Monday, August 24, 2020

FIRE SITUATION NO BETTER YET AND MAY BE ABOUT TO GET WORSE

by Bob Walsh

It is Sunday morning as I type this.  There is supposed to be another round of dry lightning storms in California.  That combined with relatively high winds and critically low humidity may make things very much worse in California this week..

There are now some 585 wild fires burning in CA.  The governor has asked all of the other states, plus Canada and Australia to send crews.  He even said some nice things about President Trump for kicking in federal aid, even though it clearly killed him to do so.

There are now 13,700 fire fighters on the fire lines in California.  More than 700 structures have been destroyed.  There were more than 1,200 lightning strikes in the round of storms a few days ago that started most of these fires.  The LNU Lightning Complex Fire has burned about 350,000 acres and is less than 20% contained.  a total of 1 million acres are burning.  

The SCU Lightning Complex Fire is burning in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.  It has covered close to 300,000 acres and is only 10% contained.  These are the second and third largest wild fires in the state's history.

The CZU Complex Fire is burning near Santa Cruz and is only  about 5% contained.  It has destroyed some 1000 year old Redwood trees and has burned about 70,000 acres in the very rugged hills.  

Some elements of the CA National Guard have been activated to assist with the air operations against the fires.  Historically the worst fires in CA come somewhat later in the year than this.

2 comments:

Dave Freeman said...

There is something to be said for allowing logging and doing controlled burns in early spring to limit the amount of highly flammable underbrush during fire season.

California used to do that. Not any more. The tree huggers have had their say, and the entire state is paying the price for it.

bob walsh said...

Too true. The tree huggers are adamantly opposed to any improvement of access into wilderness areas because people who can not hike in might actually go in there and do things. Also, it would allow evil loggers to remove the already dead trees, killed by bark beetles and disease, and do something with them (like sell them and create jobs and money) rather than let them lay there until a lightning strike sets them on fire.