Posted on 10/22/2007 8:06:14 AM PDT by Sleeping Freeper
SAN DIEGO -- With fire spreading quickly westward, San Diego County officials ordered the evacuation of a huge area east of Interstate 15 between Del Dios Highway and Highway 56 early Mon"This is the worst fire this county has ever seen -- worse than the Cedar Fire [of 2003]," Sheriff Bill Kolender said.
At a news conference shortly after 6 a.m., officials said fires had spread dramatically overnight, whipped by fierce Santa Ana winds. They said fire had jumped Interstate 15 at Lake Hodges and was burning in parts of Rancho Bernardo. Because of the explosive and unpredictable nature of the blazes, all residents living between Interstate 15 and Interstate 5 from Del Dios Highway in the north to Highway 56 in the south were told to begin evacuating.
"This fire is moving very quickly," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said. "Watch TV, listen to the radio and have your car prepared to leave."
Among the communities in the evacuation area are Rancho Sante Fe, Carmel Highlands, Rancho Bernardo, Del Mar Heights and Fairbanks Ranch and parts of Rancho Penasquitos.
Officials have opened Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley to handle the large number of evacuees.
Sanders asked everyone in San Diego County to minimize the use of cell phones to leave the airways free for the use of emergency personnel.day.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcsandiego.com ...
Cal-Fire head is sayin that it is a perfect storm. There are fires in every county so mutual aid is stretched to the maximum.
Two-thirds of California’s counties were carried by Bush in the 2004 election...”red” counties. The coastal counties, which contain the bulk of California’s population, went blue, which accounts for Kerry’s victory over Bush in Calif., by 8%.
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Rhode Island, etc. are more liberal than California.
California gave us Ronald Reagan, one of the best conservatives of modern times.
If I had my way, Arnold would call out the National Guard and have them patrol all the foothills, searching for potential arsonists.
Also, northern San Diego County is chock-full of conservatives. Lots of movers and shakers....the productive people who pay most of the taxes. Prayers to that beautiful area.
Actually, Gov Schwarznegger put in place state funds to help pay for private homeowners to do voluntary fire management on their own property: http://www.fire.ca.gov/rsrc-mgt_forestryassistance_cfip.php
Creating firebreaks on your property (among other actions) can help save your land.
Logging roads, when placed strategically, can double a natural firebreak as well as provide quick access for heavy fire-fighting equipment to ingress into the fight.
Such firebreaks also allow more options for backfires so as to create an enormous area where a wildfire has no fuel.
...all of this was pioneered in the Appalachian mountains of Alabama (and yes, we routinely get 40mph winds in the Appalachian chain).
This is why the forest fires of Alabama that made the news back in 1940 are no longer newsworthy, because scientific forest management reduced 50,000 acre wildfires down to 100 acre brushfires...and that’s what is attempting to be copied by California (at least, where the enviro-wackos haven’t halted such efforts).
Stop posting to me and I will stop replying.
You don’t know what your talking about.
Then you're even more clueless than you've already demonstrated on this thread.
California has more acreage of steep, super rugged geography than the entire state of Alabama. Many of these areas are totally inaccessible for most equipment, even for those on foot, add in very strong winds, with embers that can travel for *miles* into neighborhoods and other areas...
So your "mature adult" comment is quite juvenile and ignorant.
Or are you suggesting sending in several hundred thousand people every summer to be airlifted into hundreds of square miles, into all these super rugged steep areas to cut the brush?
Feel free to answer the questions.
Actually, Las Vegas is a VERY religious town.
Everywhere you go, you see people coming out of the casinos holding their heads, screaming “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!”
I stole this joke from Dean Martin’s uncle....saw it on Dean’s variety show when I was a kid.....
>>And - we know what single-digit humidity feels like. :)
Skin so dry that lotion just doesn’t cut it.
The wind is picking up here now, just like it did late yesterday afternoon.
Locally I’m hearing that Santana is FULL already!
10:16 a.m.
Dozens of home in Rancho Bernardo are burning and there are now reports that some homes in 4S Ranch are also on fire.
wow they just said they expect it to reach the coast
the one casualty so far is a man from my work. He had left his home in the tecate area, then went back, ...flames overtook him. His son was with him, and is in an induced coma with burns over 50% of his body. This was from the Harris fire.
California fire fighting and Alabama fire fighting have about as much in common as the arctic and the Sahara.
My sister in laws house in Crest went up in the last round of big fires. Doesn’t look like there’s much action in the El Cajon area ~at the moment~.
So sad.
Either stay on topic or start your own thread, please. All others, just stop replying - don’t need a flame war on a fire disaster thread. Thanks.
That woman at the news conference is saying inane things such as this is a beautiful day because you can spend time with your family.
There is another man from my work..he lost his home in the Cedar fire in 03, JUST had gotten the house rebuilt, and had to evacuate again.
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