Once again, our emergency response resources have been overwhelmed by drought, strong winds, and high temperatures, four years to the week after the disasterous wildfires of October 2003.
There are as many as eight large fires raging in San Diego County alone, and authorities are predicting that this emergency will be even worse than the 2003 event, in which 2,500 homes were burned and 15 people died. There are about 1,000 fire engines racing towards the area from other regions to help respond, but in reality there’s little that can be done to slow or stop such infernos. With wind conditions ranging up to 70 MPH gusts, such fires create their own weather systems, and cannot be stopped until the weather changes or they run out of fuel. The chief of the county’s fire services has publicly predicted that at least one of the fires will burn right to the coast, through heavily populated areas. Many homes have already burned in the communities of Ramona and Rancho Bernardo and elsewhere.
Large portions of San Diego County are under mandatory evacuation orders, with shelters set up in high schools, fair grounds, and a football stadium.
There are also serious fires burning in other Southern California communities such as Malibu.
So far everyone I’ve spoken to is OK, and we are sitting tight in our home, with all of the windows and doors sealed against the smoke and ash that’s beginning to fall. The sky is yellow, and the atmosphere is quite ominous, as we don’t know what the extent of the disaster will be at this point. I feel that our home is probably safe, as we are well within the urban area, but burning embers can travel long distances, so it’s hard to predict where spot fires will erupt.
It’s too bad no-one has thought of an effective way to desalinate large amounts of water. It seems ridiculous to be sitting on the edge of an ocean and not have any water to put the fires out with.
Eskin is in a more rural area, although his neighborhood is not threatened at this point. He and his wife had to evacuate (twice!) in 2003, with large animals in trailers. Let’s hope they are spared that again. I understand that the Del Mar Fairgrounds now has 1,800 refugee horses, and they are scrambling to accomodate more as they arrive.
Much of MTGuru’s neighborhood burned in the 2003 event, but his side of the street was spared.
I’ve heard there’s a fire going in Orange County now too. You’re just north of that aren’t you, Fel? Do you know where it is?
Here’s a satellite image of the area from the NOAA site:
Fires can be fought with salt water, but it’s not feasible to get the water where it’s needed. Fixed-wing planes can’t fly in these conditions, and many areas have little or no road access for fire engines because of the nature of the terrain.
One thing that makes such fires impossible to control is the speed with which they spread; the 2003 Cedar fire traveled over 30 miles in a few hours.
One fire official today said that there are more structures burning than they have engines to deploy.
Half the people left today from work in order to evacuate their homes or check up on the home situation. There are clouds of smoke all around. Many of our customers have closed today and we are all wondering if we will close up for the day for there is talk of evacuating here as well.
Sorry, I guess I was thinking more along the lines of keeping these areas permanently moist so they wouldn’t be so prone to catching fire all the time. It would be a lot more feasable than being burnt out of house and home every few years.
Which coastal communities do they expect to lose homes in? That’s awful.
We’ve got fires going again up here in Santa Barbara near the one that burned all summer long. We can see/smell the smoke from Malibu. A lot of that smoke washing over the ocean in the Pt. Conception area is really clouds of dust and ash from the previously burned areas. We’ve had really high winds last few days.
[edit]djm: The dryness is the biotic environment we have here. If we moistened it we’d destroy the natural habitat. Fire prevention has also destroyed it by making it more flammable than it needs to be.
What part of the county are you in, Marc? I’m in La Mesa.
djm, fresh water is just about the most important issue confronting this part of the state right now, and not just because of the fires. If we didn’t import vast quantities from the Colorado River and Northern California via aqueduct, the region could only support a single-digit percentage of its current population. Much of our supply from the north is currently in doubt due to recent court orders, and we are being asked to start taking conservation measures, although none are mandatory yet.
Desalination is currently hideously expensive. We should have been devoting major resources towards developing a means of using sunlight (of which we have plenty) to convert saltwater to fresh long ago, but I guess there hasn’t been sufficient political will to make this happen. But that’s another thread…
Look at the blog I posted a link to in the first message. It shows where all of the evacuations are being ordered, and it’s updated every few minutes. Right now they are evacuating Solana Beach, although it’s still voluntary at the moment. Earlier they ordered evacuation of Encinitas and Leucadia, but then rescinded the order. The situation is changing fast.
I am in Vista, so we are at risk from the neighboring San Marcos and Escondido fires. In fact, relating to my previous post, the power went down in the entire area so we were all sent home early. Not sure if the power outage was related to the fires or the high winds which can easily blow down power lines. There’s about a dozen wildfires going on in San Diego county alone, it’s pretty crazy. I have co-workers that live in the affected cities and half of them went home before we closed to evacuate their homes (although that sounds like a contradiction).
Also, I stopped by the a local gas station after work and it was a zoo. There were lines of people filling up their tanks and they were already sold out of the regular unleaded. Even with 12 pumps, each pump had 3 cars waiting to pull up to them.
I am teaching a class at National University in Costa Mesa tonight. This morning I received an email stating all of the NU campuses in San Diego county (where its headquarters are) have been closed until further notice. I’m typing this in our computer lab and we are on generator power. Much of Costa Mesa west of the 405 freeway is without electricity. That includes traffic lights and businesses although although things seem pretty good on the east side of the freeway.
My wife is giving me updates from our home in Huntington Beach where the wind is still blowing like stink. We live in a man made harbor and my 32 foot trawler has been bouncing around like crazy on its docklines. We are fortunate in a sense because there is a large, open space with a naval facility next to us which tends to act as a buffer zone although it can’t do anything for us if power poles and lines go down.
I am teaching a class at National University in Costa Mesa tonight. This morning I received an email stating all of the NU campuses in San Diego county (where its headquarters are) have been closed until further notice. I’m typing this in our computer lab and we are on generator power. Much of Costa Mesa west of the 405 freeway is without electricity. That includes traffic lights and businesses although although things seem pretty good on the east side of the freeway.
My wife is giving me updates from our home in Huntington Beach where the wind is still blowing like stink. We live in a man made harbor and my 32 foot trawler has been bouncing around like crazy on its docklines. We are fortunate in a sense because there is a large, open space with a naval facility next to us which tends to act as a buffer zone although it can’t do anything for us if power poles and lines go down.
The chairman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors just stated that 250,000 people are under evacuation orders, and that is expected to rise.
We’re fortunate (so far, at least) in my neighborhood, as we are between the two main ash plumes, the Harris fire south of us and the Witch fire on our north. It’s gotten very windy here this afternoon. The wind direction could change at any time, though, putting us right under either fire’s ashfall.
Here’s a link to a webcam in the east county, on top of Lyon’s Mountain. The view to the south shows the Harris fire clearly, while the view to the north show the Witch fire on the horizon:
I can second this. We’re watching the situation from up here and praying for you all (even if some of you are…er…(cough)… Dodgers fans.
The problem with importing water from the north, guys, is we need it too. We’re dry and wildfire-prone as well, and supporting a huge agricultural industry to boot. I don’t know what can be done about California’s water problems (and they are severe), but taking water from one part of the state to supply another isn’t the answer. I wish the state had looked into desalinazation long ago.
