How Do Santa Ana Winds Influence Wildfires in Southern California?

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Gusts reached up to 111 mph in Southern California, driven by Santa Ana winds resulting from a high-pressure system in the Great Basin and a low-pressure system along the coast. Relative humidity dropped drastically, exacerbating fire conditions, leading to the evacuation of 250,000 people in the San Diego area, with reports of significant property damage, particularly in Poway. Firefighters are struggling to contain multiple fires, with some areas reporting 0% containment after several days of battling the flames. Concerns are rising about the impact of the fires on communities, as many residents are displaced and emergency shelters are overwhelmed. The situation remains critical, with predictions of continued high winds complicating firefighting efforts.
  • #31
Over 500,000 evacuated! :bugeye:

Wow, this is amazing.
 
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  • #32
Ivan Seeking said:
Over 500,000 evacuated! :bugeye:

Wow, this is amazing.

I heard on CNN that one of the fires (hopefully the largest) has already burned 70,000 acres! Did I really hear that right? I can't even wrap my head around the enormity of fires that large and destructive.
 
  • #33
If the information I read a few minutes ago is accurate the Witch fire appears to be well over a 100,000 acres.

The Cedar fire in 2003 was around 200,000 acres (?).
 
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  • #34
I live in San Diego. Bad air quality.
 
  • #35
Far Star said:
If the information I read a few minutes ago is accurate the Witch fire appears to be well over a 100,000 acres.

The Cedar fire in 2003 was around 200,000 acres (?).

The 2003 fires were made of several fires (Cedar, Paradise, Otay, smaller ones) with a combined acreage of at least 350,000 acres, I'm guessing 420,000
 
  • #36
animalcroc said:
I live in San Diego. Bad air quality.

Same here in L.A. I had to get up last night and take Benadryl because I was having something like asthma attacks that woke me up. I wonder if an air purifier in the house would help.
 
  • #37
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  • #38
1300 homes and businesses destroyed. The number of evacuees amounts to 1/6 th the population of San Diego county. Witch creek fire won't be contained till Nov 4.
 
  • #39
I just have to ask wheter there is any risk being in San Diego city now? I guess the fire won't have any chance to reach it, but what about smoke and so on? I have zero experience with these fires and my girlfriend happen to be in San Diego for a conference right now you see...

She's in downtown I should add...
 
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  • #40
zoobyshoe said:
1300 homes and businesses destroyed. The number of evacuees amounts to 1/6 th the population of San Diego county. Witch creek fire won't be contained till Nov 4.

EL said:
I just have to ask wheter there is any risk being in San Diego city now? I guess the fire won't have any chance to reach it, but what about smoke and so on? I have zero experience with these fires and my girlfriend happen to be in San Diego for a conference right now you see...

She's in downtown I should add...

I have colleagues who are supposed to be heading to San Diego the end of next week for a conference as well (I was originally supposed to go too, and had to cancel for other reasons), so if these fires are still expected to be burning that long, I'm interested in the answer to that question as well. I haven't heard anything from conference organizers if they have any contingency plans just yet.
 
  • #41
EL said:
I just have to ask wheter there is any risk being in San Diego city now? I guess the fire won't have any chance to reach it, but what about smoke and so on? I have zero experience with these fires and my girlfriend happen to be in San Diego for a conference right now you see...

She's in downtown I should add...
The city proper is OK.

Here is a good overview of the situation. The fires are in the north part of the county and east of the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wildfires_of_October_2007#Witch_Fire
Over 200,000 acres burned, 500+ homes destroyed! Several 100 more damaged.
 
  • #42
Astronuc said:
The city proper is OK.

Thanks, good to hear.
 
  • #43
Astronuc said:
The city proper is OK.

Here is a good overview of the situation. The fires are in the north part of the county and east of the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wildfires_of_October_2007#Witch_Fire
Over 200,000 acres burned, 500+ homes destroyed! Several 100 more damaged.

The City Proper itself sustained fire damage in the northern part. Hardest hit was the City locale of Rancho Bernardo.
 
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  • #44
animalcroc said:
The City Proper itself sustained fire damage in the northern part. Hardest hit was the City locale of Rancho Bernardo.

This is what makes it hard figuring out where the fires are and what's being affected. The news talks about various neighborhoods or towns that are burning, in the path of the fire, or pending evacuation, but those of us who don't live there have no idea where these places are. They talk about San Diego, but I'm not always sure if they mean the county or city or the greater metropolitan area surrounding the city, etc. I wish someone would put a bit more of a zoomed in map up for us on the news. They show this giant map of the entire state of CA, and plot out where the fires are, and it's hard to tell where they really are relative to anything. Zoom in, put in a nice big colored blotch for the area where the San Deigo and LA city proper are, and then tell us how far from those blotches the fires are. Or at least, when naming towns/neighborhoods, whatever, tell us something to help put it in perspective, i.e., located 20 mi north of San Diego, or 3 mi east of... etc.
 
  • #45
animalcroc said:
The City Proper itself sustained fire damage in the northern part. Hardest hit was the City locale of Rancho Bernardo.
I think of the city proper as south of the 8 and S or W of the 5 - or I might stretch it to the 163/805. The rest is suburbs. :biggrin:
 
  • #46
Astronuc said:
I think of the city proper as south of the 8 and S or W of the 5 - or I might stretch it to the 163/805. The rest is suburbs. :biggrin:

The well-to-do in the northern part of the city won't like it! :-p
 
  • #47
Moonbear said:
This is what makes it hard figuring out where the fires are and what's being affected. The news talks about various neighborhoods or towns that are burning, in the path of the fire, or pending evacuation, but those of us who don't live there have no idea where these places are. They talk about San Diego, but I'm not always sure if they mean the county or city or the greater metropolitan area surrounding the city, etc. I wish someone would put a bit more of a zoomed in map up for us on the news. They show this giant map of the entire state of CA, and plot out where the fires are, and it's hard to tell where they really are relative to anything. Zoom in, put in a nice big colored blotch for the area where the San Deigo and LA city proper are, and then tell us how far from those blotches the fires are. Or at least, when naming towns/neighborhoods, whatever, tell us something to help put it in perspective, i.e., located 20 mi north of San Diego, or 3 mi east of... etc.

