SoCal Fires Live Thread 10/28

10/28/03 | Myself

[al baby]

Its not going to stop untill it gets to the 138 or elizebeth drive

[WestCoastGal]

I do remember quite extensive coverage of the Los alamos fire. Haven't seen much on Fox about this one, I'm disappointed in them. They are fixated on the terrorists in Baghdad and the Peterson case etc.

[al baby]

hope they packed a lunch its going to be a hell o a drive

[wolficatZ]

Chopper pilot said he had a little under an hour of fuel,( and a sore butt) hopefully this cam will stay up till then

[Johnny Gage]

On the MSNBC feed the fire suddenly has just started really moving again, trees exploding nearly too much smoke to see the fire.

[Queen Jadis]

will do...

[Wolfstar]

Because I live in the basin, I wasn't even aware of the beetle problem until the fires (our useless local media in non-action, again). Watching on TV, it sure looks like there are vast stretches where trees are dead. The TV news reporters have been emphasizing that the dead trees are providing fuel for the fires. It's good that Lake Arrowhead has been making people cut down the dead trees, but it doesn't look like anyone did anything about the trees in the wilderness areas, or even those near schools and such.

There was some dude making the rounds of talk radio last night being interviewed as a forestry expert. His claim was that the Native Americans used to practice good forestry, which was stopped when all the Indians were removed from the land. He sounded like an environmental extremist until he said we should be doing what the natives used to do, and thin the living trees, remove dead trees, and use "low-level" burns (natural and man-made) to remove dead leaves and such on the forest floor.

While I don't disagree with him about the solution, I found it annoying that he conveniently excuses the work of the extreme environmentalists over the past 35 years or so by placing the time when things went wrong at about the 1890's or so. Sigh.

[dogbyte12]

Perspective on the amount of land lost.

Picture a box with each side being 29 miles. That is the combined size of the fires.

[mgstarr]

There was mention earlier about Stevenson Ranch area - is the fire headed that way? I have friends who live there but haven't been able to contact them.

[al baby]

A box or a square plane

[dogbyte12]

Stevenson Ranch was threatened earlier, it looks a bit better now, but I think they are all packed up and gone for the most part. Somebody correct me if I am wrong.

[So Cal Rocket]

Perspective on the amount of land lost.

Picture a box with each side being 29 miles. That is the combined size of the fires.

Roughly the size of about 3/4 of the state of Rhode Island

[dogbyte12]

square plane. sorry about that. a square plane for the technical crowd ;)

[Ladypixel]

Quote:
"Where will California get the money to pay for the cost of fighting these fires and to rebuild?"


To be honest? I haven't a clue. But we will. Most of the rebuilding will be done by individuals or housing associations. FEMA is apparently in the southland now, probably debating with Gray Davis... I'd wager that they'd help with the situation. Other than that? Well, rebuilding takes a while; this is not going to be a fast process. Especially in the Scripps fire region down in San Diego, where block after block of homes was destroyed... or in San Bernardino, where a huge canyon area of homes was destroyed. Those won't be rebuilt immediately.

Took approximately nine years to get Malibu rebuilt after the big fire there. Of course, those were multi-million dollar homes. The areas that're burnt in the current batch of firestorms range from mobile homes to mansions, with everything in between.

[dogbyte12]

Chuck Henry happens to be a freaking idiot. Glad he, and more importantly his camera man are ok.

[mhking]

Chuck Henry and Kyung Lah were just on KNBC; she's still there - Chuck showed up on camera CRYING his eyes out. Bawling. "I'm sorry for all the people who lost their homes..."