Over 100,000 Displaced People in NoCal (natural, install, system, room)

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

You still don't get it. You can't predict the future. If you want to go live in somebody's barn, feel free, but don't count on getting money out of an ATM. There is no guarantee any disaster will leave the power untouched, and if the lights are out, that ATM is just a brick on the corner. I live in a wildfire area, and know that world, as you apparently don't.

Living in a wildfire area is a picture of defense in depth. You start with a 100' defensible perimeter around hour home. You remove all ladder fuels and low hanging branches from trees. You store enough fire fighting water that the fire department doesn't have to run tanker trucks for water, and have a gasoline powered water pump because the power will probably go out. You keep your gutters clean, because that is where houses normally catch on fire; embers land in the gutter and set the duff on fire, which burns up under the roofing and torches the eaves.

Then you realize that sometimes all you can do is run. I have planned to run in depth too. If I have plenty of time, I can back up to the travel trailer and take shelter with me. If I don't have time, all I can do is grab the BOB and go.

Your opposition to simple self-sufficiency borders on insanity. All of the measures I have detailed are well publicized by local officials at the beginning of every fire season.

The West Coast is subject to ample rainfall every winter, followed by annual drought that lasts for months. This results in a huge amount of dry fuel buildup. Fire survival tactics should be familiar to everyone who lives here. People who live elsewhere don't get a vote.

I couldn't agree more with you on this one. While, I'm not going to blame the victims of sudden fire storms, people do need to be aware of their surroundings. I get amazed many times over by how often people seem to be clueless about the places they choose to live in. The American West is arid to semi-arid, highly susceptible to frequent droughts and becoming a little hotter every summer. Our forests are becoming decimated by insect invasions such as the pine beetle which has thrived due to the fact that it no longer gets cold enough in the winter to kill off their eggs and larvae. When I go up to the mountains and see all the stands of dead trees, I am frankly horrified.

For a while there I was beginning to think that I was the only one who was noticing such things and I wondered if maybe I was descending into some place of paranoid delusions. Yet still, everytime I go up in the mountains the situation is worse - never better - and then a phenomenon that I call "Mountain VooDoo" started to happen to me. It began when I was high up in Colorado's San Juan Mountains on a 4wd dirt road that is not exactly well traveled. I had pulled off on the side of the road that gave a view of the surrounding ridges and peaks - so many dead trees, so much dead underbrush. I got out of my truck and just leaned against it, staring across at all those ridgelines of dead spruce and fir; dead piñon pines and dead ponderosa pines on the lower elevation slopes below, and tears started to run out of my eyes.

When I glanced back up, I was surprised to see that another truck had pulled over across from me. The driver rolled down his window and asked if I was alright. I wordlessly just pointed to the dead trees and he got out of his truck and came over. "I know," he said. "I know." Turns out that my would-be rescuer was an elk hunter who loved the mountains and spent all the time he could up there. He began to talk of all the changes he'd seen, the dead trees, the elk "not acting right." We talked for a long time before finally going off on our separate ways. Since that first encounter, I have had many more - mostly with other native Coloradans. We mountain lovers can be a taciturn group. We're not out there on back roads and jeep trails because we are longing for human companionship - often we want to FLEE human "companionship." Now a days though, we high country folk are becoming downright gregarious with one another. We talk about the forests, the unusual warmth, the odd behavior of certain animals, the obvious omens of bad fires in the future - like the future as in a day from now or a few hours from now. We are heartbroken and we seek out others with that same look in their eyes as ours because they too understand.

Then there's the folks who come out here and build McMansions on 5 acre "ranchettes" in the wildland/urban interface. They do nothing to prepare for the eventually of fire. They let the dead brush stay where it is, leave all the dead trees standing on their properties - heck half the time they don't realize that the trees are dead. Their homes have wooden shingles because it's more "homey" that way. The thought of having a water source available to wet down their roofs and the sides of their houses never passes through their minds. What are they thinking? Answer - they are NOT thinking.

Please folks - give yourself a chance to survive fires and try to minimize in advance the awful damage they cause. It's no longer a question of "if," but rather one of WHEN - especially if you live in the American West.

[Mikala43]

Pah. I said I believe in self sufficiency, and I practice it.

This (Tubbs) fire destroyed a subdivision, residential area of town. There are no areas to clear.

You can't clear a hundred foot, defensible area.

My original comments were to others with like posts, that somehow these poor people should have done something that could have prevented the scenario, and it is based on some very incorrect information and assumptions. Also, it came with a false sense of superiority, which is off putting.

My sister essentially had a bug out bag, as she travels 2 weeks a month. It wasn't for emergencies, it was for convenience, and she grabbed it on the way out the door. Did it help? Yeah, she didn't have to go shop for a change of clothes immediately. But would it have been any type of additional stress or help? Not really.

