California wildfires

[Anvilheadtexas]

So help me understand why folks dont have fire proof roofs, clear away anything taller than an inch from around the house? I mean if there is a fire coming cut down any trees that could catch your house on fire. I just dont get it unless folks either dont care, aka insurance money, or are they just that dumb?

I will speak for my good friends that live in Santa Rosa...your post is insensitive, proves you do not have a clue about the immediate situation or the basic understanding of fire science and suggests you might suffer from a low IQ.

[Bill]

Theyre probably oblivious to what they can do to help them selves. California needs to do something to control the fires like control burns .

When a 100' high wall of fire is driven by high winds, it would not have helped.


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[mjhaverkamp]

My best buddy has been evacuated from his home for a week, he actually had to come in early from an elk hunt to get his belongings out. He snuck back in and put sprinklers on the roof of his house and his shop.

[BamaPSE]

When a 100' high wall of fire is driven by high winds, it would not have helped.


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Couldn't agree more Bill! To say that CA isn't doing anything about it is ignorant and unhelpful to say the least. More people need to create a safe environment around their homes, yes, but when there are 50-60mph sustained winds for over 18hrs straight and hundreds of power lines coming down and causing fires, there is only so much that can be done. At that point, a fire is completely unstopable. The fire 10 miles south of us started Sunday night at 11:30pm and by 6:00am it was over 8,000acres.

[MONSTERKEN]

Don't get me wrong, I'm praying for California, but where was all the coverage when Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho was burning up. I have no faith in the media anymore.

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[Hart8]

Looking at the terrain where some of those neighborhoods are,it's a wonder they could even save one house.Prayers sent for all those folks.

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[ladrones]

The U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) issued a detainer request on the Sonoma County Jail for Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, who was arrested Sunday on suspicion of arson in Wine Country fires that have killed at least 40 residents.

[Bill]

I read there was a fire in the mountains south of us. Not a risk. But there was a link to a google map of CA with fires. The map is frightening.



Then I zoomed out to the entire state.




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[Merc]

So help me understand why folks dont have fire proof roofs, clear away anything taller than an inch from around the house? I mean if there is a fire coming cut down any trees that could catch your house on fire. I just dont get it unless folks either dont care, aka insurance money, or are they just that dumb?

Hopefully the picture attaches to show you just how ignorant your statement is. And how exactly you expect people in a neighborhood to clear brush and anything taller than an inch from around their house when in a subdivision.

I grew up just N of there and have 4 friends that lost their homes in this firestorm (they all had to leave with no warning) and more that are on crews working to contain it. Insurance wouldn't pay out on some of the homes lost a few years ago when Middletown burned down if they didn't have brush cleared out far enough from their properties.




To answer this "Don't get me wrong, I'm praying for California, but where was all the coverage when Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho was burning up. I have no faith in the media anymore."
--These fires were in town and major population centers, that is the biggest difference. Unfortunately for coverage it is based on what is going to grab attention, on most people effected. I had friends from Cali wondering why Harvey was getting so much coverage while those fires were basically ignored.

[Bill]

I’ll bet that guy is thinking how lucky he is, while seeing the neighbor’s lives are overturned.

My neighbor was visiting friends in Santa Rosa on Saturday and at the animal park the owner saved the 1,000 animals but lost his house. His friends were a mile from the fire and had burning embers fall from the sky in their yards, which they hosed down. That’s a reason the fire was so destructive, it spread like a cancer.




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[Army of Dad]

When a 100' high wall of fire is driven by high winds, it would not have helped.


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So doing controlled burns during the years prior to this fire season would not have lowered the fuel available to these fires and reduced the chances for a 100' wall of fire?


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[Bill]

I don’t know. Remember how the weather is in CA. It rains between Christmas and Easter. Then it’s dry and all the new grass, weeds, underbrush turn into tinder. Everywhere. On the sides of highways. In the hills and mountains.

After this winter and excess rain, everything grew, then dried up and turned brown.

Add high winds and sparks and this is what happens.


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[Phillip Fields]

So doing controlled burns during the years prior to this fire season would not have lowered the fuel available to these fires and reduced the chances for a 100' wall of fire?


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California does use controlled burns but it is not effective in the chaparral. The following is quoted from a study:

Prescribed burning, intended to remove dead wood and fuel before fire season, does help control fires in Western conifer forests, like the tall giants of Sequoia National Park in Northern California. But chaparral isn't forest. It's a dense carpet of woody shrubs: chamise, ceonothus and other plants that cling to steep canyons and ridges.

"I work in Sequoia National Park, and we've had a prescription burning program for the last 40 years, and it's extremely necessary," Keeley told OurAmazingPlanet. "In most of Southern California, it is completely irrelevant. There is overwhelming evidence we've never come anywhere close to excluding fire on this landscape," through prescribed burns, he said.

In Southern California, 29 years of prescribed burns had no effect on reducing the area burned by future fires, a 2012 study Keeley co-authored found. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

"It's wrongheaded to think there's just one fire story out there," Keeley said. "There's lots of fire stories. There's what's going on in forests, and what's going on in chaparral landscapes, and they're very different in terms of how to solve them."

[Army of Dad]

California does use controlled burns but it is not effective in the chaparral. The following is quoted from a study:



Prescribed burning, intended to remove dead wood and fuel before fire season, does help control fires in Western conifer forests, like the tall giants of Sequoia National Park in Northern California. But chaparral isn't forest. It's a dense carpet of woody shrubs: chamise, ceonothus and other plants that cling to steep canyons and ridges.



"I work in Sequoia National Park, and we've had a prescription burning program for the last 40 years, and it's extremely necessary," Keeley told OurAmazingPlanet. "In most of Southern California, it is completely irrelevant. There is overwhelming evidence we've never come anywhere close to excluding fire on this landscape," through prescribed burns, he said.



In Southern California, 29 years of prescribed burns had no effect on reducing the area burned by future fires, a 2012 study Keeley co-authored found. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Management.



"It's wrongheaded to think there's just one fire story out there," Keeley said. "There's lots of fire stories. There's what's going on in forests, and what's going on in chaparral landscapes, and they're very different in terms of how to solve them."

Thanks, I hadn't realized the difference.


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[150class]

Heard today that just about the entire Napa Valley is burnt along with all the winery's?