13 dead in California Wlidfires, 850 homes burned

AP ^ | Oct 26 | Chelsea J Carter

[GeronL]

Wildfires Merge in Southern California; 13 Dead, and 850 Homes Burned

By Chelsea J. Carter Associated Press Writer

Published: Oct 26, 2003

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) - Wildfires that have burned for days merged into walls of flame stretching across miles in parts of Southern California on Sunday, leaving 13 people dead, burning more than 850 homes and frustrating overmatched firefighters who worked relentlessly against fierce winds.

The state's largest fire, in eastern San Diego County, caused at least nine deaths, including two people who died inside their car as they apparently tried to escape the flames, San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender said.

"We were literally running through fire," said Lisza Pontes, 43, who escaped the fire with her family after the roar of flames woke them at 3:45 a.m. As they drove off, they saw a neighbor's mobile home explode.

"I was grabbing wet towels. Fire was at our feet," Pontes said. "It was blazing over our heads and burning everywhere."

More than 7,000 firefighters fought 10 major fires in Southern California, one large cluster in the San Diego area and another about 100 miles north in mountainous areas north of Los Angeles.

By Sunday night, the fires had blackened 277,000 acres.

Fire also forced the evacuation of a Federal Aviation Administration control center in San Diego, disrupting air travel across the nation. Some airlines canceled flights into the region.

The biggest, at 100,000 acres, started Saturday near the mountain town of Julian when a lost hunter set off a signal fire, authorities said. The hunter was detained and may face charges.

Among those killed were one person whose body was found in a motor home, and three in other vehicles, county sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Knauss said. Three were killed while trying to escape on foot and two were dead on arrival at local hospitals.

About 260 homes were destroyed, San Diego police said.

Another fire near San Diego that started Sunday killed two people and destroyed 36 homes while burning 7,000 acres, Lora Lowes of the California Department of Forestry said. It also prompted evacuations in northeastern Escondido.

The flames drew much of their strength from the fierce Santa Ana winds, whose gusts of up to 70 mph moved the fires along.

Around the congested suburbs of San Bernardino, a city of about 200,000 about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, one flank of a 59,000-acre fire burned through four towns while the other flank destroyed more than 400 homes.

Two men collapsed and died, one as he was evacuating his canyon home and the other as he watched his house burn, the county coroner said.

Authorities announced they were seeking two men for investigation of arson and possibly murder in connection with the fire, which ravaged foothill neighborhoods of San Bernardino and threatened mountain homes. One man was seen Saturday morning throwing something into roadside brush that caught fire, then he and a companion fled in a van, officials said.

The 30-mile fire in the San Bernardino area was formed when two smaller fires merged, covering the region with thick smoke and ash.

Other fires on the outskirts of Los Angeles County merged to create a 80,000-acre fire burning near suburbs late Sunday northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County.

Firefighters, including 25 strike teams and 125 engines, tried to make a stand at Crestline in the San Bernardino National Forest, according to U.S. Forest Service fire information officer Stanton Florea. About 25 homes burned in the area.

Firefighters were spread thinly around threatened communities, focusing on saving what homes they could. Winds prevented the air tanker drops of retardant and use of backfires that are key tactics of fire containment.

The area is vulnerable because drought and an infestation of bark beetles have left millions of dead trees.

"If the fire starts to crown, racing from one tree to the next, it will be an extreme situation," Florea said.

Brandy DeBatte, 21, stayed at her Crestline home until the electricity went out and the smoke started to thicken.

"I got our animals. I got insurance papers. I didn't want to be up there if the town was going to burn down," she said.

Hours later, she was having second thoughts as she realized how much she had left behind: "I should have gotten more out, and I didn't."

Three looters who tried to take advantage of the San Bernardino evacuations were arrested, police said.

Gov. Gray Davis, who visited the San Bernardino fire on Friday, returned Sunday to announce he was extending the state of emergency to Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

"These are the worst fires that we've faced in California in 10 years," Davis said.

