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“Diablo Winds” Are Ferociously Whipping “Out Of Control” Wildfires Across Vast Stretches Of Northern California

October 28, 2019

“Diablo Winds” Are Ferociously Whipping “Out Of Control” Wildfires Across Vast Stretches Of Northern California

Why does this keep happening to California year after year?  As you read this article, enormous wildfires are ravaging large portions of northern California, and Governor Gavin Newsom has already declared a statewide emergency.  An extreme wind event that began on Saturday evening is pushing the fires along at a staggering rate, and when the winds are howling this ferociously it is exceedingly difficult for firefighters to keep the fires from spreading.  It was being reported that on Sunday morning there were sustained winds exceeding 90 mph in northern California with “gusts that topped 100 mph”.  It was the strongest wind event in several years, and it came at an extremely unfortunate time.  These “hurricane-force Diablo winds” will continue into Monday morning, but that doesn’t mean that things will start to get better.  As you will see below, another extreme wind event is in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Kincade Fire is the largest of the wildfires, and according to ABC News it has now “grown to 85 square miles”…

California Fire officials say a rapidly moving fire in Northern California wine country has grown to 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) and destroyed 94 buildings.

Cal Fire spokesman Jonathan Cox called the conditions throughout California “a tinderbox” Sunday and asked people to continue being vigilant in helping to prevent fires from breaking out.

That is an absolutely massive wildfire, and the extremely strong winds are picking up embers from the Kincade Fire and starting blazes in new areas.

The following is what Cal Fire Captain Robert Foxworthy told reporters on Sunday morning…

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to Prepare as the Fed Scorches the Earth

October 26, 2019

How to Prepare as the Fed Scorches the Earth

Wildfire Surge

The hillsides are always brown in the land of fruits and nuts come autumn.  After baking away all summer long in the hot sun, the dense sage and chaparral covering the coastal hillsides and canyons are dry and toasty. Though, before conditions get better, they must first get worse.

Photo credit: Noah Berger / AP
California is ablaze again… as every year.  [PT]

High pressure systems form over the high-elevation deserts of the Great Basin, between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Rocky Mountains, each fall like clockwork. The pressure builds and forces the air to the south and west. The warm, dry winds of Santa Ana then race towards Southern California where they scorch the earth.

The winds howl from the east, across the inland deserts, where they funnel through the mountain passes and then blast across the LA Basin and out to the Pacific Ocean.  As the winds conduit from high to low elevation they compress and rise in temperature at a rate of almost 30 degrees per mile of descent. What’s more, as the temperature of the air spikes upward, its relative humidity plunges downward below 10 percent.

The already brown and parched vegetative cover is further convection dried by the Santa Ana winds to form a giant tinderbox. Just one spark – from a downed power-line or a backfiring semi-truck – and the whole thing conflagrates into a blistering windblown wildfire. At last count, there were 13 active wildfires blazing across the state.

Photo credit: Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty Images
What pyromaniacs dream of… [PT]

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We Are Witnessing The Most Destructive Fire In The History Of California, And “Devil Winds” Threaten To Make Things Even Worse

November 12, 2018

We Are Witnessing The Most Destructive Fire In The History Of California, And “Devil Winds” Threaten To Make Things Even Worse

California has been absolutely devastated by horrific wildfires in recent years, but the state has never seen anything quite like this.  At this moment, three major wildfires are raging, and the Camp Fire in Butte County is already officially the most destructive wildfire in California history.  Thousands of firefighters are desperately trying to contain this fire, but they haven’t had much success.  More than 6,700 structures have already been destroyed, and that shatters the all-time record that was set just last year.  In fact, five of the ten most destructive wildfires in California history have happened within the last two years.  The Camp Fire and the two mammoth fires in southern California have forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate from their homes, and authorities are warning that “devil winds” of up to 40 miles per hour could accelerate this crisis in the early morning hours of Monday.

The death toll from these fires continues to rise, and the numbers are being continuously updated.  At this point, the latest official number of deaths is up to 31…

Firefighters battled heavy winds and parched conditions throughout the day in their herculean struggle against the Camp Fire and two blazes in Southern California that have killed at least 31 people, destroyed thousands of homes and forced 250,000 to flee.

But that number is expected to increase, because there are at least 228 people that are unaccounted for right now.

Many of the headlines have been about homes of celebrities that have been destroyed, but that is only a very small part of the story.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Red Flag Warning: These California Wildfires Are ‘Among The Most Destructive Fire Events In US History’ And They Are About To Get Even Worse

October 11, 2017

Red Flag Warning: These California Wildfires Are ‘Among The Most Destructive Fire Events In US History’ And They Are About To Get Even Worse

The wildfires that are roaring through northern California are already “among the most destructive fire events in U.S. history”, and by the time it is all said and done this could be the worst wildfire season in the history of the state.  So far, fires have scorched more than 250 square miles, and more than 3,500 homes and businesses have already been destroyed.  The official death toll has risen to 21, but that is expected to rise dramatically because over 600 missing persons reports have been filed with authorities.  The worst damage has been done in Napa and Sonoma counties, and you can see some deeply troubling photos of the devastation here and here.

Unfortunately, this crisis is far from over.  In fact, the National Weather Service has just issued a pair of “red flag warnings”…

The weather forecast is not looking good for those living in wine country, and for those firefighters trying to get a handle on the 22 wildfires raging through Northern California, which broke out Sunday and are barely contained more than three days later.

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for the North and East bays starting at 5 p.m. Wednesday and midnight on Thursday respectively.

That means winds can gust from 20 mph to 50 mph in the higher elevation areas, fanning the flames down mountains and into the cities.

So as bad as things are at this moment, the truth is that they are going to get even worse over the next 24 hours.

And that is quite sobering to hear, because this is already one of “the most destructive fire events in U.S. history”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Burning: Life on a Tinderbox Planet

September 17, 2015

California Burning: Life on a Tinderbox Planet

valleyfire

The metaphors are too ripe. California, symbol of limitless abundance, material wealth, possibilities for personal transformation. California, the impossibly over-endowed beauty, who wins all the contests, to the bitter envy or sycophantic admiration of the average Joes and Janes. California, the consummate global destination for the millions of who are desperate for reinvention: sexual, political, economic. California – thanks to the limitless marketability of human desire, which built its gargantuan industry of dreams – the world’s avatar for the whole USA.

All this is now tinder in a planetary fireplace.

New York, financial capital of the uniquely nameless and stateless global empire whose figurehead is California, has already received its exaggeratedly symbolic apocalyptic warnings. The Towers at the dawning millennium, like some contemporary tarot symbol, knifed by the colliding planes, collapsing in on themselves, creating a proto-nuclear explosion of toxic dust and uncountable reams of paper. (What symbolizes a bygone civilization better than ruins, dust, and fragmented archives?) Since civilization is always played on the world’s chessboard as a zero sum game, blowback is a defining aspect of weakening ones.

That, however, was still an example of human scale.

Then Superstorm Sandy (short for Cassandra?) flooded the downtown subways with chilly waters, lapping at the gone-silent monoliths where the world’s deals were done. The trains didn’t run at all, much less on time, the heat went off, the lights went out. Under the hurricane’s glaring eye, New York blinked.

And now California, producer of food and dreams to the world, gets its own head’s up from the gods of increasing chaos. Bone dry for four years, burning every year (as it has for millennia, but never before with 38 million of us, a primate subspecies born in an Ice Age, inhabiting and drastically altering its landscape). The annual fires (approximately6,000 this year, 1,500 more than last year) have created localized holocausts – a blackened line of hills that was once a scenic view, a demolished suburban or exurban tract, a decimated small town.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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