fishing areas. Environmentalist have shown themselves to be part of the problem not part of the solution.
Too bad it takes another wild fire to wake folks up to the dangers of rabid environMENTALism.
Wow, this whole situation is just awful. That picture is horrifying.
Why can’t they come up with some sort of fireproof home shield that they can put over their houses in cases of forest fires like this? Maybe a big roll of fire resistant material that they can put over a house to protect it from encroaching fire? That seems like a primitive solution, but isn’t that basically what firefighters do on a small scale if they become surrounded by fire?
A little bit of material could save a lot of property damage. Maybe I should invent the fire resistant tarp for homes in fire prone areas.
My brother lives in San Diego and has his car packed up ready to go. Right now, he’s not in any immediate danger but he barely escaped the Cedar Fire a few years ago which until now was the worst in SD County history.
As for forrest thinning, you might recall what happened when Yellowstone nearly burned to the ground a few years ago thanks to this same Sierra Club attitude that every tree is precious and can’t be touched. Well now we’ve got a bona fide catastrophe waiting to happen here and unless they get some relief, it’s going to be hell for those homeowners.
My husband I were discussing this, I am from Montana. Montana has wildfires every year, they know they are going to be fighting them. I remember when during the Clinton years, the Secretary of the Interior, decide to have a “Let It Burn” policy, my husband has photos of Yellowstone from the Air, he was in an Airplane. Yellowstone suffered from this policy.
Every year California knows this is coming but does nothing about the fuel on the ground in the forest…why, it isn’t politically correct. If the forestry or the local timber company could come in and take care of the forest, they could limit these fires. They can’t because the Timber Companys are labeled BAD! Better to let the fire happen, then take pre emptive action? It looks that way. Conservationism- Stewardship is not the samething as Enviormentalism- Enviorment must be kept pristine, humans shouldn’t touch. Which is difficult because we have to live in the Enviorment, it is difficult not to touch it. Then we see the mudslides because the trees and foliage holding the earth in place are gone because of fires. We see the incidences of wild cats, attacking bicyle riders and hikers. The Cat’s territory is burned out and they are following their prey..which has moved into the populated areas where humans are dwelling (The deer are browsers, their food source is gone with the fires) This isn’t rocket science, I grew up learning about Stewardship and Conservationism. California’s short sighted Enviormental policies..you reap what you sow.
Arrowhead Fires
This link has some other aspects via the incident reports on the page some looting (read for yourself I’ll wait to pass judgement) hit refresh it is updated frequently. Bad news on the old home front.
I wonder what the carbon footprint for this fire is going to be? I know that’s a heartless statement (my thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this who nothing but victims of the enviromentalists whack jobs), but I think it’s about time that these idiots sit down and do a cost-benefit analysis of their stupid policies.
You’d think after the massive fires in AZ and CO a few years back they would have learned their lesson. But then again, libs don’t learn from their mistakes, they just reguritate the same errors next time around.
My in laws live in Colorado, they call those folks Envioronuts. Nature good, Humans bad.
I seem to recall some discussion regarding the fires earlier this year in Reno that there were local covenants that prevented people from brush clearing near their homes. There was some conversation I saw with a resident there who saved his home by ignoring the clearing prohibitions.
It would not surprise me if there were local ordinances in CA that restrict a property owners ability to remove deadfall and other fuel that fires thrive on.
I also recall that part of the discussion on the Yellowstone fires was actually critical of the periodiuc suppression efforts. Nothing clears up the earth like a fire, and if smaller fires were allowed to burn from time to time, it would prevent a few small fires from becoming a massive and uncontrollable conflaguration.
Of courrse, such measures would impose a temporary shortage of trees to hug, and we cannot have that, now.
Here’s another link for Video from LA News,
kcal
This might give you more info Rick on your brothers area.
I don’t think thinning forests in New Mexico would have done anything for Malibu. The areas that are burning seem to be largely residential, where the residents nurture trees for their beauty and shade. This kind of tree loving crosses party lines. The estates of rich conservatives have as many eucalyptus trees as those of rich liberals, don’t they?
Living among the trees in an area prone to fire is like living on the beach in an area prone to storms and erosion. You should understand the risks and not blame Democrats when the inevitable happens.
