no. nobody purposely starts the fires. we get really dry winds in October, typically. Any spark can set something off on all the dry grass because we don’t get rain, generally from May through October, except some high mountain areas get summer thunderstorms.
One of yesterday’s fires was started from a trash truck which caught fire. The driver dropped the load by the side of the road, and the wind carried embers over to the nearby dead grass. Or at least that’s what last night’s news said.
“The driver dropped the load by the side of the road...”
Was not that an immensely stupid thing to do?
4 fires 1 trash truck, hmmm.
you’re right. The trash truck was a shining example of California Stupid. Smoke was coming out of the top of the trash truck and instead of pulling in somewhere and grabbing a hose, he just dumped the trash along the road next to - you guessed it - a field of dry grass and scrub. The tv crew that got up there quick was able to actually film the trash pile along the road still flickering. And next thing you know, 75 mobile homes destroyed, one 89-yo woman unable to get out passed away and possibly one 15yo minpin doggy. That was the Saddleroad fire. A sad example of just how fast fire travels uphill.
Scariest video of the night was the wall of fire jumping the freeway (most were/are closed so nobody’s going nowhere) To quote Channel 2 - a ‘river of embers’ blowing across the roads. We’ve got about 6 different fires going on right now, Saddleridge being the biggest. 40 schools closed; news conference said that 75% of the firefighting costs will be picked up by the Feds.