Rolling Western U.S. Is On Fire / Wildfires Thread

Interstate-80 is the major conduit from the SF Bay Area to Sacramento & beyond...

https://i.imgur.com/jNYX0hs.png

...and is forecasted to be closed for another 6+ hours.

More PG&E power outages coming over the next few days, some could last as long as 48 hours.

Outages already reported in Northern Sonoma County.

The wind woke me up early. Reminded me of how it was the night of the Tubbs fire. First thing I did when I woke up was check to see if there was a fire and wasn’t too surprised.

possibly no bueno with the Getty Fire in L.A., w/the strongest Santa Anas of the year supposedly arriving tonight. the air quality seems to be okay around the city, i assume the winds are blowing the smoke out to the ocean.

there are a dozen or so people on my FB marking themselves "safe" from this fire despite most living in idk Highland Park or Silver Lake or East Hollywood.

haha i assume it's to ward off calls or messages from family who live out of the area?

I heard some terrifying dystopian references (2nd-hand w/o source) about people trapped in their "smart" homes as flames approached, because the power outage meant the "smart" locks couldn't be opened, and the internet was down so they couldn't reach anyone for help?

any source or link for that wld be appreciated

I would think any door would have to have a failsafe way to open from the inside, for a house fire, etc.

I would think any door would have to have a failsafe way to open from the inside, for a house fire, etc.

that's a pretty non-contestable requirement of CA Fire Code for buildings

and we all know how much rich techbro assholes feel about public safety regulations

Cue Silicon Valley Jared and the driverless car scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UBdrMTxsvs

if you die in a fire because of your "smarthome" maybe you... aren't that smart

"Open the pod doors HAL"

SF is on fire and TIME is on it (view quickly before it is deleted):

As fires continue to ravage different parts of California, watch as firefighters face massive flames in San Francisco pic.twitter.com/lFjNOQiBqV

— TIME (@TIME) October 29, 2019

lol

The Zack House by Craig Elwood burned by the Getty fire in Los Angeles.

https://www.facebook.com/KCMODERN/photos/pcb.2525595454199945/2525593230866834/?type=3&theater

xp RIP Time tweet

the reagan library is now threatened by the blazes

bump

CalFire admits in presser this morning that they have NO resources to fight this. Like, NONE. Guess why? Bc the prison populations, who have for decades been California’s primary firefighter hand-crews on wildfires, are too sick with Covid to go. https://t.co/ZZKIpsN5lc

— RH Herron/Rachael Herron (@RachaelHerron) August 19, 2020

well, not exactly NONE. but yeah, that is bleak. $2 to $5 a fucking day for the work, too, which probably makes it the highest paid position available for them

it would be disgusting even if they weren't exposing themselves to immediate and long term danger for that wage. absolutely unconscionable.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-climate-danger-of-kamala-harris-prison-labor-legac-1844712734 this suggests it's $5/hour? not that it makes a difference. (n.b. in spite of myself i don't place much of the blame for this on kamala herself, article doesn't do a great job of explaining how the AG's office got to the point of filing that. however, it's not justifiable.)

Anyone know the likelihood of Santa Cruz city having to evacuate? My sister lives there, and this is cranking up her nervousness...

(caveat that i'm just some guy, not a firefighter) It's not too close yet but I'd be concerned about the cluster that just broke out south of Henry Cowell State Park (https://www.esri.com/en-us/disaster-response/disasters/wildfires) . CalFire's general policy is to greatly favor protecting residential areas over parks so I wouldn't be surprised if they're already doing controlled burns around UC Santa Cruz.

xp: She should be fine if she's in town. If she's up the coast or in the hills off Hwy 9 she's probably already evac'd.

I don’t really want to reveal where I live (not Santa Cruz) but um I have a bag packed. 😬

DJI: this account has all the latest information

https://twitter.com/CALFIRECZU/

Now UCSC is under evac warning

If it gives you any optimism, a fire crew on loan from SLO drove high up into the mountains above San Jose to save all of the Lick Observatory structures last night despite insane high winds, swirling flame and ash.

https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/08/mt-hamilton-fire.html

and here's the live shot (the other cams from the actual observatory are no longer broadcasting, not sure if they got damaged):

https://www.see.cam/us/ca/san-jose/mount-hamilton

This was a remote outpost some 30 miles up the hill from San Jose.

california and also the entire intermountain west is on fire

Fire and wind map: https://caltopo.com/map.html?fbclid=IwAR2hBujGNlyLgghWv-ugwVIlK_Sq7s0ywcQEqPelsbsLZGOJa8WuRNmgfrg#ll=37.15703,-122.23938&z=12&b=map&a=modis_mp%2Cwxd_wspd-01