One of the things that bothers me most about this is not the fire, nor even the environmentalists stopping controlled burns and forest management, bad as they are, but what happens now – those same environmentalists will be all over the airwaves, blaming the poor homeowners for living there in the first place.
They won’t have any sympathy for all the displaced people who have lost everything:
The mantra will now be “they never should have been living there in the first place!” But don’t ask them to feel even the slightest bit of sympathy for folks like the Tompkinsons. THAT’s what really gets my goat(to be polite).
LGM, as usual you’re playing the part of the troll so well. Conservatives don’t blame political parties when bad things happen. That’s what the democraps do, not Republicans.
I do not think that the level of destruction these particular wildfires can be blamed entirely on policy. The extreme groups that sue solely for the purpose of blocking any and all cutting of trees are blinded by their extremist positions to realize the millions of dollars that are being diverted from actually helping the environment they are trying to “protect”. This does not take into account the millions of trees that have been burned due to their “advocacy” to save all trees.
That being said, living in forested areas requires shared responsibility between the government and the homeowner. I had a cabin in Lake Tahoe and immediatly after buying it, invested time and money to protect my home.
You will see many homes charred and one still standing because the owners took the necessary measures to protect their homes
- Create a 25 foot defensive clearing around your property. It is amazing to see how so many who live in wooded areas do not follow this simple but most effective preventive action
- Fireproof your roof I kept the wood shingles but treated the wood with a fireproof glazing and applied a new coat every spring
- When there is a fire in your area protect your home until ordered to evacuate.
I survived a fire that gutted nearly all of the homes in our area by following these and other prudent preventive steps.
Jim M,
It is the timber industry who keeps up the logging roads if you are out in the middle of no where because you want to commune with nature, which I think is a beautiful thing…there are somethings to take into consideration..when the fires start, people who fight the fires need to be able to get in and fight them. Now Missoula, Montana has a premier school for Smoke Jumpers..but not everybody who fights fires, can jump in. The idea that the way to take care of the Enviorment is to not touch the Enviorment, is ignoring all kinds of needs of the people…who are living out in the woods and elsewhere. Does their Government just scarifice these folks and their homes? I know where my in laws live, (BlackForest) they have lower insurance rates because of their relation to the nearest Fire Station. There are just so many things to take into consideration when making enviormental policy. Fires in the West are not a new phenom, why can’t there be a better solution to address human beings needs?
Where in any of these posts did anyone blame democrats? Environmental extremists, yes. And I doubt even the democrats have a strong desire to count these people among their ranks.
As for forrest thinning, you might recall what happened when Yellowstone
While Rome burned Nero played his lyre. While California burns the nutroots litigate.
Satan thy name is tree hugger.
OT-
Space shuttle launching in 3 minutes.
NASA
We tried and tried to have something done about the beetle kill in Colorado. Nope, the Sierra Club ruined all chances for prevention of a huge forest fire.
The HAYMAN FIRE, in Colorado a few years ago, burned down my house. My baby grand piano, my organ, over 3000 books, scores of paintings, scores of antiques and EVERYTHING important from my dad’s side of the family…letters, pictures, medals, etc….ALL GONE.
I also lost two cabins in the same fire.
All that remains is a twisted blackened brass bed, and a scarred landscape.
Since the fire we’ve had horrendous flooding from the fact there is nothing to stop the rain water now…promised seeding did not happen.
You take your life into your own hands if you just walk around up there…’widow makers’, a term sometimes used for burnt yet still standing trees, can fall at any moment and they do NOT make even a whisper until they hit ground, or the top of your head. Picnics are still not an option.
I lost the most precious material items I ever had. Heirlooms, memories, all from bad planning and the malcontents at the Sierra Club. OH, and one vengeful woman, a federal forestry officer (Terry Barton), for the forest service who started the fire…it was arson.
I WAS a volunteer fire fighter for that region. I’m not now.
.
Five firemen died fighting the Hayman fire: Zach Zigich, Retah Shirley, Jacob Martindale, Danial Rama, and Bart Bailey.
Thanks ajmontana!
I thought this was insightful, taken for the latest FOXnews.com article on the fires in CA:
“Wanda Tomkinson, 79, fled the Doubletree hotel in Del Mar with her husband and their Boston Terrier after employees called each room to tell customers they had to leave. The couple, carrying medication, clothes, tax records and a dog bowl, said they were relying on a family friend to take them in.”