[TRex2]

This (Tubbs) fire destroyed a subdivision, residential area of town. There are no areas to clear.

Yes, there are. The area around the subdivision. About a mile of it, to begin with.
It is part of the extraterritorial jurisdiction responsibility required, if you don't want your subdivision to burn down.

And about practicing, I have brought a looming threat (with an eventually, near 100% probability) to my regional government a few times over the past few years, and they refuse to do anything about it.

I am moving.

[DutchessCottonPuff]

Originally Posted by Happy in Wyoming

In July, 2016, a fire started about ten miles from me one morning. The first that I heard about it was late in the afternoon that day when I received a Reverse 911 call informing me of an evacuation order. There were no signs of fire near me,but I talked with neighbors, some of whom had seen the fire. Wind speeds exceeded 100 mph in front of the fire.

Helicopters and planes dumped water on the fire; the next day it turned to the south and left us in the clear. However, the evacuation order wasn't lifted for almost a week. I don't believe that anyone actually evacuated. The order wasn't mandatory. I talked to a deputy sheriff the next day who told me that the heat was unbelievable near the fire. It was his first experience although he he had been in this area for years.

I believe that my original site selection would have kept me safe although fires do strange things. I also have fireproof storage here for valuables. I did, however, board my cat at my vet for a week and took my chickens to a friend's place for the same time. My dog would have followed me if we had had to leave.

There were seven aircraft and three hundred men fighting the fire. The aircraft put their efforts across the ridge when the fire shifted. There were a hundred men who remained for over a month. There were several hundred homes threatened south of the ridge. Had things gone badly, they could have been destroyed. This perhaps the scariest situation that I have ever experienced. That Reverse 911 call was positively frightening. There was no smell of smoke; nothing was visible. I was in Hurricane Camille, the second most powerful hurricane ever recorded. It was easy to be in an area with no flood danger. It was kindergarten compared to this.

I don't believe that there would have been enough fuel here to put my place in danger, but the Reverse 911 call provided me with my only information initially. I'm glad that telephone and power lines are all underground here. I must say as well that I'm very thankful for the fire fighting equipment and personnel who were available.

It's easy to criticize. The California fire deaths are no more the fault of the victims no more than other major fires have been. Dry areas burn; wet areas burn. Urban areas burn; rural areas burn.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/...-the-same-day/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire
.

That ^^
I was in Beulah and Celia as a child and onwards until I left Texas . I am in Wa State now and know the people of the areas affected . Many are very well to do and don't have alot of disaster exp.
My friends that live there are from various French provinces working in SF. Only one I knew works in the wine industry and is from California.
There is no way you can compare the speed of one of these fires to a week or so warning of a hurricane ( and yeah mom stayed mad the rest of her life that her chandelier ended up 50 miles away in a cow pasture in Mathis Tx after Celia . She actually saw it in Walter Furley's noon newscast .

My husband is working on all the aircraft now that put these fires out trying to keep them all up in the air and going, he actually got an email saying they needed him.

To the poster calling California with a K - it's rude . Many of us love it there and not everyone has the same beliefs and ideas .

[TRex2]

Originally Posted by DutchessCottonPuff

That ^^
... I am in Wa State now and know the people of the areas affected . Many are very well to do and don't have alot of disaster exp.

Yep, that is the biggest problem.

There is no way you can compare the speed of one of these fires to a week or so warning of a hurricane

That is true. But they are mirror image problems. The annual threat of a hurricane that will require a 100 mile wide evacuation zone lends itself to staying until the last minute, or risking bankruptcy for repeatedly missing work and risking looters raiding your property because it is reliably unoccupied. Would be like evacuating at the beginning of wildfire season, every year.

My husband is working on all the aircraft now that put these fires out trying to keep them all up in the air and going, he actually got an email saying they needed him.

Well thank God for people like him. They are the unsung heroes who keep the visible heroes in business.

To the poster calling California with a K - it's rude . Many of us love it there and not everyone has the same beliefs and ideas .

And that difference in beliefs is why he spelled it with a K.
Real conservatives living there would likely nod in agreement.
(But there aren't many, because most of them have moved out.)

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Mikala43

Pah. I said I believe in self sufficiency, and I practice it.

This (Tubbs) fire destroyed a subdivision, residential area of town. There are no areas to clear.

You can't clear a hundred foot, defensible area.

My original comments were to others with like posts, that somehow these poor people should have done something that could have prevented the scenario, and it is based on some very incorrect information and assumptions. Also, it came with a false sense of superiority, which is off putting.