It's pointless to keep referring to the City proper "San Diego" when the geographical area is large. That's the point of breaking up a city by locale. In NYC, they too have numerous locales to distinguish one end of the city from the other.

But of course the media likes to play stories to their advantage in reel in viewers. I'm not under exaggerating the effect of the fires but the media did play too much on it.
 
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  • #48
Moonbear said:
I heard on CNN that one of the fires (hopefully the largest) has already burned 70,000 acres! Did I really hear that right? I can't even wrap my head around the enormity of fires that large and destructive.

The 2003 fires will pale these one in comparison. Had the winds continued then (and now) the whole county would have burned to the ocean.
 
  • #49
The media dumbs things down, too. If there was a big fire in Doraville or Tucker, they would say that Atlanta is burning. Generalizations can get in the way of comprehension to the point where the people watching the broadcast come away with "Fire", "Big City", XXX,XXX people evacuated, and little else.
 
  • #50
Moonbear said:
This is what makes it hard figuring out where the fires are and what's being affected. The news talks about various neighborhoods or towns that are burning, in the path of the fire, or pending evacuation, but those of us who don't live there have no idea where these places are. They talk about San Diego, but I'm not always sure if they mean the county or city or the greater metropolitan area surrounding the city, etc. I wish someone would put a bit more of a zoomed in map up for us on the news. They show this giant map of the entire state of CA, and plot out where the fires are, and it's hard to tell where they really are relative to anything. Zoom in, put in a nice big colored blotch for the area where the San Deigo and LA city proper are, and then tell us how far from those blotches the fires are. Or at least, when naming towns/neighborhoods, whatever, tell us something to help put it in perspective, i.e., located 20 mi north of San Diego, or 3 mi east of... etc.

You could check a map - San Diego Fire Map

One of the better ideas I've seen on the internet. All in all, California is handling this a lot better than Louisiana handled Katrina.
 
  • #51
BobG said:
You could check a map - San Diego Fire Map

One of the better ideas I've seen on the internet. All in all, California is handling this a lot better than Louisiana handled Katrina.

Wow, that one actually works. I tried looking at maps online before, but none of them would open for me.
 
  • #52
animalcroc said:
The well-to-do in the northern part of the city won't like it! :-p
The CEO lives in La Jolla in a multi-million $ home that overlooks the ocean, and pres lives in P.B. in nice home that also overlooks the ocean. My company is based in La Jolla. I prefer to live in the NE where it is not so crowded.

I spend about 10-20% of my time in SD.
 
  • #53
turbo-1 said:
The media dumbs things down, too. If there was a big fire in Doraville or Tucker, they would say that Atlanta is burning. Generalizations can get in the way of comprehension to the point where the people watching the broadcast come away with "Fire", "Big City", XXX,XXX people evacuated, and little else.

Don't get me wrong, the city itself, not the outlaying areas, were burned. The whole county was affected.
 
  • #55
It looks like it's reached Rancho Santa Fe.
 
  • #56
According to our news, the weather should be changing, but they say it will be several weeks before the fores around San Diego are fully controlled; two of the biggest fires have come together.

Apparently though, the "Richest state, in the richest country in the world, is showing a first world response".
 
  • #57
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  • #58
Astronuc said:
The CEO lives in La Jolla in a multi-million $ home that overlooks the ocean, and pres lives in P.B. in nice home that also overlooks the ocean. My company is based in La Jolla. I prefer to live in the NE where it is not so crowded.

I spend about 10-20% of my time in SD.

I live by the border. I head that La Jolla tried to become it's own city once (lol) but I'm not sure if it's true. Won't be surprised. You live in the NE part of the county?
How close was the fire?
 
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  • #59
animalcroc said:
The dot that marks "San Diego" is downtown, not the whole city.

Most people who don't live there only know downtown as the city anyway. To me, "city" means the part with tall buildings, the rest is neighborhoods and suburbs, even if the mailing address is San Diego. Beyond that, it's pretty murky where the city ends and suburbs begin. So, using downtown as a reference point is much more helpful. Or, even just talking about "the neighborhoods on the ...side of San Diego"...then I understand it's the residential neighborhoods, not the business area of downtown. If you have tree-lined streets and grass lawns, it's not city, but suburb. :biggrin:

(My colleagues apparently reserved a hotel about 15 mi outside of downtown though, so they're rather anxiously watching the news about where the fires are, and what roads are open or closed...of course they're also wondering if the conference will still be held if they need to turn the convention center into a refugee camp, especially if the city loses power, which was the last thing we heard the fire was threatening to do as it heads toward or through areas with power lines supplying a major part of the city's power grid. I think this conference needs to stop being held in disaster-prone areas of the country...we had to drop the New Orleans venue for a conference after Katrina, they dropped Miami as a venue after a hurricane struck DURING the conference, now San Diego is burning...Zz might want to be worried that they're planning to hold the conference in Chicago next year, which is the venue to replace N.O.) :rolleyes:
 
  • #60
It appears that the long term health consequences could be significant. The EPA described the smoke as a toxic brew that can be extremely damaging. They stated flatly that anyone exposed to the air for significant periods of time has black lungs by now. And even the n95 filters don't stop the most damaging particles.
 

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