San Diego fires

Cloud · 10-22-2007, 07:51 PM

one of my workers left for San Diego Saturday for a family visit.

Bad timing. They're evacutating the zoo animals, man! Fire's gonna go all the way to the sea. They say.

We'll see.

Elspode · 10-22-2007, 09:00 PM

I emailed with friend Liz in the LA hills above Dodger Stadium. She says its smoky and nasty all the way up there. Not sure how near the closest major fire is to her.

Kitsune · 10-22-2007, 09:03 PM

Just got word from one of my friends out there that they packed up and are staying with a friend that has a "less intimidating fire nearby" than the one he was dealing with at his place. Yikes.

...but on to the important part of this news story: the celebrities.

Cloud · 10-22-2007, 10:59 PM

Yeah, several major fires at once menacing the area.

Urbane Guerrilla · 10-23-2007, 02:47 AM

A dozen named fires distributed over seven Southern CA counties.

Saw two of them driving back from a trip to Las Vegas, for they were visible from Highway 14 -- the biggie in Canyon Country and what looked to be a smaller brushfire, trying steadily to burn uphill against the wind. Big fire was smoking the hell out of Santa Clarita immediately to its west. We can smell the burning and see the haze and occasional fall of black ash. There is smoke and haze around all points of the compass, though less north of Oxnard. Some of the Malibu smoke is no doubt coming straight at us.

A wind day, a flame day, a day of haze and ashes.

If it's irritating to the throat I can't tell; a feature of this week is I've already got a cough. Which is getting better.

The winds are powerful today; they've only slacked with the sun going down. We tend to get our fires when Santa Ana winds blow, and we get troublesome fires if they blow hard, which they did yesterday and today. It's dry and it's warm around here. With as much wind as we're getting, for once the newsies have it right in speaking of undomesticated blazes as "wildfires." You need real wind to make a brush fire truly wild.

Called my mom to tell her we weren't in trouble.

Cloud · 10-23-2007, 08:33 AM

oh, UG! I knew there had to be Cellarites in Socal, but didn't realize . . .

(sends non-windy thoughts to California)

ZenGum · 10-23-2007, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Saw two of them driving back from a trip to Las Vegas, for they were visible from Highway 14

CHOP

I thought you'd been quiet lately, UG. How was Vegas?

I dread big fires, they can move so damn fast, and with the fire-spotting they are almost impossible to stop.
We discussed the presence of eucalyptus in California a few weeks back. Here is the downside: the buggers burn like hell. I think it may be to do with the oil in them, as well as their tendency to build up huge piles of dead sticks and bark. Best wishes to all concerned.

BigV · 10-23-2007, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cloud

oh, UG! I knew there had to be Cellarites in Socal, but didn't realize . . .

(sends non-windy thoughts to California)

Did you just tell UG to shut up?

bwahahaha!

Cloud · 10-23-2007, 12:18 PM

(very small chuckle)

Kingswood · 10-23-2007, 05:56 PM

I hope it is not as bad as the fires we had in Victoria (Australia) last summer. Those fires burnt for 69 days, and there were a number of summer days when the official weather forecast for Melbourne was "smoky". Fortunately, a lot of the land that was burnt was uninhabited wilderness.

The Californian fires are clearly worse in terms of human impact because the fire area is more densely populated.

steambender · 10-23-2007, 09:32 PM

This started Sunday Noon, about 20 miles NE. dry desert winds blowing at 20-50 mph, blowing the fire through the unincorporated town of Ramona, into the high rent outer districts NE of San Diego. meanwhile, several others, one along the border, others north to riverside county, its bad in every direction

We got the reverse 911 call at 2:00pm yesterday, the news and radio media have been all over things, they have done an extraordinary job of getting realtime information out. lessons learned from 4 years ago when 350 houses in our neighborhood burned down. The fact that it burned though here so recently acts as a safety buffer for us, but the city was taking no chances with the fast unpredictable winds. we spent the night with three cats in carriers, papers, overnight bags and laptops in the local grocery store parking lot. everything was closed, the police were not letting people back in once they left. They released us at 12 noon. otherwise 90 degrees, blue (smoke filled) skies. No humidity. less than 8%, the dew point is between -2 and 8 degrees.

