Posted on 11/13/2018 1:41:17 AM PST by Morgana
I think it’s page 142, “Earth in The Balance” by algore.
He said because it takes two Yew trees to get enough taxal (?) to treat one human cancer patient that we should not cut down Yew trees.
However, if he needed it I am sure he would be out with a chain saw looking for that last yew tree. POS!
Lots of that brush was dry and perfect for burning. I'm not sure how realistic it would have been to do a controlled burn of most of the open spaces. The risk of a controlled burn turning into a real fire seems very high. Even clearing the brush by hand probably increases the chance of somebody accidentally sparking a fire.
The county or whoever does seem to do a good job of maintaining the roads and trails so that the fire fighters can get back there quickly.
I go for walks all the time in these areas that burnt and have been concerned that this was bound to happen. Its just so frickin dry here for most of the year.
There most certainly are some aspects of this issue that have to do with political priorities (7 billion for a train to no where - no super tanker airplanes California owns). A lot of the problem seems like we live in an area that is very prone to this happening.
Building codes probably need to be strengthen to make the houses more fire resistant. Those canter-levered houses on the sides of very steep hills in Malibu need to be forbidden regardless of how rich the person is. I have heard many of those types of homes were destroyed as its easy for the fire to get up underneath them.
There seems to be also a bit of a fatalist streak to it all - at some point its going to be your turn in the barrel
My dad evacuated with minutes to spare through a tunnel of fire. Home down in a canyon... burned to within 50 yards, then jumped 200 yards. His home was spared, the pines surround it, not a singe. Unbelievably blessed.
bro-in-law a fire chief 90 miles away called in to do post-disaster-management took pics for us. Amazing.
Knowing CA, attempts to cut back trees were probably hampered by environmentalists. In 2011, CT/MA had a major snowstorm with heavy wet snow and leaves still on the trees in late Oct., knocking out power for almost 100% CT North of I-84 all the way to the MassPike. IIRC 60-70% of CT lost power for days.
Next spring when it was tree cutting season, numerous areas complied the utilities wanted to trim trees back from power lines.
Yes, a lot is federal. But it is state regulations that restrict the federal land managers from the doing the necessary controlled burning. It is blatantly unconsitutional but the state air quality laws disallow landowners, including the feds, from burning when it is low mixing weather. That was the case in the spring when many controlled burns should have been started.
There's very little risk when the fires are started in low mixing weather. The problem is that CARB disallows burning in low mixing weather because someone might cough from the smoke. The regulations are absolutely insane, only allowihng controlled burning (natural and prescribed) when it is unsafe i.e. windy. By then it is much too late. Furthermore CalFire wasted money putting out minor fires when it was still safe, instead of starting more controlled fires in high risk areas. They are completely incompetent. CARB has blood on their hands. Likewise Butte county which took already bad CARB regulations and made them more onerous, only allowing 6,000 acres to be burned in controlled fires (out of more than a million). That was woefully inadequate.
You are correct that the super El NIno created a huge amount of fuel. That was the source of the problem and the only solution was fire, either sooner or later. California chose later. They chose badly.
This is very common on both sides. I have a house in Tyler Tx that is being renovated ( a real antique dated mid to later 1800’s) we go there on weekends & work on it-drywall carpentry etc... but two rooms have been tamed a bathroom & bedroom. I suggested to my hubby our home vacant 5 days a week might help someone in CA that finds themselves living in a Walmart parking lot. Scoping FB & James Woods twitter-there is not much on humanoids that might need help...just animals.
Death toll now 48, six more sets of remains were discovered today. No new public releases of victims names pending family notification and identification of the remains.
Saw a live leak video earlier of a survivor returning to his home the next day and found several charred bones of people he was trying to help evacuate. He was an old timer and so were they, some with physical disabilities.
He found a woman’s car he tried to get to evac but she wouldn’t leave without first putting on her makeup.
Me too.
Ah, #50, didn’t see your post.
IIRC, there was a video on Youtube about some folks who stayed to protect their house and ended up surviving in the swimming pool. And another couple had a fire bunker built beside their house and survived in that while the house burned.
Thanks for the information I will learn more about this what you wrote makes lots of sense. Therefore it’s probably impossible to do in California
Butte County's implementation of the regs, including their insane 6,000 acre limit: https://www.arb.ca.gov/drdb/but/curhtml/r300.pdf There are a very limited number of days mainly in spring where CARB allows the fire (windy enough) but while it is still safe (not too windy or unpredictable), and there are more than a million acres that might need burning
The results of the policy: https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3798 This report greatly softpeddles the problem which is insane "air quality" regulations. They say "The VMP treated 17,500 acres with prescribed burns in 2017, somewhat more than the average of approximately 13,000 acres treated per year since 1999. This represents a decrease from about 30,000 acres treated per year from 1982 through 1998. This decrease is due to several factors, including (1) an increase in the amount of planning and documentation required for prescribed burns due to stricter air quality regulations..."
No excuse.
I am a former USFS wildland firefighter I know it is true
Median age in Paradise was fifty-two. My Parish Saint Thomas More had a choir nicknamed the BlueBirds for their bright blue robes. Everyone in the choir had to be 80 -90 plus.
There was a saying in Paradise that it was a town of the newlywed or the nearly dead.
Now the entire town is as good as gone, and it breaks my heart as all my old friends have lost their homes.
“There was a saying in Paradise that it was a town of the newlywed or the nearly dead.”
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I lived in Santa Barbara, California many years ago and I heard the same expression used to described that Southern California city (decades ago).
Good Lord. That was really hard to watch. Poor guy, going in and finding several friends and acquaintances burned to death...
S’alright. That video was STARK.
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