Posted on 10/29/2003 2:59:30 PM PST by 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.
The natural result of too much strip cutting. Not to worry, it will fix itself in 400 years if they aren't any more fires...
I have written a book proposing a business method that can incrementally replace regulatory government on a market-by-market basis. I have applied for patent in order to keep evil people from wrecking a good thing, but so far it's only cost me money (over two years ago and I still don't have a first office action). It is a philosophical, economic, legal, ecological, and political work. It's long and deep, but has gained some academic recognition. Check out the reviews.
Seems to me that there may now be opening in CA a window of opportunity to redefine the debate and definition of environmental protection.
I sure hope so. The key would be to penetrate Arnold's handlers. I was asked to rewrite part of the Republican Party Platform for whatever that's worth, but so far I have few contacts among the powers that be. What I have to offer could be a lot broader than just environmental law, considering the damage regulatory agencies do to business in general.
The power to regulate is the power to control who wins in the marketplace. It becomes power for sale as Bray Davis showed only too well.
You seem to have the knowledge to distinguish between bad policy and what is really needed.
Thanks, in places I do, but what I really offer is a way of seeing problems in a new light that makes objective market-based solutions more obvious. There's a major hurdle though, and it's the trial lawyers and insurance companies. I'm working on a document that makes clear how those two needs are critical to solving nearly every problem this State has. The first draft is about 90% done.
Is there a conservative/stewardship based environmental organization?
I really wish there was, but most of what could be such a group has been taken over by ideology or narrow interests because of the need for cash flow to stay afloat. There are national organizations, CEI, PERC, Treekeepers, and others, but the only thing I have seen in California is more broadly based think tanks. I wish there was an environmentally focused organization, but the resource industry associations, in forestry, agriculture, etc, have been taken over by the big corporations that are using the regulations to put their smaller competition out of business. That process is so far along that there are only two truly viable timber interests left for instance. What I need is a way into the door at Hoover or some such. Most of the think tanks are so busy raising money that they don't actually get to spend much time thinking. So far, I've had a better response from out of State.
I have a one to two hour (in two parts) PowerPoint presentation that is fairly powerful as long as I have an understanding of the audience. It's truly entertaining to watch the communists show up and scoff. Within ten minutes they shut up and listen. This is truly a perspective that has people from both sides paying attention.
Thanks for the comments.
No it won't. The boundary conditions have changed. Weeds, weather changes, carbon dioxide, and pest insects render that belief a fantasy. Besides, pre-columbian fire frequencies were much higher.
I got an announcement on a "sustainable forestry" conference in Sacramento next month. I see Andrea is going to talk about using forests to sequester carbon, supposedly to offset global warming. Wonder if she will mention that controlled combustion (ie power plant, sawmill, woodstove) is better then the uncontrolled combustion that happened today? Must be tough to believe in an ideology that requires its belivers to ignore reality.
You tawlkin bout that former Mono County Stupidvisor, Andrea Lawrence??? If you are... Oh my goodness!!! She's gud buddies with the leftist land grabber I bumped out of office down here. A true Commonista!!!
A question on HFI. Doesn't the FS acknowledge that the current processes in place are broke in regards to management of forests? In other words, would the HFI be worth pursuing on a larger scale, if it were not for the processes that make even doing the work so time consuming due to the litigation and appeals process, etc?
I believe you mentioned something about zoning in a previous post. I have the pleasure to work with someone who is on a regional zoning/planning board and he says that zoning (at least in the Eastern US) was designed to address urban issues, but has been do misused that now it is being applied to rural areas with zeal. Thus, the proliferation of Right To Farm laws, etc. So you end up with someone living in a rual area with a bit of land, and they are severely constrained as to what they can do with that land.
Additionally, you posted about a conservation group that folks could join that espouses responsible care of forests, etc. What about the Society of American Foresters? I know it's a professional society, but they do have a Corresponding Member class. A little pricey at $65 a year, though...
Oh, come on, you guys!
For practical terms, that is,
media-wise, all
that really matters
is proximity. These fires
aren't around, say,
Salt Lake City. They're
near Los Angeles. They're near
Hollywood. That means
who ever else lives
nearby, too, celebrities
have propinquity
and that means noisy,
rich liberals... Not Mormons...
In practical terms...
Aww, come on, you know the answer: do nothing...let "nature take its course". (Puke, gag, cough .......)
I honestly don't think so because land use is too complex to be managed from a top-down system. There are overlays of watershed management, fisheries, forest succession, grazing, hunting, predation, pest control... the priorities of which can vary radically in a few feet or over a few days. The response times necessary to keep a problem small demand having people with intimate knowledge of the land and immediate access. You can't do much better than a well educated property owner who loves that piece of dirt and will defend it with his life. It's certainly the most cost effective approach of which I am aware.
The problem is that the system we use devalues the very habitat management services we say are so important that the government must run an operating monopoly on those services. We know it's overloaded with bureaucracy and how inefficient that is. We seem to forget that the worse the situation becomes, the more we pay the agencies to fix it. Wildfire and forest management is a classic example. Think Nature on welfare.
It's a bit disingenuous for the Forest Service to whine about litigation because 40% of their budget is spent on lawyers (I think it's about 70% in NMFS). The USFS has been complicit in this crap for years with its critical habitat listings. So when their spokespeople open their mouths, listen carefully for weasel words.
I believe you mentioned something about zoning in a previous post. I have the pleasure to work with someone who is on a regional zoning/planning board and he says that zoning (at least in the Eastern US) was designed to address urban issues, but has been do misused that now it is being applied to rural areas with zeal. Thus, the proliferation of Right To Farm laws, etc. So you end up with someone living in a rual area with a bit of land, and they are severely constrained as to what they can do with that land.
Frankly, I regard zoning as unconstitutional. If you want to check out a theoretical discussion of the ranchette phenomenon, consider the firet chapter of my book, available here. The book contains a thirty year financial analysis of zoning and forestry. Where I live, zoning has been a crooked racket where the County uses zoning and regulatory power to slowly push timber landowners out of business without putting more developable inventory on the market than their friends can handle, essentially a crooked development market for the politically connected. There are better ways to accomplish land use goals.
Additionally, you posted about a conservation group that folks could join that espouses responsible care of forests, etc. What about the Society of American Foresters? I know it's a professional society, but they do have a Corresponding Member class. A little pricey at $65 a year, though...
SAF has been overrun with academics, but it is a good place to get information. Most of the effective "hands-on" organizations are more local than national (as they should be) and I would recommend that you go that route. The Save the Redwoods League out here is good. Treekeepers (Matt Bennet) in the Southeast is good. There are others. Be careful to check them out thoroughly.
We will need a like thread when this thing is over with your points amplified. It will be the Vanity of the month.
I've had to stay out of the day-to-day fire thing. It's just too upsetting to me to see people wrestling with the symptoms without seeing the real causes. It's that Kilroy thing, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
I don't know if you saw this thread, but it has some good stuff on it.
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