None of this has happened since the 2003 fire: No dead lay fuel timber cutting, no firebreak widening, no limit on developers carving master plan communities into brush fire country just so that some guy who doesn't even live in the home six months out of the year can see the smoggy valley below. Those beetle-killed 'Golden Pine' trees in the San Bernardino forest aren't allowed to be felled, mulched, or chemically disintegrated. They just stand there in the forst like tanker trucks full of gasoline waiting for the first Santa Ana winds, lit cigarette butt, arsonist, or illegal alien letting their kids shoot off roman candles in the forest for Cinco de Mayo. In fact, the CA envirokooks have even gotten legislation passed since 2003 to allow firebreaks to become overgrown in the interests of 'returning the landscape to nature'. All that hard work done with Federal dollars since the 1940s wasted. They should have been widened.
This is the second time in four years that my brother's family has had mandatory evacuation from his place in Lake Arrowhead. They came closer this time to losing their home than in 2003, and slowly but surely Lake Arrowhead is turning into a burnt out moonscape. Have you even been up there recently? Right now there's a quarter million people in SoCal that fled for their lives who are now living like itinerant refugees in a Bosnian squatter's camp.
Really now. CA isn't the only state with lots of timber, so the issue of forest management isn't yours alone. It's just that after every catastrophic fire there, nothing gets done there. Two weeks after 1500+ homes are lost in southland communities and Channel 7 'KABC Action News Fire Center 2007' has gone back to regular mundane programming, everyone in the state except those directly affected forgets all about what just happened. Nothing is resolved.
Believe me, after the 2003 fires in San Bernardino County, my brother took his family to the largest scheduled public appreciation event for the heroic firefighters of San Diego and San Bernardino counties and they were just about the only people that showed up. The event drew maybe 150 people. No lawmakers from Sacramento attended, but some forty fire stations sent trucks and firefighters who just sat milling around getting no thanks for saving entire cities. They had burgers, hot dogs, packed up and left.
You know what? You're so off-base with your defensive posturing, I'll prove something to you: When the fires finally die out in SoCal, watch and see how much gets done for the people burnt out and those who may suffer the same fate in the near future. See how much is done to upgrade firefighting equipment and hiring more personnel. What sort of proposals there will be to reverse the envirowacko's mandates on firebreaks and forest management. Let's just watch and see.
You'll be lucky to see a Sparkletts bottle filled an inch deep with pennies and dimes at your local supermarket, and maybe your local elementary school will hold a miserable little canned food drive. Meanwhile, everyone else in CA will be right back to talking about how dumb that Lindsey Lohan chick is for getting popped for DUI three times in a year and who they like best on this season's 'Survivor'.
Bet me? Two weeks and this will all be a forgotten memory until maybe 2009 when once again you'll snap on the TV and hear "It's being called the worst wildfire in California's history! Good evening, I'm Jim Lampley in the Fire Watch 2009 Action News Center!".
... Then you and I will talk about how a whole lot of exactly nothing has been done since 2007, won't we?
See you then!
You seem to be focusing on forest fires, and Arrowhead. BTW, we have a home up in that area, so yeah, I'm kinda familiar with the region..Family in Big Bear and Crestline too. Been going up there for 45 years. Oh, and they have been removing tens of thousands of dead and diseased trees up in that region for years now. Did you miss that?
Fact is you could take out half the trees out of those mountain regions and it would do little good when the Santa Ana's decide to blow. But don't worry...Eventually there will be few if any trees up there, as the droughts, if they continue, will eventually turn the forest into much different environments. Ya see, those big trees need lots of water/snow packs and they just don't get it like they use to.
Haven't you heard about he lake levels all over the place?
Did your brother tell ya about the boats on Arrowhead sitting on their hulls at their docks in the mud a few years back? Water level dropping fast again. Trees need water. Lots of it.
Fact is most of these fires your gawking at from Oregon, are not *forest* fires...They are *brush* fires, fed by super strong winds, blowing embers for miles in every direction. You can cut your brush back a hundred yards and still get showered with millions of burning embers blowing in, causing spot fires *miles* ahead of the main fires.
You've never been in a brush fueled Santa Ana blown firestorm have you? Gets into one home, the entire neighborhood can be toast quickly. And not a forest in sight.
Even the Commanders of the eastern fire region stated he'd never, *ever* has seen winds and fire like this.
It's heavy brush that grows year round on thousands of square miles of very steep and rugged hills, with ever encroaching populations...
the CA envirokooks have even gotten legislation passed since 2003 to allow firebreaks to become overgrown in the interests of 'returning the landscape to nature'. All that hard work done with Federal dollars since the 1940s wasted. They should have been widened.
You really don't get it. Ya think a "firebreak" is going to stop a firestorm generated by the Santa Ana's? If so those fire breaks better be *miles* wides, literally making a grid across the entire southern region. I guess that would eliminate half the land for human use, and the ever expanding population. Maybe not a bad idea....
Believe me, after the 2003 fires in San Bernardino County, my brother took his family to the largest scheduled public appreciation event for the heroic firefighters of San Diego and San Bernardino counties and they were just about the only people that showed up.
Stop with your brother. I've seen many events, been in wild fires, assisted firefighters, and helped put out a few small ones...Read many stories about grateful people going way out of their way for the firefighters here. Opening up their homes, feeding them, opening up restaurants, no charge for anything etc. We see it all the time as a matter of fact. Of course you're up in Oregon, and wouldn't have a clue. Maybe your brother missed all that too.
You know what? You're so off-base with your defensive posturing
And your off base with your blame game. This isn't soaking wet Oregon pal. This is a tender box with 65 plus mph winds that occur *every year*. So dry, just takes the heat from a catalytic converter to set it off.
Your not going to stop thousands of square miles of rugged heavy brush land from occasionally going up in flames and burning people out... Especially in these seemingly endless droughts. Unless you plan on out right banning human occupation.
You can try to manage this, lower the risk...But in events like this, generated by near hurricane style winds, mother nature can kick your butt regardless.