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My prayers are going for everyone down there.
I lived just north of Pismo Beach for a few years and we could feel those Santa Ana winds all the way up there…it felt like someone opened the blast door to Hades for sure! >.< I sure hope Lightchick is okay, she’s been having a rough go for some time and this she does not need.
God bless those who have lost homes. My birthmother lives in a moble home park, I cannot imagine what she’d do in a sitch like this.
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what kind of forests are these that are catching on fire? are they pine, spruce, and cedars? are they naturally occuring or arson? im just asking because if they are naturally occuring, its because pines, cedars, and spruces have to have fire to germinate. so they naturally get very very dry every season and drop dry needles to encourage a natural fire to allow the cones to drop and seed. the cones wont open without extreme heat.
why im asking this is if these are evergreen forests that are catching fire, why dont they have CONTROLLED burns? if they started the fire and had control over where it went and how big it got, then it would prevent many tragedies. and the forests wouldnt catch fire naturally. and they would be promoting natural tree growth.
I know that these controlled fires are possible. ive seen them. and im in an environmental degree.
I was just curious
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I think it’s very difficult in California for controlled burns because the weather there for many years has been hotter and drier than it used to be when I was growing up. It’s very easy, especially with those winds, for even a controlled burn to get out of hand.
We have them all the time up here. Sadly, our trees are being attacked by disease and bugs (black spruce beetle) and so there are a lot of dead stumps and branches for fodder every year. Even during the winter, a smoldering ember can live in the moss and undergrowth in our forests and then spark up in the spring. Since we are also allowed to burn yard waste here, inevitably there is some idiot who uses a barrel incorrectly and then before you know it, whole towns are being evacuated.
We live right on the edge of a national forest. One year a massive fire got very close to us. The next year the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see my yard out my window. Every spring I dread hearing the drone of a C 130 overhead. Fire scares the heck out of me.
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I’m way late in this discussion…but I’m throwing my 2cents in!
Firstly, *jabs Markus in the ribs and gives him the stinkeye for forgetting Rachel and I*.
The fires were probably closes to me of the regular posters, but Long Beach is surrounded by coast on one side and city on all others, so I’ll never actually be affected by wildfires in that regard.
There were several fires, one north of LA, and several to the East, which was actually right next to where I grew up, so I was watching the news from my laptop during rehearsal tracking what was burning. And what freeways were being shutdown, because So Cal comes to a screeching hault without its freeways.
I actually had no idea what was going on until Saturday afternoon. In the morning it was crystal clear, brilliant blue skies, and a nice breeze. Unfortunately, that nice breeze is the Santa Ana winds, which is a regular occurence in So Cal. It can by up to 80 miles per hour, and arsonists like to take advantage of them to set the dry brush on fire. Which, I believe, is what happened to the east.
So I finally got to walk out of the dark theatre for lunch at 1pm to a blood red sun, and orange sunlight, and choking smoke. (The Santa Anas blow all the smoke from any wildfires to the coast…ie, toward me). It was raining ash. Terribly sad to think that the grey flakes all over your car are the bits and pieces of others peoples’ torched homes…
And the smoke came in through the vents in the building, and hovered in the air, and you could see the beams of light from the stage lights cutting through the haze…
Thank you all for thinking of me and my BF! He’s a full-time EMT for a very expensive retirement community in San Diego County, and a volunteer firefighter. He’d already taken the weekend off for my birthday (and for my Lizzy-Robbie hysteria), so he was safe at my place.
The big fires last year in San Diego, though, he was in the middle of. One of the biggest, the Witch Fire, actually started in his district, which is very rural (the San Diego Wild Animal Park is in his district, if that means anything to anyone–probably Rachel, if no one else. In fact, one of the funniest calls he told me about was to the Wild Animal Park. The report was a “funny smell coming from the Lion Pen.” !!!!). He was out for 3 days straight. I wouldn’t hear from him for 8 hours at a time. The engine almost got burnt over several times, they lost 50% of the homes in their district, and it SUCKED!!!
I have to share my favorite story from that fire, though.
BF and the others on his engine were doing structure protection of a house. Again, rural area, so this house was surrounded by trees, hills covered in dead grass, and not much else. Structure protection means camping out, trying to keep the house from being burnt down. The house was surrounded by fire on 3 sides. The only side without fire was the driveway. So, in the midst of throwing water at the burning brush around this house, wondering if it was time to give up and abandon the house as lost, BF looks down, and there’s a squirrel in front of him, running around in circles frantically, not knowing where to go, because everything was burning. And BF, in full firefighter gear (yellow pants and jacket, breathing apparatus, helmut and mask–a scary sight even to another human!) walks up to the squirrel, which stops running and stares at him. BF crouches down, and holds his hand out. Squirrel runs UP HIS ARM, and curls up in the crook of his arm. BF walks him down the driveway, and sets him down on the road, with open field to escape into. Squirrel looks up at BF for a second, and then runs off.
OMG how CUTE is that story!!!!???
And they saved the house.
PeppersMamma, out here the fires generally aren’t really forest, they’re brush. Southern California is mostly chaparral, low-lying brush that is almost desert. Of course, there are forests, too. But it’s the dry chaparral that firest really tear through. And controlled burns are hard because there are houses everywhere. And people don’t keep proper brush clearance around their houses. The environment really does want everything to burn down every few years or so…the problem is that there’s too much civilization in the way for that to happen now. And we’re in a drought, too.
I have another great BF-Firefighter story, from yesterday, though! Not fire-related, but still great…
BF was on call at the station yesterday. A resident in his district heard a weird noise in his car, opened the hood, and there was a wild bun stuck there! I guess it was cold, and the engine was warm, but then the rabbit couldn’t get out. And when people don’t know who else to call, they call the fire department. So BF (who has 2 rabbits also), didn’t tell the other firefighters that he knew anything about rabbits (apparently he was afraid of getting ridiculed for having fuzzy-wuzzy-bunnies), but did say he thought he could get the bun out. So he held the rabbit while someone loosened a hose, and then lifted the bunny out, and carried him over to the brush.
The funny part is, the rabbit apparently gave the world’s BIGGEST foot-flick, and BF’s captain, not knowing bunnies at all, thought that meant that the bunny had broken legs or something. So he ordered BF to go dig through the brush to check on the rabbit. And BF, still not wanting to admit to owning fuzzy-wuzzy-bunnies in front of his firefighter friends, had to go crawl through the dirt looking for it! The rabbit apparently gave him the extreme stinkeye, and scampered off.
End of very long story(ies).
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