How Do Santa Ana Winds Influence Wildfires in Southern California?

[Moonbear]

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.

I think that last week's announcement that CA was going to sue over Federal emission standards may have been a bit poorly timed.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

California has been dealing with the Santa Ana winds and the related fires for as long as people have lived there. But for the first time ever, I heard the following sentiment [actually twice now]: "Maybe it's just too dangerous to live here". Some people have lost their second home in four years.

I wonder if the building has exceeded the practical limits of the terrain. Also, GW is apparently expected to increase the intensity and frequency of these events, so that may affect people's thinking as well.

The news sounds bad regarding the smoke. It is expected to swirl around the LA basin and slowly drift to the East over the next few days. One meteorologist said that even Vegas will be affected eventually.

 

[Moonbear]

The folks I've been reading and hearing interviewed today have suggested that as well, that there are just too many houses being built out too close to the national forests, and it's the worst combination possible. It combines all the combustibles of a house, along with all the hazards of human inhabitants (bbq's, campfires, carelessly tossed cigarettes, electrical and gas lines, etc.) in an environment that's already a tinderbox. They were also commenting that it's so bad this year because two years ago they had a really wet year that helped all the underbrush grow rapidly, and now the drought turned that all basically into kindling.

The other problem is with more houses out near the forests, they can't really manage the forestland like they would like to do...no more prescribed burns if there are houses too close by, and no letting smaller fires burn out, again, for the same reason. They know that not allowing small fires can allow fuel to build up for these large fires.

An interesting thought that was raised after some of the hurricanes too is whether it's appropriate for the insurance companies to refuse insurance, or make it exhorbitantly expensive, to those who rebuild in these high risk areas. I'm leaning toward thinking it's perfectly within reason for them to be allowed to refuse insurance. Perhaps the knowledge you can't get insurance if you build in a certain place, or at least certain types of insurance, might make people think twice about building there. And if you do it anyway, then you're assuming the risk without burdening others for your foolishness. When the same area is hit multiple times in a short time frame, you have to start thinking it doesn't make sense to rebuild, and there's no reason an insurance company should have to help you keep doing that. Cover you to rebuild, and then drop you for future policies should be it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I heard one scary report today. Some of the affected areas are known for their population of illegal immigrants hiding out in the hills. Many of these people, if there, had no way to escape the flames which advanced at speeds of 50 mph and greater. And we will probably never even know because in many areas just about everything was turned to ash.

Turns out that The News Hour had a discussion that touched on the land use.

...MARGARET WARNER: And what about the role of development? We're hearing a lot of criticism about how close development is now to the wilderness areas that burn every year.

GLEN SPARROW: That's, of course, a problem, is that people are building in the wrong places. They're building way too close to the brush and the forests out there, because they want to get in a lovely place so they can live and feel good about it.

But the places are not properly built; they're not properly fireproofed; they're oft times surrounded by brush; they aren't properly cleared. And when these fires come through, they just rip right through there.

Up through canyons, people living on top of hills and on canyon edges that they want to see the view and have that pristine environment, it just doesn't work in the fire season.[continued]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec07/fires_10-25.html

As with the areas that have flooded in recent years, I would imaging that the insurance companies will get wise to California soon enough. As the population continues to boom, the resulting damage with each event will surely rise, on the average.

If they get rain, this winter it will be mud slides.

 

[rcgldr]

All in all, California is handling this a lot better than Louisiana handled Katrina.

A much different situation. The fires are relatively isolated compared to the general flooding of New Orleans. Also we (southern California) had more warning time, and the roads were usable being that they weren't submerged.

Then again, the idea of building a city below sea level and relying on dirt based dykes to never fail always seemed risky.

Up through canyons, people living on top of hills and on canyon edges that they want to see the view and have that pristine environment, it just doesn't work in the fire season.

Newer canyon residentual areas always have a large fire break zones. Still between the high winds and large fires, embers can manage to get embedded into a flammable spot on a home and that's what takes them out. It's mostly a case of how quickly firefighters can get to the area. In this case, a lot of firefighters were initially diverted northward for the fires near Magic Mountain.

Still I'm surprised that a home with stucco walls and a tile roof can catch on fire from a well placed burning ember. If you look at the photos of burnt down homes, you'll often see that the grass in the yards is still green, along with certain types of trees, so heat wasn't a major factor in some of the homes catching on fire.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A much different situation. The fires are relatively isolated compared to the general flooding of New Orleans. Also we (southern California) had more warning time, and the roads were usable being that they weren't submerged.

