California fires

Karen-W said:
From what I have read about the fire, I don't think there was really enough time - not just to evacuate but to even realize just how badly this fire was going to blow up. The initial fire was spotted around 6:45am - first tweet from @CALFIRE_ButteCo came at 6:51am when it was 10 acres and spreading (not uncommon). The first evacuation, for the town nearest the fire, Pulga, came at 7:23am from the Butte County Sheriff. The next tweet was at 8:02am, when it had grown to 1000 acres, and a minute later they called for the eastern portion of Paradise to evacuate. At 8:41am, the tweet evacuating most of central Paradise came through, with it being expanded 10 minutes later.

By then, most people were probably already at work, so there wasn't time to go home and grab any personal belongings or pets. And, given that one of the main roads heading south and out of danger was already under evacuation orders, I'm not sure how much traffic was being allowed out in that direction, but was instead being funneled down 2-3 other roads that headed south and southwest away from the fire zone. As it was, some of the burning embers still managed to fly in the wind and cross a major highway southwest of Paradise and just south of Chico, though thankfully, the fire was contained just on the west side of the highway.

My friend who made it out with her grandmother posted on her FB at 10:53am that they had made it out safely. By that point most of Paradise as well as the town just to the north of it, Magalia, had been evacuated - looking at the evacuation zone maps, the only parts of Paradise not under evacuation orders at that point were the far southwestern, outlying parts of town. At 11:15am, @CALFIRE_ButteCo tweeted that the fire had grown to 5000 acres, and at 1:02pm, it was 8000 acres. The last part of Paradise to be evacuated occurred at 1:36pm.

To be honest, it is a minor miracle that the winds died down last Thursday night and Friday, otherwise it is quite possible that portions of Chico would have burned as well. This fire is not unlike the Tubbs fire that swept through Santa Rosa and the other ones that affected the Napa and Sonoma valleys last year. I will say, having lived in the West my entire life and having a brother who worked for the National Forest Service as a firefighter during the summer of 1994 (a very bad year - most infamous for the 9 Hot Shot firefighters who died in Colorado), that people who live in these mountain communities are very aware of the persistent fire danger and do take the necessary precautions. I'm just not sure, with the number of people living in that area, as well as the lack of proper line maintenance by PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric), the inability of the Department of the Interior to correctly manage our forests (and before anyone attempts to politicize this to blame Trump - these forest mismanagement policies have been going on since at least the mid-80s thanks to lawsuits from groups like the Sierra Club), the refusal of the state, county and local governments to enact appropriate, fire-resistant building codes, etc that we can realistically expect a different outcome than the one Paradise had. I kind of just shake my head and thank God I don't live in California anymore and pray that the same issues with big-city Democrats taking over the state legislature down there don't have the same impact on our forest management practices here in Oregon.

To follow up, I did find this article, from the San Jose Mercury News that is pretty disturbing regarding the evacuation alerts, on so many levels - https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11...phone-alerts-to-evacuate-or-to-warn-of-fires/
Click to expand...
Brilliant analysis. Thank you.
 
To follow up with more articles about the suspected causes of both the Camp and Woolsey Fires - this is a very interesting article from NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/6674...BVB3PqSqaTbaZ6WXjmjlLvA-fat6W7UreS-MuaeH7wrXI

It is absolutely irresponsible and inexcusable that neither PG&E or SCE were willing to cut off the power running through those transmission lines.

Here is another good article, from the LA Times, discussing the evacuation alerts and the rationale the county officials had in using a phased evacuation plan instead of a mass evacuation of the entire city.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-paradise-fire-evacuations-20181114-story.html

I think the only real fault that I, personally, can find, with the local authorities is the choice to not use the Wireless Emergency Alert system instead of the opt-in mass-phone call alert system for the evacuations. I know many people joked around about it when the nationwide test was conducted a few months ago but it certainly seems to be a far more reliable system than the one the officials in Paradise and Butte County were relying upon.

But, again, I keep coming back to the sheer extremity of this fire's behavior and consider it nothing short of miraculous that about 40,000 people (combined populations of Paradise, Magalia and surrounding communities) were able to get out of harm's way as quickly as they did. What scares me isn't necessarily that people are now living with year-round fire danger (though that is VERY scary) but that so many more people are living in these fire-prone areas.
 
Karen-W said:
To follow up with more articles about the suspected causes of both the Camp and Woolsey Fires - this is a very interesting article from NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/6674...BVB3PqSqaTbaZ6WXjmjlLvA-fat6W7UreS-MuaeH7wrXI

It is absolutely irresponsible and inexcusable that neither PG&E or SCE were willing to cut off the power running through those transmission lines.