The back of a Ford explorer is not kind to a 51 year old body. Next time we'll pack camping pads.

And, we do plan on a next time.

there are 300 thousand + evacuated, and seeking shelter in the community, and the city, towns, businesses and churches are really stepping up. the co-ordination is superb, let's see it they can sustain it.

we're not convinced we might not have to bolt again, they have evacuated some of the rural areas due east.

500+ local houses so far burned, some people we know are effected. many more over the region, and they have no control over most of it yet, it's too massive and fast moving.

we are ok, and should stay so, but there are many many people in extreme distress and disruption. The prayers of your choosing (not a habit for me, except at times like this) would help give them the strength to get through this.

-steambender

xoxoxoBruce · 10-23-2007, 09:39 PM

Glad you're OK, man.
I guess this will impact the SoCal housing market, big time.

steambender · 10-23-2007, 09:49 PM

2+ years to get rebuilt for the people with money, good insurance and assertive management personalities. Not that many custom builders to do rebuilds, and new development builders business model doesn't handle demo, rebuilds very well, so there is a long waiting list.

The people who live out in areas like Ramona (not the developments , but in the country, hills and canyons) frequently like the isolated lifestyle, and some don't have the money or coping skills to rebuild what they've spent 20+ years evolving as a home. some of them still haven't gotten rebuilt in 4 years, and just got sent back to start over.

and the market should get a slight bump, too. but, people will also move out because of this.

Urbane Guerrilla · 10-23-2007, 11:00 PM

Kingswood, yes, but there's a good deal of uninhabited land cheek by jowl with the houses, so damage to houses varies by quite a bit. A fair bit of the terrain being burned over is hillsides and arroyos. Some country houses peppering the fire areas irregularly. It's almost the kind of crapshoot tornado destruction is.

Cloud's nonwindy thoughts seem to be taking some effect; the force of the Santa Ana winds (named after the canyon(s) that winds from the northeast funnel through, coming off the deserts of the Mojave and most of Nevada, playing upon the greater Los Angeles area like the draft from furnace ducts) weakened today at least in Ventura county. The forecast has the Santa Ana winds dying out tomorrow as the high-pressure area over Nevada moves north, and quits dancing quite so closely with a low-pressure area over the nearby ocean -- when they are close together and strong, their winds get damned fierce. A mountain peak I can see from my block recorded wind like a Cat-III hurricane, gusting at 111 mph. Today we were getting wind from the usual quarter, off the water. We didn't smell smoke today, though it's still clouding the sky.

V, you're naughty!:p

Urbane Guerrilla · 10-23-2007, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I thought you'd been quiet lately, UG. How was Vegas?

I dread big fires, they can move so damn fast, and with the fire-spotting they are almost impossible to stop.
We discussed the presence of eucalyptus in California a few weeks back. Here is the downside: the buggers burn like hell. I think it may be to do with the oil in them, as well as their tendency to build up huge piles of dead sticks and bark. Best wishes to all concerned.

Yep, no kiddin'. The governor, indulging his (understandable) penchant for quoting from movies, spoke of the "perfect storm" for fire conditions. This year, rain was minimal, leaving the brush very very dry, though not growing a lot of extra foliage either, so to some degree there's equipoise. Then we got ourselves a strong Santa Ana wind condition, which crops up most often about this season of the year at the end of the drying season and just before the rainy one. The wind kicked up really hard, bringing hot dry desert air with it in a big way and then -- in a case or two, supiciouslyyyyyy -- the fires cropped up. This many fires all over the area makes one suspect they had a bit of help getting started. One blaze, I forget which, is reported to have been started by blown-down power lines arcing.

So far, two dead, some firefighters injured to varying degrees.