Davis' administration also gave an emergency briefing to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Some of the evacuations ordered included Indian reservation casinos, California State University, San Bernardino, where fire burned two temporary classrooms and a temporary fitness center, and a state mental hospital.

About 1,100 prison inmates also were evacuated, and at least 200 juvenile wards were evacuated Sunday from two probation camps, said Ken Kondo, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Probation Department spokesman.

About 1,000 people packed the San Bernardino International Airport center, including 50 elderly residents of a convalescent home.

At the Alexander Hughes Community Center in Claremont, where more than 50 homes were destroyed, evacuees searched for friends and neighbors.

A note on a bulletin board outside the center read: "Dear Kim and Joanne. I came for you here and want to offer you my extra bedroom and as much hospitality as you need. Love, Gina."

The National Football League moved Monday night's football game between the Chargers and Miami Dolphins from Qualcomm Stadium, which is being used as an evacuation center, to Tempe, Ariz.

The winds were expected to subside Monday before picking up later in the week in the San Bernardino area, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Balfour said.

"We'll have a 24- to 36-hour window where winds will die down, but the vegetation is so dry and the terrain so steep that the fire will probably take off and go into the mountains then," Balfour said. "It will want to race up the ridges."

---

[GeronL]

WOW!!

[GeronL]

FR needs headline spellcheck

[sourcery]

For perspective: The Oakland/Berkeley Hills Firestorm of 1991

[GeronL]

The result was a major wildland/urban interface fire that killed 25 people including a police officer and a fire fighter, injured 150 others, destroyed nearly 2,449 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units

Yikes, but this one isn't finished yet. Lets hope it won't get that bad, but its pretty bad already.

[Grampa Dave]

Carry Okie has justposted a very recent and scientific paper to what has set up these fire conditions in S. California and what happened in Oregon last year.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008628/posts?page=1,20

Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire [San Bernardino Fires]
The Congressional Record ^ | August 25, 2003 | DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN


Posted on 10/26/2003 5:44 PM PST by Carry_Okie



WRITTEN STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD

OF

DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN

PROFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF FOREST SCIENCE

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

and

visiting scholar and board member

The forest foundation

auburn, california

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON

Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire to Central Oregon Communities and the Surrounding Environment

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Deschutes County Fairgrounds Expo Center
3800 SW Airport Way, Redmond, Oregon

Monday
August 25, 2003
2:00 PM

INTRODUCTION My name is Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen. I am a forest ecologist and professor in the Department of Forest Science at Texas A&M University. I am also a visiting scholar and board member of The Forest Foundation in Auburn, California. I have conducted research on the history and restoration of America’s native forests for more than thirty years. I have written over 100 scientific and technical papers and I recently published a book titled America’s Ancient Forests: from the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery (Copyright January 2000, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 594 pages). The book documents the 18,000-year history of North America’s native forests.

Contact information is located at the end of this written statement.

UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS Forests

Our national forests are growing older and thicker, some reaching astronomical densities of 2,000 trees per acre where 40-50 trees per acre would be natural. A forest can stagnate for many decades or even centuries under such crowded conditions. Consequently, plant and animal species that require open conditions are disappearing, streams are drying as thickets of trees use up water, insects and disease are reaching epidemic proportions, and unnaturally hot wildfires have destroyed vast areas of forest.


Since 1990, we have lost 50 million acres of forest to wildfire and suffered the destruction of over 4,800 homes. The fires of 2000 burned 8.4 million acres and destroyed 861 structures. The 2002 fire season resulted in a loss of 6.9 million acres and 2,381 structures destroyed, including 835 homes. These staggering losses from wildfire also resulted in taxpayers paying $2.9 billion in firefighting costs. This does not include vast sums spent to rehabilitate damaged forests and replace homes.


The 2003 fire season is shaping up to be potentially as bad. Fire danger is very high to extreme in much of the Interior West, Northwest, and portions of California and the Northern Rockies due to overgrown forests, an extended drought, and insect damaged trees.


Not only are fires destroying America’s forests, bark beetles and other insects are killing trees on a scale never before seen. Forests in Arizona, the Northern Rockies, and California have been especially hard hit by beetles.


