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California fires burn record 2 million acres

22 Comments
By JOSH EDELSON

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Climate change is a Chinese hoax! 

Or maybe not.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

What global warming? /s

2 ( +7 / -5 )

Very poor forest and environment management California state. It looks like State Government was waiting for wildfire every year. Do nothing Government and do not protect wild life in the state. I'm really sorry for peoples, animals and wild life in California State.

-5 ( +6 / -11 )

Starting to remind me of what Australia went through at the beginning of this year.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

2 million acres so far. The map looks really bad with so many fires.

Just checked re Australia, which suffered 46 million acres burnt up to March this year, apparently.

https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disaster/2019-australian-wildfires/

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Very poor forest and environment management California state. 

Chop Chop, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The prolonged drought and invasive species (boring beetles) endemic to Asia introduced via wooden shipping pallets have created vast stands of standing deadwood have wreaked havoc not only in California but across the western states. Climate change has also increased cases of "dry lightning," which ignites fires without accompanying rain to douse them. Do your homework.

California has historically been a land of fire. In fact, many conifers do not germinate until signaled by the heat of a passing fire that their seeds will land on an ash-covered, fertile area. But recent events have been abnormal. Perhaps we're seeing the change from California's alpine areas to Mediterranean climate.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

I blame Gavin Newsom.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

In northern California, more than 200 people were airlifted to safety over the weekend after a fast-moving wildfire trapped them near the Mammoth Pool Reservoir northeast of Fresno.

Californians are incredibly grateful to their brave California National Guard aviators who carried out a daring night-time rescue of a couple of hundred trapped campers.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-06/dramatic-night-airlift-rescues-scores-of-victims-trapped-by-creek-fire-at-mammoth-pool

5 ( +5 / -0 )

For all those with the tedious unthinking climate alarmists, wildfires are a yearly ritual and have been decreasing for the past 5 or 6 years.

Again, this is a case of poor forest management and a failure to do controlled burns. Democrats simply cannot allow one endangered owl to die. Californians pay the price.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

Trump should be out there with sleeves rolled up, sweeping and raking up the dry leaves (like he suggested in 2018!). Wouldn't take long or be too difficult in a small state like California. Ahem ahem.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

For all those with the tedious unthinking climate alarmists, wildfires are a yearly ritual and have been decreasing for the past 5 or 6 years.

No. 2015, 2017 were the worst in history.

From the 21th century the trend is really bad :

https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-wildfires#:~:text=2019%3A%20In%202019%20there%20were,million%20acres%20burned%20in%202018.&text=About%208.8%20million%20acres%20were,with%2010%20million%20in%202017.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

No. 2015, 2017 were the worst in history.

From the 21th century the trend is really bad :

Climate is based on a 30-year running average but it should be based on at least a 100-year average. There have been many years with such extensive fires. It is also a long-term historical fact in California.

Lightning, arson, and in this case, a baby reveal party gone bad are the reason why the vast majority of fires start. Ignorant policies that neglect controlled burning to eliminate the fuel for forest fires are why things get bad. Climate has nothing to do with it

-7 ( +0 / -7 )

Climate has nothing to do with it

Too bad those pesky scientists don't agree with you.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Too bad those pesky scientists don't agree with you.

Those pesky scientists who are not actually scientists, but activists? Yeah guess not. But they also said Manhattan would be under water by 2016.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Very poor forest and environment management California state. It looks like State Government was waiting for wildfire every year. Do nothing Government and do not protect wild life in the state. I'm really sorry for peoples, animals and wild life in California State.

The fires burning in southern California are not burning in forests. They are burning in something called chaparral, a dense brush some two meters high with oily leaves that burn hot. It was 49.4 degrees C in parts of the City of Los Angeles on Sunday. That is 121 degrees F. That is an all time high for LA County, a county which includes a lot of territory in the Mojave desert. Even at night the temperatures in some of the mountains surrounding Los Angeles never went below 37 degrees C. Even high up in the San Gabriel Mountains the temps remained above 33 degrees C, 90 degrees F. Relative humidity meanwhile is single digits. When it is that dry and hot the heat sucks all the water out of the plants and they explode when a flame contacts them. The problem isn't so much the fires as they are part of the natural ecosystem. The problem is people insist on living in the forests or on slopes covered in chaparral. It's not even 6 am here and the outside temperature is 31 C, or 88F.

