Year: 2007
Current Santiago Fire Information
Posted on October 25, 2007 in Santiago Fire
The U.S. Forest Service has taken over.
Danger to Itself and Its People
Posted on October 25, 2007 in Disasters
There’s no time for finger-pointing after the fires or — is there? The biggest tragedy of the 2007 fires is that the most devastating of them covered territory which was burned over in 2003. The Witch and Harris Fires repeated the cardinal mistakes of the previous fires in San Diego County and it all comes down to this: people in San Diego County don’t want to pay the costs of protecting themselves.
It’s not about planes: it’s about having the basic fire equipment stationed around the county. It’s about not building in areas susceptible to wildfire if you’re not going to tax the people enough. It’s about listening to your experts and following their lead in planning.
When it comes to not paying the price, there’s no one like the Republicans in San Diego County. And for the rest of us who do pay the taxes to ensure that we have adequate fire protection, they’re costing us money. If they were Democrats, there’s no doubt that you’d hear them called dead-beats. I am just going to say “How about getting on the wagon of community responsiveness? How about taking steps to ensure that you are better prepared before you give into the greed of developers who aren’t going to ensure that their unplanned communities are adequately covered?
I live in a Republican county, too. Unlike San Diego, we had enough fire crews and fire engines on hand to keep the Santiago Fire out of our structures (knock-knock). It was close — damned close — but we paid the cost over the course of several years.
Others saw the writing on the wall when San Diego voters turned down a hotel tax to help pay for better fire protection in 2003. If they do it again, the rest of us are in a position like family members of the mentally ill who must keep watching while their loved one keeps not taking his medication and ending up locked up. When is San Diego County going to tough it out like the rest of us? Maybe it is time to require mandatory levels of fire protection throughout the state, especially in urban areas. Or start putting large tracts of San Diego County into open space districts so that city and county planners in cahoots with developers can’t put new generations of citizens at risk.
San Diego — city and county — is a danger to itself and others. When a person is like that, you have a case to put them away.
Citizens of San Diego, I am pointing at you.
White Out
Posted on October 25, 2007 in Santiago Fire
The smoke plume from the fire is farther away and we’re getting the fallout heavier than we had when it was only half a mile away. The sky is whited out. Couldn’t meet with my student today because the library was closed. For many public agencies this is the worst part of the fire. Even communities like San Juan Capistrano which are miles from the blazes are shutting down their schools because of the smoke. I’m keeping to the condo and running the air filter.
UPDATE: The Santiago Fire is about to become a problem for Riverside County. I suspect that the OCFA is going to continue to lend support. Keep your fingers crossed for Jane, her husband, and her pig.
UPDATE: As before, you can follow the continuing progress of the fire at the OC Register. The Riverside Press Enterprise hasn’t figured out that they are going to be threatened by “our” fire, but here’s their fire watch page. It should be busy with news of the Santiago Fire soon.
UPDATE: You can keep track of our weather here. The current conditions are listed as SMOKE.
Back to Boring
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Santiago Fire
The smell of burnt chamise, sage, and buckwheat is strong, the smoke thick, but the flames have marched to the east where they have forced the evacuation of our local juvenile delinquents. The fire’s gone into the backcountry — on federal land where it will probably burn through its life until rain or contrary winds extinguish it. The adventure seems to be over.
Most of my immediate neighbors disappeared. They drew out in the first voluntary evacuation leaving a few of us who did not panic at the ashfall and the sight of orange flames in the night. Now it is time to clean up the mess. I have a pair of plastic chairs that the wind blew beneath our deck to fetch and ash to spray off the stairs.
I’ll see what there is to see of the burnt out lands tomorrow or whenever they allow me into Whiting.
There’s an Orange Moon Out Tonight
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Santiago Fire Weather
I left Portola Hills for the first time since Sunday. I stayed put mostly because we had heard conflicting reports about whether or not they would let us come back. Some said that once you were out, you were out. Others said you could get back in with an ID.
Tonight they merely redirected traffic off El Toro and up Glenn Ranch. They were dismantling the temporary helicopter pad on the Concourse Park lawn — pulling in the hoses, etc. A few people still continued to watch, evidentally in the hope that the whirlybird would take off one last time and disappear into the sunset. By the time we came back, it was gone and the crowd had dissipated.
I only got a passing glimpse at some of the incinerated areas. If I can get into Whiting Ranch, I’ll take some pictures of the devastation. But it won’t surprise me if it is closed.
We went to Rubio’s, a Baja-Californian venue where we had lobster burritos. The air smelled of a thousand barbecues and there was an orange moon out. After we finished dinner, we went to Ralph’s where we picked up a few inessentials. A fellow in line ahead of me was desperate for a cigarette. I wanted to say to him “What do you need that for? All you need to do is go outside and inhale.” But to tell the truth it would not have been nearly as fun because there was no way to blow smoke rings.
