BWCA I feel for the California people in the fire zone and our BWCA friends out that way. 20 million people on Red alert now. Boundary Waters Listening Point - General Discussion
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      I feel for the California people in the fire zone and our BWCA friends out that way. 20 million people on Red alert now.     
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10/14/2017 12:13PM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
 
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DrBobDg
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10/14/2017 02:29PM  
How could all those fires start at once?

dr bob
 
ellahallely
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10/14/2017 03:38PM  
I have 1st cousin that lives in Anaheim Hills , her Mother graduated from Ely high school. Moved to the left coast for work. She had to evacuate days ago. Last I heard her house was OK, however almost 10,000 acers burned around it.

She had horses at a near by stable. They evacuated most of the horses but couldn't get all of them out before the fire hit. Not sure how many horses died.

Seems like they are forever battling fire and drought!
 
10/14/2017 04:33PM  
I was dumbstruck by how fast flames blew into Santa Rosa. People had little to no warning in he middle of the night. Shocking.
 
10/14/2017 06:17PM  
I just finished reading the book "The Big Burn" and it eerie how wildfires act and move.
Best wishes go out to all of those affected and in the way of danger.
 
10/14/2017 06:21PM  
Lindy you must still watch things close like this even now when retired?
 
10/14/2017 07:43PM  
quote Pinetree: "Lindy you must still watch things close like this even now when retired?"


Of course I've been following this closely, and feel so sorry for all that have been impacted by these fires.
Mhs687 could offer more knowledge to these fires than I can, since he is a retired wildland firefighter in California.

I have put on many workshops and trained firefighters in dealing with how to prevent/protect their home from a loss due to wild fires.
Looking at pictures from Santa Rosa, it appears that many of the home losses were due to the fire burning from structure to structure. Once those chain of events start there is little anyone can due to stop it, until the winds die down.

Jack Cohen a retired firefighter has done numerous studies on this.
Watch this YouTube video on some of his research and google "Home Ignition Zone"
Home Ignition Zone
 
10/14/2017 08:02PM  
The heat is so immense as you say and many of those houses are close together,it is just such a horrible chain reaction.
 
10/14/2017 08:15PM  
I hope Jeriatric and his new place are not nearby.
 
10/14/2017 09:46PM  
Linden is right, when houses are as close together as some are, in the Wine country, it is very hard to stop a fire going from house to house, especially with the winds they have been having. Try to imagine when you are having a real blizzard back there. Windy with the snow blowing sideways. Getting hit by the snow and ice crystals hurts!! Now replace the snow with fire and flying embers, some the size of baseballs hitting you. As Linden said. I feel for the folks and Firefighters going through that.
I havn't had a chance to talk to any of the Firefighters yet about what is starting all the fires so close together, so here is my best guess. We are still recovering from the drought, The trees that have died during the drought are starting to fall on there own. Can you imagine with a 40 to 50 mile per hour wind blowing, what it will do to those weakened trees and limbs out of them? I think, and this is only my opinion, most of those fires have been caused by trees and limbs into power lines. I don't want to think of some of the other reasons they would get started! In the 44 years I have been working or teaching wildland fire control, I have never seen conditions this bad. 31 lives lost!!!
 
andym
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10/14/2017 10:29PM  
I don't think Jeriatric is near these fires unless he moved a long way. We're about 60-100 miles from the various fires and have had a lot of smoke in the air.

The basic issues are that we had a lot of rain last winter which fostered growing a lot of brush. Then we had a really hot summer, which is our dry season, with some blasting heat waves that dried out the brush. You have to realize that our moisture is really seasonal, it probably hasn't rained since April. And now bring in high winds, which could have started the fires by blowing lines into trees, but definitely made the fire move fast. The speed of that first night reminded me of the Pagami fires jump east across the BW.

What caused the fires is definitely going to be controversial. PG&E which runs the electrical grid has been criticized in the past for not being sufficiently aggressive in tree trimming near power lines, even not spending their whole budget for that purpose. It's not as clear as when one of their gas lines exploded and destroyed a neighborhood in San Bruno, and killed about 30 people, but they will definitely be investigated for this.

Besides the incredible loss of life and peoples' homes and businesses, and beyond that we are all being impacted by the smoke, this is an area that is just beloved. Not only are the wineries part of our regional psyche but there are many other wonderful spots up there that we love visiting. And I think everyone feels the same way.

The volunteer efforts have been incredible. Many people are collecting supplies and taking them up there and there has been a big effort to support all of the animals. We live in an area with a lot of horses and there have been calls to take trailers up there and also for experienced horse people to take care of the horses being sheltered.

