I'm seeing clouds with rain potential down my way too (North Park area). Definitely a good thing.
And the firefighters are happy.
Cool.
I've been in fire threatened areas before, but I wasn't in this one, and I'm uncomfortable discussing it when just a spectator. Risk of saying the wrong thing and someone in a pup-tent and a laptop ripping my head off.
Hope you get *enough* rain.
Natalie
... but not *Too* much... With the grasses and other ground cover burned off, there's nothing to prevent massive erosion and mudslides.
"K2" "Wickeddoll" ...
Troo, dat.
I never understood buying property (at ridiculous prices) in California, in areas that are well-known for catastrophes.
*shrug*Natalie
"Jeff Strickland" ...
Yeah, that's what I meant in an earlier post. Only the super-rich can afford Malibu property, but they buy it, knowing it's primed for mudslides every bloody year.
Wildfires are not nearly as predictable (especially with arson as the source) as mudslides.
Hey, whatever; it's their money.
Natalie
Show me a region that has no natural disasters and I'll show you a shitty place to live.
"badlands420" ...
I've lived in Phoenix, Colorado, Texas, (raised in) Florida, Washington DC, New Hampshire, as well as the California desert. The only "shitty" place I've ever lived was DC. All of the others were quite nice.
No *yearly* disasters that I can remember.
Natalie
I didn't have any arson fires bearing down on my house this week.
Who said there are yearly disasters here?
"Jeff Strickland" ...
Actually, I meant the mudslides
Natalie
Seems that every year the California forests are ablaze. The winds/dryness?
Natalie
"Jeff Strickland" ...
Which is my original point - mudslides seem to be pretty prevalent in coastal California.
Natalie
A forest fire in and of itself is not a natural disaster. It's a perfectly natural and necessary part of the life cycle.
Please cite a source for this statement. According to the figures I've seen, we're talking about two fires out of 20 and 60,000 acres out of 600,000.
Last Saturday, I was in Yosemite and drove by the smoldering remnants of a controlled burn set by the park service. Fires are set all the time in the national parks by rangers because they are an important part of the life cycle and to keep the fuels down so that when a natural fire hits, it doesn't do that much damage.
They probably should set controlled burns in chaparral area but the public stink if one of those were to get away and cause property damage, a lot a careers would be ruined.
The causes for this, in no particular order:
Lightning strikes, arson, electrical mishaps, illegal alien encampments, careless campers, careless smokers, and refuse burns.
All are exacerbated by the Santa Ana winds, prevalent from October through December. Arsonists know this and usually practice their perversion during these winds.
It's nothing new. While growing up in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, the Santa Ana winds always caused trouble. Sometimes the winds themselves started the fires by downing power lines in the same areas burned by an arsonist. Santiago, Modjeska, and Silverado Canyons were always hit the worst back in the '60s due to their remote location and under-equipped volunteer fire departments. Things have gotten better but the weather hasn't changed a bit during these wretched conditions.
Not /all/ of them, just the more densely overgrown areas.
One of the big problems is the environmentalists don't want to allow prescribed and controlled burns, and controlled logging of the forested areas to thin out the fuel loads.
And if a fire does start, even if the conditions are right to let it go and clear out a wilderness area the environmentalists still want the fire stomped out ASAP.
Meaning that there are areas with an extreme fuel load, and when they get going they KEEP going.
And don't forget careless workers who make sparks or open flames. Welding, construction, roofing, fence companies putting up steel highway guardrails, etc.
And they never seem to have any sort of fire extinguishers or water sources handy - if you jump on it fast you can put out a starting brush fire with a 12 gallon water tank and 12V Pump (the Dobbins sprayer kit from Harbor Freight) IF you have it there in the back of your truck filled and ready to go.
This time about half the fires are natural or undetermined, and half arson or man-started, either accidental (power lines down) or gross stupidity (workers).
And some of those remote areas are still driving 1950's pumpers... Check today's Los Angeles Times on the Big Jim Volunteer Fire Dept. - "Gertrude" is still going strong, but their "new" truck (1977) is having problems.
If it ain't broke... ;-)
We're getting trace amounts of rain - most likely under a half inch total over the next two days, in the scattered areas where it actually hits the ground. A lot of it is Virga, rain that shows up on radar but evaporates before it hits the ground. But the onshore wind (and the remnants of a Pacific storm) still drops temperatures and raises humidity, which helps the firefighters.
The wind changes 180-degrees, and the fire burns back on itself and runs out of fuel. Still have to wait for all the snags and hot spots to go out or get put out, but it reduces the danger tremendously.
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