genuinegirly

Do you live someplace where wildfires are a genuine threat? What precautions has your community or family put into place? Do you feel you could play a more active role in preventing life-threatening wildfires?

I live in California, where thanks to dry summers, fire-encouraging native plants, and seasonal gusty winds, wildfires are expected every October - November. When we drive by a burned and blackened hillside, I heave a sigh of relief because I know it will not build enough biomass to readily ignite for another 5-30 years. I do not understand why controlled burns (while it's dry, before the winds hit) are not a more common aspect of our lives here - why wait for our coveted open space to ignite violently on its own and threaten thousands of homes?

About halfway through my lab course this past Monday, the professor walked in and announced that a freeway was closed due to a series of small fires. This forced half of the students to find alternate routes home. One girl received a phone call stating her neighborhood was evacuated, and she should find a friend to stay with for a few days. Out-of-town firemen set up an emergency fire station at some nearby soccer fields and firefighters worked around the clock to put out the fires before they destroyed too many homes. All this chaos, and still everyone expects it, prepares for it, and deals with it. People buy fire insurance and try to live a few blocks from the kindling-laden hillsides with the hope that firemen will stop the blaze before it comes too close. Everyone I speak with seems to feel too insignificant or ignorant to make a difference with policy.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Halx

Same shit, different year. My parents live close to these fires. REALLY close. A voluntary evacuation is in place for their neighborhood, you cant get close to the house unless you live there. The fire came within about 6 houses before running out of fuel. This also happened several years ago when I used to live there.

Now I'm going to be spending Friday night there. I hope its still there when I arrive.

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-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

snowy

Wildfires are not unheard of here, but they do not typically take place in populated areas. Few people are directly impacted by wildfires here. The climate and population density obviously play a great deal into this.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Amaras

Look at Mount Aetna in Rome, it erupts, destroys all of the locals every several hundred years, and we rebuild.
Humans never learn.

__________________
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
-Noam Chomsky
Love is a verb, not a noun.
-My Mom
The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later.
-Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928

snowy

Mt. Etna is in Sicily, yo. And those volcanic soils provide us with fine Sicilian wines.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

BogeyDope

I not only live in highly fire prone areas, I get dispatched to put them out. We had a wildfire here a few days ago right next to my university, and I had to leave in the middle of my lecture to respond to it.

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Focus. Control. Conviction. Resolve. A true ace lacks none of these attributes. Nothing can deter you from the task at hand except your own fears. This is your sky.

inBOIL

One year a fire came so close to my house that ashes were falling on us. This summer there were several fires near my parents' house, and the air smelled like smoke for weeks.

As far as prescribed burns go, those are fairly expensive, because a lot of people have to be involved to make sure the fire doesn't get out of control. Yes, destructive wildfires are more expensive, but the bureaucrats don't generally have to budget money for those, or justify the spending beforehand. The money that the government spends to assist property owners is viewed as a one-time emergency expenditure, not as a recurring cost. Until this changes, prescribed burns will continue to be less common than they should be.

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

Amaras

Shoot. You are right, I'm wrong.

Extract head from....... err, I mean foot from mouth.

The wine ain't too bad at all, is it!

Point was, we know about the possibility of destruction, we merely choose to ignore
it!

__________________
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
-Noam Chomsky
Love is a verb, not a noun.
-My Mom
The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later.
-Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928

genuinegirly

InBoil, clearly written. Thank you.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

lostgirl

I live in California also, so there is fire danger around. I am not really in danger of being affected by a fire where I currently reside in the city.

Halx

I just got back from Cali over the weekend. It smelled like an old cigar.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]