cough,cough - wildfires anyone?

[blackbronc]

Most homes in the areas of SoCal that burned WERE designed to be fire resistant i.e. concrete foundation/floors, stucco/sheetrock walls and tile roof. Building codes have been updated repeatedly and are the strictest in the nation. By that logic mobile homes should be illegal from Texas to Illinois and no one should be allowed to live in anything less than an underground bunker from North Carolina to Florida to Texas. Those now being flooded should have bought houseboats. Of course that would be ridiculous just as requiring steel and concrete bombshelters for fire would be. The fires are not in SoCal at this time anyway. Not all of California is desert either. Nearly all the fires at present are in alpine forest or coastal foothills. 350 to 600 miles from Los Angeles. Given a choice of earthquakes or tornado/hurricanes I'll take the earthquake every time.

 

[rickcdewitt]

yeah lets all live in bunkers! lol. its more of a matter of maintaining adequite fire breaks around your house and making sure the FD can find and reach you easily.if the road to your house is dangerous(overgrown) they will let it burn also....

 

[rickcdewitt]

heres a few navarro ridge aftermath pics. i diden't find a place with a big view

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Given a choice of earthquakes or tornado/hurricanes I'll take the earthquake every time.

Tornadoes can happen anywhere, any time of the year. Nice thing about them is unless you are really close they don't do much... earthquakes and Hurricanes have a much larger path of damage potential.

My dad is 50 years old and saw his first one last friday, it was over a county away, it just messed up some previously drowned corn and didn't touch a building. Even here in "Tornado Alley" they are not all that common. I still have yet to see one in person.

Wildfires, now that is scary business. I was in Yellowstone a few years ago and it still looked bad.

 

[blackbronc]

Crap, here we go again. The lightning storm fires 10 days ago have spread throughout the Feather River Canyon area. Mass evacuations, possibly as many as 10,000, ash rain. 50 more buildings burned. All the news outlets are a day or 2 behind. Geomac is at least a day behind. Shwartzenegger was here the day before it started up again. At least half the area I go wheelin is burned up. Blackhawks and Chinooks dropping water. 100s of firetrucks from all over the state. Specially from SoCal.

 

[rickcdewitt]

yeah the air was clear here for a couple days and then we got renewed fires on signal ridge and elsewhere.got a national guard camp in town and lots of helo's

 

[Hahnsb2]

I know I shouldn't bitch since I don't live down there but last week there was a few days when that smoke was blowing all the way up here and it really sucked to be outside.

 

[HMD]

that would royally suck for me

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

I hear that, once you have been on the lines of a big one you get goosebumps evry time you see one. Still smell the smoke of the big one I was on in 2001 something like 130K hectares, not sure what it turns out in acres but it about 20 miles long the first day I was there. It burned for 3 months before the considered it out. Luckly for me I was only there for two weeks at 16 hours a day......and yes it gets old quick.

So far this year just had to go out to one and it was out when I got there, two hour response time for me with a 6000 gallon water tanker towed with a 2003 F-250 4X4 6 speed 5.4liter on bush roads..........Needless to say it was a slow bumpy ride at a snails pace, as with that much weight to speed up and slow down for road conditions was almost painful.


Hopefully I don't have to go out again this year!!!!!

 

[blackbronc]

HMD, I think you guys sent down one of your supertanker planes to fight the fires at Lake Shasta. Thanx. This fire is now about 6 miles wide by 25 long. but there's hundreds of smaller ones. Not just Big Sur like the news media is so found of.

 

[rickcdewitt]

Hopefully I don't have to go out again this year!!!!!

ah what a weiner,i have a brother and step dad just waiting to be turned loose,but oregon is holding onto its resources this season

 

[Carlos Murphy]

Koff-koff-koff

I live in Gardnerville, Nv, about 1 hour south of RENO.

All the valleys from here to Reno are filled with smoke and it's all because the "tree huggers" making it illegal to clear away the dead wood and other forest debris that litter the forest floor that provides the fuel for these fires.