cough,cough - wildfires anyone?

[rickcdewitt]

anyone else been sitting in a smoke cloud these last couple days waiting for the fires to die out?its out of hand! i can't see a mile its so bad!

there are about 90 lightning fires raging now in mendocino county alone for over 7500 acres. one of the largest is right in one of the closest wheeling spots to me(the navarro fire,1500 acres).it will be fun checking out the aftermath but there will probably be a lot of clearing to do to get to the old haunts.

weird thing is as i was leaving pillsbury this weekend someone said "looks like lightning weather".of course then we got quite a light show once back in mendo,too bad the wind blows through the valley making the smoke hang overhead

the hunting should be great next few years though the hogs needed a boost

 

[lil red]

sounds pretty bad
thank god we dont get those on the east coast
that would royally suck for me

about 4 days in fire gear, hell no
it gets old after about 8 hours

 

[blackbronc]

I'm in Paradise. About a mile from mandatory evacuation last week. We lost 74 houses in the Humboldt fire. After the lightning the other day we had another fire to the west which air support put out in hours. We have 3 fires on the east side of town now. Smoke has been like Mendocino fog for 3 days now. I went down to Chico yesterday and it was allmost as thick down in the valley.

 

[97ranger4x4]

it is a tad smokey here in sacramento.

 

[BSU541]

Why is it every year California and Idaho get hit worse with wildfires then every other state?

 

[blackbronc]

News just reported there are over 800 fires in California and more than 100 have no one fighting them at all because of manpower and equipment shortage. It's going to be near 100 degrees again today as well.

 

[MAKG]

Why is it every year California and Idaho get hit worse with wildfires then every other state?

Wet winters and dry summers. Plus quite a lot of remote and rugged areas.

The heat wave has broken here. It's quite nice now (< 80 deg, around 30% humidity). It wasn't just 100 deg heat. It was RIDICULIOUS low humidity. My hygrometer hit 2% over last weekend.

 

[Maverick]

We're clear down on the coast hear. Inland a few miles is a different story though. I was reading somewhere that there was around 800 fires burning in CA right now.

 

[BSU541]

Wet winters and dry summers. Plus quite a lot of remote and rugged areas.

Yep that sounds right.

 

[canyoncritter]

Thankfully no smoke here in SD.As we dont have any fires going on yet.

Have a feeling this is going to be a bad year for fires in cali.

 

[MAKG]

Have a feeling this is going to be a bad year for fires in cali.

It already has been. Nasty heat wave accompanied by nearly statewide thunderstorms, many of them "dry." And the winter was dryer than normal this year.

There have been at least four significant (>100 acres) fires in June within 30 miles of my house. But curiously, no smoke (I've always been upwind). This is very unusual; only a handful of fires have occurred here in the last decade.

 

[IcecreamLtDan]

sounds pretty bad
thank god we dont get those on the east coast
that would royally suck for me

about 4 days in fire gear, hell no
it gets old after about 8 hours

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3047632/

This one has been going on for a couple of weeks now. The NC & Virginia coasts are often covered in smoke from this so they do happen on the east coast. Sorry you guys are having so much trouble too.

 

[blackbronc]

It's not all bad. It kills a lot of poison oak! better to burn now than August when it would burn in flash fires.

 

[rickcdewitt]

131 fires in mendocino county now at over 13,000 acres.a friend of mine tells me the last two months have been the driest in 100 years here.it shows, theres nowhere to throw mud with the boggers. heres a good link but might redirect you to the home page
http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current

 

[OilPatch197]

So here comes the question:

If the homes are expensive, why on earth don't they build them in ways that are fireproof? Makes NO sense.

Wouldn't an adobe with tile roofs be sufficient to withstand a fire?

Or newer improved home designs that resist fires?
Link: http://dehsigner.tripod.com/

After the California wildfires, I am wondering if Southern Californias' building codes will be updated? I also belive that if you are going to live in an earthquake/fire prone desert you should live in a house designed for the problem. Having said that the only one designed for the problem is a concrete re-enforced box, and some people have built them.

This box would also have to include the roof, but I am sure you could put a steel framed roof with steel panels over it. Or maybe steel framed homes with concrete board screwed to the outside and fire resistant insulation in the pockets of the walls with wiring running through insulated conduit and insulated steel shutters for windows and doors for firestorms.

What is that saying, "do it once, do it right- don't rebuild twice!"