I can't think of any other time that has been more appropriate to call a firestorm than right now. It seems like every 10 minutes they're reporting another new fire. This is frikkin' insane. I just heard they had to evacuate 250,000 people down in San Diego. Where do you put that many people?
I guess I should be thankful that over here we're just getting a lot of smoke and no actual fire, though the fire isn't too far away from here. At least all the farms around here make a good firebreak.
We have about 4 going in the Los Angeles area. Blame Santa Ana winds.
EDIT: Sorry, that number is really 14!
Holy crap...
0_o Well, I hope for your sake the fire stays weeeell away from your house Cloral.
...I hope that steps are taken to take care of the evacuees (sp?)
And 14 fires in the LA area? That's not good either.
^^Yeah, but it's gonna cool down a lot by Friday. So until then, we have to hold out.
Yeah, this fucking sucks bigtime. I can't breath, my nose is stuffed up, it's what seems like 90 degrees here and supposed to be ridiculously hot tomorrow. Fire's burning everything, people running, planes and helecopters, Smoke filled skies, and a char-broiled rabbit. These winds are brutal.
I had high hopes for those rains last week. 😞
My brother and his family live in San Diego and had to be evacuated =/ Luckily they're able to stay at my other brother's place but I hope nothing happens to their house while the fires rage on.
And yes, these fires are crazy. No containment as of yet.
What can I say, with that many successful young people in an area, there's probably a lot of iPods in pants and when one of those gets a notion it just goes FOOSH!
Ones who does not have glossy paper will be consumed.
I thought you meant Fiyerstorm originally...
I used to live in california. I swear, there's always firestorms there. I can't even remember how many times me and my sister would sit by the window at night looking at all the blazes on the hillside just for the eerie feel of it. Especially since they appeared so still from the distance.
If the air quality down here wasn't bad enough, Jesus.
We are all going to burn...
...and I don't have any marshmallows. :shakeno:
I wonder if GW is too busy at the moment to actually do anything...
My kitchen smells like an ashtray. Real classy, San Diego.
Well, the good news here in Camarillo is the smoke is a lot better today than it was the last couple of days. And the winds are supposed to start letting up later today. So hopefully they'll be able to start getting a handle on the fires then. I swear, this is the worst Santa Ana event I've ever seen in my 25+ years of living in Southern California.
For those who aren't from the area, let me explain what the Santa Anas are like, since there really isn't anything like them anywhere else. Basically, when the high desert areas (i.e. Nevada and Utah) get cold, the air there gets dense and tries to reach a lower elevation. The easiest outlet for it is the ocean in Southern California, so it starts rushing there at high speed. As it reaches lower elevations, the wind heats up to around 80-90 degrees. And by the time it reaches the coastal areas, the wind is generally traveling at 30-40mph, with gusts often exceeding 50mph. And because the air is from the desert, the humidity levels often reach single digits (on Sunday, the humidity was 6%😉. So you've got 85 degree, 40mph winds that are bone-dry. Basically, its the worst possible weather you could imagine for fires.
With that much fire, the only conceivable option is to lure this guy in and make a big-ass s'more.
Okay, now that I have THAT out of the way... it must seriously suck to be down there right now.
Stay safe y'all... and God Bless. Hopefully soon it'll all calm down and be containable.
DarkDragoonX wrote:With that much fire, the only conceivable option is to lure this guy in and make a big-ass s'more.Okay, now that I have THAT out of the way... it must seriously suck to be down there right now.
Heh, yeah..even I made a marshmallow joke. It's kinda hard not to. :laughing:
And the wind is starting to die off a bit too. I can breath again. 😊
I'm evacuated from the firestorm myself right now. I took some pictures last night... I put them up at www.radium3d.net. Seeing it in person was like watching a volcano erupt. on the hillsides. That is about 5 miles from my house below is the empty closed Interstate 15 highway. We got all of our horses, llama, cats & dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens out and we're just waiting to see what happens now as a new fire that burned 20,000 acres since THIS MORNING approaches...
Radium, God bless, stay safe and do take care hon. I have a lot of friends in Cali and am praying for everyone ...
(hug)
Prrkitty wrote:Radium, God bless, stay safe and do take care hon. I have a lot of friends in Cali and am praying for everyone ...
(hug)
Thanks Prrkitty! We are praying for everyone too.
