Posted on 10/15/2017 3:40:38 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
NOTICE: If you hate California and have nothing good to say, move on. You are NOT wanted on this thread. Get lost.
If you have a heart, please watch the video of the Berkeley Engine 6 firefighting team helping out in Santa Rosa. This is heart-wrenching. There are links to contribute to those who have lost everything.
A group of Berkeley firefighters was called out to help fight the Tubbs Fire early Monday morning. They thought it was a "large grass fire," but arrived in Santa Rosa to find hundreds of homes and businesses burned. This video was taken and produced by a Berkeley firefighter.
Berkeley Fire Department received the call for help early Monday morning. They sent an engine north to Santa Rosa to help with what they thought was a "large grass fire." When the strike team, made up of both Berkeley and San Francisco firefighters, arrived in Santa Rosa before sunrise, they were stunned to see the scope of the already massive Tubbs Fire.
A video shot and edited by a Berkeley firefighter (above) shows the crew's reaction when they realized just how large the destructive fire had grown overnight. As the engine headed toward the Santa Rosa Kmart store where they were told to assemble, the firefighters could see flames in the hills. "Wow, those are coming out of the structures," one firefighter says. "Oh my god." A few seconds later, someone says, "It's starting to smell like houses burning."
The Tubbs Fire destroyed more than 2,800 homes, 400,000 square feet of commercial space, and took the lives of at least 19 people.
The fire was 60 percent contained Sunday morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Oh well...it’s a new approach. Warn the off before they start with the vulgar nastiness. Here we are in posts in the mid 40s and I haven’t seen the normal anti-Calif vulgarity. Instead, it’s directed at me for posting the warning at the start. Maybe I’m the heat shield on this one. Don’t think I blew it, though.
200 feet per second — for reference, 60 mph is 88 feet per second! So that’s about 130 mph.
I’m guessing that’s because the winds were blowing embers far in front of the flame front and starting fires a mile downwind. That’s why the only way to stop a firestorm like that is to get way ahead of it and do a back-burn - you intentionally burn out the fuel in front of the fire, creating a firebreak.
Thanks for the link. I’ll read that article.
Yeah, that occurred to me. They have an hour drive ahead of them and they weren’t told what they were heading into? Odd, isn’t it? Maybe Santa Rosa FD Dispatch was so busy they couldn’t even find the time to do that?
The leftists might murder him.
I specifically posted this article because it is the Berkely FD that are among the many heroes. Berkeley gets a lot of severe criticism for being a whacko left-wing nutcase city (rightfully so, too), but the Public Safety guys headed straight for the danger.
I forgot about them being ordered to remove the American flags from their trucks after 9/11. Thanks for reminding us.
For Pete’s sake. This was just like the flooding from the hurricanes in Florida. It was a perfect storm: in the case of Florida, a hurricane following a nor’easter in conjunction with seasonal and astronomical high tides. In the case of CA, lots of dry grass and brush, ionically as the result of a very rainy early summer, and a fire starting during the northern CA equivalent of the Santa Ana, with winds of 60 or 70 mph. In other words, phenomenally bad luck. It’s nobody’s fault.
I wish Trump would come out and at least tweet support. FEMA resources are there, but he needs to do something personal.
Yes, it is just like the flooding...just as bad...maybe worse depending on who is going through it.
I agree that President Trump should put some emphasis on the fires, come out when it is not a drain on resources, etc. as the Californians on Twitter as wondering where he is..
And for haters, many of the residents of Sonoma and Napa voted for Trump..and are relatives and friends of Freepers—not that it should matter in a time like this.
Go find another Hate-Cali thread or start your own.
We came close to delivering more votes for Trump than any other state:
1. Texas - 4,685,047 votes for Trump
2. Florida - 4,617,886
3. California - 4,483,810
4. Pennsylvania - 2,970,733
Thanks.
I did a first and warned them off at the beginning of this thread. But those with no class in the face of horrendous disaster simply cannot help themselves. Shameful, indeed. No compassion, no humanity, no concern about the tens of thousands of people living in shelters and the 10,000 to 20,000 who lost everything.
