Dead Trees Pose 'Apocalyptic' Calif. Wildfire Threat

Reuters via Yahoo! ^ | 10/29/03 | Gina Keating

[dead]

39 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California fire officials warned on Wednesday that one of the biggest of the wildfires they are fighting could be on the verge of taking an "apocalyptic" turn if it spreads to "a deadline" of diseased and highly flammable trees in the San Bernardino Mountains.

The California Department of Forestry has "maxed out" its resources to keep the rampaging blazes from reaching beetle-killed trees surrounding mountain towns in San Bernardino County, the agency's director Andrea Tuttle told reporters on Wednesday.

There are 400,000 acres of dead and diseased trees in San Bernardino and San Diego Counties, Tuttle said.

"When the fire gets into diseased trees the fire will be of biblical proportions," Tuttle said. Since the trees are dead, they provide perfect fuel for the fires and would produce an intensity of heat and flame not so far seen in the week old battle.

"We are worried. We are trying to hold the fire out of that area, but if it does go up it will be of epic proportions. We will not have seen a conflagration of those proportions once it gets started," she said.

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles County blaze that firefighters had managed to tamp down overnight sprang up ahead of strengthening ocean gusts on Wednesday afternoon, leapt Interstate 5 and made a run for a neighborhood of expensive homes.

Fifty-foot high flames came within feet of homes in the Stevenson Ranch in Los Angeles, and police warned residents and news crews to be prepared to evacuate quickly. Firefighting aircraft dove through thick smoke to aggressively bombard the so-called Simi Valley fire with water and retardant as strong winds buffeted the aircraft.

NINE MAJOR FIRES

Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Mark Savage said about 50 fire engines were positioned throughout Stevenson Ranch to protect the structures. "We are putting in place the plan we have had the whole time: defending the structures as (the fire) bumps into the foothill area," Savage said.

The fires have blackened an area nearly the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island -- over the course of a week and incinerated 2,000 homes, destroying entire suburban neighborhoods in hours.

Officials said that at least 18 people have died in one of the state's worst-ever wildfire seasons and grimly predicted that more charred bodies would be uncovered when the flames were finally doused and rescue workers moved in.

More than 12,000 firefighters from across California and the western states have been deployed at nine major fires and eight smaller offshoots that have burned more than 600,000 acres from north of Los Angeles to the U.S.-Mexico border, Tuttle said.

She added that the biggest worry remained the so-called Old Fire, which on Wednesday jumped a highway that firefighters hoped would act as a brake and marched through the San Bernardino Mountains to surround some 16 mountain communities about 70 miles east of Los Angeles.

MOUNTAIN TOWN WIPED OUT

More than 50,000 residents of the popular resort towns of Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead jammed the only two roads off the mountain on Tuesday afternoon, fleeing a towering firestorm that caught crews off guard.

In San Diego County, the so-called Cedar fire incinerated 90 percent of the buildings in the mountain hamlet of Cuyamaca, and firefighters were staging a house-by-house effort to save nearby Julian, a former gold-mining town, and seven other communities from the fire's advance.

Tuttle reported that early and incomplete surveys of the burned area showed that 300 structures had been lost in Cuyamaca, where only the town hall and fire station were standing, and at least 200 in Julian.

The two huge fires in San Diego County had destroyed 1,300 homes and killed 12 people. Although diminished desert winds and clearing skies overnight allowed firefighters to make their first progress in containing the 45-mile-long fires, Wednesday afternoon brought renewed gusts from the opposite direction, officials said.

"It's a bad wind for us," CDF regional Chief Tim Turner said.

Gov. Gray Davis estimated that by the time all of the fires were put out the cost to California, which is already reeling from financial woes that prompted voters to throw him out of office, would be nearly $2 billion.

President Bush has declared a state of emergency in four counties, and California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Washington to meet congressional leaders on Wednesday to hurry the dispersal of federal emergency funds.

[Simmy2.5]

Grrrrrrrrr. Got to get used to this HTML stuff. www.pushback.com

[sinkspur]

I'm sorry; you're right. I typed "clear-cutting" as I was thinking "thinning."