Dear God, not the tax records! Whatever you do, don’t forget the tax records!!!
This is what we’ve been reduced to…making sure we can still substantiate ourselves next tax season…sad.
I live in Boulder, CO and can most definitely see the same things happening here. As another member noted, the evil Pine Beetle has decimated huge tracts of trees throughout Colorado. On a recent drive to Breckenridge and Winterpark I saw brown, dead trees for as far as the eye could see. Of course, interspersed among them were countless homes and properties. All this standing timber is a huge liability. Not that a good burn doesn’t rejuvenate the soil, but considering that no one is addressing this proactively, I can only see a worsening situation. Feckless, limp-wristed, girleyman forestry service!
thanks aj, that was cool
meatpieandtatters,
more like the tree huggers need to stop smoking so much of their “medical” marijuana to see what idiots they really are!
Medical marijuana doesnt come in those pesky hard to open bottles does it? That would drive me crazy.
OT-
Great Shuttle Launch, watched it in high def. WOW! Glad you enjoyed it
These fires are occurring/starting in areas surrounded by dry, brittle brush known as chapparal. These canyons and hills are tinderboxes. All you need is a combo of hot and dry weather, high winds, and the slightest spark and kaboom!
Once the fires get going, even in the “greener” areas it’s a danger because nothing is going to stop flying embers.
I’m okay where I’m at but it’s still unnerving. Work has been closed for two days.
19# Shooter,
I remember, I am so sorry for your loss. God Bless Fire Fighters. They run and jump in, when everyone else is running out.
I suggest that everyone who has lost their home due to these fires, sue the Sierra Club et al, tort, joint and several liability.
Hit them in the pocket book.
And after the first time, get their donor lists and sue them too. After the first suit, the donors should have known if their organizations were creating a fire hazard, and thus share liability.
I hope everyone makes it out safe with their families. Worry about litigating later.
It is California after all….its a given.
The government has been ignoring brush overgrowth for far longer than most can imagine. My father, a Department of the Interior employee and wildlife specialist, wrote to the government as part of his job in 1952 about the problem of overgrown forests. He proposed then minor burns that would destroy the undergrowth but not the trees and was ignored.
And lgm, ever the troll eh!
Yeah Feebs,
Theres about ten thousand Lawyers for every house that burned down. Not including the Internet Lawyers here.
Let me predict the Bush-Bashers argument. It’s rather simple.
First you start with the premise that it’s Bush’s fault. No proof needed.
Then you search the nut-roots data bank for an issue to blame they can all agree on. In this case Global Warming.
Then you extrapolate from that that because Bush wouldn’t sign on to the Kyoto treaty, he’s responsible for Global Warming. You see, if he would have signed it, the earth would have cooled. You following me?
Why, in their minds, didn’t he sign Kyoto?
He didn’t sign Kyoto because of his buddies in “Big Oil.” Which brings them to Iraq.
Big Oil + Iraq War = War for Oil, which equals more burning of fossil fuels, which equals more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which equals Global Warming, which equals forest fires, which equals California ablaze. And it’s all Bush’s fault too.
So you see, if Bush would have only signed onto the Kyoto treaty, California wouldn’t be on fire right now. Nearly 300,000 Southern California residents wouldn’t have to been evacuated and the world would love us.
There’s only one problem with that logic, if you even call it that. The earth, in the last 100 years has warmed exactly point seven (.7) tenths of a degree.
So by that logic California wouldn’t be ablaze right now if instead of it being, oh…let’s say, 100 degree temperatures, it would be 99.3 degree temperatures. And we all know you can’t burn dead and brittle trees and brush unless it’s 100 degrees.
And just think, I had to get a smog check on my car Saturday (tags need renewed so I have to pay an extra $50 to make sure I’m not polluting lovely SO. Cal) Good thing I got that done (passed by the way) or else I don’t know if we would be able to breathe today.
Oh, It’s all Bush’s fault too.
Santa Annas not a new phenom. This article is from NC., so the word is out.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/09/news/top_stories/10806183909.txt
I do wonder the history of these winds, this article on wikipedia doesn’t mention when the phenom and the name for the winds was coined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_wind
On October 23rd, 2007 at 12:19 pm, Azygos said:
LGM Doesn’t know Malibu. Especially if they think there are conservatives there. ROTFLMAO. You’ll find more conservatives at the DNC Convention than in Malibu. Now San Diego will have conservatives.