My sister essentially had a bug out bag, as she travels 2 weeks a month. It wasn't for emergencies, it was for convenience, and she grabbed it on the way out the door. Did it help? Yeah, she didn't have to go shop for a change of clothes immediately. But would it have been any type of additional stress or help? Not really.

When the wind blows it can be hard to avoid damage from wildfire, but there were many neighborhoods where the houses on one side of the street burned and the houses across the street were fine. The sensationalism on the national news does not show the houses that survived. Any street with sidewalks and lawns is a 100' defensible space. I can understand people who would rather watch TV and keep their fire insurance paid up rather than maintaining their property. Most landlords only do the minimum, and the tenants don't care. That innate laziness puts the whole community at risk.

Did you see the videos of the Hilton hotel that burned to the ground? The fire started on the roof. Hot mop and gravel does not burn, but several years accumulation of wind deposited duff and dry moss certainly does. They lost their building because they were too cheap to send a janitor up to clear the roof. Something as simple as not letting shrubs grow next to your house can save it.

[Mikala43]

Of course I have seen the pictures with houses that survived.

The only sensationalism I see is with some of the posters here.

I have no doubt that your house would be well protected in 80 mile an hour winds filled with fire at 1500 degrees.


The hotel was allowed to burn, it was a decision made to leave it and try to save houses.

[Nor'Eastah]

Originally Posted by Mikala43

The only sensationalism I see is with some of the posters here..

Please try to understand that this is the SS&P forum. It is not the House, Real Estate, Politics, or whatever else forum. We may seem obtuse to some of you. But we believe in self-sufficiency and preparedness - that's why it's titled as it is. We do not have an urban mentality over here, nor a FEMA mentality. Not trying to be snarky or flippant; just 'splainin'.

As a group, we tend to keep a weather eye out for danger. That is why I gave my location - I am about as far east as you can get in the US, yet even I was aware of these fires long before most of those structures were engulfed. The only sensationalism I see is that people living in that area could turn the lights out, go to bed, and have sweet dreams! This is behavior that anyone into preparedness finds unbelievable. But of course, it happens.

We don't look down on such people. We are a bit puzzled by it, but most of our neighbors are the same way, so that's how it goes. But to come here to SS&P and say that a basic BOB is a waste of time, and that it's unrealistic to expect people to take any responsibilty for themselves and their families, is to deny the basic mindset and premise of the SS&P board.

[Mikala43]

Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah

Please try to understand that this is the SS&P forum. It is not the House, Real Estate, Politics, or whatever else forum. We may seem obtuse to some of you. But we believe in self-sufficiency and preparedness - that's why it's titled as it is. We do not have an urban mentality over here, nor a FEMA mentality. Not trying to be snarky or flippant; just 'splainin'.

As a group, we tend to keep a weather eye out for danger. That is why I gave my location - I am about as far east as you can get in the US, yet even I was aware of these fires long before most of those structures were engulfed. The only sensationalism I see is that people living in that area could turn the lights out, go to bed, and have sweet dreams! This is behavior that anyone into preparedness finds unbelievable. But of course, it happens.

We don't look down on such people. We are a bit puzzled by it, but most of our neighbors are the same way, so that's how it goes. But to come here to SS&P and say that a basic BOB is a waste of time, and that it's unrealistic to expect people to take any responsibilty for themselves and their families, is to deny the basic mindset and premise of the SS&P board.

Coffey Park had the first devastation, there were no fires in the area before the middle of the night on Monday.

I am all for preparedness - I live in the tropics so hurricanes and tsunamis are the problems here. I've done preparedness work while in the government.

But it does NOT help, when SS&P peeps think they can be prepared for somethings such as this fire.

That is a false sense of security, and very dangerous. Plus, as I mentioned before, some of the information was just wrong, which is another danger.

But thank you for your respectful response.

[Ultrarunner]

Any discussion on prevention and mitigation of wild fires would be remiss not to examine the strict land use requirements in place covering much of California.

Many times trees can be sacrosanct and discing around the homestead or disturbing natural or un-naturaul vegetation can open a pandora's box for fines and public opposition.

I have posted about the fight to save non-native Eucalyptus in the canyons behind UC Berkeley...

Several of my close family friends are Ranchers... many for generations and what they can and cannot do on their land comes under intense scrutiny... simply discing soil can be a violation and god help you if you remove a tree.

I live in the city and in order for me to remove a single Walnut Tree my Insurance Company deemed to be a hazard was incredible... I had to apply for a permit, all of my neighbors received post cards on how to make public comment or protest, the utility poles were placarded by the city and the contractor was mandated to have a city business license... all for a back yard planted Walnut Tree deemed to pose both a fire hazard and danger from dropping limbs...

Sometimes we create are own problems... so much so that people just give up being proactive.