Northern California Fires (Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Napa: insurance, houses, neighborhood)

[notmeofficer]

Fires???

Its easier to say where there isnt a fire around here right now than it is to say where a fire is

We have deep smoke and sooty ash all around us. It is very hard to breathe right now

There have been some mandatory evacs and many advisory evacs

There are many fires where no resources are being put on them because of everything from manpower shortages to rough terrain

The air tankers are running from sunup to sundown... the fire crews are tired..
my engine company (33 Bella Vista) is turning around every 12 hours but we have exhausted our personnel supply already.. It was like a nascar pitstop last night washing and resupplying the engine. We only have one wild land engine and it has seen very severe duty the last several days
There is no end in sight right now.. we are scheduled for triple digit temps, wind, and more lightening strikes later this week
Welcome to Redding

[Tantalust]

I had been planning to move to Butte county in August. I am about three weeks away from a deadline on voiding the arrangement to sell my house in NJ.

I'll be cancelling the deal and waiting this out for awhile, probably another year.

[smiles]

Rubyskye,

I remember reading about the Sun Valley fires and that the home owners paid private firefighting crews to protect their homes. I looked for the article, but could not find it. Then in our paper this morning was this little article. I think it answers your question about how the people of Sun Valley kept their homes.

"Mendocino County property owners Tuesday turned to hiring private firefighting crews and leasing helicopters to help fight fires on their own land.

"We understand the state's problems, but we can't wait for our lands to make their way up the priority list," said Mike Jani, chief forester for Mendocino Redwood Co. of Ukiah.

Jani said 31 lightning-caused fires are flaring across a 228,000-acre strip of company timberlands running along the rugged Mendocino-Sonoma coastline.

Jani said company crews and state firefighters are coordinating firefighting efforts, but more personnel and equipment are needed.

"We have two 20-man private crews arriving from Montana, and we may bring in more," Jani said.

The company has rented a private firefighting helicopter to dump ocean water on a fire near Rockport on the north Mendocino Coast."

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by rubyskye

Well, let me ask you. I imagine you may know the answer.
I was up in Ketchum/Sun Valley Idaho last summer. The fire up there eventually burned over 500,000 acres (if i'm remembering correctly).
I don't know if you know the area but it is extremely wealthy with like 17 million dollar properties (and up) all over the place.
They didn't lose one home up there and the fire was close enough to burn peoples gardens, etc. But not one home was lost.
There were fire fighters and Hot Shots from all over the country. Even the Navajo fire fighters were there. The National Guard was there keeping people out of neighborhoods, etc.
I assumed at the time that the tremendous help dealing with the fire was due, in large part, to the $$$.
Oh, this is where Arnie S. has a vacation home by the way.
Anyway, where is all the help for these fires? The Big Sur fire has already burned over 500 acres and i just heard on the news that they don't have the help they need. The fire south of Monterey has been burning since the first week of June.
So i don't understand. Where is all the help? Ketchum/Sun Valley has a total population of around 7000 people. Why are they so special? Is it just the money? Or is the interior west somehow in a different category regarding wild fires?
Anyway, i'm glad they did such an incredible job up there last summer. I love the land there and though i have a bit of an attitude toward that kind of wealth, i was grateful that no-one lost their home but geez. Where is the help for California? Where are all the Hot Shots?
Just curious. Thought you may have some insight into this.

You can find out specific information about current fires here National Interagency Fire Center and here
CALIFORNIA FIRE NEWS

The terrain, weather and fuel load (how much combustible material) have an enormous amount to do with how any individual fire is attacked. Also the agencies responsible for fighting the fire (In both of the cases you mention) is the USFS. I also worked for them a couple of seasons. It takes the FS quite a long time to staff up a fire, because they rely on other USFS crews from all over the country to get there.

The Indians fire which you reference near King City is partly burning within the Ventana Wilderness area, which means there are restrictions on the use of machinery in the fire fighting effort. Because CDF's protection area is more accessible than the FS, they tend to use more engines than hand crews and it's pretty amazing how much water works better than dirt at extinguishing a fire.