Shame. FR has gone off the rails in many ways.
Dramatic footage shot from within the firetruck cab as they pull into what was supposed to be the rendezvous point at a K-Mart, and the entire place is on fire. The scope of this fire is hard to comprehend. Much of the camera footage looks like the opening screen in Bladerunner with flames towering up and gas explosions.
Wow...that is bad. Druggies buying for pennies on the dollar to grow dope. Sucks, indeed.
LA County is a little over 4000 sq miles and most if it is arid including the mountainsides at lower elevations.
The undergrowth you refer to is commonly known as chaparral and is what prevents those mountainsides from coming down when it does rain and it does at times.
The east winds, no matter what they’re referred to are hot dry winds blowing anywhere from 20 to 60 MPH and when fires start will not be controlled until those winds subside or the fires run out of fuel to burn.
The current fires in northern CA are due to these high, dry winds. They can’t landscape thousands of square miles in CA and as the population grows those people have to live somewhere.
That’s the way it’s been and will continue to be.
People are going to do things we don’t like at times.
That doesn’t make any of them particularly bad people. I tend to think of them more as thoughtless.
Free Republic is an open forum. It’s only as good as the people who frequent it.
For the most part, we have some great people here, and I’d venture to say that some of the folks who weren’t too thoughtful here, are brothers or sisters on other important issues.
Sorry you and the thread weren’t give the respect you deserved.
Take care.
NOTICE: If you hate California and have nothing good to say, move on. You are NOT wanted on this thread. Get lost.
I hope you realize you just set the tone, for what will become a thread full of nastiness and hard-hearted comments.
What a fail.
ProtectourFreedom saw what happened on the thread I posted...it was the first in breaking news for updates and support—so Freepers and others s could find out where to get information about their loved ones, friends, and property..The second post basically said Californians deserved it...Very upsetting, had mods deleting some comments so thread did not get hijacked, etc.
So yeah, if have to put up a qualifier, it is a sad reflection of small mindedness of some on this site, but likely necessary.
I don't know how you stand your state government but I know there are good people in California.
I find it funny that all those secessionists now think Washington should pony up money right away.
Excellent video. Thank you for posting. I must remember to pray for our firefighters and others fighting this fire.
I will post a link to a video which asserts, and appears to show, that the fire burned almost twice as hot as a regular structure fire (enough to melt metal, glass etc.) I didn’t follow the discussion of the color of the smoke and I don’t agree that there’s some kind of “wave” involved, but they do make the point that it’s odd in that it’s hotter, faster and more destructive. I would agree with that assertion because there’s often just a concrete slab left instead of a collapsed pile etc. as shown in the video you linked. The video below was apparently posted by a Christian and mentions God in the title but the content focused on the unusual nature of the Nappa fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYoUdvhGsyc&t=1s
Thank you for posting, POF. It’s like hell on earth. The amount of destruction is just overwhelming.
Like watching a post apocalyptic movie...but pictures and video really don’t do justice to what it must be like to experience losing your home or a loved one...
I have heard the air quality in Monterey is affected...Monterey is 3 hours away from Sonoma~my son is in Oakland area, and he said air is terrible :( There are links for that too...
It is bad...really bad!
Exactly. But these guys are seasoned firefighters and have said they’d never encountered a fire quite like this, the speed and the setting (large neighborhoods) combined to make havoc. That first night it moved too fast for backburns or breaks. This week is when they’ve been able to set defensive fires, use the bulldozers, etc.
The first night? Try to save lives.
People are going to say what they’re going to say.
Putting a notice at the top of the thread, warning others to refrain from making negative comments, only invites negative comments.
It’s a challenge that WILL be answered, whether you like it or not.
Well worth watching. Thanks for the link.
And you have to have insurance yourself. We have no house insurance, can’t afford it (no mortgage). So....if our place burns, we’re SOOL. OR in surrounded by national forest that often burns.
And the charred ground is horrible, smells like fire for years.
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