Of course, there's no way to thin some of our forests, as Clinton shut down all the roads.

Clear-cutting won't solve everything, though. If you want to live in the woods, fire is one of the hazards.

[sinkspur]

I did it again. THINNING won't solve everything.

[Simmy2.5]

Oh what the hell. Just copy and past the link into your browser. Anyways, that site has a lot more about thinning the forest and the fraud the econuts have done to our forest (as well as other information in things like MTBE, Nuclear Energy, and so on).

[Poohbah]

I've been wondering if in some small way this fire might be a message to the noisy, rich liberals who do live there... Maybe they'll catch on

Well, when you consider that most of the residents of these areas are NOT noisy, rich liberals...the noist rich liberals probably WON'T catch on.

[Wolfstar]

I don't even see Katie as all that perky anymore. Just annoying. Plus time is not being kind to her looks.

[Wolfstar]

Plus good forest management might have helped lessen the impact of the beetle infestation. Our local media is hopeless in terms of telling us the important things that are happening in the state. I live in the greater Los Angeles area. Even though I pay close attention to the news, I didn't know anything about the beetle infestation or the vast numbers of trees that have been killed. Truly shocking that conditions should have been allowed to get so bad — exposing both the many tourists who visit those mountain areas, and the people living there, to what amounts to a vast firewood box.

[Ditter]

I am not sure the Indians "maintained" anything. I think they squatted in a place until it was too nasty, then they moved on.

[ridesthemiles]

The enviro whackos don't just reside and cause mischief in Calif. They are equal opportunity rascals, and they are working against you in your state, also, wherever you are.

[realwoman]

Exactly my point. The liberals have learned a VERY expensive lesson. Now let em pay for it.

But they won't, the taxpayers will.

[LasVegasMac]

Starting about 0800 this morning we got the smell of smoke here in the valley. Very strange, indeed.

An hour later you could actually see a blueish tint in the air and the smell was strong.

Visibility less than two miles, orange tint the whole day. Strange.

And we are a ways up the road.

LVM

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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[tom h]

These trees have no water in them and are like matchsticks. You think the air quality is bad over LA now, wait until the dead beetle-infested trees become torches. Living trees burn but the dead trees will truly be a danger. Over half of the trees between Lake Arrowhead and San Bernardino are dead. Five years of drought brought us to this situation. The warnings about the danger are not new -- this is just the first fire that makes the danger almost a reality.

As for why not let it burn -- well, some of the most pristine forests in Southern California will go up. Old forests. Beautiful forests. And while I'm not an eco-wacko this is still a shame. It will be hundreds of square miles and the fire will be greater than seen yet. Also, there just happens to be thousands of mountain homes over these mountains and they too will be lost.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

California fire officials warned on Wednesday that one of the biggest of the wildfires they are fighting could be on the verge of taking an "apocalyptic" turn if it spreads to "a deadline" of diseased and highly flammable trees in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Yeah well at least California has the most "Progressive" laws in the country concerning control-burns, which everyone at DU knows are just an excuse by the Bush Administration to get around Environmental Laws and commit "Forest Crime", just like Greenpeace says. Ninety-five percent will be clearcut, and its sale disguised behind fire prevention and post-fire salvage operations, pseudo "forest health initiatives" and "restoration" programs. The Bush administration and the Forest Service have manipulated the public's fear of fire to undermine environmental laws and public process in pushing their commercial logging and thinning agenda. http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/features/details?item_id=312273

[jocon307]

"If that isn't evil in a smiley face, I don't know what is."

That's what Katie Couric is, excellent description. And your emphasis on MINDLESS is most precise. These are the ones from whom most Americans get ALL their news. It's changing, but it's still the mainstream broadcast media from whom they get it, they don't read newspapers, or magazines even, thank God for Talk Radio. And they make NO EFFORT to inform people, or educate them in any way about this issues. They are really deplorable.

I'd say that even the left would agree with me, but it serves their power lust to have the people kept ignorant. Happily, and hopefully, this is slowly staring to change.

[Bob J]

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[Wolfstar]

That is a great graphic. Just terrific!

