California Fires

[daylatedollarshort]

We had extra birds in our backyard birdbath today. The local animal organizations are asking people to keep pets inside and put water out for the local wildlife to let them pass through as they flee the fires, too.

We can see blue sky here today but schools, public pools and state parks are all closed due to air quality and potential fire danger in other areas outside of wine country. We walked the dog and didn't see another soul outside.

 

[Another Reader]

2,834 homes and 400,010 square feet of commercial space destroyed in the City of Santa Rosa alone. Death toll for all four fires is up to 29. 15 in Sonoma County.

 

[mpeirce]

Why?

Fire is a pretty natural occurrence in certain parts of the world.

In the American West, big fires have occurred often in historic times. This web site lists a few of the more notable fires:

https://www.nps.gov/fire/wildland-fire/learning-center/fireside-chats/history-timeline.cfm

 

[kevdude]

Surprised there isn't that much coverage in the news, compared to the floods.

Seems like a disaster of some sort happens each week.

We've seen a lot of coverage of the fires the last couple of days, both national and local (local = Seattle area). We saw a fair amount of coverage of the fires around LA last month as well. One thing we saw very little coverage of was the fires burning in Montana in August and September. Over a million acres were destroyed and the press barely covered it. The visibility was so poor in Missoula that some friends could not see more than a couple of blocks in the distance for a number of days, and there was no fire in Missoula itself. There were so many fires in Montana, British Columbia and Idaho ash even dropped here in western Seattle.

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the fires, but it's too bad there was no real national coverage of the fire damage in Montana. Unfortunately two firefighters lost their lives, but many, many people lost their homes and pets. And thousands and thousands of wildlife lost their lives as well.

 

[Amethyst]

I cannot tell from Forum Rules whether it is OK to post a link to a local charitable organization. But I realize that it could be seen as spam. So please delete if this is not allowed: Redwood Credit Union is accepting donations to provide local assistance to the four counties so severely affected. The number of deaths keeps rising -
I think it may be bigger than the hurricane death tolls by state - and people have lost absolutely everything. Here is a link for those who may be interested. https://www.redwoodcu.org/northbayfirerelief?mc_cid=3ddb980c2b&mc_eid=771ec5ec57

 

[audreyh1]

Behind every natural disaster is some combination of thermodynamics and chemistry and statistics that somebody, somewhere, has studied. I wonder if one of those scholars has the explanation for this one.

There were at least 10 calls to 911 during the two hour period when the fires started reporting sparking power lines, down power poles, blown transformers, etc. It seems likely that wind interacting with power infrastructure was the cause. And there was plenty of dry ready fuel.