That's a point that's been bugging me for days. The fact is that in the the case of NO, access to an entire city was denied in a matter of hours and after the perceived threat had passed. There were no escape routes once the dikes failed. It would be like the fires erupting everywhere at once throughout San Diego County. What's more, California has been been through this many times before, so they have had much practice, and they are relatively rich so they have more resources.

New Orleans was a shockingly outrageous national disgrace, a complete management faillure, and a disaster in every sense that matters, but it hardly seems fair to compare that situation to this one.

 

[zoobyshoe]

A much different situation. The fires are relatively isolated compared to the general flooding of New Orleans. Also we (southern California) had more warning time, and the roads were usable being that they weren't submerged.

Yeah, they shouldn't compare us to them: the city, itself, was flooded, and everyone was devastated there. Here most of the population is perfectly fine and in a position to help the evacuees with donations, which people have been doing with enormous speed and generosity. In New Orleans, and the general area hit by Katrina, there wasn't anyone in a good enough position to help anyone else.

 

[turbo]

One think we hear far too little about is how people in southern CA are deliberately building in chaparral areas that need to burn periodically in order to regenerate. Many of the scrubby-brushy plants in these areas cannot reproduce unless they are exposed to the high temperatures caused by fires. I took a course in ecology in the early 70's and one of the prof's favorite examples of what not to do was building houses in chaparral. The plants in these areas thrive in wet winters and dry up every summer/fall and are ripe for burning at the first lightning strike. Suppressing brush fires only allows more combustible material to accumulate until another fire comes along that is impossible to suppress. Then, the heat from the fire may be so intense that seeds and root-stock are destroyed and the plants cannot regenerate, leaving the soil unprotected so that the next wet winter season will be prime for mud-slides. A wet winter in SoCal will be a sensationalist's hey-day for news teams as they document un-burned mansions sliding into the canyons.

 

[Moonbear]

Yeah, they shouldn't compare us to them: the city, itself, was flooded, and everyone was devastated there. Here most of the population is perfectly fine and in a position to help the evacuees with donations, which people have been doing with enormous speed and generosity. In New Orleans, and the general area hit by Katrina, there wasn't anyone in a good enough position to help anyone else.

I completely agree, and that's been bugging me with the comparisons on the news as well. Even the folks "camping out" at Qualcomm Arena are in a completely different situation than those who were taking refuge at the SuperDome in N.O. At Qualcomm, there is no immediate threat in the nearby area. People are free to come and go...that includes both volunteers and those who are using it as a shelter. If things get too crowded, you can go outside and take a walk. If you need some supplies, or want something other than what's being offered there, you can head to surrounding businesses and get what you want...they're all still open for business. Qualcomm is an area of safety for the evacuees. With Katrina, the people taking shelter at the SuperDome were literally trapped inside once the hurricane started, and the surrounding area was boarded up, also evacuated, and turned to a ghost town. There wasn't even any feeling of safety there, since they were watching sections of the roof blow off the stadium and the rain coming pouring into the areas they were trying to shelter. The people there weren't just worrying about their property, they were still fearing for their lives. And, when the storm was over, not only did they not have homes to go back to, they had no city to even support them. No businesses were open, their jobs were gone, and everyone in the entire city was in the same boat with them.

Granted, there may have been some lessons learned from Katrina that have helped here, but trying to make comparisons is pretty unfair, and it bugs me when they're all stumping about how well CA is handling the situation compared with N.O., or how much they've learned from Katrina to make things so much better now. When I see a similar scenario as Katrina, then I'll believe they've learned something or not. Plus, much of CA's preparation had nothing to do with Katrina, but in response to lessons learned from the 2003 fires.

Plus, while the total number of evacuees is high, that was phased over a week of evacuations, not a single day. The much-touted reverse 911 system probably wouldn't have worked in N.O...once the phone lines went down, those calls weren't going to go through. The only way the situation would be similar is if the fires encroached upon the city proper, fully surrounding it and blocking all the main roads out, and knocking out the power grid, before starting to burn it down.

But, the fires aren't even out yet, and the media is already getting hypercritical of CA's handling of these fires too. It sounds to me like they handled it very well, but the media is finding things to nitpick about. You can't be prepared for every single event in a disaster situation, because they're all different, and some decisions need to be made quickly without much time to think through all the possible consequences or options. Even worse, much of what the media is criticizing, it seems the alternative probably would have just made things worse...such as having additional aircraft in a crowded airspace on a different frequency from the aircraft of those trained to respond to fires, and the additional aircraft containing crews not even trained to fight these types of fires, so more likely to get in the way, or dump water in the wrong places and cause more damage to unaffected areas, than to really help. They're griping that we'd let these members of the military go to Iraq, but not fight a fire...yeah, because they're trained for Iraq, they're not trained for fighting wildfires.