We're lucky the wind isn't higher.

according to this, my parents (and most of their town) are fine unless the fire jumps the freeway

https://twitter.com/calfireSCU

Fire Weather Watch issued for 11am Sunday through 11am Tuesday for possibility of dry lightning. Graphics are pending, but here's the fire weather watch text:https://t.co/nADYZ6w9jn

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 21, 2020

The most optimistic take that I've seen today is that having these fires will establish some natural firebreaks for a month from now, when the Santa Ana / Diablo winds start up.

this place suuuuuucks

Bonny Doon, SantaCruz County, CA
37.1004, -122.1410
2618 ft above sea level, facing northhttps://t.co/6jWU2cuETC pic.twitter.com/axwBZEtg7r

— California Landscapes (@CALandscapeBot) August 21, 2020

The LNU and SCU lightning complexes are now the #2 and #3 largest wildfires on the books and the president is threatening to refuse aid because we didn't "clean our floors"

fire burned thru the Ventana condor zone where at least 1 baby condor was nexting 2 days ago, so that's a drag

Okay this 2019 story is too long but it's good. https://story.californiasunday.com/gone-paradise-fire

Cities founded in the fire-prone frontier by anti-government types that didn't want to be told how to build (proper infrastructure, firebreaks etc.)

Real estate has been the main wealth generator for a while, "Selling out to a developer was the only retirement plan most farmers knew."

"What was once sparse is now densely packed with pine, fir, cedar, and manzanita. A forest that supported 64 trees an acre in pre-settlement times now boasted 160 trees an acre ... 'I don't think we could have managed the forests any worse.'"

"as Wilson and his staff studied the fires more closely, he could see that their oddly linear pattern of ignition clusters corresponded to major electrical power lines."

Forestry management and fire prevention - prescribed burns, reducing fuel load - curtailed in favor of military-style firefighting.

"To justify its high costs, [Cal Fire] had to figure out a way to make itself essential throughout the year. This was how it evolved into a 24/7 provider of emergency services to the sprawling mountain communities ... instead of trying to slow down the suburbanization of forestlands, Wilson said, the department served the growth — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in funding."

PG&E and a Public Utilities Commission that's not equipped or inclined to regulate it

Yet again, a baby gender reveal party sparks a wildfire:

2020: A gender reveal sparked a wildfire in California that's grown to 7,000 acres
2020: A gender reveal party ignited a 10-acre brush fire in Florida, fire officials say
2017: Officials release video from gender reveal party that ignited a 47,000-acre wildfire in Arizona

bonus gender reveal combustion:
2019: Partygoers thought they'd built a clever gender reveal device. It turned out to be a deadly pipe bomb
2019: Australian gender reveal party goes wrong as car bursts into flames

Oregon is collectively holding its breath for the next 48 hours

https://www.kptv.com/weather/blog/extreme-fire-weather-next-48-hours-includes-damaging-wind-for-some/article_9f381716-f0be-11ea-9a76-47427495df5f.html

View of the Bobcat Fire from my street last night. Tonight is the same.

#BobcatFire over Sierra Madre right now + couple hours of ashfall on my car. pic.twitter.com/zXc0ZDmL0c

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) September 7, 2020

Here's a timelapse from inception, from a Mt Wilson cam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX49jfIAJwI&feature=emb_logo

or search this on youtube.

Bobcat Fire Time-Lapse from Mt. Wilson

Christ! Doesn't take much does it? Hope y'all are breathing ok.
Over the past ~3 weeks in SF I've figured out that anything above 70 on Purple Air's AQandU setting starts bothering my throat/lungs so I let that dictate whether I sweat it out in my hotbox of an apartment or open the windows and take a walk. It hit a hundred degrees yesterday while the AQI was around 90 and I'd never been more grateful to have a box fan and the electricity to power it.

Friend of mine is posting live AQI updates from Eugene ... 538, 560, 593, 607 ...