One of the heroic stories is the owner of a large ranch with African animals called Safari West. He had everyone else leave to transport the smaller animals to a zoo and stayed behind himself to successfully squash small fires and protect all of his animals (so far, it isn't over yet). And he's 77. Plus he could see his home and barns burning in the distance.

Let's just hope for some rain and low winds. This is about the end of our dry season and it needs to come soon.
 
10/14/2017 10:40PM  
quote MHS67: "Linden is right, when houses are as close together as some are, in the Wine country, it is very hard to stop a fire going from house to house, especially with the winds they have been having. Try to imagine when you are having a real blizzard back there. Windy with the snow blowing sideways. Getting hit by the snow and ice crystals hurts!! Now replace the snow with fire and flying embers, some the size of baseballs hitting you. As Linden said. I feel for the folks and Firefighters going through that.
I havn't had a chance to talk to any of the Firefighters yet about what is starting all the fires so close together, so here is my best guess. We are still recovering from the drought, The trees that have died during the drought are starting to fall on there own. Can you imagine with a 40 to 50 mile per hour wind blowing, what it will do to those weakened trees and limbs out of them? I think, and this is only my opinion, most of those fires have been caused by trees and limbs into power lines. I don't want to think of some of the other reasons they would get started! In the 44 years I have been working or teaching wildland fire control, I have never seen conditions this bad. 31 lives lost!!!"


Praying for the firefighters and others. 31 lives too many.
 
10/14/2017 10:47PM  
quote andym: "I don't think Jeriatric is near these fires unless he moved a long way. We're about 60-100 miles from the various fires and have had a lot of smoke in the air.


The basic issues are that we had a lot of rain last winter which fostered growing a lot of brush. Then we had a really hot summer, which is our dry season, with some blasting heat waves that dried out the brush. You have to realize that our moisture is really seasonal, it probably hasn't rained since April. And now bring in high winds, which could have started the fires by blowing lines into trees, but definitely made the fire move fast. The speed of that first night reminded me of the Pagami fires jump east across the BW.


What caused the fires is definitely going to be controversial. PG&E which runs the electrical grid has been criticized in the past for not being sufficiently aggressive in tree trimming near power lines, even not spending their whole budget for that purpose. It's not as clear as when one of their gas lines exploded and destroyed a neighborhood in San Bruno, and killed about 30 people, but they will definitely be investigated for this.


Besides the incredible loss of life and peoples' homes and businesses, and beyond that we are all being impacted by the smoke, this is an area that is just beloved. Not only are the wineries part of our regional psyche but there are many other wonderful spots up there that we love visiting. And I think everyone feels the same way.


The volunteer efforts have been incredible. Many people are collecting supplies and taking them up there and there has been a big effort to support all of the animals. We live in an area with a lot of horses and there have been calls to take trailers up there and also for experienced horse people to take care of the horses being sheltered.


One of the heroic stories is the owner of a large ranch with African animals called Safari West. He had everyone else leave to transport the smaller animals to a zoo and stayed behind himself to successfully squash small fires and protect all of his animals (so far, it isn't over yet). And he's 77. Plus he could see his home and barns burning in the distance.


Let's just hope for some rain and low winds. This is about the end of our dry season and it needs to come soon."


Take care and appreciate the info.
 
andym
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10/15/2017 03:45AM  
About the winds, they are really an oddity. Our prevailing wind is from the NW and brings cooler air from over the ocean. These scirroco, or valley winds, come from the east (this time from the NE for most of the fire). They bring warm dry air from the Central Valley. In 1991, my sister-in law and two nieces were visiting for our towns big festival. That morning I took my nieces on a walk to the beach. The winds were so harsh that it was painful to walk on the beach due to the swirling sand. And the wind was coming from the east, holding the waves up as they came to shore. It's very vivid to me.

During the festival, I stopped at the firehouse to buy a drink and heard the radio and chatter about sending crews across the bay to Oakland. That fire was also a mix of urban and woodland and killed close to 30 people and destroyed almost 3000 homes.

That festival is this weekend and I never feel those winds without fear for what they can mean.
 
10/15/2017 04:03AM  
I couldn't imagine being a firefighter in all this. Longest I've had to fight a fire is about six hours. This kind of devistation is hard for me to imagine. I know firefighters from my son's town just went down there. Many prayers for the safety to all. Just imagine the devistation without the efforts of the firefighters.

I just heard the death toll has now hit 40. Sad!
 
10/15/2017 10:02AM  
quote nctry: "I couldn't imagine being a firefighter in all this. Longest I've had to fight a fire is about six hours. This kind of devistation is hard for me to imagine. I know firefighters from my son's town just went down there. Many prayers for the safety to all. Just imagine the devistation without the efforts of the firefighters.