I have been working in California’s forests since the late 1960s. Never have I seen anything more dangerous than the overgrown, beetle-ravaged forests of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains. I am concerned for the safety of people living in communities surrounded by these forests.


About 90 percent of the pines will be dead when the beetles end their rampage. Then, forest communities like Lake Arrowhead and Idyllwild will look like any treeless suburb of Los Angeles. Whole neighborhoods are already barren of trees where houses once hid in a thick forest.


This disaster affects everyone who cares about America’s forests, but it is especially serious for the people who live and recreate in these mountains. Dead trees are falling on houses, cars, and power lines, and they could easily fuel a catastrophic wildfire. That’s why arborists are cutting trees at a frantic pace, but they cannot keep up with the insects.


Unfortunately, it is too late for the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains. The original pine forest will be gone soon. We must start over, and we must do it fast before a wildfire turns what's left of the forest into brush and communities into rubble.


WHY forests are unhealthy and dangerous


If we looked back two hundred years, 91 percent of our forests were more open because Indian and lightning fires burned regularly. These were mostly gentle fires that stayed on the ground as they wandered around under the trees. You could walk over the flames without burning your legs even though they occasionally flared up and killed small groups of trees. Such hot spots kept forests diverse by creating openings where young trees and shrubs could grow.


Fires burned often enough in historic forests to clear dead wood and small trees from under the big trees, and they thinned some of the weak and diseased big trees as well. These were sunny forests that explorers described as open enough to gallop a horse through without hitting a tree. Open and patchy forests like this also were immune from monster fires like those that recently scorched Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, and California.


Our forests look different today. They are crowded with trees of all sizes and filled with logs and dead trees. You can barely walk through them, let alone ride a horse.


Now monster fires and hordes of insects are devouring trees with unprecedented ferocity because our forests are so dense. The role of drought in causing the problem is overstated. Drought contributes to the crisis, but it is not the underlying cause. There are simply too many trees.


In the case of Southern California, the drought added more stress to an already unhealthy and dangerous forest, so bark beetles took control. They made the wildfire danger even more critical by killing trees, turning them into instant fuel. The smallest spark could cause a human catastrophe.


Trees are so crowded they have to divide what little moisture is available in the soil. During normal rainfall years, the trees have barely enough moisture to produce the sap needed to keep out the beetles. They cannot resist attack during dry years. A healthy forest can survive a beetle attack during a drought with only moderate mortality. A thick and stressed forest cannot. Therefore, the drought triggered the insect epidemic, but it didn't cause it.


We know how we got into this fix: forest management stalled because environmental activists, government officials, and politicians engaged in endless debates on how to look after our forests. Central to the debate is that environmentalists want thick forests. They lobbied for years to convert forests to old growth, which they define as dense, multi-layered, and filled with dead trees and logs. Meanwhile, trees grew and forests became thicker because they care nothing about politics. Now insects riddle our trees with holes and wildfires turn them into charcoal.


The debates continue, and bark beetles have taken control of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains, as well as other western forests. It is time for people to shape the destiny of their forests instead of leaving the decision to mindless insects and the harsh indifference of wildfires.

(excerpt, please go to the link below to read the rest of this incredible and timely paper).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008628/posts?page

[Ladypixel]

Take a look at the live thread for more information on these fires. Here's the basic fires-ongoing list I've been maintaining, in case you're doing a rush-through for info:

Current Fires Active list for California
(If you have updates, feel free to post 'em; I'm trying to keep this list as up-to-date as I can.  San Diego fireline area information welcome; I'm overfrantic on just the LA/Ventura/San Bernardino fires alone.)

Most recent total update: 850 homes lost in the southland.  270,000 acres burned.


Hemet fire, Riverside county. As of last heard report, 6500 acres burned.

Simi Valley fire, Ventura county/northern Los Angeles county - 80,000 acres.  Six homes destroyed, eight damaged.  Containment: 0 percent.  Start: Oct. 25.  Firefighters trying to save Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.  Voluntary evacuations for Moorpark.  Personnel: 599 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation.  Fire is now in Chatsworth in Los Angeles county.

