SD FIRES: Official list of homes destroyed in Rancho Bernardo...

[regnaD kciN]

...available here.

I count 292 of them. :-(

[DesertFlower]

1. OMG. this morning i heard

1,000 in san diego county had been lost. it's probably higher now.

[goclark]

2. Thank you for the list ~ it is so sad

It's hard to imagine the pain of seeing all your memories go up in flames.

[aquart]

3. It's not just the past. It's the present going up in flames, too.

Every habit, every routine, every method by which you maintain your sense of control of your life...gone. That much stress can provoke disease. It can kill.

[goclark]

4. You are so right

Just watching it on television is so depressing and it's not even my home.

[malaise]

5. 1200 homes so far -2,000 structures

Fuck Bush, fuck FEMA and fuck all critics of climate change.

[regnaD kciN]

6. To be honest...

...I'm not sure you can blame the administration on this one. Massive wildfires have been a part of SoCal Octobers since I can remember. And, while the two-year-long drought has exacerbated matters, there's long history of drought periods in that area as well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. This drought and fire has been exarcerbated by global warming

and part of the pattern, but you are right. Manzanita NEEDS hot fire, and guess what covers them hills?

Yep, Manzanita

Its the ecology in this case (and some global warming)

[Capn Sunshine]

9. well here's TWO WAYS you can blame Bush:

1) a fire of this size used to use 20,000-30,000 Nat'l Guard troops to help fight it. Thus far, 1500 troops have stepped up

WHERE DO YOU THINK THOSE OTHER TROOPS ARE?

2)Bush vetoed and cut budget items related to fire suppression on National Forest lands, ( including clearing brush and removal of dead trees) and vetoed Federal funding assistance for California Fire departments resulting in over 17 stations proximate to rural areas being closed.

DO YOU THINK WE COULD HAVE USED THOSE FIREMEN?

OK 2)A BUSH'S OIL MEN HINDERED US FROM DOING ANYTHING ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS.

Oh yeah, these fuckers deserve a LOT of blame.

[regnaD kciN]

15. Not really...

1) I don't think the National Guard being there would have done much to stop these fires. The problem wasn't a shortage of firefighters or equipment, the problem was hurricane-force winds. Without those winds, virtually all of those fires would have been easily extinguished after burning only a few dozen acres at most.

2) The problem areas in question weren't in National Forest lands, and, once again, the problem had to do with too much wind, not too few firefighters or stations.

3) While I think there are lots of meteorological conditions that can be ascribed to global warming, the Santa Ana winds and California wildfires aren't among them. I remember devastating fires hitting the area more than forty-five years ago, and they happened long before my own personal experience as well. If there's any main difference between then and now, it's that demographic tendencies resulted in a major increase in population in California, meaning that the places where homes burned this week would have merely had the same fate befall a few ranches and orchards, plus a lot of vacant high-desert prairie, in the past.

I'd just like to see us get away from playing the same game as the Publicans who routinely blamed everything on Clinton. Sometimes, a natural disaster is just a natural disaster. If Mount Rainier (just south of here) were to erupt tomorrow, it would be a tragedy, but I hope no one here would respond by screaming "IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!!!!!" :eyes:

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Actually worsening santa anas and droughts is part of the pattern

but they have been around for what 10K years?

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Hmm where to start

living in the state, hell in the line of this and having done actual firefighting and disaster services

ok, lets start

1.- Most of the NG troops that you could have used for this would not have been used in the first 12 to 24 hours

2.- By that time this would have been as much out of control as it is right now

3.- Most NG troops are NOT firemen

4.- MIlitary asssets, yes even guard, are at the botton of deployable assets, have been for decades

5.- This is probably the 100 year fire, or fifty year fire, or what have you

6.- As somebody who actually has done this... my hat is off to the local and state officials, they have managed this in a sterling manner... not to say that they will not step in it sooner or later,.. but chill dude... I wish the guard was here in the state... but I KNOW the Guard would NOT be on the line immediately... Something about having been there, done that...

Now the mutual aide has been impressive... and I knew we were in trouble when I saw two things happen... some specific mutual aide and the Q opened

Yes, there are some times that nature runs us over.. and this is actually ONE of them.

[Xenotime]

8. This is unbelieveable...why can't they stop this?

[jobendorfer]

10. forces of nature, basically

Think of coastal (and near-coastal) California as a big swath of very, very dry oak and scrub brush. It burns furiously fast, sometimes faster than a human can run. Add to this mix very high and dry winds coming off the desert. The winds pick up smoldering or burning material and propel it into the air and forwards, sometimes a mile or more at a jump. So the fire doesn't just burn along (although it certainly does that), it also leapfrogs ahead of itself on the winds. You do a backburn to cut off the fire, then turn around and find it's already jumped over your head and past you.

Don't misunderstand me: having a half divison of National Guardsmen and a beefier fire department would *help*. But once one of these monsters gets going, it's very, very hard to stop. Far more than anything the air crews or the fire departments do, what will stop this is a) the winds die down, b) winds reverse course, pushing the fire back onto areas it has already burnt, or c) increasing humidity, and ideally, rain.

In spite of all these odds, there are crews and volunteers out there taking great risks to save others and the property of others.
My hat's off to them.


J.

[soothsayer]

12. indeed. very brave.

[Mountainman]

16. Many of the firepersons have been away from home all summer.

The Zaka fire burned for 3 months.

[BadgerLaw2010]

20. When winds can make a fire jump a 10-lane interstate, firebreaks don't work.

[Kajsa]

11. This is awful!

I just can't describe it- it's horrible.

My heart goes out to all those families who lost their homes.

;(

[Ellen Forradalom]

13. Small spot of good news

The Rancho Bernardo family I was concerned about still has an intact house.

[regnaD kciN]

18. Apparently, so does my mom...

...(or at least her home hasn't appeared on the "official" list, nor have any in the immediate vicinity). However, virtually all of the 292 homes destroyed were with a mile radius of her house...the closest bloc about a quarter-mile away. That's way too close for comfort! (Especially when I spoke to her on Sunday night, less than seven hours before the fire hit Rancho Bernardo and she had to evacuate, it was still 12-15 miles away...)

[haele]

14. Damn, my boss's house is across the street from one of them.

He'll have smoke damage to deal with, at the very least. He's not rich, just an engineer for the DoD, GS-13. And with a kid that has physical disabilities (something with his heart or a respritory issue), just going back home fixing up the place to be livable will be difficult for his family. I doubt that he'll be able to move his family back in until spring.

Haele

[Suich]

21. Here's a map of them.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&num=100&start=0&msa=0&msid=108433978883521424480.00043d307e160282349c1&t=h&om=1&ll=33.039284,-117.084947&spn=0.013437,0.017509&z=16