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:
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.
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.
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