Here is another good article, from the LA Times, discussing the evacuation alerts and the rationale the county officials had in using a phased evacuation plan instead of a mass evacuation of the entire city.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-paradise-fire-evacuations-20181114-story.html

I think the only real fault that I, personally, can find, with the local authorities is the choice to not use the Wireless Emergency Alert system instead of the opt-in mass-phone call alert system for the evacuations. I know many people joked around about it when the nationwide test was conducted a few months ago but it certainly seems to be a far more reliable system than the one the officials in Paradise and Butte County were relying upon.

But, again, I keep coming back to the sheer extremity of this fire's behavior and consider it nothing short of miraculous that about 40,000 people (combined populations of Paradise, Magalia and surrounding communities) were able to get out of harm's way as quickly as they did. What scares me isn't necessarily that people are now living with year-round fire danger (though that is VERY scary) but that so many more people are living in these fire-prone areas.
Click to expand...
A couple of comments. PG&E did cut power in some areas. My friend who has a ranch in Napa had her power shut off.

There are some things to consider when cutting power.
Just off the top of my head
1. How will people know to evacuate....no tv, no radio, cell phones dying, etc.
2. Some people have health equipment that runs on electricity.
3. It is pitch black in your home.....difficult especially for the elderly to move around, grab a few things and get out.

In PG&E's defense, they can't just cut off power where the "think" there is a problem. Cal Fire has to verify, on the ground, where the flares are, and which way the fire is spreading.

Karen - the time line you posted above really sums it up.
I don't think there was really enough time - not just to evacuate but to even realize just how badly this fire was going to blow up. The initial fire was spotted around 6:45am - first tweet from @CALFIRE_ButteCo came at 6:51am when it was 10 acres and spreading (not uncommon). The first evacuation, for the town nearest the fire, Pulga, came at 7:23am from the Butte County Sheriff. The next tweet was at 8:02am, when it had grown to 1000 acres, and a minute later they called for the eastern portion of Paradise to evacuate. At 8:41am, the tweet evacuating most of central Paradise came through, with it being expanded 10 minutes later.
Click to expand...

It is pretty easy to sit back and look at how the fire actually did spread, and analyze what measure coulda/shoulda been taken. (I mean no disrespect)

I evacuated because of fire 3 times in Malibu because of fire (twice in Spain, but that is a different story all together).

One fire was in a small tract home development surrounded on three sides by by hills. I got my kids and my neighbors kids from school (which was no small feat given the confusion) and passed my husband on the way in as I was going out. I told him I though we had lost everything. He went back into the canyon, and with a small hose got on the roof of our home and put out embers as they landed. The wind was so horrible that as the burst passed over it felt like the pull of 100 jet engines. That part was short. And, our house and a few others were saved because people were brave enough and smart (or stupid) enough to put the embers out as they landed. It takes a bit for the embers to actually catch something on fire.

In another house, on several hillside acres, we were 400 feet down our driveway to our house. We had purchased 700 feet of fire hose. The fire department was VERY HAPPY to have it and use it. As with the first fire, some houses were spared, and others totally burned.

Cal Fire was criticized for not putting all their efforts into saving individual homes..............however they said (and rightfully so) they had to spend their efforts on trying to keep the fire contained....not in keeping individual homes safe.

Hopefully after this Californians will be able to shift their priorities from saving dead "live oaks" (they are considered sacred) and obscure fish, and clearing brush and creating water reservoirs to making the environment as safe as possible for the people who live here.

BTW - do you know how much our PGE, PG&EIX & SCE bills would increase if they actually hired enough people, bought enough equipment, etc to actually secure the wires? I am more than willing to pay more, but the general uproar would be heard across the purple mountains majesty and fruited plains!
Completely agree about the ALERT system. Who thought opt in was a good idea, after the last set of fires?
 
@Karen-W and @AxelAnnie, this is some kind of information you two posted. I am not sure we are all hearing it here on the east coast, please keep linking things you read to us here. Thanks.

59 gone, 300 still missing, and many many homeless--some with nowhere to go. It's mind boggling.
 
Last edited:
Wide spread school closings tomorrow. The air is going to be worse for a few days. Trump is coming to visit the people of Paradise. Hopefully he will make up for his earlier ill timed tweet.
I hope lookie looks don't decide they should go "see the sights". I hate when people do that. Stay away. They don't need any extra cars or people. There is a place near here that is a drop off for clothes, toys, shoes,blankets...and the stuff will be caravanned and delivered to a distribution center near Paradise.

I would think there is something similar in SoCal. I am sure this will alter people's Thanksgiving plans.

What a mess!

