High Sierra Topix

Dave,

Very imformative, your statement also supports what I beleive to be true which is controlled Burns do not reduce this ecosystems flamability. The Chapparals ability to overtake grasses and become the primary plant community within 2-5 years after a fire, is so rapid we would have to have controlled burns on an annual or bi-annual basis.

After the angora fire there were several Homes (anomilies) which survived due to the use of concrete siding and managing there defensible space. I did here that some of these homes (although they were completely intact) had so much smoke damage they had to be torn down anyways.

mikehike wrote:...I did here that some of these homes (although they were completely intact) had so much smoke damage they had to be torn down anyways.

Smoke damage occurs inside homes. Smoke on the outside of a home ought not be important. Thus if someone had such damage, they obviously didn't close their windows or doors or had air conditioning running. Something people ought to be aware of during fires and not leave there homes so. ...David

Dave,

Yes Im sure you are right, I am not much of an expert on this kind of stuff. This fire swept down that valley so fast, no one could get back to there homes. I leave my windows open all the time in the summer up there cause the air smells so good.

There was one story where a lady went to the store and left her 14 year old son at home. They closed the streets so the boy had to learn to drive in a matter of minutes and drive there 2nd car out of the fire.

Now that the last embers have finally stopped smoking, developers can get back to business as usual:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 241S27.DTL

LOL!!!

Slow learners.

New developments can be made relatively fire safe. It requires compromises by the developers and homeowners, raises home prices, and lowers developers profits.

Anyone want to wager whether the fire safe designs will be implemented?

I'd like to no where they plan to get the water for 86,000 new homes and swimming pools. I remember back in the 70's there was a movement to divide california into 2 seperate states, sounds like a good idea.

They'll get the water the same way they get it already. When the northerners flush, it flows south.

All seriousness aside, though, there is no more large untapped water source in California. Every large basin is already overstretched and over-allocated. Colorado River is over-allocated. That leaves the Columbia. I am certain our Oregon and Washington brothers and sisters will willingly share their Columbia water with California. Right?

Large scale desalinization is technologically possible, but expensive and has its own environmental footprint. I don't see any serious talk about it, though.

Below is something I found on another website, and is semi-related to this discussion. The "Q" who authored this paper is Ray Quintinar, the retired Director of Fire, Fuels, and Aviation for all NF's in Region 5 (basically California). Q was not a politically appointed bureaucrat to that position. He started out as a summer firefighter, eating smoke and throwing dirt. He worked up through the ranks to become Director. This gave him more 'street cred' among the firefighters and among his peers than all the professors at all the universities combined. He never forgot his roots, as opposed to some armchair experts who never had roots.

This paper is heavy to some in-house jargon and govt acronyms, and discusses budgetary allocations and the political realities of fire policies.

http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2007/p ... -later.htm

This was recently released. It does not look at causes or attempt to assign blame, but rather is a review of firefighting operations, what went right and what didn't. Intended as a learning tool for future incidents.

Note that FEMA gets dinged pretty good.


http://www.wildfirelessons.net/document ... REPORT.pdf