Calif. wildfires — worst may be yet to come
By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News
Summer officially ends next week, but California’s devastating wildfire season will almost certainly rage on.
As of Monday, three enormous blazes — the Valley Fire in Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties; the Rough Fire in the Sierra National Forest in Fresno County; and the Butte Fire, burning in Amador and Calaveras counties — had already charred 270,000 acres, an area 10 times the size of the city of San Francisco.
Experts said at least another month, possibly two, of extreme fire risk remains before hoped-for El Niño winter rains could begin to dampen dry grasses, shrubs and trees all over California.
And, if history is any indication, the most destructive fires can come in October, when conditions are their driest. Major infernos like the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire, which killed 25 people and destroyed 2,843 homes, and the 2003 Cedar Fire and the 2007 Witch Fire, which together burned nearly 3,500 homes in San Diego County, all began in October.
Through Monday, 738,516 acres had burned in California in 2015, a 75 percent increase from the same date last year, and a 37 percent increase when compared to the five-year average.
On Monday, 11,000 firefighters around California battled at least a dozen major fires.
If we took all 11000 firefighters and put them around the houses we lost that would be 27 per house. Instead of being reactive how about being proactive and take those same 11000 firefighters and start clearing the areas before there is a fire. The fire departments up here already offer lot clearing, free chipping and brush removal on urban lots. Along with the CCC, Conservancy, Forestry, Cal Fire and other state agency’s we could have cleared all the brush by now and not put our firefighters in harms way. Why fight the fire on it’s terms like on a steep hillside or inaccessible area where there are no structures, roads or people. In the military we sent out small units to the enemy and left the big boys behind to protect everyone in case they broke through. Why not let the local contractors do their job at what is probably a third of the cost. I will not tell a firefighter how to fight a fire and I would appreciate if they would tell me how to clear a lot or drop a tree. With 11000 workers I could have clear cut the basin by now (only kidding). The fire departments have brought this on themselves by taking over the contractors job then not doing their job due to lack of money. The programs are out there, the money is out there and if they gave the contractors the money the jobs would get done. Of course we had the Nv Fire Safe rebate program go belly up and is in BK court right now and has been for over 4 years. They owe a lot of money to all the fire depts. as well as quite a few contractors myself included. The only difference with the fire depts. money is that they still got a paycheck while this is going through BK and we have not. Proactive not reactive.
Kenny, those are all of the right questions….unfortunately the answer is money….and the funding that is guaranteed to continue to pour into suppression while prevention lags far behind.
Its hard to get a news story published about a fire that didnt happen. But that is what prevention is all about….keeping fire out of the news.