But it’s all Bush’s fault. Like I posted yesterday the liberal nuts will claim that we can’t fight the fires because the gaurd is fighting in Iraq.
John Ansell,
The Govenator pulled Nat. Gaurd troops from the Border to assist. Sooooo guess what that means since it was announced on Nat. TV.
AJ, I have know doubt who’s doing the looting.
Me either.
Just like when environmentalists whine and cry about global warming – then do EVERYTHING in their power to block the construction of alternative energy sites.
They are hypocrites who only care about their self-righteous egos. Not the environment.
Quick reply:
MM (perhaps implicitly) blamed environmentalists for the fires. Glen Beck cheered that “America haters” were losing their homes. But hey, this is not wilderness and hippies. We’re talking about San Diego (among other places). Republican country. Home of Duke Cunningham.
I got evacuated from work yesterday, and I am off today, because of these wildfires. The two fires in the area where I was working were cutting off the only ways out, and today you cant even get in.
We get the Santa Ana’s every year, and every year we have wild fires. This is nothing new. It just make things worse when they happen at the same time. From what I saw on the news last night, some of these fires are blamed on arson.
“appalling”
Enough said…
LarryD has an excellent idea. If wildfires erupt in areas where Sierra Club, Calypso Society, ad nauseum, sue to prevent land maintenance, sue their socks off when personal property is destroyed. Good Lord knows they have millions of bucks to pay their lawyers. Should only take 2 or 3 cases to get their attention.
Quiglag, the one in San Diego is the one I heard that is being blamed as arson.
Republican/Democrat/Conservative/Liberal – no one should lose their home.
I’ll wait for the flames to go out and then jump in when the blame game does begin.
PS. I hope all the family pets make it out safe, Amen.
Oh no, feebs, the liberals are going to read this and somehow work the Frost’s into the discussion.
Seriously, I agree. No one should have to endure this, especially if it is preventable.
#49 – OK, I, feebie, of no assumed power, athority…or clout…
do hereby state – NO FROST DISCUSSION ALLOWED ON THIS THREAD!!!!
Thanks 30!
Thanks for injecting ignorance into the discussion lgm. Hope your house never burns.
There are many issues here, and you all have done a good job touching on them. San Diego county encourages clearing brush away from homes. When I grew up there people planted something we called “iceplant” in canyons near housing developments. It was a thick, very wet plant that didn’t burn easily, and helped prevent fires from racing up the sides of the canyon toward the ridge (can take mere seconds).
In Arrowhead and Colorado (among many other places) the forrests need controlled burns as has been mentioned by posters above. Even the tree-hugging environmental-science departments in Universities are teaching that now, but the “huggers” haven’t gotten the message yet.
For those who think “they shouldn’t live there”, the north part of San Diego county isn’t some environmental hellhole that neocons are trying to wrest from nature. It’s like saying “they shouldn’t live there” about Arlington, Texas or Kirkland, Washington.
Sorry for the “Echo”, most of you know all this anyway.
As a native San Diegan it saddens me to see this. To have the fringe tying up half the Forrest Service budget on litigation is outrageous at best.
- not like it will help (flinch)….
Having lived in Glendale CA most of my life, you realize that the Santa Anna winds aided fires take place every year at this time. What’s different is that millionaires continue to build luxurious homes in the most prone canyon areas. I empathize with anyone who incurs the disruption of having their home burned, I wish they would consider the potential for loss before building.
You are absolutely correct, Michelle. The Sierra club had an article on forest mismanagement that also stated that the government created this situation by not allowing natural forest-thinning fires to occur.
However, extended warm seasons due to global warming were also mentioned as a cause of these new megafifes on 60 Minutes, by a firefighter and by a scientist who had examined tree rings on very old trees – from which it was very apparent to him that warming has occurred.
The environmentalists are also threatening Georgia. The drought is an unusual event, but the EPA bureaucrats are still pumping water down the drain to preserve some mussel. The problem with environmentalism is that it is the religion of the secular progressives, and, as such, is sacred.
Al Gore’s propaganda film, his Nobel prize, and the situation in California and much of the Southeast, are connected by the environmental movement. You might also want to add that the cost of energy is also directly related to the actions of these folks.