This map from Weather Channel has me mystified. It is saying that rain is falling and falling hard. No, I checked the previous doppler scans. You can see the storm forming, just a little bit off the coast of San Diego and in the Santa Monica Mountains. These patches get rapidly large — in the course of an hour until you see the following result. We’re listening hard, wondering where the shower is.
UPDATE: Weather Channel says that we’re in the middle of a downpour but we don’t see it. Wonder what is causing the false positive?
Forest Thinning, not Lumbering
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Conservation Disasters
There have been a lot of people coming to this blog for no other purpose, it seems, than to blame the Sierra Club for the current wildfires. All of them cite nebulous statistics or just make a “It’s got to be so because I don’t like environmentalists” statement of one kind or another. In the absence of facts, one might want to read what the Sierra Club itself has to say. The article shows that the Sierra Club isn’t against forest thinning but against lumbering that is pretending to be forest-thinning. It also proposes that we simply not build in areas prone to wildfire. There’s a big difference, bubbies.
The legacy of industrial logging has left many unhealthy young stands with far too many trees per acre, and nearly a century of fire suppression has left many forests unnaturally dense and prone to catastrophic fires. How can we get these forests back into a more natural condition?
Unfortunately the laws of economics make it difficult to restore the landscape to a more fire-resistant condition with more large trees. To carry out commercial logging, a landowner is required to prepare a Timber Harvest Plan (THP). If the purpose of the logging, however, is just to thin out smaller trees to create a more fire-safe forest, the cost of preparing the plan would far outstrip the value of the timber revenues. We need a new way to encourage the type of thinning that would enhance the condition of the stand and protect the environment.
Check the article for the method.
Layers and Lines
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Santiago Fire
Click on the thumbnail for a topo map diagramming the flow of the fire as I could see it.
Key:
- Yellow: Monday
- Green: Tuesday morning
- Blue: Tuesday Midday
- Purple: Tuesday Evening
- Black: Wednesday
- Red & White: Key Locations
Surrounded by Black, Barren Land
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
Brian Kane gave me a link and said that I am writing “from the center of the Inferno.” That’s not a bad description. The fire has burned two thirds to three quarters of the way around Portola Hills. Right now, I can see four plumes of smoke: three appear to be in Modjeska/Santiago Canyon and the fourth is clearly burning north of Live Oak Canyon. I might create a topo map later so you can get a rough idea of what has been happening. But for now, more photographs.
The focus of the neighborhood parties has shifted from the overlooks back to Concourse Park where fire crews are servicing a helicopter doing water drops:
UPDATE: An LA Times report on the backfires in Live Oak Canyon.
UPDATE: Feinstein suggests we stop building in fire areas, that we use zoning laws to keep people out. She’s got a point. A large chunk of the homes lost in the San Diego fire were in areas burned out by the 2003 fire. You can talk all you want about planes and fancy stuff, but what are we doing letting people eat up the public dollar by putting themselves at risk, repeatedly?
UPDATE: There’s the strange, beige light all around (see first photograph) that signals smoke in the sky. It’s a good sign because clear skies on the day of a fire mean that the winds are kicking up.
The Heat Goes On
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
The area which I photographed today. Note the pink streak on the hills near the housing development: this is residue from the flame retardant.
There’s a teensy weensy helicopter flying across the foothills here. Now that the air is still, they’ve been making bucket drops, drawing on local reservoirs. This is a good sign: the winds have died down enough so the choppers can fly. No sign of the C-130s that were here yesterday. Probably are needed elsewhere.
The fire has moved down canyon. The burnt over area to the right is the backfire that they set yesterday afternoon.
Firemen relaxing at Cook’s Corner, the neighborhood’s infamous biker bar. There’s not a lot to do while the fire is burning in the backcountry.
Boring is good, a therapist of mine told me once. And today things are turning boring but hot. The fires plus La Nina have given us a particularly fierce Indian Summer.
I walked to the place where everyone partied yesterday. People came in briefly and left, seeing that nothing much was happening near Santiago Heights save for a single, stubborn fumarole in the ravine behind the development. The fire had denuded the hills and eaten its way east across the hills towards the mouth of Trabuco Canyon and Holy Jim.
Folks took the day off work to watch and unpack their cars. One fellow told me about how a refugee had packed up his car to flee and then been robbed.
No word about who did this, though the news said there was an arrest in San Bernardino County. Radio pointed out that the usual perpetrators of this kind of blaze were people who wanted themselves to be firemen but had been rejected for physical or psychological reasons. So there’s another blow to the terrorism theory.
The one phrase I am not hearing anywhere is “global climate change”. This was made possible by an unusually dry winter. I’d like to see some discussions about how climate is causing this and whether we can expect to see more of this kind of thing.
AHnold is touring the evacuation facility at El Toro High School as I write this.
