Hell has a third anniversary

[Scott Gilmore]

Hamish, are you back from Palm Springs yet? Godspeed my friend.

It's hard to understand the effect a wildfire of this scale has on everyone within a few hundred miles. In this case, that "few hundred miles" represents about sixty three million people in the combined Los Angeles basin, Orange County and San Diego County areas. Those of us downwind really sense the doom in our bones (and our noses).

Of course those displaced by the fires directly are most profoundly affected; we're all on edge worrying about just those folks.

For those of you not from this area, for some idea of the scale of these catastrophes, take long, slow look at the photo below. Understand the scale.

The 2003 wildfires -- the largest and most destructive wildfires in American history.

At it's peak, the San Diego wildfires fires burned at two acres per second continuously for hours. The flame front sped across this county at forty miles per hour. When all was said and done, three hundred and ninety two thousand, one hundred and sixty one acres of this earth were scorched in San Diego County alone, fully 23% of the land mass of the County. Two thousand six hundred and eighty five families lost their homes and seventeen people were burned to death.

One month after the `03 wildfires to the day, on Thanksgiving day, 2003, the Santa Ana winds kicked up again. This time they blew the ashes of the lives of thousands of families out to sea.

Post burn ash plume, Thanksgiving day, 2003.

Today, on the third anniversary of those fires, when I walked out of the office to drive home, the smell of smoke and the sickly gray-orange pallor signaled disaster once again. This time the fires rage over two hundred miles away in Riverside County, not far from Palm Springs. Four fire fighters are dead fighting to protect lives and property. There is more horror to come.

By the fifth day of the 2003 wildfires the rage was out of the flames, but the flames were not yet out. As we worked frantically to assess damage in order to prepare for the onslaught of refugees, the Santa Ana winds died down, the temperatures plummeted from the over 100°F temperatures and 10% humidity that ushered in the fires down to below freezing. We now worked in snow covered fields of moonscape ash trying to enumerate the contents of lifetimes of possessions. The hardest part was trying to ignore the burned pets -- the frozen/melted bodies of dogs and cats and rabbits. Children's toys, melted and disfigured by the fires crushed hearts hardened by years of dealing with bellowing duplicitous contractors. (Most of the damage assessment was performed by Building Inspectors for the County's Department of Planning and Land Use.)

If you watch where the fires burn as I write this and the direction of the wind, the news bodes ill. The fires will likely march up into the San Jacinto mountain range.

My best to the locals. You have a hard time ahead.

Regards,
Scott Gilmore

[Riverkilt]

Aye,

My brother's a motor officer for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and told me some sad and some hairy stories of the '03 fires.

These days, I choose not to live near forests, high brush, or on floodplains having dealt with enough forest fires, brush fires, and floods in my youth.

The sandy scrub of the canyonlands is just right for me. Not enough to burn and too high to flood. We do get a lot of smoke of the fires on the Kaibab Plateau though.



Not much to burn out here.

Sad and scary what folks out west have to deal with.

Ron

Ron

[Kiltedfirepiper]

I worked the Old/grand prix fire in 03.....after that I said I will never fight fire in CA. again!! too many times did I wonder if we were gonna make it out......at one point when the two fires merged we were trapped in our
"safety zone" for 16 hours making for a total of 41 hours on the line and when we got back we bedded down for 6 hours and got up to do it again for another 16!!!! our state rep threw a fit to the higher ups of that complex about that !! the federal guidelines for wildfire are a 2:1 ratio for work to rest...it seems like they threw the guidelines out the window for that fire!!
even though they had everyone evacuated and the only thing left were houses.... (a wise Incident Commander once said to me "houses are just trees that grow back in a year" and I hate to say it but he was right!) the structure protection group I was with was near arrowhead lake and we had to do triage on the houses up there. and even though the public was told

clear a defenseable area around your house
turn off all AC, swamp coolers ect.
no shake shingle roofs
close all windows and cover them with heavy drapes to block heat ect. ect for YEARS ON END before ANY fires even happened? guess how many houses we found WIDE open? ( by that I mean upper level windows all the way open ) AC on ? flammable materials RIGHT against the houses? ......I'd have to say 60% it almost seemed to US( the engine crews I was with ) that they wanted their houses destroyed so they could build newer, nicer houses!
I'm sorry if I upset anyone by this reply but I just wanted you te see this from a perspective of someone who has to try and SAVE these houses!
something about p!$$ing up a rope comes to mind
now to the people who lost everything through no fault of their own? my heart goes out to you...but to those people who tried to take advantage of the situation, and put my life on the line in the process? I have no water to spare for you home!


stay safe, clean around your house and (god forbid) LISTEN to what the Fire Dept. tells you about fire safety they might actually know what their talkin about!! ( not that I need to tell you rabble this since most kilt wearers are students of common sense)


Scott ...stepping off the box and into his fire shelter for the on comming flames

[MacTavishOfJapan]

Scott, Ham is back, I saw a post for him earlier in the week. He said he was jetlagged though and I haven't seen a post since.

[Norbydog]

Fire sucks. Especially when you have to go against it and you are not a firefighter. Ask me, I can tell you from personal experience.

Can a firefighter member tell me why; when a home is on fire, every occupant of the home goes limp and wants you to carry them out? I am not talking about unconcious people or disabled people.

[Kiltedfirepiper]

fear is the only answer I can come up with....I dont even mind that it makes for less struggle, on their part that it is ......its MORE struggle on my part especialy when they are mid tripple digits if you know what I mean

[Pour1Malt]

ai wuz in LA fur this....

whit a horrible mess....

[cessna152towser]

My thoughts are with those of you living in California.

Hope the arsonist gets caught.

Fire is a frightening experience. Ann and I were in a small hotel which caught fire on Christmas Day 2004 but thankfully something had caused me to go outside via a back door earlier in the day and I was able to lead Ann and another guest through the smoke to this exit where I fumbled for, found and turned the key and we escaped safety into the fresh air.

[bikercelt1]

My thoughts and prayers are with those facing this catastrophe and those already damaged or killed by it. Something of this magnatude is just unfathomable. It makes all my petty troubles inconsequential. Blessings on all of you Firefighters who try to protect us from the likes of this.

Jamie

[Rob Wright]

My father was a wildland firefighter for over 37 years, he retired as a Hot Shot Superintendent after the monster fire in Arizona. I've seen his pictures from all over the US and Canada and even video after he retired, people truly have no clue just how powerful wildfires are.

The US Forest Service is the only federal agency that can be onsite in 36 hours and have camps set up and running with no hickups, you should see them set up fire camp truly amazing, FEMA could learn a lot from them.

Rob