Piru fire, Ventura county - 1,300 acres.  Containment: 85 percent.  Start: Oct. 23, west of Lake Piru in Ventura County.  The fire in Los Padres National Forest is threatening the Sespe Wilderness and Sespe Condor sanctuary.  There are no condors currently in the refuge.  Voluntary evacuations in Piru and parts of Fillmore.  Personnel: 780 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation.

Verdale fire, Los Angeles county - Also known as Santa Clarita or Val Verde fire.  9,000 acres.  Containment: 50 percent.  Start: Oct. 24 west of Santa Clarita in northern LA county.  Voluntary evacuations for community of Val Verde Park and parts of Piru.  Blaze sparked the Simi Valley fire.  Personnel: 500 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation.

Grand Prix fire, San Bernardino & Los Angeles counties - 40 mile fireline from LA to San Bernardino county (includes Old Waterman fire) - Fire line is 40 miles long including the Old Waterman fire.  35,000 acres.  62 homes destroyed.  Containment: 23 percent.  Mandantory evacuations in Lytle Creek, Mt. Baldy, Rialto, and parts of Claremont, Upland, and other foothill communities of the San Gabriel Mtns.  Personnel: 2,427 firefighters.  Cause: Arson.

Old Waterman fire, San Bernardino county - Size: 15,000 acres.  300 homes and ten commercial buildings destroyed.  Deaths: 2.  Containment: 5 percent.  Start: Oct. 25 near San Bernardino National Forest.  Evacuations in foothill areas of San Bernardino and mountain communities, including Crestline and Lake Arrowhead.  Personnel: 917 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation, suspicious origin.

Crestline fire, San Bernardino county - Burning towards Lake Arrowhead currently, with evacuations in Big Bear, Running Springs, and other close areas.  Acreage unknown.  Grand Prix fire is burning up the mountain to join with it, slowly but surely.  Approx. 30 structures in Crestline burned.

Valley Center fire, San Diego county - See Paradise Fire

San Clemente/Camp Pendleton fire, San Diego county - Freeper reports that it was just south of San Onofre power plant, a couple miles inland from the 5 freeway.  Size: 4,695 acres.  Containment: 67 percent.  Started Oct. 21st on the base north of San Diego.  Key facts: Authorities are downplaying early reports that fire was ignited by live ammo exercises on the base.  Personnel: 999 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation.

Rancho California fire, Riverside county (formerly Black Mtn & Anzo fires).  Some structural damage.

Mountain fire, Riverside county - 1,000 acres.  Two homes damaged or destroyed.  Containment: 0 percent.  Evacuations ordered for homes near Lake Skinner.  Two civillian injuries.  Personnel: 250 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation.

Malibu fire, Los Angeles/Ventura county region - FIRE OUT!  Hooray!

Escondido (Dixon Lake area), San Diego county.

Otay Lakes fire, San Diego county.  Still active, and there is concern to the westerly direction that could push the fire into Eastlake and Chula Vista.  Voluntary evacuation of Eastlake Tails and Woods began this afternoon.

East Lake fire, San Diego county.

Crest (El Cajon) fire, San Diego county.

Cedar fire, San Diego county.  Approx. 260 homes destroyed, nine deaths, started Oct. 25 in eastern San Diego County.  100,000 acres burned.  Personnel: More than 800 firefighters.  Containment: 0 percent.  Extends to Scripps Ranch (150 homes lost in this area, current flareups there), Poway, Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, portions of Santee, Lakeside, Ramona, and Blossom Valley.  Cause:  Authorities believe a hunter set a signal fire when he got lost.

Dulzura fire, San Diego county.  15,000 acres.  Containment: 0 percent.  Personnel: 300 firefighters.  Started Oct. 26 in southern San Diego county.  Fire crossed the border into Mexico, but no structures were threatened in Tijuana.  Cause: Under investigation.