In the Sierra Nevada the problem is decades of low average snowfall. A few years of high snowfall do not make up for all the other years where the ground is dry. The trees are dead or dying from lack of moisture, leaving them vulnerable to boring insects, fungus and diseases. Severe air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley is also killing the trees. Big stands of pine and fir not that far from where I live are golden colored, meaning they are dead. When a fire hits dead timber there is no way to stop it. The dead trees explode and buddy you have not lived until a big pine tree has gone up in a wump close enough for you to see it and feel the heat.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Again, this is a case of poor forest management and a failure to do controlled burns. Democrats simply cannot allow one endangered owl to die. Californians pay the price.

The majority of the fires are burning on Federal lands, mostly National Forests but in one case the Point Reyes National Seashore. A huge fire right on the waters edge in a Federal park. The big fire above LA is in the Angeles National Forest and the one east of San Bernardino is likewise in the San Bernardino National Forest. State laws do not apply to Federal lands. The state of California cannot do anything to regulate logging, fishing or anything else in a National Forest. The state cannot conduct controlled burns in a National Forest. State rangers have no authority there either. State laws do not apply there so your accusation is a red herring not based on fact. The state of California owns 3% of forest lands in California. That is all the state can regulate. The Federal government owns 57% of the forested land in the state, the places where most of the fires are burning btw. The remainder is private land the landowners are responsible for maintaining. Many do not. Fire officials have been telling the public for decades to keep a "defensible space" around their properties, meaning 100 feet out from the property line cleared of brush and undergrowth to stop the spread of a fire to their home. Look at the images on the TV and tell me if you see that defensible space anywhere. People refuse to listen to good advice and grow trees right up to their homes. Anyone who has lived in the state knows it is stupid to do. It is frankly idiotic to live in fire prone areas altogether IMHO. But people want to live places that feel woody and close to nature ignoring the inherent risks. Fire is part of that ecosystem. It is what causes the seeds to germinate so new plants replace the burned ones. Fire is a necessity. Fancy homes on chaparral covered slopes are not necessary.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Californians are incredibly grateful to their brave California National Guard aviators who carried out a daring night-time rescue of a couple of hundred trapped campers.

That was a daring rescue! I used to fly Chinooks and it took a very big set to fly into a big fire like that at night to make that rescue. The hot air rising up off that fire greatly reduces engine power and rotor lift. Hot air is much less dense than cool air. It is like flying in the thinner air of a much higher altitude where engines make less power and rotors make much less lift. Helicopter pilots live and sometimes die on what is called density altitude. One poor choice by either of those helicopter crews could have led to them flying into the hot air column and losing both power and lift tragically. One second you are in cool air and the next second in hot air. All of a sudden you lose both power and lift. Better hope you have some altitude above the terrain when that happens! And since it was night, there was always the chance of inadvertently flying into the smoke column and getting discombobulated. I haven't seen anyone say the helos made more than one trip but ordinarily they only carry 55 passengers, implying two trips by two helos to rescue the over 200 people stranded on that lake. If the two helos did it in one lift they might have set a record for the number of people stuffed into a Chinook on a single lift. They would have been close to their maximum take off weight. Factor in heat and altitude and that was some sporty flying. A big Bravo Zulu to the National Guard crews who made that rescue. Two later attempts to extract people stranded at another lake by helicopter have failed.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

A friend near Portland in Oregon told me the smoke from the fires was very thick there. Must be a southerly breeze blowing the smoke northwards. I faced the same smoke issue in Melbourne from the bush fires last summer. It blocks out the sun. Not good. I hope they manage to pull through it with no loss of life.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

A friend near Portland in Oregon told me the smoke from the fires was very thick there. Must be a southerly breeze blowing the smoke northwards.

There are blazes all through the Cascades. There are seven large fires in the mountains east of Portland on either side of the Columbia River. Like you I have a friend in Bend telling me the smoke there is making him hoarse. Look at a site called Inciweb to see all the fires burning.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

78 more people and six dogs rescued today by helicopters, the same group National Guard crews tried unsuccessfully tried twice to rescue yesterday. They don't give up. Great job!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

serendipitous1Sep. 8  04:56 pm JST

Trump should be out there with sleeves rolled up, sweeping and raking up the dry leaves (like he suggested in 2018!). Wouldn't take long or be too difficult in a small state like California. Ahem ahem.

California/Weatern Nevada is going to get their forest fires in the summer. And it is partially due to what Desert Tortoise said. I was stationed in California years ago and the smoke was so thick I could see large sunspots on the Sun with just my own two eyes. That's how ancient Chinese astronomers discovered sunspots centuries before the telescope was invented.

And Trump needs to quit running his stupid motormouth, not that he cares about California and its diverse people anyway.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Demms don't care if cities or forests burn to the ground

Yeah because that comment is based in reality right?

I deplore the deplorables on the right, but I know even they don’t hate their cities or want to burn them down.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

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