Michelle, if you want to be a real, honest to goodness, evenhanded journalist about this, you would also acknowledge the fact that San Diego County is chronically undermanned when it comes to firefighters. Some have said this is because San Diegans don’t want to pay the taxes necessary to get them. But you know what? I don’t want to argue about it.
Why? Because, now isn’t the time to stoke partisan bitterness and start blaming people. I know, I’m sure there are loudmouths on the left sounding off too – I guess when you’re in the middle of it, politics look really petty.
If I sound a little annoyed, it’s because a family close to mine lost their house in the fires yesterday. They vote Republican 99% of the time btw. Go figure, a dem family and a repub family being close friends. Yes, it’s possible! Anyway, my best goes out to fellow southlanders affected by this disaster.
Sorry mnmike, not saying you’re wrong, but when Ranch Bernardo was built, homes were $35,000. I checked an address for a burned house yesterday, the house is now valued at about $650,000. In San Diego, that’s not a “luxurious” home for millionaires. Rancho Santa Fe which was threatened yesterday (not sure today) is (basically) an enclave for the well-off, but has been around since the 1920s. All of Southern California is prone to fire. Glendale is buffered by, well, other parts of Glendale.
Sorry, but this is not a class-warfare issue.
Glen Beck cheered that “America haters” were losing their homes.
Since when did firefighters and tree-ring counters become experts on global warming?
#59, when they found out there is goinng to be big money in the scam. I’m thinking about becoming an expert in the field myself. Licking my finger and sticking it in the air as we type.
Tree rings are a not very reliable climate proxy.
If you go back far enough, you will see a warming trend alright. Look up Little Ice Age.
If I thought you had an open mind on global warming, I would respond. If you do, there is plenty of information available about what one can determine from tree rings and from examination of high-risk areas by experienced firefighters.
But you are determined to believe global warming cannot occur, or that it is impossible that humankind is contributing significantly to it.
A few years ago I was dragging out a piece of attractive dead wood from the San Bernardino Nat. Forest (about 50 miles from LA)and was stopped by a ranger asking if I had a permit. I asked where I could obtain one (there was a NFS station about 1 mi. away)and was told that I had to go to downtown LA and pay $5. $5 is nothing, but I wasn’t going to drive 50 mi. for a permit. I tried to do my part by removing some dead wood fuel, but the bureaucrats were there to “protect” the forest. What would we do without Big Brother to protect us?
Yep, their just after the big money. Just ask Tom Boatner, Chief of Fire Operations for the BLM, the man whose expertise you question. Just take the proper equipment and some water when you go ask, because it is probably hot where he is today.
and……..”Licking my finger and sticking it in” sounds appropriate for you!
#62 – I couldn’t make heads or tails of tree rings and their silent story telling on global warming.
What I can tell you is that I find it to be a self centered observation that us humans can come to the conclusion that we are a significant contributor to global warming…since the earth has been around how many years? And we have been here…how many? I mean really,…who do we think we ARE!?
I believe if nothing else, scientists have proved over and over again the earths climate has experienced many peaks and lows during its existence, which was happening well before we arrived.
Now, I am not saying there is not CRAP in the air, and pollution since the industrial revolution et, al ….but us being a “significant contributor” to global warming…sorry, I don’t by it.
It was said in jest scooter. I’m in So. Cal and have friends in trouble. I don’t question the fire fighters. Please play again.
And Scooter, I did my part Saturday. I got my smog check that the enviro’s forced me to get. So, air quality around Los Angeles is going to be just fine. I can tell by the ashes I’m breathing.
Laree said:
thx Laree.
It’s been amazingly difficult.
The feds wouldn’t allow the locals to fight the fire until they had a grasp on the situation….and they never did. They were lost and we knew where to go yet they stopped us from getting w/in three miles.
I could have saved my house.
#56
Perhaps like Sean Hannity recently claimed for himself, Michelle should come right out and say she is not a jounalist, and is more appropriately described as a “conservative commentator”.
Which just means you get to say anything “inflammatory” (haha) you want with impunity.
Yep you know me so well. And no, I don’t think a fireman knows much about global warming. I wasn’t aware that what the last 100 years has shown us to be less than 1 degree change in the climate can lead to anything visible that a fireman can pick up, led alone determine that what he sees is somehow caused by this warming. Causation are correlation are two entirely different things, so I’m not going to put much stock in anecdotal fireman stories.
