Posted on 08/30/2009 1:48:13 PM PDT by kellynla
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today urged residents in fire evacuation zones to flee as firefighters predicted another difficult day battling a wildfire that has burned 35,000 acres and threatened more than 12,000 homes from Acton to Altadena.
Schwarzenegger noted at a morning press conference that three residents in Big Tujunga Canyon suffered serious burns trying in vain to save their homes Saturday.
"There will be people who don't listen," the governor said at the fire command post in Lake View Terrace. ". . . Move as soon as [firefighters] say to move."
Although thousands of homes are covered in the evacuation orders, many residents have stayed behind, with some vowing to fight to protect their homes from the Station fire.
The fire line now extends about 19 miles east to west. The governor and other elected officials praised firefighters for successfully protecting subdivisions in the foothills.
With temperatures expected to reach the mid- to high 90s today in the fire areas, officials said they were anticipating extreme fire conditions, mirroring Saturday’s, when flames leapt as high as 80 feet and spread at a rate of about 2.5 miles an hour.
More than 2,000 fire personnel now are deployed fighting the Station fire.
In the Acton area, mandatory evacuations have been ordered along the 14 Freeway from Soledad Canyon Road to Crown Valley Road and along Aliso Canyon Road from Soledad Canyon Road to Angeles Forest Highway.
The California Highway Patrol has also closed the onramps and offramps to the 14 Freeway at Soledad Canyon Road, Agua Dulce, Escondido Canyon Road, Red Rover Mine Road and Crown Valley Road. They said they were concerned that fire behavior in the area could become extreme as they were expecting the wind to shift about 10 a.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
You are correct.
They have pushed their agenda for years. In Eastern AZ and NM they brought back the wolves and now they (wolves)literally stalk the people and the people cannot shoot the “poor endangered wolves”.
Sissyjane: I DO stay away as much as possible. But, I have a 97 year old mother who has to live there and jillions of cousins. I’ll have to come back when she is no longer with us to dispose of her property.
ari-freedom: I am a Christian. “Mother Gaiia” is not a being that I know. Is she a friend of yours? I do know that California ecopatterns are based on a burn/regrowth cycle. There are native plants & wildflowers that are never seen until the forest, or the meadows, are burned. Same with certain species of trees. The burning causes the cones to pop and the seeds to plant and the cycle starts over. By preventing fires, and never clearing the underbrush, it exacerbates the problem because the fuel builds up and the forest explodes once a fire starts — either by design, by accident, or by lightning. The overgrown canyons of S. California are very dangerous. There aren’t many roads — no grid pattern of traffic — so many areas are inaccessible once a fire starts, and people get trapped.
My mother owns 2 lots in Santa Cruz Co. She just pays taxes on them because you could never build because of the fire danger. They are opposte a church campground. If she still owns them when she passes, I’m going to give them to the camp, or give them to the County. She’s been paying those taxes for 60 years. For nothing.
I haven’t rejoiced over anyone losing their home, or being in danger. It truly grieves me. I’ve tried to engage in a serious discussion on this thread, but it seems that most people here just want to take pot shots. So, I won’t waste any more of my emotion here. Keep your hoses at hand and an eye on the sky. Have your cars packed and be prepared to flee.
HUSBAND of a friend, to be precise! And I might add that when he had control over the house next door from which he took a 10 foot wide piece of land and moved an offensive telephone pole in front, he had the nerve to phone us in the midwest to ask when we were planning to retire. He thought we might like to buy the house from him because he also wanted to control who lived next door to him! LOL. I guess he forgot that we are dyed in the wool REPUBLICANS now and we would not like to be micromanaged by our neighbors. We just said, "No, but thanks for thinking of us!" < grin >
“Native” is meaningless. Things change. Often what is thought to be “native” was a species introduced recently or even one brought by men into a new habitat, and then which naturalized so well it looks as if it has always been there. Things change, we should be the master of that change.
Men have a duty to make at least the part of the world they live in safe. There’s no excuse for having developments and towns that can not be protected by man’s gifts of intellect and invention from these kind of fires.
I grew up there, and most of what you say has been done for years. I remember wood shingled roofs being banned back in the 60's for instance; and fire breaks were everywhere. There are reservoirs all over the place; Devils Gate Dam, Sierra Madre Canyon, to name a few. The fact is that people who live there know these things already. They should never be forced to move ( by whom ?). They accept the risks. What you propose and how ( forced to move) so that it never happens again ( a ridiculous claim) sounds a bit to tyrannical too me.
When I say let them take their chances I mean no firefighters risking their lives, no public insurance, no tax dollars spent on evacuations, etc. But NO GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS on what you can do with your OWN property!
When I say native, I mean ancient species that were there before man settled there — even before the Indians. I do know the difference.