Paradise fire, San Diego county.  At least 3,000 acres.  36 homes destroyed, two deaths.  Containment: 0 percent.  Started Oct. 26 in Valley Center area near Interstate 15.  Valley View Casino evacuated.  Personnel: More than 500 firefighters.  Cause: Under investigation.

Poway fire: See Cedar fire.

Ramona fire:  See Cedar fire.

Alpine fire, San Diego county.

[Carry_Okie]

Fire also forced the evacuation of a Federal Aviation Administration control center in San Diego, disrupting air travel across the nation. Some airlines canceled flights into the region.

You can bet the environmentalists wouldn't let them clear an adequate buffer.

[oyez]

Poor forest management. Owners need to harvest the mature growth and take the profit to the bank. Really, it too late now. The CA public must realize they essentually live in a desert, not a park.

[buffyt]

Over the years we have lived in San Marino, Calif... Pasadena and Claremont, Calif. We just moved from Claremont to Texas last Nov. WE LOVE CALIFORNIA~ and before you make fun of the state please remember Jim Robinson and many other TOP CLASS Freepers live out there. We saw the raging wild fires last year from our back door in Claremont, and I can tell you it is VERY scary! Like FLAMES OF HELL.

[GeronL]

WE LOVE CALIFORNIA~.....it is VERY scary! Like FLAMES OF HELL.

Now why would I make fun of the land of fruit and nuts?? Would I do a thing like that?

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

For real time political chat - Radio Free Republic chat room
And you won't miss a thread on FR because e-bot will keep you informed.

[goldstategop]

California IS a desert state and the only way vegetation gets renewed is after a firestorm wipes out the dead growth. Humans see fire as evil but from Mother Nature's perspective, its the bringer of new life. The soil looks lifeless now but in a year or two there will be lush new growth. Figure this kind of event happening once every quarter century or so. We were long overdue for this and the only surprise was it didn't happen sooner.

[E.G.C.]

Thoughts and prayers for those affected by the California fires. Oklahoma Agriculture Bump.

[snopercod]

As you well know...

[snopercod]

Firefighters were spread thinly around threatened communities, focusing on saving what homes they could.

More evidence of the helplessness of the American public in the face of any kind of disaster. The first thing they do is run away from their homes and demand that the government "do something".

Wouldn't you think that local communities would put together a little firefighting training as part of their homeland security responsibilities? First aid? Basic survival? Communication without cell phones?

No, it's much easier to squat in a high-school gymnasium somewhere and sit out the disaster. Let big brother take care of you. He knows what's best.

[mewzilla]

Wouldn't you think that local communities would put together a little firefighting training as part of their homeland security responsibilities? First aid? Basic survival? Communication without cell phones?

If many are not smart enough or willing to build and landscape their homes in ways that minimize their risk from wildfires, I'd say the answer to your question is No.

[Carry_Okie]

Actually, the way it works now is that the the Forest Service will fine you a fortune for clearing around your house for having disturbed the lesser whatsit, the fire starts, the Forest Service shows up and orders you off your property, then you huddle in the gymnasium while the Forest Service has a meeting, the union rep decides the fire is too big, and so they run for their lives telling themselves it's natural and the people shouldn't have been there.

Condsider the Winter Fire

[Carry_Okie]

If many are not smart enough or willing to build and landscape their homes in ways that minimize their risk from wildfires, I'd say the answer to your question is No.

Excuse me, get with reality. Those are government forests; they aren't allowed to thin it to a rational stocking density. These people were burned out of their homes by their own government, although I have to say that a good many were dumb enough to go along with the program.

Congress was warned.

[doug from upland]

The area is vulnerable because drought and an infestation of bark beetles have left millions of dead trees.
====================================

Don't forget to send a note of thanks to the Sierra Club for stopping any reasonable forest management.

[farmer18th]

Actually, with respect to Lake Arrowhead, it gets worse. My brother, who lives there, couldn't cut down a tree four years ago without permission from an agency (can't remember which), but for the last year, you get fined if you don't cut down the dead trees. (Because of the density of the homes, trees can be as much as $3,000 or more to cut down a piece.)