And, of course there will be horrible floods, especially in SoCal. The fire strips the hill sides of the shrubs that hold the hold and direct the water. The fires leave the hillsides slick and hard...........the water just takes off and then you have killer mudslides.

California Taps War-Zone DNA Specialists
(Reuters) - Paradise looked like a war zone when authorities decided to turn to a team of combat-trained DNA specialists to quickly identify human remains believed to be in the charred ruins left after a wildfire incinerated the northern California town.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
The smoke here in the San Francisco Bay Area is terrible. All 4 of the schools my kids attend (2 colleges, high school, and middle school) has been cancelled because of the air quality. My eyes get dry and itchy the moment I step outside.

Now Trump is coming to California. That’s going to be interesting.
 
WildRose said:
Fatalities are now up to 63 with 631 reported missing.

Survivors are apparently living in tents in make shift camps. The air quality is horrible. Are there no shelters available yet for these folks? Where is FEMA?
Click to expand...

I have seen videos from friends on FB of temporary tent camps in the Chico Wal-Mart parking lot and other locations in the area. All of the usual sites they use for shelters are full and lots of community organizations have opened up makeshift shelters on their own. Remember, this isn't a few hundred or even a few thousand people but instead 27-30k who have suddenly lost everything.

I haven't done a lot of reading up on why FEMA doesn't have RVs and trailers available for the evacuees yet. I hesitate to just slam FEMA for the apparent lack of response. I know Trump's tweet on Saturday riled a lot of people up but... Here's another critical piece of information - Gov. Brown didn't actually ASK for federal aid until Sunday. Trump approved the request on Monday. FEMA can't actually do anything until the state makes the request and the President approves it. People often forget that when we see disasters unfold and a slow response from FEMA - sometimes the politicians are trying to score points and really don't give a crap about anything but ramping up the rhetoric rather than doing the job we've elected them to do.

So, FEMA has had 3 days and while I'm sure that FEMA has contracts with RV and trailer manufacturers to provide this sort of temporary housing when natural disasters strike in other parts of the country (mostly the Midwest with their tornadoes and the southeast with their hurricanes), I'm not certain how easy it is to just get that equipment out to California all that quickly. Even if you drive 24-7, it's still a 2 day drive, and that's an awful lot of RVs and trailers that can't haul themselves without drivers. So, keep in mind that just because you are seeing these videos of tent camps doesn't mean that FEMA isn't doing everything in its power to get these victims into more weather-proof and comfortable facilities as quickly as it can.
 
jamesy said:
Trump? Haven't we suffered enough? :(
Click to expand...
Trump cannot win. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. I hope his visit brings attention and peace, compassion and hope to even a few.

Shoot I lost most of my post...and it was really imformative.

The logistics of getting those trailers in is mind boggling. This is not flat Nike New Orleans
I can't imagine how and where they wound hook up thousands of trailers to electricity, water and sewage.
 
Last edited:
AxelAnnie said:
And, of course there will be horrible floods, especially in SoCal. The fire strips the hill sides of the shrubs that hold the hold and direct the water. The fires leave the hillsides slick and hard...........the water just takes off and then you have killer mudslides.
Click to expand...

That's one of the biggest concerns I have for when the winter rains do come. The hillsides are just going to be nothing but big piles of dirt that turn into mud. Even if your house survived the fire, you better hope there is still vegetation on the hillsides, otherwise, it could very easily be destroyed in a mudslide when you get some rain.
 
AxelAnnie said:
Trump cannot win. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. I hope his visit brings attention and peace, compassion and hope to even a few.
Click to expand...

Preach. In the last 15 years, disaster response from the federal government has become just another weapon of the political machine. It does not matter whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Trump, the other side of the aisle is going to find a way to slam your administration's lack of immediate response. Granted, FEMA deserved to be slammed for their atrocious response to Katrina, but I think they've very much taken the lessons learned from that disaster to heart and do a much better job of responding to natural disasters now than they did 13 years ago. A lot of what we see and read is just political static meant to elicit predictable responses from each party's base.
 
AxelAnnie said:
Trump cannot win. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Click to expand...

Trump can win. In the case of this crisis, he could have focused on showing compassion, rather than attributing blame.

Of course, that was never going to happen because Trump is woefully lacking in compassion. Not to mention, he's a stupid man with a flagrant disregard for the media and for the 'facts' (which are 'fake news' if they fail to suit his agenda.

[QUOTE I hope his visit brings attention and peace, compassion and hope to even a few. [/QUOTE]

I don't know how welcome he's going to be in California.

Hopefully he won't be handing out rolls of paper towels, this time.
 