We don't go to Vegas to game -- that's for mugs, and for people who really really like to play cards. We may try to get back there in mid-December for a Squirrelnut Zippers concert. There is, well, pretty much everything in Vegas, including Indians. And bagels with lox -- your bagels are very secure when you put lox on them, you know. And the wife, who does know, tells me the blintzes are some of the best anywhere. The Vegas Strip, where the entertainments are most concentrated, is basically the east end of town, and it's the theme-parkish end of the place. It's designed to make you rear back and go, "Jeeezus Keerist!" -- but even though it's the town's main industry, it's also a triumph of determined artificiality. Just think of it as Vegas World: here's a desert city and the national dish is shrimp cocktail -- okay, prime rib dinners seem to run a close second. You can eat mighty well in Vegas. The cuisine on the Strip varies from fancy-schmancy restaurant fare to hotel buffet, which is plenty copious but more than a little Midwestern -- best for breakfast, in my view. A bit more effort -- mainly that of leaving the Strip -- can get you more ethnic and zippier fare out in town. The city is very open to the skies, and with a bit of altitude under it, you get a Mountain States sort of sky and feel in the air. I grew up in that, so the air and light around Vegas is very friendly to me.

It's a bit unfortunate for the psyche that the main Vegas industry, and its real money mill, is gambling and frivolity. I don't think I'd care to work in a casino in any capacity: they smoke in there. However, you can make quite a decent and honorable living catering for the punters: housing them, feeding them, taxiing them, and putting on shows.

10-22-2007, 07:51 PM	#1
Cloud ... Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 8,360	San Diego fires one of my workers left for San Diego Saturday for a family visit. Bad timing. They're evacutating the zoo animals, man! Fire's gonna go all the way to the sea. They say. We'll see. __________________ "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards!"

10-22-2007, 09:00 PM	#2
Elspode When Do I Get Virtual Unreality? Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Raytown, Missouri Posts: 12,719	I emailed with friend Liz in the LA hills above Dodger Stadium. She says its smoky and nasty all the way up there. Not sure how near the closest major fire is to her. __________________ "To those of you who are wearing ties, I think my dad would appreciate it if you took them off." - Robert Moog

10-22-2007, 10:59 PM	#4
Cloud ... Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 8,360	Yeah, several major fires at once menacing the area. __________________ "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards!"

10-23-2007, 02:47 AM	#5
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	A dozen named fires distributed over seven Southern CA counties. Saw two of them driving back from a trip to Las Vegas, for they were visible from Highway 14 -- the biggie in Canyon Country and what looked to be a smaller brushfire, trying steadily to burn uphill against the wind. Big fire was smoking the hell out of Santa Clarita immediately to its west. We can smell the burning and see the haze and occasional fall of black ash. There is smoke and haze around all points of the compass, though less north of Oxnard. Some of the Malibu smoke is no doubt coming straight at us. A wind day, a flame day, a day of haze and ashes. If it's irritating to the throat I can't tell; a feature of this week is I've already got a cough. Which is getting better. The winds are powerful today; they've only slacked with the sun going down. We tend to get our fires when Santa Ana winds blow, and we get troublesome fires if they blow hard, which they did yesterday and today. It's dry and it's warm around here. With as much wind as we're getting, for once the newsies have it right in speaking of undomesticated blazes as "wildfires." You need real wind to make a brush fire truly wild. Called my mom to tell her we weren't in trouble. __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course.

10-23-2007, 08:33 AM	#6
Cloud ... Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 8,360	oh, UG! I knew there had to be Cellarites in Socal, but didn't realize . . . (sends non-windy thoughts to California) __________________ "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards!"

10-22-2007, 09:03 PM	#3
Kitsune still eats dirt Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 3,031	Just got word from one of my friends out there that they packed up and are staying with a friend that has a "less intimidating fire nearby" than the one he was dealing with at his place. Yikes. ...but on to the important part of this news story: the celebrities.

10-23-2007, 12:18 PM	#9
Cloud ... Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 8,360	(very small chuckle) __________________ "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards!"

