Wildfire Forces 6,000 Residents, Visitors Flee Calif. Town

Fierce, fast-moving wildfire turns on Calif. town, surrounding communities

At least 6,000 people were under mandatory evacuation Wednesday night as a massive wildfire exploded out of control in mountain terrain SW of Palm Springs.

The so-called Mountain fire has already consumed about 20,000 acres and destroyed 15 structures including at least 6 homes.

Mandatory evacuations were issued as a wind shift pushed the massive Mountain fire toward the resort town of Idyllwild.

At least 2,200 homes were evacuated and 4,100 residences including hotels, condominiums and cabins were threatened, said Forest Service spokeswoman Melody Lardner.

Large amounts of smoke and ash from the fire has prompted the authorities to issue a smoke advisory for multiple areas including Hemet, San Jacinto Valley, Banning Pass, Anza and the Coachella Valley.

The blaze is burning in the San Jacinto Mountains about 12 miles from the site of the 2006 Esperanza fire that destroyed 34 homes and five U.S. Forest Service fire crews, AP reported.

Timelapse of “Mountain Fire” near Idyllwild/San Jacinto wilderness

“Mountain Fire” in the San Jacintos destroys homes

Related Links

• Wildfire Clears Thousands in Calif. Town
• 6,000 people under evacuation orders as winds stoke Mountain fire

Right on Track for 2009 Cost of Calif Fires Forecast

Submitted by a CASF Member:

Forest Service Metamorphoses into Fire Service!

Forest Service is diverting hundreds of millions of dollars previously set aside for restoration, land acquisition, improvement, research even fire prevention and safety work to meet the tremendous cost of fighting fires, especially the wildfires in California this year.

Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell told regional foresters that cost of fighting fires could reach $1.6 billion, about half the agency’s 2008 budget.

“All of you are aware of the serious nature of this year’s fire season and the issues faced by the agency in paying for fire suppression costs,” Kimbell wrote in a memo. “At this time the only option for financing the shortfall is to use the agency’s transfer authority.”

Kimbell said, the foresters had to curtail spending on all non-critical items this year and “use prudent cost-saving judgment” in hiring and in approving overtime, but stopped short of mentioning layoffs.

“I recognize that this direction will have a significant effect on agency operations,” Kimbell said in the memo. “However, we must be in a position to protect life and property from wildfire, and do so within the funds available to the agency.

“The agency started transferring money in the middle of August and expects to take a total of $400 million from other areas through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Such transfers have occurred several times since 2000.” AP reported.

However, it has been predicted that the cost of fighting fires could reach $2 billion, and the transfers could top $750 million.

Q. What exactly was your forecast for the cost of California fires in 2009?

A. Err…, what exactly did you say the 2009 Forest Service budget was, and the maximum possible transfers by Kimbell?

Related Links:

• Our Forecast for 2009 California Fires

• California Wildfire Scam Continues
• California Fires: Not Hard to Understand!

• The War on Wildfire
• Telegraph Fire: Day 5
• What Next After The Telegraph Fire?

• Nature Must Be Punished, Look at the Mess in California!
• California ‘Mojavefied’ by 2011?

• Thought for the Day
• Stop Nature! She Is Ruining Our Lifestyles

Stop Nature! She Is Ruining Our Lifestyles

Wildfires are an indispensable tool in Nature’s cycle-of-life toolbox. But … the fires must not be allowed to burn naturally.

If nature can’t provide us with enough rain when we need to put the fires out, or cleanse the air so that the smug doesn’t choke our kids, why should we let her go on?

Having reached the peak of Freudian Assault Against Nature Syndrome, there are only two courses of action available to humanoids:

See Main Entry: Nature Must Be Punished, Look at the Mess California!

Related Links:

• California Inferno Rages On
• The problem is they don’t understand the fires in California!

• Images of the Day: California Fires
• Lightning Safety Awareness Week: June 22-28

• A Few Extreme Events Away

• 2008: Year of the Fire
• Raging Wildfires: Mother Nature ensuring the cycle of life?