UPDATE: The LA Times printed this:
Officials were searching for an arsonist responsible for the Santiago fire. In San Bernardino County, a suspected arsonist was shot and killed by police Tuesday night. The shooting was under investigation, but the man was spotted in a brushy area behind Cal State San Bernardino, officials said. After a vehicle pursuit on a dirt road, the man rammed a police car before being fired on by officers, officials said. “There was no reason for him to be back there,” said Lt. Scott Patterson of the San Bernardino Police Department.
Where There’s a Blaze There’s a Bush
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Disasters
Here’s the grim news about how this came to be:
On Tuesday, the Senate’s leading Democrat — Harry Reid of Nevada — said the administration has for years shortchanged funding for prevention efforts to remove the dead trees and shrubbery that provide the fuel for the fast moving blazes….
Reid suggested that the administration failed to heed the lessons of the 2003 wildfires that destroyed some of the same areas of San Diego County that are burning again.
After those fires, Congress authorized up to $760 million a year for “fuel reduction” efforts to clear away dead trees and other combustible material. But only about two-thirds of that — about $500 million — has been provided through the annual budgetary negotiations between the White House and Congress, congressional aides said.
“We have fought for years during this Bush administration to have money for wildfire suppression,” Reid said. “It takes effort to prepare the landscape so that these fires don’t burn the way they have been….That’s what wildfire suppression legislation and [federal] money is all about.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.), who chairs a key funding subcommittee, said, “There is no question that fuel reduction has been under-funded. … In virtually every session, we’ve had to fight for additional money … and I’m prepared to fight again.”
Feinstein also told the Senate that the disaster will be a critical test for FEMA. The biggest challenge could well come after the fires are put out, when the agency will steer residents and business owners to federal programs that can help them rebuild.
While [Jerry] Lewis (R-Calif.) did not criticize the administration, he agreed that the government needs to put a higher priority on prevention. “When we have disasters of this size, the dollars seem to flow on call, but it is more difficult getting continuing dollars to manage the forests long-term,” Lewis said in a floor speech. “We need to continue to address those long-term needs and not allow the current crisis to reduce that effort.”
The federal funds for clearing away dead trees are meant to be spent on federal property, and most of the fires this time are on private and state lands. Nonetheless, Congress may decide in the future to provide some support for state and local efforts.
Ah Fork
Posted on October 24, 2007 in Disasters
You can’t really blame this on anyone:
RAMONA — At 6:30 in the morning Tuesday, Debora Lutz of the U.S. Forest Service got the first sign she was in for a hellacious day in the air war against the Witch.
The Witch fire in northern San Diego County had already devoured more than 150,000 acres, and was eating its way down the San Dieguito River Valley, heading straight for the blue-chip seaside real estate of Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe.
And now — good morning, Battalion Chief Lutz — the city of Ramona’s main water pump had died, courtesy of a burning power transmission line.
That could mean no water to fill the bellies of Lutz’s small, ad hoc fleet of air tankers based at Ramona Airport. No water to dilute the blood-red fire retardant to the proper color and consistency of strawberry milk.
The four tankers, along with three spotter planes, comprised the entire fixed-wing air force deployed against not only the monstrous Witch fire, but also the Harris fire blazing to the southeast of San Diego, and the Rice fire , about 60 miles north. Lutz had been begging her superiors for more planes, dreaming especially of a DC-10 that could carry about 12,000 gallons of liquid, ten times the load of one of her tankers.
It was in operation elsewhere, she was told.
Off to see what is happening at the party.
Glowing in the Night: The Santiago Fire
Posted on October 23, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
If you want to start at the beginning, click here.
The fire is like a necklace stretched across the ebon skin of the hills.
A general view of the fire across the canyon from us, north of Portola Hills. Turned quite pretty hasn’t it?
This is the same area that I showed in the photos that I took earlier today. The fire line is about half a mile away. Firemen are swarming Santiago Canyon Road.
This is an accidentally pretty shot of the backfire that the OCFA set along Live Oak Canyon Road. The red and blue squiggles are the firetrucks lined up along the blaze. For those who don’t understand what is happening here, firemen have taken advantage of negligible winds and set a fire in the path of the larger conflagration. They are watching it closely. The idea is to burn out all the vegetation along the road so that when the main fire reaches this spot there’s nothing for it to feed upon. Around the hill and down the corner from here is a particularly lovely stretch of land where many people have homes. There are also two monasteries and a community church on the hill to the right of this photo. Backfires are a desperation measure: what this signals is that help ain’t coming from anywhere right now. We could, perhaps, have used some soldiers and marines but most of them are over in Iraq doing Bush’s bidding….
We learned that the fire came within three blocks of us while we slept….
[tags]Santiago fire, Santiago Canyon fire, southern california fires, california fires, wildfire, wildfires, disasters, fire department, orange county fire, orange county, southern california, Portola Hills, Trabuco Canyon, fire[/tags]