 

[animalcroc]

The folks I've been reading and hearing interviewed today have suggested that as well, that there are just too many houses being built out too close to the national forests, and it's the worst combination possible. It combines all the combustibles of a house, along with all the hazards of human inhabitants (bbq's, campfires, carelessly tossed cigarettes, electrical and gas lines, etc.) in an environment that's already a tinderbox. They were also commenting that it's so bad this year because two years ago they had a really wet year that helped all the underbrush grow rapidly, and now the drought turned that all basically into kindling.

The other problem is with more houses out near the forests, they can't really manage the forestland like they would like to do...no more prescribed burns if there are houses too close by, and no letting smaller fires burn out, again, for the same reason. They know that not allowing small fires can allow fuel to build up for these large fires.

An interesting thought that was raised after some of the hurricanes too is whether it's appropriate for the insurance companies to refuse insurance, or make it exhorbitantly expensive, to those who rebuild in these high risk areas. I'm leaning toward thinking it's perfectly within reason for them to be allowed to refuse insurance. Perhaps the knowledge you can't get insurance if you build in a certain place, or at least certain types of insurance, might make people think twice about building there. And if you do it anyway, then you're assuming the risk without burdening others for your foolishness. When the same area is hit multiple times in a short time frame, you have to start thinking it doesn't make sense to rebuild, and there's no reason an insurance company should have to help you keep doing that. Cover you to rebuild, and then drop you for future policies should be it.

We get around 11 inches of rain per year but our last rainy season we had around 6

 

[animalcroc]

The folks I've been reading and hearing interviewed today have suggested that as well, that there are just too many houses being built out too close to the national forests, and it's the worst combination possible. It combines all the combustibles of a house, along with all the hazards of human inhabitants (bbq's, campfires, carelessly tossed cigarettes, electrical and gas lines, etc.) in an environment that's already a tinderbox. They were also commenting that it's so bad this year because two years ago they had a really wet year that helped all the underbrush grow rapidly, and now the drought turned that all basically into kindling.

The other problem is with more houses out near the forests, they can't really manage the forestland like they would like to do...no more prescribed burns if there are houses too close by, and no letting smaller fires burn out, again, for the same reason. They know that not allowing small fires can allow fuel to build up for these large fires.

An interesting thought that was raised after some of the hurricanes too is whether it's appropriate for the insurance companies to refuse insurance, or make it exhorbitantly expensive, to those who rebuild in these high risk areas. I'm leaning toward thinking it's perfectly within reason for them to be allowed to refuse insurance. Perhaps the knowledge you can't get insurance if you build in a certain place, or at least certain types of insurance, might make people think twice about building there. And if you do it anyway, then you're assuming the risk without burdening others for your foolishness. When the same area is hit multiple times in a short time frame, you have to start thinking it doesn't make sense to rebuild, and there's no reason an insurance company should have to help you keep doing that. Cover you to rebuild, and then drop you for future policies should be it.

If I'm correct, insurance companies are starting to no longer cover new people

 

[Moonbear]

If I'm correct, insurance companies are starting to no longer cover new people

That might have been the context of the news story I heard...or that they were threatening not to insure any new people anyway. Then, someone in Congress (I don't recall who) was saying that if the insurance companies don't insure them, we need some form of Federally backed insurance for those people. WHY? We should be discouraging people from building in unsafe areas, not using taxpayer funds to permit them to keep building more.

 

[Evo]

I say if someone wants to build in an unsafe area, they

1) Need to put enough money into a fund they cannot withdraw from until there is a need to rebuild. They will need to continue paying into their fund to make certain it is enough to cover current costs to rebuild, including enough money to cover living expenses while waiting to rebuild.

2)They must waive all government financial aid and assistance, and pay back any city, county, state, or federal monies used to try to save their home, since they would be in a designated unsafe area.

Ok, now they can build anywhere they want.

 

[Moonbear]

I say if someone wants to build in an unsafe area, they

1) Need to put enough money into a fund they cannot withdraw from until there is a need to rebuild. They will need to continue paying into their fund to make certain it is enough to cover current costs to rebuild, including enough money to cover living expenses while waiting to rebuild.

2)They must waive all government financial aid and assistance, and pay back any city, county, state, or federal monies used to try to save their home, since they would be in a designated unsafe area.

Ok, now they can build anywhere they want.