• Nature’s Defense Mechanisms

UPDATE #2 – California Fires

California Inferno Rages On

Wildfires are an indispensable tool in Nature’s cycle-of-life toolbox. But … the fires must not be allowed to burn naturally!! Click Here!

What People Said:

• California is reaching a “tipping point.” We need federal help, including military resources, said the mighty Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declared a state-wide drought in June amid two years of low rainfall.

• Humanoids’ ignorance of Nature’s defense mechanisms hasn’t improved in 12,000 years! Take the California’s wildfires, for example. Tackling the wildfires has become strictly a Freudian affair. ~ A Member of Creating A Sustainable Future (CASF).

A firefighter with the Lathrop-Manteca Fire District talks on his radio as a spot fire burns through trees and brush July 10, 2008 in Concow, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

• About 1,300 square miles (3,366 square kilometers), or 0.8 percent of the entire state, an area larger than Rhode Island, has been consumed in California since June 21, said Cal Fire. [The scorched land area is the largest in size in California’s wildfire history.]

• For first time in 30 years, California National Guard lends hand against wildfires, said abc News.

• “I am ordering 2,000 additional California National Guard personnel to boost our firefighting forces,” said Schwarzenegger.

• Burning embers – pinecones and bark chunks as big as baseballs – were thrown a quarter of a mile ahead of the primary wall of flames, creating spot fires. “You can’t see out a quarter mile,” Brown said. “When you find the new fire, it’s already a big fire.” Said SFGate

• “In my district, about 40 more homes were confirmed destroyed and there has been at least one death where a person refused to evacuate,” said Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly.

• “[The California’s fires] are unprecedented in size and number … [State authorities] have essentially exhausted all of their internal resources; eighty percent of all the federal resources are committed to California right now.” Said Glenn Cannon, assistant administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

A mountain bike is one of the few items recognizable at a home in the Camelot subdivision in Concow, Calif. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

• The fires have killed two firefighters, injured 262, consumed 752,944 acres and have costs $325.7 million to fight. The fires threaten about 15,500 homes and structures across California, according to the state and federal fire reports.

• Some 19,704 firefighters and support personnel from 41 states are quenching 322 fires across California, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Cal Fire.

• Mexican and Canadian crews are also helping the US firefighters, said Mark Rey, undersecretary of natural resources and the environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• The Butte blaze threatens 3,800 homes and structures, said Justin Scribner, a spokesman for Cal Fire. “We were trying to conduct a planned burning operation, with crews in place to hold the lines, but the winds picked up, and we weren’t able to stop it.”

• The Butte fire has scorched about 49,000 acres (19,600 hectares), 60 structures, and caused $40.5 million in damages, according to Cal Fire and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

This image of the combined fires was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 10, 2008.

Carbon Dioxide Is a Fire Retardant (!)

• Homeland Security (!) Sec. Michael Chertoff held a conference call with Gov. Schwarzenegger, Sen. Feinstein, a staffer for Sen. Boxer, Interior Sec. Kempthorne and Agriculture Sec. Schafer to discuss California’s needs, said DHS spokeswoman. [She did not specify whether the conference was held in French or in English!]

• It has been decided that to create more CO2, which might help put out the fires, firefighters from Australia, Greece and New Zealand should come to the U.S. </dark humor>

• State officials are trying to get all the fires declared as major disasters, to enable increased access to federal funds, said California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi.

• Forest fires have broken out in nine states, including two in Washington yesterday, which destroyed [thirteen] homes [some were multimillion-dollar homes] in the Spokane Valley [Friday], said Don Smurthwaite, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Numerous major wildfires continued burning Friday in Eastern Washington, prompting Gov. Chris Gregoire to declare a state of emergency for the entire state. That freed equipment, firefighters and funding for efforts to quench the flames.