But I do trust peer reviewed scientific journals, such as PNAS, which say that tree rings are a lousy indicator or warming,
I lived in Santa Monica (1987-1999)and in 1993 recall that some of the lobbyists battling the Forest Service/LAFD represented Malibu residents who thought the planned burns would be a nuisance (smoke, charred landscape).
You’d think “long time residents” would remember that, but the current nouveau riche celeb/residents were probably waiting on tables back then.
That recollection has made me pretty jaded about the tri-annual Malibu disaster stories about rich people losing “everything”. Next up — devastating So Cal mudslides. Coming in January: winter storms washing away shorefront homes. Again.
#71, ya beat me to it. I was just going to type about the upcoming mudslides and houses being red flagged.
I’m one of the evacuees in San Diego, specifically from the Rancho Bernardo area. I’m safe at my mom’s house in another part of San Diego.
I’m finding the relative lack of national attention to this disturbing. Fox news is showing celebrity murders, CNN is talking about parts of the state with little population… meanwhile, San Diego is suffering damage that will easily be worse than Katrina.
The 3rd largest city in the 6th largest economy in the WORLD is essentially shut down… amazing.
News reports say parts of the fires are near the Mexican border. But I don’t see Mexico jumping in to help, even while we feed, clothe, employee, educate and provide healthcare for 12 million of their citizens here illegally. Yes, I’m bitter.
#74
Can anyone say non-sequitur?
To Captain Howdy, post #56, I’m with you. Politics have nothing to do with the cause, prevention or containment of these fires. It is a fact of nature, and a human occurrence.
Putting a “blame the environmentalists” spin on it, or an end times doom and gloom doesn’t help matters. Some of the posts here are so ignorant and unhelpful, I’ll just bypass. I live here.
Rick Moran, I saw your brother on TV last night… is Terry the one who lives in S.D.? Was his home threatened also?
We had record low rainfall in SoCal this past season. Then, add an extra long Summer and, after months of dryness (the hillsides are all brown), bring the in the Santa Ana “devil winds” and that is a sure recipe for brush fires. That is the nature of the terrain plus the climate, which we have experienced many times.
The response is also an example of the good that government can do. Heroic efforts abound and we pray without ceasing for our firefighters and all whose lives have been thrown into turmoil, who have suffered loss, in this catastrophe which is ongoing.
MUCH has been done in the way of management and prevention… we have (bipartisanly) learned over the years. But the wind is a force that supersedes all. We need the wind to die down, change direction and we will start seeing some containment.
Thank you. I posted this over at LGF, I kind of needed to vent a bit.
Well lets just say that it has been an exciting week. Friday night I was rear-ended whilst driving home, ended up with five staples in my noggin. I didn’t get out of the emergency room until 3am Saturday morning. When I woke up Sunday morning the shy was ugly dull brown. Smoke from the Witch’s fire along with strong winds and an enormous amount of ash was every.
Now this whole event wouldn’t be so bad except that we had something similar happen in Oct 2003, it was called the Cedars fire. The Cedars fire burned down one of my brothers houses and his wifes sisters house. I am a more or less retired Musician. I have been so every since 1996, when the Bass player and the Drummer in my band “Dorian Grey” both died within a few months of each other.
Bill, the bass player was killed in a hit and run accident, someone had stolen a car and was fleeing police pursuit. Brett was killed in a gang related shootout, he was walking out of a liqueur store when rival gangs started shooting at each other, he was an innocent bystander.
While this in and of itself was pretty bad it was not as bad as the situation eventually got. In the space of the next 6 months another 9 people who I knew died, including my step-father. 1996 was to say the very least a very bad year for me.
I quite playing publicly and for the next 4 years pretty much quite coming out of my house. In 2000 one of my brothers talked me into moving from East San Diego up to Ramona. Ramona is a pretty small rural town of only 36,000. Another of my brother’s “Cliff” decided that it was time for me to get back into music so he built a recording Studio for me in his house.
In 2003 when the Cedars fire burned Cliffs house down, we were about half way through recording what would have been my next CD. Needless to say the studio, all my equipment and all of my recordings burned down with his house.
Sitting here this afternoon watching the smoke and hearing all the fire trucks and police cars drive by with their sirens blaring has been a bit discerning to say the least.