Karen-W said:
I just found this fascinating article from UC Berkeley, with satellite images of the fire, just four hours after it started. The last picture in particular, showing the winds and how the fire was leapfrogging ahead, shows just how lucky Chico was to be spared.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/11/15/new-satellite-view-of-camp-fire-as-it-burned-through-paradise/
Click to expand...

Thankyou for the information. It answered all of my questions and confirmed what I suspected had happened.

May Mother Nature bring the firefighters calm, still, cool days ahead for you.
 
Japanfan said:
I don't know how welcome he's going to be in California.

Hopefully he won't be handing out rolls of paper towels, this time.
Click to expand...

Without going too far into politics, Trump's appeal really depends on which part of California we are talking about - there are still a few conservative parts of the state. I haven't checked recent election results but Butte County (like most of the rural/mountain West) tends to skew that direction, so it wouldn't surprise me if he is welcomed by many in the area. Same would be true if this fire had ravaged parts of Orange or San Diego counties.
 
Japanfan said:
Sorry, forget for a moment.

Also, I'd advise you to not make comments on Trump 'winning/not winning' or the like. . . .it's bound to elicit opinions that may verge on the political.

:)
Click to expand...

Again, without straying too far into the political - there is a lot of nuance that anti-Trumpers fail to understand in the appeal of Trump, especially to folks who live in the rural/mountain West. This particular fire, as well as the Carr Fire in Redding this past summer, can provide you with an opportunity to perhaps understand some of the very real, impactful reasons why when you look at a map of the Congressional districts that went red both in 2016 and this year also, folks in those areas vote the way they do. There is a very real feeling, and it's existed for as long as I can remember, that the legislators in Sacramento have little concern or use for them apart from the natural resources in their parts of the state (Shasta Dam, Oroville Dam, etc). I urge you to read up on movements like the State of Jefferson and the decades-old movement to split California as a state into 2-3 (or more) states. Urban California is NOT the same as rural California, even if far fewer people live in rural California as a proportion of the state's population than even twenty years ago.
 
Japanfan said:
Sorry, forget for a moment.

Also, I'd advise you to not make comments on Trump 'winning/not winning' or the like. . . .it's bound to elicit opinions that may verge on the political.

:)
Click to expand...
Fair enough! Thank you for the course correction.

I cannot find the link to what I read about how the air flows in Northern California, and why the smoke is stuck here.

Basically, there are only two small outlets for the smoky air, once it is blown down here, to get out.....The Golden Gate Bridge opening, and Point Reyes. The amount of smoky air being blown down is vastly greater than the amount that can escape through those two small openings.....hence, it is stuck here..

California air blocks out the sun
The smoke is so thick “it prevents the sunlight from reaching the surface,” said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento. “It prevents surface heating.”
Click to expand...

Ah ha! That is why I am freezing, and it is 39 degrees here.
 
Last edited:
WildRose said:
It’s horrifying. The numbers just keep getting worse. Fatalities are now at 71 and the missing is now over a thousand at 1011 ?
Click to expand...

That's higher than the latest news I saw. This is a huge tragedy. :(

AxelAnnie said:
I cannot find the link to what I read about how the air flows in Northern California, and why the smoke is stuck here.

Basically, there are only two small outlets for the smoky air, once it is blown down here, to get out.....The Golden Gate Bridge opening, and Point Reyes. The amount of smoky air being blown down is vastly greater than the amount that can escape through those two small openings.....hence, it is stuck here..
Click to expand...

We had a similar situation due to wild fires in British Columbia last summer. You couldn't see the sky for the haze and the smell of smoke was strong.

We haven't had a crisis of Paradise proportions here yet, but I fear that the operative word here is 'yet'. :(
 
I hope & pray that these victims have better luck with FEMA than my sister had after a hurricane damaged the roof of her home in Florida several years ago.

Despite having all her paperwork submitted correctly, they kept denying her help without giving her an explanation as to why. They kept saying they didn't know why she was denied so, "please just resubmit the paperwork". She even appealed to her congressman (a republican) who gave her the same runaround.

After 2 years of this b.s., she gave up & I gave her the money for a new roof.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

Sylvia
Dabney Coleman, Actor from '9 to 5' and 'Tootsie,' who specialized in curmudgeons, has died at 92
Replies
2
Views
1K
Spikefan
Spikefan
MacMadame
Western US is on fire - the 2020 Version
3 4 5
Replies
145
Views
15K
Vash01
V
V
California fires 2019
Replies
26
Views
3K
AxelAnnie
AxelAnnie
AxelAnnie
Southern California Fires - 2019 - Pray for them
Replies
4
Views
1K
Peaches LaTour
Peaches LaTour
TAHbKA
Bagriantseva's interview with Kvitelashvili
Replies
25
Views
7K
airgelaal
airgelaal
Back
Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information