Fire crews from across Washington were battling blazes in Chelan, Douglas, Stevens, Adams, Ferry, and Spokane counties. With hot and dry conditions statewide, Gregoire said the proclamation ensured any affected area would have sufficient firefighting resources. (Source)

• “It would do us no good to send everything to California and then see fires ignite in three or four other states,” Smurthwaite said.

• So far, about 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares), [an area roughly the size of Connecticut,] have burned in the U.S. this year, exceeding the 10-year average of 2.5 million [by 20 percent,] Smurthwaite said.

• “Hand crews and bulldozers were (in Concow) all night, posted at individual homes” trying to retard the flames, said Joshpae White, an engineer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

• High temperatures and low humidity have hampered efforts by crews trying to contain another fire advance near Carmel Valley, north of Big Sur. said Susan Zornek, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman on loan from Missouri.

• Because this fire season started so early, the firefighting conditions have been among the worst in memory, even among longtime crews, said Terence McHale, policy director for CDF Firefighters of Cal Fire, the union representing the firefighters.

• “We have firefighters who’ve been working nonstop since mid-May, who haven’t seen their families or homes, who are working 24-hour shifts, 21 days on, sometimes putting in 36 hours in the initial attack of a fire,” said McHale said. “It’s an incredible challenge.”

• “You almost feel like somebody is out to get you,” said Nancy Henphill, 61, a Concow resident.

California Must Decide: Life or “Lifestyle?”

Related News Links:

• Calif. National Guard Joins Firefighting Effort
• California Wildfires Force 10,000 to Evacuate Homes
• Calif. Wildfire Forces More Evacuations

Related Links:

• UPDATE #1: California Fires
• Early Halloween

• Images of the Day: California Fires
• Lightning Safety Awareness Week: June 22-28

• A Few Extreme Events Away

• 2008: Year of the Fire
• Raging Wildfires: Mother Nature ensuring the cycle of life?

• Our Forecast for 2009 California Fires [Aug 14, 2008]

UPDATE: California Fires

submitted by a member

15,000 residents of Paradise, California, ordered to leave their homes!

The problem is they don’t understand the fires in California!

Californians Lack a ‘Life Policy’ and Will Pay Dearly!

A firefighter watches over a backfire set in a redwood forest along Pacific Coast Highway 1 during a massive wildfire in Big Sur, California July 6, 2008. REUTERS/ Robert Galbraith. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Up to 15,000 residents of Paradise, California, were ordered to leave their homes on Wednesday as fire threatened to spread into town where it consumed nearly 80 homes in June.

The ‘Butte Lightning Complex’ fire near Paradise, about 140 km north of Sacramento, is one of nearly 350 lightening-started wildfires still burning across California. The Butte fire has consumed about 20,000 hectares since June, destroying as many as 60 structures including 45 residences and now threatens up to 4,000 residences.

In the Big Sur area 2,300 firefighters and volunteers have contained about a quarter of the Basin Complex fire, which has burned up to 40,000 hectares of land along California’s pacific coast. Further south, about a half of the Gap Fire in Goleta, near Santa Barbara, which has consumed about 4,000 hectares, has been contained.

About a quarter of a million hectares of scenic land have been scorched in California in the past two weeks. Meanwhile California temperatures rise in what is considered to be “the first significant heat wave of the summer,” according to the California Independent System Operator.

In October 2007, California Wildfires left eight people dead, burned about 200,000 hectares and consumed 2,000 homes displacing about 700,000 people.

The National Weather Service has issued the following alerts throughout California:

1. Red Flag Warning
2. Excessive heat warning
3. Air Quality Alert
4. Hazardous Weather Outlook

See Also:

• UPDATE #2 – California Fires [July 12, 2008] AND
• Our Forecast for 2009 California Fires [Aug 14, 2008]

• Gov. Schwarzenegger signs 10 wildfire-related bills, 104 others (September 26, 2008)
  

For more information go to: National Weather Service link

This Is NO Way to Deal With California Fires!