It’s that time of year again

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No, not school. Still a week to go for that.

But it is fire season around here, and we’ve got a fire going in full swing. I’ve taken a lousily-stitched-together panorama picture of the fire near our house (it’s close to a 360-degree shot – the house you see on the left side of the picture is the same house as on the right side of the picture).

This was actually taken a couple days ago – it’s mellowed out a bit, but it’s still there. There are ashes all over the place, and now our house smells like smoke.

Oh, and, you can see how it blocked out most of the sun. It was supposed to be really hot that day, but the sun was blocked out for so long that the ambient temperature was down about ten degrees.
 
Big fire :O.

Nice panoramic picture you've got going on there Sage. You're always so professional...rounded edges....panoramic pictures. Sheesh.
 
You haven't started school yet!? I'm quickly approaching my first round of exams...

Anyways, that's a nice panoramic picture, if not scary. So, how do southern Californians deal with fires like these? Is there a sense of panic or is this something that is taken seriously but without panic because of its yearly occurence.

I know in Illinois, when we hear the tornado alarms every spring, no one really panics (except for the city kids). But I'm sure a fire is a very different situation.
 
That's a big fire, even if it has died down a bit. How do you guys deal with them? The only major disaters that I've seen are bad thunderstorms and blizzards. We had a hurricane on the Cape once, but I was too young to remember it.
 
dougiemeats
You haven't started school yet!?
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Nope; move-in the 16th, start classes the 21st. It’s a quarter system though, so I’m going to get bashed over the head every 10 weeks.

So, how do southern Californians deal with fires like these? Is there a sense of panic or is this something that is taken seriously but without panic because of its yearly occurence.
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Kinda depends on where you are. As you can tell from that picture, we live in the boonies, so we’re totally used to it – four or five major fires go through here every year (and by “here”, I mean within a 10-mile radius of where our house is). Even though that picture looks pretty bad, we weren’t too worried, mainly because it’s on the other side of the freeway.

We’ve only had one fire where we had to evacuate, and that was when we were panicky – my dad was screaming at the TV reporters while we were running out of the house (“Get out of the way!”), the firefighters had to cover our house with foam, and the fire literally came within a foot of my neighbor’s all-wood house (can’t respect the firefighters enough for somehow saving that house).

When you’re in that kind of situation, then it’s pretty scary. Most of the time though, we know the fire will be dealt with – we have plenty of brush clearance and an A+ county fire team. There’s no reason to worry about this one, unless it jumps the freeway.
 
Jesus… That’s a big’n.

We don’t get fires for another few months. :D
 
:sick: And I thought living in the East End of London was dangerous...

Great (but scary) picture 👍
 
Bah, i'm glad i'm moving from so cal! Not that anyone here knows about that.

No more nasty days where the fires are raging and you can't BREATHE.

Not going to miss that one bit!

Hopefully that fire stays away though, sage!!
 
Hm, give me a fire any day – at least they can be fought, unlike a hurricane or tornado. ;) Where you moving to?
 
Sage
Hm, give me a fire any day – at least they can be fought, unlike a hurricane or tornado. ;)
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You can play with fire too :sly:

But you're going to get burned...tust me I know...👎:dunce:
 
Sage
Hm, give me a fire any day – at least they can be fought, unlike a hurricane or tornado. ;) Where you moving to?
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I'm moving to Seattle, WA.

Nothing like what happens in cali happens up there...

Just rain.

And rain rocks. lol.
 
Acid X
I'm moving to Seattle, WA.

Nothing like what happens in cali happens up there...

Just rain.

And rain rocks. lol.
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We have plenty of forest fires up here, though not near the city. We get about 2 inches of rain for July/August/September (less than that this year), and with the incredibly hot and dry conditions up in the mountains, fires rage all summer, and it affects many camping grounds/lakes and resorts. Forest fires are fought by prevention. There is no way to put a 50,000 acre fire out, so what they'll do is to fire-proof everything around it. They'll sometimes cut a fire-stop around the fire (basically taking out all of the combustable vegetation on all sides, so the fire can't easily spread outward). On top of that, they'll dump water/foam/chemicals in surrounding areas to further prevent anything else from catching on fire. The problem is that even if they can contain the fire (which they usually can), lightning will start another one nearby, or flaming debris will be carried off by the wind, land several miles away, and start another fire there. Failing that, they have no other choice but to simply wait for the winter rains to start. The Cascades typically get more than 100 inches of rain per year, but somehow they still dry to a crisp during the summer.

As for other natural disasters, we get a fair amount. Each winter, we usually get 1 or 2 big windstorms, which throw trees around like toothpicks. It creates quite a mess. Every 4 or 5 years, we'll also get nailed by a blizzard, which causes more problems than you might think. We have earthquakes too, but you're used to that :).

Oh, and locals don't use umbrellas, so don't bother bringing one. You don't want people to think you're a sissy, do you? ;)
 
Sage
There’s no reason to worry about this one, unless it jumps the freeway.
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So of course, exactly 24 hours after I say that, the damn fire jumps the freeway.

I was on my way home, and a highway patrol goes rushing by me with his lights on, and about a mile ahead he sets up a roadblock and shuts down the freeway. So I get to idle in traffic for about half an hour, then take a curvy 10-mile single-lane road back home (it’s a fun road, but not when you’re stuck behind a slow truck).

Stupid fire.
 
Yeah so you got me! Haha. Good points all around...

Still, it should be more fun than california. :]


RUN SAGE, RUN! :[
 
Well, we might have to evacuate tonight – it’s breached a fire line, so it might come this way soon, and there are plans to evacuate a trailer park that’s about a mile or two to the west of us.
 
We've had a few fires around here lately and it isn't even summer yet... It is the end of Winter, or early Spring and has been kinda wet so i'm hoping it isn't going to be another dry summer. I like green, not brown. :(
 
Stay REAL safe Sage, but I'm sure you know what to do since this has happened to you before.

I'd never use this link in this situation.
 
*bump*

Now that this fire (the Day Fire) is making national headlines, I’ve received a few PMs from concerned GTPrs (thank you!), so I just wanted to update:

When I started this thread, I don’t think the fire had even broken 1000 acres yet; now, however, it’s at nearly 150,000 acres. Much larger than any fire that’s gone through this particular area before.

Around September 13 or 14, the fire got within maybe two miles of our house, and we packed up to evacuate, though we never did end up actually having to leave. On September 16, I had to leave to move to San Diego. At that point, the firefighters had a number of fire breaks built up that would help prevent the fire from jumping the freeway over to our side. Here’s a map of the situation at that time:

fireif1.jpg


As I understand it, since then, it hasn’t approached our house any further – instead, it seems that this southern “arm” of the fire has been stopped, and the northwest portion has headed westward towards Ventura county and the like. In other words, the part shown in my map hasn’t grown, but the part off the map has, almost exponentially.

So, the good news is that it appears my parents and house are safe. The bad news is that a whole slew of people are now threatened elsewhere (mind you, this thing spans many many many miles), and the smoke has gotten so bad that my parents have to wear dust masks to bed. But it looks like we’re well off now.
 
Good for you and yours. Bad for them and theirs.

So you get a :)👍 and a :nervous:
 
I even spy round edges in your little drawing :lol:.

If it gets any closer, start yelling obscenities at it and threaten to turn the hose to it.
 

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