I just heard the death toll has now hit 40. Sad!"


It is an interesting job out here for sure. The fuels, topography and weather make for some of the worst fire conditions in the world. As we are seeing now winds are the biggest concern of all. If interested google foehn winds. Southern calif. has Santa Anna winds, Santa Barbara has Sundowner winds, our area its Mono winds. There are quite a few different foehn winds throughout the country.
It will be interesting to talk to the guys when they get back, we have 2 strike teams, 10 engines from our Ranger Unit on the fires right now. When there are so many fires going at the same time its tough because there is nobody available to relieve you. The longest shift I have worked without getting off the fireline was 60 hours. The longest time spent on one fire was 32 days.
 
10/15/2017 10:45AM  
Thoughts go out to those who lost loved ones and property and I'm hoping the situation improves soon. Great thanks and admiration go out to the brave Wildland Firefighters battling these fires.

I can't imagine how dangerous and hard it must be.

A question for those who have spent a lot of time on the fire lines. How does breathing that smoke long term affect you lungs? Is there a certain amount of time spent before you are relieved and can get to fresh air? Is there long term affects such as asthma that can happen?

I spent one night in thick smoke from the Pagami fire and just spent three weeks in Yosemite Valley where the hanging smoke definitely affected my breathing negatively. My lungs immediately felt better after leaving the Valley.

I wish the best for everyone involved.
 
10/15/2017 01:53PM  
Zulu,
My lungs are pretty shot.
PM 2.5 and smaller particles in wildfires are the worst because they are so small that they are not filtered out and can lodge in your alveoli (sp)
We are trained to protect our airway at all costs.
A firefighter can survive 2nd and 3rd degree burns, but one breath of superheated air can leave you on a slow death spiral if you burn your lungs.

My longest fire was 42 days, my longest shift was 36 hours.
PM 2.5
 
10/15/2017 02:28PM  
I've been retired for almost 17 years and so far havn't noticed any lung problems. Zulu, I think what helped prevent long term problems for me was shortly after I started working for CDF or Cal Fire know, it became mandatory we wear self contained breathing apparatus on all structure fires, vehicle fires, hazmat incidents and any time the atmosphere might be contaminated. Wildland fires were a different story, no protection for those fires. Cal Fire has experimented with several different masks to help filter the air on wildland fires, but none that worked so far.
 
gkimball
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10/15/2017 07:06PM  
When I worked for the Forest Service in the 1970's in Wyoming and Idaho on timber stand improvement and then recreation I was called on to do initial attack when the Smokes Chasers and Helitack crews had been fully deployed.

Went on perhaps 20 fires, 2 of which got away from us in high winds and dry conditions. All I can say is that I have never seen anything more fearsome than a fire taking off into dry timber, turning into a running fire. It is a force unto itself. There is nothing that can stop it but a change in the natural conditions it is burning in.

Praying for all in the way of these fires...
 
10/15/2017 07:39PM  
What little I know a Hotshot crew friend tells me you want to see fire go fast,watch a fire at the bottom of a mountain and they can reach the top almost instantly.

Like when camping if you have a campfire and the wood is damp it is hard to get a Hot fire. Have super dry wood with very little moisture content and it seems like you look at the log put in the fire and it bursts into a very hot flame.

The moisture content of that California wood-brush-grass I bet is almost zero if that is possible. That very hot weather and extreme dry conditions is like a bomb with a short fuse juust waiting.
 
10/15/2017 08:51PM  
quote Pinetree: "What little I know a Hotshot crew friend tells me you want to see fire go fast,watch a fire at the bottom of a mountain and they can reach the top almost instantly.




The moisture content of that California wood-brush-grass I bet is almost zero if that is possible. That very hot weather and extreme dry conditions is like a bomb with a short fuse juust waiting."

Moisture content in fuels out here is about relative humidity. Mainly because we get little to no rain in the summer and early fall. Moisture content in fuels are based on the size of the fuel. Fuels like grass and pine needles are called, one hour fuels. There are, one hour,10 hour, 100 hour and 1000 hour fuels. One hour fuels take one hour or less to react to changes in relative humidity. That is why the trees and large fuels, which are1000 hour fuels and are 3 to 8 inches in dia., are so dry by the end of summer and into the fall. As the sun sets the temperature drops, as the temperature drops relative humidity goes up. The one hour fuels react and and the fire starts to "lay down" as we call it. Hope this makes sense.
 
10/15/2017 09:51PM  
quote MHS67: "
quote Pinetree: "What little I know a Hotshot crew friend tells me you want to see fire go fast,watch a fire at the bottom of a mountain and they can reach the top almost instantly.