[hedgetrimmer]

Spraying for the beetles and cutting down the dead trees would have greatly reduced any threat. However, environmental tyranny has siezed our politicians (due to the large amount of money the environmental NGOs contribute and the disasterous public private partnerships they've set up) and they refuse to let citizens with common sense maintain their own areas.

Now the Senate is arguing in Washington DC about how to handle the fires. This is the _height_ of absurdity. Get the federal government out of forest management and let it be a local decision. You can bet, if local control is brought back, you will see forests managed in a way that will protect the public's property as well as private property.

[Carry_Okie]

Nothing personal, but your post is emblematic of what is wrong with public understanding of how we got here.

Five years of drought brought us to this situation.

Poppycock. You've just bought the BS government butt covering line. As if the Yellowstone Fire in 1989, the Oakland Fire, the seven million acres that burned in 2000, the six million that burned in 2002, the Los Alamos Fire, the Haystack Fire near Denver, or the Rodeo/Chediski Fire wasn't enough of an indication or a warning. Twenty-five years of government forest mismanagement brought us to this situation and people like you asked for it.

As for why not let it burn -- well, some of the most pristine forests in Southern California will go up. Old forests. Beautiful forests.

So, if they were so damned valuable, what did you pay to take care of them? Do you think a healthy forest comes for free?

And while I'm not an eco-wacko this is still a shame. It will be hundreds of square miles and the fire will be greater than seen yet. Also, there just happens to be thousands of mountain homes over these mountains and they too will be lost.

Had those people heeded the warnings of responsible foresters in the country, they would have thinned their forests on their own nickel and NEVER bought into the viscious BS of the likes of the Sierra Club. They would have showed up at Board of Forestry meetings and never given money to groups that would violate property rights. Now they will wail for FEMA money to bail them out. They'll raise my insurance rates because of the risks they took. They'll vote for Arnold because he says he cares about clean air, and clean water. They don't think a thing of it when he announces support for the Sierra Nevada Framework in his environmental plan which will make the destruction in Southern California look like a patch burn.

I have spent fifteen years clearing brush for fire and risked my life to thin my forest. It has cost a bundle and still does every year. As much as parts of my property would really benefit from some broadcast burning, I can't do it because of the risk to people who won't manage their property. Why should I have to risk my house or the health of my forest simply because the people around me are irresponsible about thinning their trees? As much as I could finance much of that work by selling a few logs, I can't do that because I would need a $15,000 permit to persuade the public that I'm not doing any harm to MY FOREST.

This isn't personal, but you people who think that the government should take care of nature for you is what created this problem. Your agents used eminent domain to virtually steal the land. They drove off the owners on bogus claims of habitat protection that you believed when you went to the ballot box voting for "clean water" or "clean air," more parks, or greenbelts. Well now you've got black belts. How do you like them? How many private parks did you ever use? How would anybody compete with the government in the park business when they can steal the land, charge nothing for using it, take lousy care of it and the people still come? Did you consider paying landowners, ranchers, or farmers for open space or did you bitch about crop subsidies or are you planning to beg Congress to borrow more of your kids' money to finance the Healthy Forest Initiative ruse, a 10 million acre pittance against a 190 million acre fuel problem?

Did you know that there's enough excess fuel out there to provide electricity for 140 million Americans? Rockefeller does. That's why he gives millions of tax exempt dollars to environmental groups. They sell the BS and the public laps it up.

No, your misbegotten busybody ilk asked for regulations that make managing a forest properly nigh on impossible. I'd bet you didn't even think about it when they SCAQMD banned broadcast burning. You cared not a whit about the landowners who lost the investments of forebears who'd held it for over a hundred years. Gotta save that endangered species, many of which became so when as the developers built houses for the likes of you. So, because they were the last to develop, your agents come running in to crush them.

No. This mess is a consequence of democracy, collectivism by majority vote in land use control. I promise you, it's going to get a lot worse before the public realizes that it has no business asking the government to run the environment.

There is a better way. It starts with private property.

[Carry_Okie]

You can bet, if local control is brought back, you will see forests managed in a way that will protect the public's property as well as private property.

You want local control of forests in Santa Cruz County?