DrErich I’m with you. The national news media can be lazy I think. It’s much easier for them to get a chopper to Malibu to have a peek at the stars’ homes than to seriously cover a huge disaster unfolding. Reverse 911 calls (amzing in itself) went to a quarter of a million homes. At two people per home that’s a half a million people evacuated. Hospitals and nursing homes were evacuated with school buses. Several towns are in danger of completely disappearing. And the media is probably wondering if Paris finds the smoke annoying. And strangely, some posters here are ho-humming about the whole thing.
For perspective, San Diego county is the size of Connecticut. If Connecticut was on fire, it would be bigger news…
If a guy steals a car it’s wall-to-wall coverage hoping for the crash.
Glad you’re safe.
I can say #69. I can say pot & kettle. I can say ad hominem. I can say Troll. But, no, I can’t say non-sequitur.
This is a post of mine from HotAir…
To LC, #21, the couple brought their tax records with them to prove ownership of the home they fled.
Of course we can blame environmentalists if they are standing in the way of proper forest management, which it appears they are.
And if you go a few thousand years ago, it was tropical forests in the Sahara…(as I’ve said before)
Heat then cold over and over again, again.
#82, blame is irrelevant at this moment, and it is being cast inaccurately. You do not live in southern California. I have lived here all my life.
Wait until this is over, do your research and then get back to us.
As they say, “been there, done that” – I lived for many years in San Diego – one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and I still have friends who live/d in El Cajon and Santee. There is absolutely no question of blame right now – the important thing is putting the fire out before it can do more damage. The headlines this morning said zero containment. THEN we can watch the finger-pointing. Odds are probably ten or more of these fires are copycats. If they could be caught, then they should be sent to the front lines of the fire, just to see what they’ve caused.
#82
You’re being fed some big ol’ hunks of red meat (opportunistically, I might add), and you’re eating it up.
Isn’t that called the blame game? I thought we don’t play that.
Yeah, heaven forbid we get answers as to what would cause something like this as soon as possible so we can prevent this from happening again.
#87
How about concentrating on saving some people’s lives and their worldly goods first, rather than jump to the oh so easy “enviro-wackos did it” card. It’s just so pointless, epsecially when even posters here from the area are crying foul.
Thank the Clinton Administration for two terms of pandering to the dialing-for-dollars enviroNazi money machine. (They have it down to an art form.)
The Berkeley/Oakland fire back in the 90s cleared some heads about fire prevention and dead fuel management. The death and property loss silenced the barn owl and beetle mouse crowd pretty well. Methinks this debacle in San Diego and the rest of Socal will do the same.
There is alot of pain around all of these moon bat chickens that are coming home to roost. Let’s hope we have the stones to litigate these turd piles back into the stone age- and prosecute them for political misuse of their 501 c 3 status. The fundraising they do isn’t philanthropy- it is the use of fear tactics predicated on an anti-Republican premise targeting Dhimmicrats to give them money.
Tragedy might change voters/donors minds one blaze at a time. But at what cost.
Keep fighting on all fronts. If we want a sea change in this country we must take it back from unelected entities that are setting policies of disaster.
Global warming? PUHLEEEEZ! “One degree of temperature change causes trees to explode? Are you kidding me?”
-Glenn Beck, today’s broadcast on WTRB 860, San Francisco
Not being in SoCal, no matter how hard I concentrate on saving people’s lives and worldly possessions from the fire, I don’t think it’s going to help.
I hope that the people who are in charge of saving people’s lives and possessions are doing just that. However, for the rest of us, especially those with policy interests, getting to the bottom of what precipiated this event is all we can do.
Personally, I rather not wait 3 months to find out how we can prevent this, espcially since we’re not out of fire season yet.
All right you nutbags……time to do something positive.
Monetary donations are needed. Donations may be made through the Red Cross web site, at http://www.redcross.org, or by calling (800) RED-CROSS.
Any donations made to the American Red Cross in support of San Diego fire recovery efforts should be made payable to “American Red Cross San Diego Fire,”
This ensures the money will be used for local fire recovery efforts only……(not to the Sierra Club who some posters think started the fires. Not as one poster thinks, Mexico who hasn’t helped fight the fires (because Hunter put up a fence), and not democrats, gays or illegal immigrants who some posters blame for everything else.
Come on, take the time and write a check.