I don't even care if it actually retards the actual fire - they can hike my taxes if it means I get to be treated more frequently to these sweet jet dump Action Tweets

The #ValleyFire currently has eight air tankers assigned to the incident. When the retardant is dumped it can be a spectacular sight. Video taken 9/6/20 at 5:14 p.m. near Alpine pic.twitter.com/rwyXFpEEbD

— CAL FIRE/SAN DIEGO COUNTY FIRE (@CALFIRESANDIEGO) September 7, 2020

I could watch that cherry red retardant get dumped from that screaming sky bird all day long baby

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/us/masks-wildfire-smoke-air-quality.html

Went out to get groceries just now (picked the wrong time but I've been sick all week) and felt like the dog in the "This is fine" cartoon.

it's pretty weird to watch the rest of the country experience our Oregon summer world, been like this on and off here for 4-5 years now

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Wednesday, June 7, 2023 6:36 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i wouldn't wish smokey air on anyone, but yeah, from a western pov it's a little jarring to see "this sucks baaad" in 2023. not like in some perverse bragging tone or anything. just a note that many parts of the country that don't have many posters to this message board have been living this reality for quite some time. my sympathies to everyone dealing with this right now. the good news is weather patterns change and the smoke always moves somewhere else. then moves back to you. then gets worse next year.

i'm super glad we'll see some media hand-wringing and rationalization about it in the coming weeks though.

it does suck bad

I’m in the Baltimore area. This has happened before, not pretty rarely in my memory.

(The only other time I remember it was in the Austin area a decade or so back when the city of Bastrop was on fire for weeks.)

I moved to Montreal from Oregon 9 years ago. So, I left before the real bad summers started, but I did experience fires while there, including waking up on vacation in Bend one morning to the surreal sight of midsummer snow that I realized after a confused minute was falling ash. There have also been plenty of wildfires in Quebec before this year. What's freaking me out is that it's only June

i've seen a fair number of westerners with thoughts along the same lines as sleeve/map and i get it, but . . . this *hasn't* happened in nyc before. (james redd could only compare it to 9/11!)

i mean, if the west coast of the usa gets hit by a hurricane sometime, that too will be very noteworthy despite the southeast getting several every summer

I suppose maybe I could have should have lowballed and compared it to that one time NJ sent us some foul-smelling air.

Yeah, FW2020 was rough. 5 of the 10 worst wildfires in the history of California (and Oregon wasn't much better).

Not only were we in COVID lockdown but also choking on dense wildfire smoke for close to 3 months. Even our indoor AQI readings were in the triple digits. Those of us with kids dealing with at-home everything and then no more going outside for fresh air made things extremely unmanageable.

https://i.imgur.com/WsuDF4n.jpg

Good luck East Coasters.

(no filter on the pic, white-balanced to the interior lighting)

It makes me think of there Las Vegas set scenes of Blade Runner 2049.

ok fine i will admit to experiencing a ~tiny~ bit of schadenfreude after spending many many years slowly accepting that smoke = summer in northern california

but also: i am v sorry this is happening to you all, it super sucks & i know firsthand it becomes very depressing + scary very quickly. stay safe! stay indoors!

Thanks. Definitely some disturbing AQIs over here in Queens, some very unhealthy and even hazardous.

veg otm

oh in case anyone needs indoor filters:

https://deohs.washington.edu/edge/blog/how-make-box-fan-filter-clean-indoor-air-smoke

i pulled up the purple air map for nyc. jfc, that is worse than what we had in norther california in 2020 when everything turned orange and freaky.

stay safe y’all :-(

incredible photo, Steve

There have also been plenty of wildfires in Quebec before this year. What's freaking me out is that it's only June

I have lived in SF for most of my life, and September 9th, 2020, dubbed "orange skies day", will always be a day I remember, it was a very dim orange twilight all day and even the birds didn't know how to respond, it was freaky. Steve Shasta's photo captures it

I think the particulate matter AQI score in NY today was maybe even higher though

Yeah, that day was incredibly eerie but it was nowhere near one of the worst air quality days that year. Iirc, the orange skies were a result of a cloud layer creating a buffer between the city and most of the particulate.

welp

i've seen a fair number of westerners with thoughts along the same lines as sleeve/map and i get it, but . . . this *hasn't* happened in nyc before. (james redd could only compare it to 9/11!)

i mean, if the west coast of the usa gets hit by a hurricane sometime, that too will be very noteworthy despite the southeast getting several every summer

― mookieproof, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 4:31 PM (two months ago)

yup. everything is on fire around us right now as well.

over 1000 fires in Canada

https://data.statesmanjournal.com/fires/

Photo of a hurt and angry planet

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/09/16/multimedia/18californiatoday-hilary/18californiatoday-hilary-articleLarge.jpg

Nothing really close to me at the moment; being basically on the shore of a giant lake must keep the ground pretty well irrigated, I guess. But I'm keeping an eye on the map.

https://www.mtfireinfo.org/pages/current-fire-info

Quebec man who blamed wildfires on government pleads guilty to setting 14 fires

A Quebec man who posted conspiracy theories online that forest fires were being deliberately set by the government has pleaded guilty to starting a series of fires himself that forced hundreds of people from their homes.

Nice misdirection dude