Posted on 07/04/2008 7:56:58 AM PDT by kellynla
BIG SUR -- The fires that bedevil California took another ominous turn Thursday as a blaze near Goleta triggered more evacuations and authorities shut another 10 miles of Highway 1 along the flaming Big Sur coast.
Mushrooming in size, the Goleta fire was declared a local emergency by Santa Barbara County officials. Because of its proximity to populated areas, it was also designated the top firefighting priority in a state currently plagued with a multitude of fires, some of them burning without intervention in remote areas.
In Goleta, residents of more than 1,600 homes had been ordered to evacuate by Thursday night. In some cases, the fire was a mile away.
At Big Sur, more than 64,000 acres have burned, 20 structures have been destroyed and about 1,300 are threatened.
"The weather forecast this weekend is for warming and drying conditions," said Greg DeNitto, a spokesman for the multi-agency team fighting the Big Sur blaze. "That's not a good prognosis."
In a period of less than two weeks, at least 1,700 lightning-triggered fires in California have charred more than 513,000 acres. About 100 fires continue to burn. Statewide, more than 10,700 homes are threatened and 34 residences have been destroyed. A new fire Thursday burned at least 250 acres in the San Bernardino National Forest near Yucaipa.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
lots of major fires going on up there. 2/3rds of the state is up in flames. The envirowackos who have caused the heavy deadwood buildup must be just in shock. Very sad this state needs a clean up, and I hope none of the firefighters are hurt.
I would already have been long gone...far too easy to get trapped in there with very limited routes out...
2/3rds?
As a native of California, summer fires it is just another season like winter or fall.
It has always been as long as I have been alive which is a really long long time.
Actually the no-burn policy started in the 1930s. Remember Smokey Bear? Things are a bit different now, and the USFS tends to let fires burn. Witness the Zaca Fire of last summer. Why? They have the excuse to ignore air quality mandates. They KNOW that fire is part of the chaparral ecosystem. They also no it’s politically impossible to control burn in enough volume to make a difference. So, they get an opportunity (like some jerk playing with 4th of July fireworks in the national forest) and they take advantage. We need to have controlled burns over the whole forest on a scheduled basis, so the big one doesn’t get away and kill people and destroy homes. The area the Gap Fire is burning hasn’t burned for 50+ years. Not good. Hope to God, no one gets killed. Bad enough to lose houses. We’ve been there before here in SB. Ditto LA.
No, no they are not is shock. You underestimate the ability of liberals to blame anything except themselves. This is caused by Global Warming don't you know. The dumb a**es will never learn that their policies are just stupid, but maybe our leaders(I did say maybe), the ones with a small percentage of common sense will prevail. Hopefully if any homes burn down they are those of greenies and other liberal a**hats.
They’re forecasting a possibility of dry lightning for the San Diego County mountains for the next few days. A sizable amount of our gear and personnel are up north, so we’re (obviously) thrilled.
There's big money for the Forest Service in "Managing" wildland fires. Why change what is a good thing for them? They like it just the way it is. The more a fire burns, the fatter their budget gets. Not to mention the millions in grants to "study" wildland fires.
Actually you are missing a big point. Before the greenies put a stop to logging fires were not as severe. Logging does the same job as fires and combined with controlled burns of brush, is much better for the economy and the so called eco-system. The big plus is timber is a renewable resource but of course the greenies act as if trees never grow back or that if a tree isn’t at least 200 years old it is worthless, when in fact young trees produce more oxygen than old ones and provide more food for wildlife, all facts that greenies, and a lot of conservatives, ignore.
Yowza’s!!!!!!!!!!
I used to drive from LA to Arroyo Grande all the time....passing thru the area. Good idea to get folks out of the area. I for one would not stay....too much fuel.
Not all forest land is suitable for logging is it? It’s nominally forest, but I can tell you from personal knowledge that the So Cal forests don’t all have trees which are suitable for wood products or pulp. Your comment may have validity in some places, but certainly not all of the intermountain west which is were the problem exists. Some positive effect - yes, but not a panacea.
One of the high cost of housing, and it is still high regardless of any bubble that burst, is the cost of importing lumber and the scarcity of it, not to mention the quality.
Tell me about it. My father logged up near Redding in the 1950s. And yeah, to hell with Spotted Owls!
So I had a chat with one of my friends in the local FD. Why no control burns? Simple. Air quality limits. Now we play Russian roulette when a fire burns. And hey, the USFS didn’t start it, did they, not their fault? Chaparral will burn. In fact fires are part of the ecosystem. Now our hands are tied and we can’t do the right thing BEFORE it becomes a crisis. Like much of our politics - see oil drilling for a comparable example. Time to get our heads out of our collective @$$3$.
I couldn't believe how obsessed they got Friday about giving away free masks and bragging about the giving away by the local company. One would think that was more important than the evacuated people with their pets and children in the high school or the fact that 1,000s of homes were in jeopardy and the lives of the firefighters from all they time they took to talk about it on the news and even in the kiosks that were meant to give us evacuees information about the fire and our evac area. Give me a break. People were mad.
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