I do not purport to say that native is better than more recently introduced species. I’m just stating the facts as they are. The burn/regrowth cycle just is and always has been. The environmentalists and Sierra Clubbers have messed with the cycle by allowing overgrowth. Unless man wants to change the whole cycle, he should avoid populating areas that he cannot control. And controlling a whole ecocycle is a bigger task than most people understand.
For instance, there are whole areas (with beautiful and valuable Bay views) throughout the Berkeley and Oakland Hills which are planted in Rose Gardens. Why? Not because they are a delight for the residents, to be sure. They are known slide areas, and long ago people realized that if they build houses there, those houses are just going to slide down the hill in the next quake. So, around the turn of the LAST century (1900), after a couple of houses slid down the hillsides, the city fathers designated those lots to be turned into public rose gardens.
I wasn’t around when those decisions were made. Did the owners of those lots give up their property willingly? Did the cities take them by eminent domain? Unpaid taxes? I don’t know the answer, but they made something beautiful out of land that was (otherwise) useless. One wonders why the builders in S. California who decided to build the movie star mansions clinging to the seaside cliffs came to the decision to build in such an unforgiving location? And should the rest of the California population — or at least the S. California population — be required to pay higher insurance rates because some multi-millionaires want a nice seaside view?
We all pay for those inopportune building decisions in higher insurance rates, clean up expenses, etc. Same with the canyon fires. The insurance companies spread the costs to the whole area — same with the municipal taxes.
Take all your demands and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine.
I have a home in the #1 fire zone in Glendale and will fight your drastic demands!!!
besides your damn demands, you aren’t even a Californianian so shut up!
‘when you Commiefornians get smart enough to not build homes on unstable material, and to elect politicians who will allow you to clear brush from near your expensive homes, I won’t be able to make jokes about it-— “
Keep your sorry ass out of California!
You are right about the regulations and I am not familiar with the details. But, generally the changes in roofs are phased in. IOW, I lived in Houston when they banished wood shingled roofs after a bad apartment fire that destroyed several blocks of homes. But, we were NOT required to change our roofs unless more than one quarter of the roof needed replacing. Many people just repaired their roofs, a little at a time, keeping under the 1/4 replacement point each time. That’s been over 30 years, and many of those wooden roofs are still there.
My suggestion that people be moved out (after being paid for their property) was just a discussion point. I’m just sick of hearing about fire sweeping through these communities every year. I’m telling you that this did NOT happen when I was growing up there because nobody LIVED there. There might have been a few vacation cabins sprinkled about. But we did NOT have devastating fires all the time like they do now.
REASON?
Fewer people to start fires.
Comprehensive education, starting with little kids — Smokey the Bear campaign.
Fewer people living in the vulnerable areas. Buildings mostly were not year around residences.
Forest fire lookouts. Those cabins in the sky have all been closed, I understand. That used to be a plumb summer job to be a forest fire “sitter” watching for wisps of smoke and reporting it.
We didn’t have so many illegals running all over the place.
We had a more law abiding populace. Not so careless.
We didn’t have people operating pot farms in the middle of our forests, as was recently discovered in Sequoia.
None of that prevents fires started by lightning, however — always a danger.
“Post #7 well said.”
Horse shit!
Stay our of California!!!
I am a Californian, and I expect that my family & I have lived there longer than you are old and know more of the history than you do. My father used to manage California forests in his youth. I just don’t live there any more.
I don’t direct crude remarks at fellow posters, so I’d thank you to back off. What part of “no personal attacks” don’t you understand?
Screw you, i’m a 5th generation Southern Californian as is my wife and i’m 72 so go to hell.
Since you don’t live here any more don’t ever come back, hopefully not even to visit!
Amazing what you are willing to do to others to save yourself from feeling an emotion. Wouldn't it be easier just to feel it, and let it go ?
I grew up there also, and it's never easy to watch such destruction. However I think people there are smart and are dealing with the risk in ways appropriate to their unique circumstances.
They don't need more regulation, more restrictions, and more government control. If anything, they need less. I am willing to accept the fact that fires happen there periodically, things get destroyed, it's awlful to watch destruction, and nothing else governmental needs to be done. That's liberty, in my book.
“What part of “no personal attacks” don’t you understand?”
I’ll attack anyone I damn will please!
I just do it at a fairyly lower level than I do in person!
Is that the Pasadena freeway?
If California residents built houses only where there was no danger of fire, flood, mudslides, earthquakes and, sometimes, tornados there would be no houses built at all in CA.
Sorry, but your list would be better if it simply listed 1:)vote for conservatives who use common sense, not democrat moonbats.
no, I actually agree with you. I was just parodying those who think that anyone who doesn’t believe that they can build anywhere they want must be some kind of envirowacko.
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