I'd take any 15 person inmate crew from CDF over any 21 member "hot shot" crew from the FS. In CA, the FS does rely more on help from CDF than in other parts of the country, but they still insist on bringing their own from far away rather than the closest resource. I remember getting flown to AZ and reporting in to camp as a falling team from the Stanislaus NF back in the '70's. They gave us a dumb look and asked around..."anyone need fallers?"..."nope"..."OK boys go chow down and grab a paper sleeping bag and we'll call you in the morning".

We woke up with an inch of snow on us and froze our little butts off!

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by Tantalust

I had been planning to move to Butte county in August. I am about three weeks away from a deadline on voiding the arrangement to sell my house in NJ.

I'll be cancelling the deal and waiting this out for awhile, probably another year.

You may as well stay in Jersey, fires are a fact of life in CA. This year, last year, and next year.

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by norcalmom101

Do people really believe the "dry lightening" caused over 800 fires? Anyone think there might be some arson going on? I read one article where it sounded like Fire officials were not letting out as much info as they had, the employee was quoted as saying "it's too scary."

Yes to the first question, Possibly one or two statewide to the second. There are very few fire (dis)information officers, I'd trust.

[Tantalust]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

You may as well stay in Jersey, fires are a fact of life in CA. This year, last year, and next year.

Not a chance, I'm not giving up completely on the idea yet.

[happ]

Even smoke in Southern California yesterday from the Monterey county fire. Also the entire Central Valley is under an air quality watch due to the smoke. If some off-shore winds kick in then the smoke will blow out to sea. But off-shore winds only make things worse b/c of the heat/low humidity cause more fires.

If we could get some rain it would be great but it was dry lightning that started most of the fires. No solution but to get control over the fires before things get worse.

[DMenscha]

How about a bit more lightning? Here's the Fire Weather forecast from this morning.

FIRE WEATHER PLANNING FORECAST FOR INTERIOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SACRAMENTO
630 AM PDT WED JUN 25 2008

.DISCUSSION...HIGH PRESSURE WEAKENS SLIGHTLY OVER NORTHERN
CALIFORNIA TODAY...ALLOWING SOME ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS TO DEVELOP
OVER THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS THIS AFTERNOON. STORMS MAY CONTAIN
STRONG DOWNBURST WINDS. SLIGHT COOLING AND HIGHER HUMIDITY WILL BE
LIMITED TO THE LOWER ELEVATIONS OF THE DELTA AND SACRAMENTO AREA.
THE FLOW ALOFT TURNS SOUTHEAST BY FRIDAY INTO THE WEEKEND...BRINGING
A CHANCE OF MORE THUNDERSTORMS TO MOST MOUNTAIN AREAS. STORMS WILL
BEGIN DRY BUT SHOULD TRANSITION TO WET BY SATURDAY.

[happ]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

How about a bit more lightning? Here's the Fire Weather forecast from this morning.

FIRE WEATHER PLANNING FORECAST FOR INTERIOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SACRAMENTO
630 AM PDT WED JUN 25 2008

.DISCUSSION...HIGH PRESSURE WEAKENS SLIGHTLY OVER NORTHERN
CALIFORNIA TODAY...ALLOWING SOME ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS TO DEVELOP
OVER THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS THIS AFTERNOON. STORMS MAY CONTAIN
STRONG DOWNBURST WINDS. SLIGHT COOLING AND HIGHER HUMIDITY WILL BE
LIMITED TO THE LOWER ELEVATIONS OF THE DELTA AND SACRAMENTO AREA.
THE FLOW ALOFT TURNS SOUTHEAST BY FRIDAY INTO THE WEEKEND...BRINGING
A CHANCE OF MORE THUNDERSTORMS TO MOST MOUNTAIN AREAS. STORMS WILL
BEGIN DRY BUT SHOULD TRANSITION TO WET BY SATURDAY.

So long as lightning is followed by heavy rainfall. But most thunderstorms in California lack much rain except in the high mountains.