West Coast Wildfires

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Seems the west coast is burning down.

This article is about the U.S. but the coast of B.C. is also alight.  Perhaps this is a signal from nature that the time is up in la-la land.

 

[SimCoug 5,972]

Nature has been delivering wild fires since the dawn of time, so there is nothing new in that regard.  The fact that there are more people living in areas prone to wild fires only means that there is more potential for property destruction and loss of life.  Fortunately, technology and communication advances have helped to reduce the potential destruction caused by these fires.  

That said, I have family in and around Chelan, Washington where some of the largest property loss has occurred.  Currently there has been no report of lives lost, and I hope that continues.  Here's a neat video of a DC-10 dropping fire retardant practically on top of the Chelan High School a few days ago.  Huge props to the fire fighters and pilots who are working to protect everybody.

[citycowboy 183]

Sometimes we just have summers like this. When I was a kid, growing up north of Spokane, I made a fort one day. The next day it had burned away. So that winter we moved across the river. I made a fort there. Two weeks later somebody excavated a nice lot to build their new house. Now I play Sim City.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The four year drought isn't helping this.  I don't think this is the same as the normal summer fire cycle, but something more exaggerated due to the excessive dryness.

And, of course, more people are building houses in the danger zones just as they build in flood plains and wonder why they are under water.

[blade2k5 1,523]

And it seems according to the Farmer's Almanac that this so called Godzilla of El Nino's isn't going to bring any drought relief for poor California.  Oh well, sure glad I don't live there anymore.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

"Beware of the Blob"

Seems that El Niño may run into a competitor.  This may result in an extension of the drought, or it it becomes a reinforcer, serious flooding with the associated mud slides.

[matias93 7,535]

And all the rain is coming here, to the western southamerican coasts, where the floods and landslidings already begun.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I hope the destruction is minimal.  Chile is one of our best trading partners.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The smoke is most unpleasant. I feel like I'm suffocating every time I go outside. I ended up hitching a ride with a friend shopping at the same place as me in order to get to WSU (which is on a hill).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Perhaps this is nature's way of warning people that this environment is no longer suitable for them.

[MintberryCrunch 83]

The four-year-drought here in California has made the fires worse than ever. I really hope the El Nino stuff is true and that it will rain a lot this fall and winter.

I'm in the valley this week and the air quality here is HORRIBLE! I thought there was fog outside, it wasn't fog, it was smoke from two new wildfires that started a couple days ago. I haven't been going outside at all. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Apparently, northern California is really in trouble.  BBC article.

All that accumulated dry chaparral is just fuel for this kind of fire, along with any crap that falls in the forest.  The native people up here strongly recommend controlled burns annually to keep this stuff down.  It also helps us preserve our wildlife,  In our boreal forests fires are both regular from natural causes (lightening) and necessary for some of the pines to propagate.

[blade2k5 1,523]

The four-year-drought here in California has made the fires worse than ever. I really hope the El Nino stuff is true and that it will rain a lot this fall and winter.

I'm in the valley this week and the air quality here is HORRIBLE! I thought there was fog outside, it wasn't fog, it was smoke from two new wildfires that started a couple days ago. I haven't been going outside at all. 

The four-year-drought here in California has made the fires worse than ever. I really hope the El Nino stuff is true and that it will rain a lot this fall and winter.

I'm in the valley this week and the air quality here is HORRIBLE! I thought there was fog outside, it wasn't fog, it was smoke from two new wildfires that started a couple days ago. I haven't been going outside at all. 

Perhaps this is nature's way of warning people that this environment is no longer suitable for them.

And where is all that water going to go?  Most of it will run off into the ocean while some might fill a pond or two, but California has some really idiotic politicians and a brain dead governor who are more concerned with that bullet train to nowhere instead of perhaps building some catch-basins to collect some of the rainfall they might get from this supposed Godzilla of El Ninos.  You'll most likely end with more flooding and then the whining begins.  

I really don't feel sorry or even have pity for those who live in California, they got into this mess all by themselves, they can get out of it all by themselves.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

<snip>

Perhaps this is nature's way of warning people that this environment is no longer suitable for them.

And where is all that water going to go?  Most of it will run off into the ocean while some might fill a pond or two, but California has some really idiotic politicians and a brain dead governor who are more concerned with that bullet train to nowhere instead of perhaps building some catch-basins to collect some of the rainfall they might get from this supposed Godzilla of El Ninos.  You'll most likely end with more flooding and then the whining begins.  

I really don't feel sorry or even have pity for those who live in California, they got into this mess all by themselves, they can get out of it all by themselves.

Well, now that the ground cover has been burnt off, there is nothing to hold the soil.  So, landslides then flooding on a large scale.  People chose to live in places where angels would have second thoughts.

[MintberryCrunch 83]

Well, not many places have burned, if we're talking about actual acreage. And most of the places that burned were not in very populated areas. 

Also, most of California's water comes form melted snow in the Sierras. It was the extremely low amount of snow in 2015 (6% snowpack--the lowest in recorded California history) that's causing the lower drinking water problems. It actually seemed like this past year that it rained more where I live than it snowed up in the mountains--and that's a problem. 

  Edited September 19, 2015 by MintberryCrunch  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is also the problem of less snowfall further east to fill up the Hoover Dam reservoir (Lake Mead).  There are too many straws in that soda.

[Duke87 1,070]

One particular exceptional item this year: a fire in an old growth rainforest. Usually in the pacific northwest the area west of the Cascades is very wet and not particularly prone to wildfires. But the drought has affected even that area to the point where now an unusual fire is burning and firefighters have no effective means of putting it out other than waiting for the season to change.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Ah ha... This is the kind of thing we get all the time in the boreal forests across the middle latitudes in the Canadian north.  Of some note is that sometimes fire is needed for some trees to complete their life cycle.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The type of trees that grow in rainforests do not need fire to complete their life cycle. The rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula has little-to-no conifers.