Well on the bright side with all the trees burnt up the chance of future forest fires has been lessened. I suppose the next danger will be from mudslides and such?
You know, this/these was not “tree” fires, in the main. This was not your curtain of flame as we saw in Yosemite. Yes, it is true that Sonoma, Mendocino are certainly thought of as forested areas and they have forested areas. But these were not forest fires in particular. These were for the most part ignited by flying embers from grass fires landing on roofs, and then blowtorched by 40+mph winds. While I am sure that some forested areas burned, that was definitely not the predominant mode. The grief here is that houses burned, and they burned in rather suburban areas, in subdivisions where one wouldn’t think this could happen. These homes were by and large not mountain cabins nestled among the redwoods.
Remarkable, to me, were the two burned out stores in Santa Rosa, a McDonalds and an Arbys. These were standalone restaurants (called “in line” in the trade) that caught an ember on their roofs and burned to the ground. They were probably no more than 10-15 years old, in a fairly new shopping center.
Just drawing the distinction. I was up there Saturday 2 days ago, visiting my brother’s vineyard upon which the house burned to the ground.
“Well on the bright side with all the trees burnt up the chance of future forest fires has been lessened. I suppose the next danger will be from mudslides and such?”
Actually, much of the indigenous Oaks and other large trees were not destroyed, it’s the scrub stuff down on the surface that provided the fuel, and there was a lot of it due to the heavy rains we had last winter.
Again not many trees, but a lot off brush/grasses not mowed as per Mariner:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/epa-waterways-wetlands-rule-118319
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_pool
Nearly every acre of land from San Francisco to Eureka has a tributary stream (even if dry in summer) and vernal pools. EPA claimed jurisdiction over all of it in 2015 and said farmers, ranchers...anyone...could not cut anything within 100 feet of these “protected waters”.
The CA EPA supports and enforces these rules stridently.
Underbrush and grasses exploded.
Then they exploded in fire.
That’s the root cause of this horrible tragedy.
66 posted on 10/14/2017, 9:45:00 AM by Mariner (War Criminal #18)