If they want to take the risk of not being insured, I don't have a problem with that either...that's their problem then. Of course, I see no reason why they should expect to get a mortgage if they can't insure the property either, but if they really are determined to build there, then they'll have to save up to pay cash up front. That way, the only one hurt if their place goes up in smoke (or gets washed away by a flood) is them. They can have the right to build anywhere they want, they don't have a right to expect others to cover their losses for building foolishly.

 

[zoobyshoe]

We should be discouraging people from building in unsafe areas...

Where is it safe?

 

[Astronuc]

Where is it safe?

Just pick a place that you've never heard of - nothing ever happens there.

How about Flagstaff, AZ?

 

[Moonbear]

Where is it safe?

Someplace other than flood plains and the path of regular wildfires is a good start.

 

[Astronuc]

Someplace other than flood plains and the path of regular wildfires is a good start.

Add to that list places with high potentials for hurricanes, tornados, and/or earthquakes.

 

[TMM]

I live in Los Angeles, near the ocean. It's a beautiful place with plenty of action and stuff to do. Risk of earthquakes, fire, etc. is just something we live with. I'd rather live here than in some empty town no one's heard of where nothing happens.

 

[Astronuc]

I live in Los Angeles, near the ocean. It's a beautiful place with plenty of action and stuff to do. Risk of earthquakes, fire, etc. is just something we live with. I'd rather live here than in some empty town no one's heard of where nothing happens.

I prefer to live in place where the sky is blue - not brown.

I like the quiet of the country-side. There is plenty that happens. Lots of wildlife.

Here's the first place I lived 48-50 years ago - way before "a range of superb restaurants and cafes, art galleries, museums, a fabulous seaside golf course." When I lived there, there were less than 200 people. Now it's too crowded.

http://www.greatoceanrd.org.au/otways/apollobay/index.asp

The lady who lived next door to us raised goats, we grew much of what we ate, and we'd get fresh fish/seafood from the places down by the harbor or off the boats.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Add to that list places with high potentials for hurricanes, tornados, and/or earthquakes.

You've emptied out the whole West coast, including Alaska, every state in "Tornado Ally" (Evo has to move yet again), and all the Southeast states, as well as those around the gulf of Mexico. This cuts the country in two and now there are masses of people who have to relocate because they are uninsurable in their present location.

 

[TMM]

Actually the air isn't bad at all closer to the coast. It's more inland, near Riverside and such, that the air gets really bad.

As for the Apollo Bay, I agree that it's beautiful, it's just that I wouldn't be able to live there very long without losing my mind. You have your perfect place and I have mine; I'm just presenting the sort of viewpoint that many Californians have that makes them stay in such a dangerous place.

 

[Clausius2]

I live in San Diego. Fortunately I didn't have to evacuate, I live near UCSD and even though the fire got very near we were lucky. All this stuff seems a cathastrophe, half of the county burnt out. I am not republican or democrat, but I honestly think that Governator's team and San Diegan authorities and firefighters got a straight A when dealing with these fires. A good example of organization and care about people. They evacuated more people than needed to be cautious, and it is a remarkable figure to have only 1 victim, as far as I know, that was directly related to the fire (the rest of them were old people who died by natural causes during evacuations, and the bodies found may be already dead when fire started).

 

[zoobyshoe]

I live in San Diego. Fortunately I didn't have to evacuate, I live near UCSD and even though the fire got very near we were lucky. All this stuff seems a cathastrophe, half of the county burnt out. I am not republican or democrat, but I honestly think that Governator's team and San Diegan authorities and firefighters got a straight A when dealing with these fires. A good example of organization and care about people. They evacuated more people than needed to be cautious, and it is a remarkable figure to have only 1 victim, as far as I know, that was directly related to the fire (the rest of them were old people who died by natural causes during evacuations, and the bodies found may be already dead when fire started).

I think there was a kind of perfect proportion of evacuees to people not directly affected which lead to a false sense of how well this was handled. Enough people were directly affected to put the fear of God, so to speak, into the rest of us such that everyone mobilized to help them. 5/6 or 4/5 of us are imagining, very vividly, that it could have been us, and there are enough people still in good shape who are thinking in those terms that the evacuees got taken good care of in general. This wasn't the city or county or state government, but volunteers. If everyone had been hit and we were relying on the government it would have been no different than Katrina, I think.

 

[Astronuc]

A friend of one my colleagues shot this from Point Loma overlooking the bay toward SD.

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/8023/sandiegofireqv1.jpg

Those fires were BIG! Those mountains more than 10 miles east of SD.

I believe this is the Harris fire.

 

[hypatia]

Wow, somewhere I have the same photo, taken at night, without the fire. Thats is breath takenly beautiful..all hail the fire gods!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That's an amazing photo!