The moisture content of that California wood-brush-grass I bet is almost zero if that is possible. That very hot weather and extreme dry conditions is like a bomb with a short fuse juust waiting."

Moisture content in fuels out here is about relative humidity. Mainly because we get little to no rain in the summer and early fall. Moisture content in fuels are based on the size of the fuel. Fuels like grass and pine needles are called, one hour fuels. There are, one hour,10 hour, 100 hour and 1000 hour fuels. One hour fuels take one hour or less to react to changes in relative humidity. That is why the trees and large fuels, which are1000 hour fuels and are 3 to 8 inches in dia., are so dry by the end of summer and into the fall. As the sun sets the temperature drops, as the temperature drops relative humidity goes up. The one hour fuels react and and the fire starts to "lay down" as we call it. Hope this makes."


Thanks
 
10/16/2017 08:01AM  
quote overthehill: "I hope Jeriatric and his new place are not nearby."

Thanks for your concern. We are in Norway for 3 weeks but I have been following the fires on BBC. They started a couple of days before we left home.

The big fires making the most news are on the coast. We now live 150 miles to the north of our old home but still in the Sierra. Three fires did break out about 30 miles to the north of us, in the Sierra, at the same time as the coastal fires. The occurrence of those 3 fires prompted my wife to take a load of important stuff to our daughter’s house for safekeeping, in case of fire nearer to home while we are away. We took the heavy smoke around our new home as a warning.
 
10/16/2017 01:56PM  
quote MHS67: "
quote Pinetree: "What little I know a Hotshot crew friend tells me you want to see fire go fast,watch a fire at the bottom of a mountain and they can reach the top almost instantly.





The moisture content of that California wood-brush-grass I bet is almost zero if that is possible. That very hot weather and extreme dry conditions is like a bomb with a short fuse juust waiting."

Moisture content in fuels out here is about relative humidity. Mainly because we get little to no rain in the summer and early fall. Moisture content in fuels are based on the size of the fuel. Fuels like grass and pine needles are called, one hour fuels. There are, one hour,10 hour, 100 hour and 1000 hour fuels. One hour fuels take one hour or less to react to changes in relative humidity. That is why the trees and large fuels, which are1000 hour fuels and are 3 to 8 inches in dia., are so dry by the end of summer and into the fall. As the sun sets the temperature drops, as the temperature drops relative humidity goejs up. The one hour fuels react and and the fire starts to "lay down" as we call it. Hope this makes sense. "


Thanks Larry. Now I realize why our most destructive fires occur in October (in California).
 
10/16/2017 04:04PM  
quote Jeriatric: "
quote MHS67: "
quote Pinetree: "What little I know a Hotshot crew friend tells me you want to see fire go fast,watch a fire at the bottom of a mountain and they can reach the top almost instantly.







The moisture content of that California wood-brush-grass I bet is almost zero if that is possible. That very hot weather and extreme dry conditions is like a bomb with a short fuse juust waiting."

Moisture content in fuels out here is about relative humidity. Mainly because we get little to no rain in the summer and early fall. Moisture content in fuels are based on the size of the fuel. Fuels like grass and pine needles are called, one hour fuels. There are, one hour,10 hour, 100 hour and 1000 hour fuels. One hour fuels take one hour or less to react to changes in relative humidity. That is why the trees and large fuels, which are1000 hour fuels and are 3 to 8 inches in dia., are so dry by the end of summer and into the fall. As the sun sets the temperature drops, as the temperature drops relative humidity goejs up. The one hour fuels react and and the fire starts to "lay down" as we call it. Hope this makes sense. "



Thanks Larry. Now I realize why our most destructive fires occur in October (in California)."


Hey Jerry, hope things are going well for you guys!!! Enjoy your trip. Larry
 
10/17/2017 08:17PM  

The Owens Valley was very smokey today. You can't smell anything though and there was no air quality alert like yesterday. There is supposed to be some high winds coming in the Lone Pine area on Thursday. Maybe some rain too.
 
andym
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10/19/2017 11:19PM  
It's raining! Unfortunately, in Santa Rosa it will be warming up and will hit 90 by Monday. But a bit of rain is helping. And hopefully, we will get the rainy season started soon.

A couple,of interesting tidbits. Some firefighters are saying that the winds caused by the fire and fire whirls (tornados with flames) were the strongest they have ever seen. Cars were overturned by them and garage doors blown off as if in a major hurricane. Also, an oak tree disease that has been killing trees for several years likely contributed to more fuel being available.

And Jeriatric is right. There are a lot of fires with little reporting. We had one start about 20 miles away and after the initial evacuations it disappeared from the news even here. Hopefully, it is under control or out.
 
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