10-23-2007, 05:56 PM	#10
Kingswood Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Melbourne, Vic Posts: 316	I hope it is not as bad as the fires we had in Victoria (Australia) last summer. Those fires burnt for 69 days, and there were a number of summer days when the official weather forecast for Melbourne was "smoky". Fortunately, a lot of the land that was burnt was uninhabited wilderness. The Californian fires are clearly worse in terms of human impact because the fire area is more densely populated. __________________ Ur is a city in Mesopotamia.

10-23-2007, 09:32 PM	#11
steambender It just needs a minor tweak...here... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: kitty corner from where I grew up Posts: 48	BAD Fires around, evacuated , back home now... This started Sunday Noon, about 20 miles NE. dry desert winds blowing at 20-50 mph, blowing the fire through the unincorporated town of Ramona, into the high rent outer districts NE of San Diego. meanwhile, several others, one along the border, others north to riverside county, its bad in every direction We got the reverse 911 call at 2:00pm yesterday, the news and radio media have been all over things, they have done an extraordinary job of getting realtime information out. lessons learned from 4 years ago when 350 houses in our neighborhood burned down. The fact that it burned though here so recently acts as a safety buffer for us, but the city was taking no chances with the fast unpredictable winds. we spent the night with three cats in carriers, papers, overnight bags and laptops in the local grocery store parking lot. everything was closed, the police were not letting people back in once they left. They released us at 12 noon. otherwise 90 degrees, blue (smoke filled) skies. No humidity. less than 8%, the dew point is between -2 and 8 degrees. The back of a Ford explorer is not kind to a 51 year old body. Next time we'll pack camping pads. And, we do plan on a next time. there are 300 thousand + evacuated, and seeking shelter in the community, and the city, towns, businesses and churches are really stepping up. the co-ordination is superb, let's see it they can sustain it. we're not convinced we might not have to bolt again, they have evacuated some of the rural areas due east. 500+ local houses so far burned, some people we know are effected. many more over the region, and they have no control over most of it yet, it's too massive and fast moving. we are ok, and should stay so, but there are many many people in extreme distress and disruption. The prayers of your choosing (not a habit for me, except at times like this) would help give them the strength to get through this. -steambender

10-23-2007, 09:39 PM	#12
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	Glad you're OK, man. I guess this will impact the SoCal housing market, big time.

10-23-2007, 09:49 PM	#13
steambender It just needs a minor tweak...here... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: kitty corner from where I grew up Posts: 48	2+ years to get rebuilt for the people with money, good insurance and assertive management personalities. Not that many custom builders to do rebuilds, and new development builders business model doesn't handle demo, rebuilds very well, so there is a long waiting list. The people who live out in areas like Ramona (not the developments , but in the country, hills and canyons) frequently like the isolated lifestyle, and some don't have the money or coping skills to rebuild what they've spent 20+ years evolving as a home. some of them still haven't gotten rebuilt in 4 years, and just got sent back to start over. and the market should get a slight bump, too. but, people will also move out because of this.

10-23-2007, 11:00 PM	#14
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	Kingswood, yes, but there's a good deal of uninhabited land cheek by jowl with the houses, so damage to houses varies by quite a bit. A fair bit of the terrain being burned over is hillsides and arroyos. Some country houses peppering the fire areas irregularly. It's almost the kind of crapshoot tornado destruction is. Cloud's nonwindy thoughts seem to be taking some effect; the force of the Santa Ana winds (named after the canyon(s) that winds from the northeast funnel through, coming off the deserts of the Mojave and most of Nevada, playing upon the greater Los Angeles area like the draft from furnace ducts) weakened today at least in Ventura county. The forecast has the Santa Ana winds dying out tomorrow as the high-pressure area over Nevada moves north, and quits dancing quite so closely with a low-pressure area over the nearby ocean -- when they are close together and strong, their winds get damned fierce. A mountain peak I can see from my block recorded wind like a Cat-III hurricane, gusting at 111 mph. Today we were getting wind from the usual quarter, off the water. We didn't smell smoke today, though it's still clouding the sky. V, you're naughty!:p __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course.

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