Posted on 10/23/2007 6:38:02 PM PDT by Hebrews 11:6
These kinds of fires have occurred here regularly for decades. They are exacerbated this year because Southern California has had only 3” of rain in a year. Obviously, present efforts at prevention and firefighting are ineffective. What else must be done to stop future blazes?
Television watchers in SoCal are treated to a steady diet of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft dropping water and fire retardant on the fires. While helpful, these efforts are like spitting on your fireplace fire. The amount of water is pitifully small, and much of what does get dropped vaporizes on its way down.
These fires are orders of magnitude greater than the firefighting measures. Indeed, the imagination of planners is exposed as woefully deficient.
If aircraft cannot deliver enough water, then others means of delivering it must be added. The obvious solution is to preposition the water with an effective delivery system.
By prepositioning the water, I am suggesting building water tanks on top of strategically selected ridges. The water would feed by gravity down through pipes to remote-controlled nozzles, which would deliver the water in abundance on-target as the fire approaches, and on any flareups that jump the pipes. Cost concerns prevent every ridge from having them, but those where the fires must be stopped should get them. They would prevent the fires’ spread, or at least slow it enough that other measures can control them more readily.
Those areas now burning will not need these tanks for many years, until the brush has regrown. Rather, it is those areas which have not burned recently which need them most urgently.
It depends on the elevation. The mountain treeline is about 5,000 feet. Above that elevation, the mountains are densely forested with pines.
That's one of the features of LA that makes it so attractive to so many: within an hour's drive you can be at the ocean, whereas an hour in the other direction puts you in snow-skiing territory.
If you're getting video of the Running Springs fire, that's near Lake Arrowhead, up over 6,000 feet about fifty miles east of downtown LA. I had to have a tooth capped as a ten-year-old by a Running Springs dentist after I sledded into an ice-boulder one morning.
Second, there are fifteen million of us who think SoCal is ShangriLa--I've lived here all my life. And the prior year, we nearly set a rainfall record with 34".
Third, who is Sam Kenison?
Third, who is Sam Kenison?
Do WHAT ??
Umm OK, I thought this was about fire prevention. I guess I’m on the wrong thread. Gotta go now.
Thanks for the referral.
I’ll ask you politely: please find someone else on which to bestow yourself.
The desert should not be densely populated unless they have access to a significant source of water. If not, they should be relocated elsewhere.
Dont scurry off .. You can have 2 conversations at once . Tap into your human potential dude !
Touche.
Sam Kenison? You must either be pretty young or ....well.... He was this stand up comedian. Funny guy really. Not for the whole family. But he talked about Etheopians and why they don’t move where the food is.....
You know what, this thread was about fire prevention.
AADD (Adult Attention Deficit Dissorder)
I’ll ask you politely: please find someone else on which to bestow yourself.
That’s fine . Anyone who has to ask who Sam is in a vanity post ... deserves the 15 million in paradise .
Dangerous.....LOL
Answer is as stated in post # 2 IMHO , clean up dead fuel, build fire breaks and ignore the bunny huggers trying to save the flipper nosed yellow beaked peckerwood worms habitat !
Orrrrrrrrrrrr use Agent Orange to defoliate California and elect the Clintonista so all get free medical care to offset Agent Orange effects ! No more fires cept a nasty burning rash ya have to wait to have cured for years !
Then I do remember him. I'm certainly not young, but the last comedian I really followed was Bill Cosby. Not my genre--I'm not humorless, I just have limited time and many other interests. Thanks for the info.
I have the idea that the motivation exists now in the wake of this carnage to try some new ideas, and they might as well originate with us.
I’m not humorless, I just have limited time and many other interests.
So you are normal .. But I’m not speaking to you ;)
Because nobody does anything -- especially things that threaten large tax increases -- until they absolutely have to. Why doesn't New Orleans build secure levees? Why do people living in flood or hurricane-prone areas rebuild houses in the very same places after they've been destroyed? Why do people live in trailer homes in twister country? (OK, that last one was to see if you were paying attention).
The truth is most people figure that in the worst case, Uncle Sugar will be there to bail them out. And, judging from recent history, he will be.
I have the idea that the motivation exists now in the wake of this carnage to try some new ideas, and they might as well originate with us.
= = =
I certainly agree with that.
Blessings,
unless you live in the West, you can't imagine how hot and dry it gets.....
in my area....eastern Washington..it was as dry this past June as it usually is at the end of August...
throw in the wind, and you get a disaster....
SK was IMO a vile, ugly man who made fame out of violent acts toward women on MTV.....his famous saying to those starving Africans who couldn't grow crops was basically....MOVE....
It's not as far-fetched as you think; when the liquid nitrogen expands, the combination of extreme cold and quick displacement of oxygen in the air will quickly smother most fires. In fact, liquid nitrogen has been used to successfully fight oil fires.
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