Posted on 06/30/2013 7:45:43 PM PDT by kristinn
I know; I’ve seen these hotshot crews working close up (well, through binoculars!) and am amazed at what they do in those conditions. They are the best of the best. Yesterday I heard a city councilman on the news refer to them as “Kids.” That really offended me. They were MEN and they died as MEN, not “kids.”
I drove through this area last year on a day trip to Prescott. It's the most beautiful, wild country and this crew was on the switchback incline that brings you down into Congress. It's a beautiful area. I have family in the Sun City area and they said the smell of the fire is bad enough there that they don't want to be outside in it. But it's so hot right now, no one wants to be outside anyway.
The cause of the Yarnell fire was stated at the time to be a dry lighting strike from all appearances.
I am pinging a few on this thread to take note of your comment that you can see another fire on Granite Mountain which is more in the area of the fire two weeks ago, West Northwest of Precott.
I hope this is just a residual fire in an already mostly burned area that will find little fuel but I also know with the Rodeo there are a lot of people in Prescott right now.
Thank you, Ponygirl. This story is so heartbreaking. It is time that foresight is used in these areas. Clearcutting is a “dreadful” practice, until a fire comes along and clearcuts EVERYTHING, and destroys countless lives. :(
Yep, I could see the flames late last night (10 miles west of me). Today the wind has picked up, but at least it is more humid.
Just too much of late.
The Doce fire is still listed at 96% and not 100% contained. What you both are seeing on Granite Mtn is reported to still have a lot of man power on it from what I read as follows:
Ninety personnel, including two hand crews, six engines and a helicopter, are still on site working to contain the wildfire. Officials have been releasing crews to fight other wildfires or to prepare for future fires.
Above is a good summary of the 500 people working the Yarnell fire and the various equipment and other assets involved. While I am sure that we have a lot more there today, I would hazard that there were 200 - 300 men on it on Sunday when the tragic deaths occurred.
I make that guess because some of the posts seem to assume that the Hot Shot crew that died were working the large area alone. It is probable that they were fairly remote from other teams as it was a large area that had grown to 2000 acres at the time of the wind shifts, but there were other teams and crews working Yarnell proper and other disbursed areas where fire or structure called for it.
I don’t know if Carry_Okie is around to respond, but he has given interesting history of how Indians managed western forests, at least in CA and surrounding areas. I’ll give a very short summary, hope he responds.
They allowed/set burns regularly, which burned out dead wood, underbrush, etc (and I assume manzanit which burns like crazy), so the western forests had big trees and were otherwise rather open areas.
Since now nothing has allwed to burn, we have millions of acreas of huge infernos waiting to happen.
Clear cutting is not really the answer; managed cutting with burning or crushing the slash is much better. Just maybe not quite as profitable short term, but short term profit is not always the best way to manage natural resources (or much of anything really).
Very interesting. Thank you very much! Bob
In contrast, the last time I went driving through New Mexico, I saw a tinderbox just waiting for a match. All those trees that were killed by the beetles are dead and just sitting there, baking in the heat. And when all that stuff lights up, it's going to burn so hot that it will destroy the mulch layers underneath and nothing will grow back. Just go look at the bad areas of Yellowstone which burned in those fires in '86. There are still no trees growing in those areas. I was just there two years ago. The burn areas by the lake still look like a moonscape, although some weeds are growing there.
Sorry to ramble, but another point... A while back I read this book about the history of the Jamestown colony...it included journal excerpts from some of the explorers. The description of the forests there was quite telling. They said that the Indians cut and burned the forests there and kept them so beautifully that "a man on horseback could ride at a gallop through the trees." From what I remember about growing up in North Carolina, you could barely walk through the forests without a machete, much less ride at a gallop.
Are you seeing anything today? I see NO smoke where I saw flames last night.
Thanks.
Perhaps just as important, they ate a lot of pine nuts.
Burning also forced berry producing bushes to regenerate fresh growth. The stems then made good arrow shafts, etc. Perhaps it was even occasionally dedicated to stimulating late season germination to produce summer vegetables. It was far more complex than most people realize. To understand how the aboriginal tribes managed the land is to know how to survive on it.
On a new continent, Cain killed Abel all over again, because we never understood the original story. Now we watch the landscape die all around us, and face the peril of being trapped in our cities until they collapse. A fugitive and a wanderer we shall be. Just as the prophecy said we would.
I've spent two years retranslating Genesis 4, and I promise you, that's what it's really about. We've missed it by a mile.
just some haze to the West. Likely just a lone remaining flare-up last night.
In some ways the anthropologists have it understood but reversed. The agrarian drives out the hunter-gatherer but in doing so ruins the land is one simplistic way of outlining it.
The Lord must be saying, why did I tell them if they weren’t going to remember.
Nice to see you.
I do have to mention that today’s published accounts do indicate that I had an item I speculated on in an earlier post correct in one way but incorrect in another.
The Hot Shot Team member that survived was in a “look out” posisiton, higher and more distant at a trigger point. The plan was that when the fire reached him, he notified the main team and then called for pickup by a supervisor truck. He did all that, but the changing gusts and wind picked up just as he made that radio call. Thus the time it took for the fire to travel on to the team was much less due to the winds being six times what they were before.
Now, what I had incorrect was that he was repositioning a truck which is correctly stated as, he was being re-positioned by a truck after pick-up at his trigger point.
I imagine he did not pick the point he was using as his lookout trigger point alone, there was some team or supervisor involvement in selecting that point. Regardless, he is carrying a massive burden as the lone survivor and will need a lot of healing grace to carry on from this point.
I agree that he’s going to need ALL of our prayers, along with lots of support from this/his community. What a heavy load he carries.
The story implies that the blood of animals is turned into the farm instead of spread all over as the Torah commends. The desertification resulting from the loss of the managers of the land surrounding the farm takes the farm with it. I can't reveal the punch line, because it's a killer, so to speak. There's a whole book I've written on the Torah's remedy to this problem. Because of recent discoveries, I've pulled it from the market to put it back in rewrite (not that there was anything substantively wrong mind you, but it was missing a lot).
The Torah is a far more pastoral work than most anyone realizes. Those ancient shepherds with whom Moses lived didn't think the way we do. It's only because of the habitat restoration work that I do (plus an awful lot of stubborn digging) that I was able to see more of that pastoral element in the teaching. I'm sorry to say that much of what is in our current translations is far from accurate in imparting what was intended. The funny thing is that the errors confirm the accuracy of the Biblical account.
The Lord must be saying, why did I tell them if they weren’t going to remember.
Actually, there is a demonstration of Cain's cluelessness in the story.
Nice to see you.
Thx, the same to you.
Thank you for adding your comments here. Much appreciated.
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