Hold crap. And here I was complaining about a little bit of smoke. Hopefully with the winds now more-or-less gone they'll be able to get a handle on these fires and keep your house safe. It sounds like 2 of the earlier fires (Malibu and Agua Dulce) are now like 80% contained, so that's a good sign.
edit:
It's nowhere as good as your pictures, but here's a picture I took on Sunday afternoon around 3pm of the smoke from either the Night Sky or Castaic fire blotting out the sun. Perhaps more telling than the smoke though is the lower of the two palm trees in the foreground. Notice that all the palm fronds are on the same side of the tree. That should give an idea of how strong the winds were for those of you from outside the area.
Wow, it's getting bad over there, huh. Third day in a row that my paper has run a huge feature story on the front of the Nation section. That kinda coverage...
Good luck to you Radium.
Oi, I know quite a few people that live in those areas; best of luck to them and I'll be praying for their safety.
Cloral, I hope y'all don't have to deal with the fires hon. Stay safe.. <hug>
It'll all be okay, people. Though it happens almost every year, you guys will still get massive media coverage, then you'll be able to rebuild with our money via insurance checks.
Then you'll have downpours in the spring. Then mudslides. Then the cycle will continue with wildfires in the following autumn.
Does the truth hurt?
[edit](I read too many 1984/Fahrenheit 451-type books.)[/edit]
Despite all that, be safe. Don't ignore warnings/evacuation orders. My only remaining advice is to stay strong and optimistic, and don't rely on the government too much (a la Katrina).
Pineconn wrote:It'll all be okay, people. Though it happens almost every year, you guys will still get massive media coverage, then you'll be able to rebuild with our money via insurance checks.
Yeah, cause you know, we don't pay way more in insurance premiums to cover the cost of living in an area that is prone to wildfires. No, that doesn't happen at all.
Do they also try to sell you volcano insurance?
But seriously, I know a lot of people are effected by the fires. I hope everyone from here remains safe and sound.
Honestly, the last thing I want to do is get into a big argument over the matter of government spending vs. annual income, etc. Though as tempted I am to rebut, I shall not.
What, so you decided that the discussion is over, so it's over? Convenient, isn't it?
So let me ask you, how do you feel about people living in Florida? Or in Tornado Alley? Or in the Pacific Northwest, where they have volcanoes and tsunamis? Or the Midwest where they get floods? Or Hawaii, which gets volcanoes, tsunamis, and hurricanes? How do you feel about people living anywhere in the US? There's natural disasters everywhere.
Who are you to decide where people should or shouldn't live?
As tempted as I am to cordially compensate you for your reputation-giving, I have also decided to abandon your approach at this. Instead, I shall explain myself rationally versus fight fire with fire (no pun/double-meaning intended).
First, not once did I decide where you should live. If you wish to live in a fire-prone, deluge-prone, mudslide-prone, and earthquake-prone state, that's fine with me if it is fine with you.
Second, I am entitled to my opinion. My philosophy on this subject of matter is that I do not feel sorry for you guys because this happens every darn year. Every. Year. And yet it seems to take America by surprise. "OMG F1RES IN THE WE5T!!" Now, you may take me as an apathetic fool, and you probably do. But a house is a house; it is material item. Like I said, one's insurance will cover that, minus the irreplaceable things like photos, etc. In this instance I am sympathetic, as you cannot possibly replace them. In which case, this could have been avoided or lessened if this person had a predetermined plan rather than, "Oh snap, fire's coming, we gotta go! Grab the (insert object here)!"
I am very conservative. I do not believe in the welfare system (which is irrelevant to this, anyway, unless we'd talk about Katrina). I do not think that the poor should be taxed less than the rich. By knowing this, you should be able to at least see how I derived my viewpoint. Though I will never protest the entire concept of "paying for your problems," I can't help but be a little sour at it.
I live in northeast Ohio, thank you very much. Nothing happens where I live, except for an occasional overnight foot of snow, if you'd even consider that to be a natural disaster. I would hardly match a quick Nor'easter with firestorms or hurricanes in terms of deaths or the cost to clean them up. The last tornado to sweep within a 50-mile radius was in 1985. Heck, we're not even in the snow belt. So yeah, it's pretty boring up here.
So now that I have expressed my opinions fully, I earnestly await your refutation.
Doesn't that whole Midwest region where the earthquakes can be bigger than in California include Ohio? I'm pretty sure St. Louis and Chicago are in that, but I think Ohio get some of it too.