Dozens of fires burning across West

[WhiteTara]

Worst season in 50 years!
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14815236/

I live in northern California and the air has been filled with smoke for about one month. One fire to the north of us is expected to burn 30,000 acres before it burns itself out. The fire fighters left it to burn because it is remote and doesn't endanger homes. (F*ck the wildlife, they don't count :sarcasm:)

CASTAIC, Calif. - The 14,000 firefighters battling dozens of blazes across the West on Wednesday were expecting another hot, windy day before a cold front might provide relief to some areas.

The National Interagency Fire Center early Wednesday reported 162 new fires over the last day, three of them large blazes that added to the 43 pre-existing large, uncontained fires across the West.

Some 8.7 million acres have burned so far this fire season, nearly double the 10-year average and the worst season in 50 years. The blackened 13,521 square miles represents an area bigger than Maryland.
snip
The fire, which was sparked on Labor Day by someone burning debris in a remote area, has burned 24,943 acres and was 25 percent contained. It was burning in the Los Padres National Forest and the adjoining Angeles National Forest.
snip
“A building high pressure ridge will bring warmer and drier weather to most of the West through mid-week,” it said in an advisory Wednesday. “Strong winds are expected Wednesday and Thursday over much of the northwest quarter of the country ahead of a strong low pressure system. The weather system will bring widespread rain and mountain snow to most of the Northwest, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming on Thursday through Sunday.”


Mother Earth, Your's is the power to destroy, to heal, to give birth.

[slackmaster]

1. Still FAR less than San Diego County lost in 2003

Worst season in 50 years!

That comment is debatable.

[WhiteTara]

3. that was a terrible fire!

My friend's grandfather almost died in it, but by some miracle, she reached him in time and was able to get him out of the canyon where he lived.

[slackmaster]

6. I personally know FOUR families that lost their homes

It was devastating.

[fed-up]

2. The bombers fly directly over my house on their way to a fire south of me

The air here in Chico, CA has been murky brown for the last few months.

Luckily the 5 fires in my canyon have all been hit hard and fast and been put out rather quickly. The closest ones have been just a few miles away, which is VERY close when living in an oak, dry grass covered steep canyon.

No wonder no one is looking to buy my house....

I will be very glad when the rains come, hopefully the cool weather on Friday will help the firefighters.

[pitohui]

4. some wildlife needs fire to produce the right habitat

you commented -- The fire fighters left it to burn because it is remote and doesn't endanger homes. (F*ck the wildlife, they don't count


i won't claim to know much if anything about nocal but i will only mention that down here in louisiana, before the settlement by humans, i'm told there were fires "the size of the entire state"

our native longleaf pine can't sprout or grow w.out fire, hence it has been almost entirely replaced by junk pines

a few years back i was taken to a test field that had been deliberately set on fire 2 or 3 years earlier -- the entire meadow was a carpet of parrot wing and other large, dramatic pitcher plants that you just don't see any more -- this in addition to the baby longleaf pines that were sprouting

so depending on the circumstance allowing the remote field to burn can be the right thing to do, it may be the only way to preserve our native plants

unfortunately in socal, and perhaps most notoriously in the terrible fires of 2003, then the eucalyptus trees are tolerated and even protected, even though they are foreign invaders -- and these trees are not only sprouted by fire they have special gums to act as fire accelerants -- thus this is why fires even in a remote area of socal are so terrible and destructive to wildlife

i do not know if this be the case in nocal

if you do, let me know, i'm quite interested to learn more

the san diego fires were just terrifying to tell you the truth, some houses were going up like they'd been fired-bombed, like scripps ranch, these eucalyptus trees are really nature's fire bombs it looked like to me

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

5. Wildfires are a natural mechanism

The wildlife is in no danger- they know far more about self-preservation during a fire than man will ever figure out.