10 Wildfires Kill 13, Destroy More Than 800 Homes
The combined fires stretched over 300,000 acres, disrupting the lives of untold thousands, with closed roads, canceled airline flights and poor air quality.
Pres Bush has declaed emergency in 4 major Southern California counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and Venture.
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(image courtesy of NASA)
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(image courtesy of LA Times)
Image Courtesy of NYTimes
Freaky how the fires burnt them houses down but didnt even touch the green
Maniac funny you say that...as it goes that in the "End Days" things like this will happen...
what kinda pansy hunter was so scared that he had to light a fire to draw attention. They really need to require that hunters have better beacons or contact devices. If you dont have that..dont go hunting..and even if it is very expensive, too damn bad hunting is not a necessity, if u can spend money on guns and gear u can spend money on something which you can use to ask mommy for help when you are lost..instead of doing soemthing idiotic.
for a moment i thought that the cubs fan, had moved to LA and was out hunting to forget his worries..
..i thought we had the worst idiot here in Chicago, until this hunter disproved it..
just saw latest news, no signs of it really ending..place a fed disaster area.
This will probably do a number on the insurance agencies..
I was listenign to these news as I was driving through the heavily wooded road going back home..and someone threw out a lit cigarette from his car..I was reading a study years ago how many fires are started by such careless acts.
I suppose CA hotels will see a boom in revenue, because where will all these ppl live while they reassemble their lives...insurance companies may be a diff story though.
yeah Fraudia, its really sad. latest news are 1500+ homes completely destroyed in a all those fires. and another 30,000 are in danger of being lit up. more than 500K acres have burnt and 15 lives lost.
those firefighters have been fighting day and night, and they cant contain all the fires, their #1 priority is to prvent the fires from approacing the residential areas. it becomes difficult at night because of darkness and smoke and when the daylight comes, the fire spreads further, its been going on since saturday.
a lot of the forest trees are easy fuel for this fire cos the trees are basically dead because of the beetle infestation. hopefully the winds are calming down now and on-shore flow has started (winds from the pacific moving inland and brining humidity/fog etc).
i heard that pentagon is also getting involved and providing the huge tanker to be used as fire retardants.
so far the investigators are saying that it was a result of arson, possibly more than one set of indivduals at separate locations. and there appears to be a witness that saw one of throw soming out of their truck in the bushes and flames started errupting minutes later.
air quality has suffered throughtout the LA metro area as off-shore winds dragged the smoke to the ocean. ashes are falling down like flakes of snow in most areas of LA. that adds to the health hazards as well as people breathe the toxin-laden air.
yaar i hope you and yer friends and family are fine. This is indeed sad.
as far asthis beetle infestation goes, wasn't grey davis at one point talking about some plans to get them chopped due to teh hazard they posed or was it someone else?
if its a case of arson, this is very horrific, what i had heard was that some hunter lit a fire to get some attention, and that went out of control.
so whats the latest there? and all these people who are dislocated, where are they headed?
A good idea would be not to build neighborhoods next to vast forests know to catch fire. While I feel bad this sprawl has to stop somewhere. They've released a sketch of a man who was seen throwing flammable liquid into one of the areas that caught fire, pretty sick.
UTD
thats one and the other may be to seperate such wooded area from residential areas by some open land, river..something that is going to serve as a buffer.
maybe that could be among some new housing development policies. if some company is setting up some new sub division, they must neetthese rules, must remove dead trees in a buffer zone of xyz feet and have those as open fields..or something to break the advance of the fire.
True Fraudia, although ambers have jumped 8 lanes of highway and caught on the other side . But 'fireproofing' is an idea that needs to be incorporated if these developers are going to build in these wooded areas. I saw one couple did just that last year, rocks around the house, a little pound, flame retardant grass (whatever that is) and they were one of very few in their neighborhood who's house survived. Sounds like a good business opportunity too :)
Originally posted by underthedome: *
**True Fraudia, although ambers have jumped 8 lanes of highway and caught on the other side *
dyaaaaaaaaaaamn... i did not know that.....wow..
yeah the winds dinn help there..but again....jeez...i did not think that was quite as possible..8 lanes...dyamnn.
stunned.
*. But 'fireproofing' is an idea that needs to be incorporated if these developers are going to build in these wooded areas. I saw one couple did just that last year, rocks around the house, a little pound, flame retardant grass (whatever that is) and they were one of very few in their neighborhood who's house survived. *
well they were smart, are u in CA area btw?
*Sounds like a good business opportunity too :) *
okay you fund, I will be manage day to day ops :)
Freeway 118 Fraudia. No I'm not out there thankfully.
I'll pay you as soon as I get money from this Nigeria businessman I'm helping out comes through. ;)
does anyone know how the people who have been affected dealing with this, which groups are helping them and how others who want to help can do so?
Thanks
UTD- your deal with the nigerians is not proceeding fast i guess, if u send me $5K i can expedite it.
Fraudia the Red Cross set up a 'Disaster Relief Fund for the Southern California fires'. No guarantee that any money you give though isn't going straight to Al Qaeda pockets
Also Fraudia, Prince Paul Kamara the son of late former Director Of finance, Chief Vincent R. Kamara in Sierra-Leone has offered me a deal I can't refuse so I'm going to have to void our partnership, you understand.
This is truly amazing. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada (150 to 250 miles from the fires) and the skies here have turned black with smoke. The sun has been totally blotted out. I go outside and I smell the burning forests. WIERD!!!
MV is this the largest forest fire in that area? i dont know if i heard of such a large fire near populated areas, we have had news of fires before but usually they are in forests with little or no population in the immediate area.
i only wonder what it is like for ppl in LA area, i hafat call my cuz and see how he is doing.
The closest fires to Las Vegas are in the area surrounding San Bernardino, California. I have heard that the fires there have headed up to an area called Big Bear which is in a more mountainous area with forest that is a nearby ski resort in winter for people in the Los Angeles area. The fire has also spread to the Lake Arrowhead area. Again, a more forested region rather than major bedroom community. The level of smoke here suggests the fire is more of the forest type.
My parents live in San Diego and they told me the biggest fires still out of control in San Diego as of last night were charging through National forest land east and northeast of the major population centers. There are all kinds of smaller communities spread through this region though. The big fear in San Diego was that two separate fires were headed in directions that indicated they could join together in one huge conflagration and be driven by winds east to west directly through major population centers. They caught a break in that the hot winds coming from the mountains blowing toward the ocean died out and were replaced by milder and wetter winds blowing from the ocean toward the mountains. The fire along the Mexican border was 90% contained last night easing the threat that it would join up with the other major fire.
Meanwhile, it just keeps getting darker and darker here.
wow this is getting more serious, especially if the two fires had actually joined. I am familiar with the big bear area as I had been there for skiing a long time ago.
i am not gettiong a cleasr picture though, aside from the few breaks due to winds and all, is this thing under control or not?
Tne fire by San Diego isn't exected to be contained until next Wed.
The area these fires have burned is 3 times the size of New York City.
my boss' son goes to UCSD...the school was closed down due to the fire. Over the weekend the guys had their cars packed and surf boards ready to head to the ocean and hang out on their surf boards till the fire goes out.
