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You are (and others too) missing my point. Areas prone to natural disasters should be less inhabited. Full stop.
But they're not less inhabited so there's no point in that discussion. Fact is, there are people in those areas so that's what we need to deal with, not a what if.
Because there was very little time to do anything, most fires are not this deadly, for instance the fire in Malibu only killed 2-3 people. Also as the entire town of Paradise evacuated they got stuck in traffic, the roads are not designed for everyone going in one direction at the same time.
That being said investigations are still ongoing, though one likely cause of the fire was from electrical power lines, which happens to start many of the fires in CA. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for Californians to bury all electrical power lines. Also American houses are built of wood with tar roofs, maybe from now own developers will start building houses with the very least metal roofs.
Those are older houses too. In Southern California at least, all new roofs are ceramic. Wooded and tar are not allowed.
Those are older houses too. In Southern California at least, all new roofs are ceramic. Wooded and tar are not allowed.
My entire town (built since the mid-1980s) has tile roofs. Haven't seen wood shingles since I was a kid, although I remember when my parents replaced our wood roof with asphalt.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cebuan
Americans wave their freedom like a flag, which often includes refusing to obey evacuation recommendations. By contrast, Cuba has barely a death or two decade from natural disasters, which includes pelnty of hurricanes. In Cuba, evacuation is not a choice.
Some of the problem is things like a hurricane can change course, sometimes people who evacuate needlessly endanger themselves of getting stranded. That happened in 2005 a month after Katrina devastated New Orleans. Houston was potentially in the path of a Cat 5 and dozens died while needlessly evacuating a hurricane that ended up hitting 150 miles east of there.
The point I am making is that without artificial transfers of water, on the U.S.'s dime, much of California would be uninhabitable by the millions who live there. And the rest of the state would have higher insurance rates, making it less desirable. There was no good reason to rot out the northeast and the Rust Belt to subsidize populations elsewhere.
I would say it was in the interest of the USA to develop the West including water management which is why we did it. I'm not familiar with how the northeast and Rust Belt was rotted out but I would agree that we shouldn't let that happen...if you mean the loss of manufacturing then that was a combination of other places becoming more competitive and the net loss of manufacturing jobs (less labor required)...I agree we should promote an atmosphere to continue manufacturing some key products.
I read today in the news that there are over 1000 people missing ,it seems to me dramatic.-.
I am astonished by the lack of criticism of the failure of the fight against fire-,./
And lack of proposais to make to avoid repeating these disastrous fires .I see much resignation .It seems as if they thought that nothing else could be done in this Forum.-
OP, I'm quoting you in hopes that you'll see that I am addressing the difference between Spain and the US.
In Spain, human activity has been managing most of the land for millennia. The brush and trees are not natural and the land involved is on a much smaller scale. The landscape has been shaped by humans, and in doing so humans have moderated the fire risk.
In California, particularly in wetter, northern California, state policy has been to discourage human activity and their shaping of the landscape to let the forests be natural.
In northern California, the forests grow "X" number of board feet of timber per year, but only 20% of it is harvested. The other 80% is added to the fuel load. You can either cut the trees down or burn them up, but one way or the other, when the forest has reached it's maximum, it's not going to grow any denser or thicker.
Governor Brown vetoed a 2016 state bill which would have made it easier to cut timber thereby reducing the fuel load and creating firebreaks. I think he is reassessing his previous decision and is probably telling Governor Gavin to sign it when it comes round again.
6750 km^2 burned in Cali this season...2018
750 km^2 in Spain in 2017 (worst in Europe this year)
I'm sorry, these data are strongly biased because 2018 was devastating for Cali, 2017 for Spain seems to be quite a bad year, still 'normal' (nothing like the delta in Cali between 2018 and other years). Average seems to be around 900/1000 km^2 in Cali (last 5 years average) an order of magnitude similar to Spain. I'd like to remind OP that we also usually never hear about American wildfires, because they are well controlled and without victims, like Spain.
But 2018, is 2018. Nearly 10 times worst than the 2017 season in Spain. If this happens in Spain, Spain will happily call the help of USA, and people will die, a lot (like in Cali).
The point is just to show why recent Wildfires in Cali are terrible, a Boeing 747 in the air and thousand of firefighters, that's just not enough at this point. These fires are also as fast as a car, when it's in front of you, pray.
6.75*10^3 km²
7.5*10^2 km²
That's indeed one order of magnitude of difference.
I would say it was in the interest of the USA to develop the West including water management which is why we did it. I'm not familiar with how the northeast and Rust Belt was rotted out but I would agree that we shouldn't let that happen...if you mean the loss of manufacturing then that was a combination of other places becoming more competitive and the net loss of manufacturing jobs (less labor required)...I agree we should promote an atmosphere to continue manufacturing some key products.
When California was settled, it wasn't as dry as it is now. Even today, in San Diego at least, 60% of the water actually does come from local sources. LA's percentage of imported water is much higher. The San Francisco Bay Area gets its water from the Sierra snowpack and from local sources. The city of San Francisco itself gets much of its water from two lakes just south of the city; Lake Merced and San Andreas Lake.
California is not Arizona. The only place that really should not be as big as it is would be Los Angeles. Southern California in general has too many people but LA in particular has way too many. In normal rainfall years, California does just fine, again, except LA.
Your explanation of why fires are so big in California is very interesting .-
But american have a reputation for very practical people.-
The question is still in the air .-
What will be done to effectively combat these gigantic fires?. Or can not find a solution for you in the USA.-
Thing to remember is that most of these fires are caused by people in one way or another. The recent fires were caused by the utility Pacific Gas and Electric and by a camp fire. Some years ago, another utility in the state, San Diego Gas and Electric also had equipment spark a major fire. Another one in San Diego County was caused by a lost hiker shooting off a signal flare. Some were caused by camp fires that weren't extinguished properly. Some by embers being blown away from them. Still other fires were arson, intentionally set by sick minded individuals. Natural fires caused by lightening are infrequent and occur in the mountains during the summer monsoon and are not fanned by fierce dry winds as those don't occur in summer.
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