California is Burning
 

Events in and around Thousand Oaks, CA are breaking my heart.

Not only was the community rocked by the senseless murder of 12 innocent people less than 48 hours ago, for the last 24 hours area residents have been dealing with massive evacutations, strangled or closed evactuation routes, and burning homes and hillsides.

Thankfully, the fires are not immediately threatening my brother's family in Camarillo; can't say the same for former neighbors and friends in TO, nor for a good friend that lives in Agoura Hills, just down the road. I haven't heard from any of them.

On top of all that, the town of Paradise in Northern CA has been completely destroyed. My parents lived there for about eight years in the '80s - no idea how their friends and former neighbors have fared. In addition, Chico CA is also threatened by massive fires. That's where I went to college.

Seems like every footprint that I or my family made in the state is being threatened or obliterated by fire.

I feel like I'm locked in an unending nightmare and I can't wake up. This is just horrific. :(

Yeah. My brother lives in the valley between Chico and Paradise.

I kept watching his dot on "find my friends" yesterday and he wasn't evacuating when the mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the districts surrounding him a mile to the north, East, and South. Turns out his zone was a voluntary evacuation. Different government rules his valley so the orders were not consistent.

So I texted him and told him to hurry up and get out. The fire was still a few miles away at that point, but heading generally in his direction.

Took an hour or two but he and his wife finally got out. They were taking their time getting the things that were important to them and packing them in the car.

I watched the fire line advance towards and across their house today thanks to the MODIS satellite imagery that nobody but me seems to know about.

He and his wife are remarkably calm about it all. They are staying at a hotel near the coast and hope they have a home to return to. It doesn't look likely.

This is not MODIS imagery. It was taken late yesterday, I think. The Red x is where his house used to be.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...64bf0cfa31.jpg

Damn, sorry guys.

So sorry to hear about what your brother is going through. When you can, please let him know that we're all with him in spirit. :hug:

The smoke plume got to southern Mendocino County in under three hours and by noon it was as dark as a total solar eclipse under a deep orange sky.
For some reason many things shone blue in that light.
Twilight Zone stuff.

Latest news is that my brother's neighbor was able to sneak past the police barrier on his bike and check on houses. My brother's house was untouched. The fire seems to have gone up the backside of the ridge behind his house, got to the top and jumped across his house to the other side of the valley and burn that side up.

Basically he was on the lee side of the hill and protected by it. Fire likes to burn uphill, not downhill.

Damn lucky. It's an ashtray all around his place now.

He has no idea when he will be allowed back to see for himself.

Great news - glad to hear it. :)

Tell him to keep an extra air filter and cabin filter handy for his car if he hasn't changed them recently.

Scorched...

Very very sad :(

If this is the new normal, we've got a lot of changing to do. :(

I heard a fire chief talking about a grass-fire jumping like 12 lanes of highway. That is absurd.

Step one is to admit to why the problem exists. Extremists still deny what is obvious and well proven in science. Mankind is causing clmate changes so massive and so quickly that, well, the damning question is whether this will get worse even faster once the oceans no longer absorb massive amounts of carbon gases and heat.

Extremists response typically is to even deny the question. Solutions are subverted when the reason for a problem is even denied. An ostrich mentality exists.

Sad...

Very sad.

I would love to better understand how these fires work. View the picture. An entire right roadside grass and trees unburned. With complete devastation all around.

Same applies to so many pictures in Paradise. Entire homes burn only to ashes - even metal gone. And adjacent are unburned trees.

Apparently nobody stays around to record how this happens. And yet that (and not the resulting devastation) are pictures we all need more. Since news (from actual newsmen) must always leave us better informed. And not waste time with emotions over the resulting devastation that bimbos want to report.

One interesting story is how a couple survived by staying in their pool. One would think that was a no brainer. And then we learn what they said. Even in the pool, they had difficulty surviving. Facts we should all understand - when news is reporting what is relevant.

Maybe people felt it was dangerous to stay behind and film?

Maybe the power went out an hour or two before the fire arrived so any cameras left behind recording lost power?

My brother has numerous hard wired game cameras on his property and along his driveway, but they all lost power. He did stick around for an hour or two packing up and watching helicopters filling their buckets from the farm pond next door, but then it was time to help a neighbor wrangle house cats and hit the road.

Fortunately for him his road was deserted because it was blocked by fire at Paradise, so he had no trouble driving out. Not such good fortune for the people who died in their cars in Paradise.

He told me that an hour or two after he left, his neighbor finally left, and at that time, according to the neighbor "golf ball sized" flaming embers were falling from the sky everywhere.

I wouldn't live in a place that regularly threatened my life.:headshake

Embers, little Molotov Cocktails, carried by 50 + mile an hour hot dry winds.
In Santa Rosa the fire jumped 6 lanes of freeway, with median and pull-over lanes and frontage roads on both side.
Makes foolish 100 foot cleared "defensible" zones, especially when the power goes off taking your well with it.
Those ember bombs can't be new, but they have been the driving force behind the destruction of nearly ten towns in the past three years in Northern California.

As the climate changes it will only get worse.
Link

I think its sad TRUMP is threatening california that he will STOP FEDERAL AID if they dont get the fires under control!!!!

http://www.vox.com/energy-and-enviro...climate-change

HOW ABOUT HE GET OFF HIS ASS AND HELP THEM!!!!!!!! -- He has more $$$$$ then anyone!!!!!!


Unreal bastard!!!!!!