California burning

[dbwinger]

I live a mile north of downtown San Diego and the air has been filled with smoke since Sunday. The fires are not close to me but I do know of friends who have had to evacuate. I volunteered with a nonprofit this morning that has been managing and distributing volunteers throughout San Diego.

Some television station antennas have been knocked out but not all. I can get in all of the major stations on my antenna except PBS. Their antenna was knocked out on Monday I believe.

I will try to avoid getting political and say the governor has been doing ok. The first day he had the typical canned responses of someone who didn't have a lot of information. I also believe the California Department of Forestry now referred to as Calfire could have done a lot better at the start of the fires and put people in front of politics.

If nothing else it has been nice seeing people from all over California and San Diego come together and help each other out.

 

[Njord Noatun]

QuadBob OK!

I just spoke to QuadBob. He was never evacuated, and his property is fine: The flames made it to within 2 miles of his house.

 

[Tom Brennan]

I have to admit a certain schadenfruede about all this. It seems people simply have no business building houses in such places.

Read "The Control of Nature" by McPhee for the cycle going on here.

 

[usedto]

I heard a news report this morning on the general area, and it seems that there a certain guidelines in place that prohibit clearing of the natural vegetation in order to prevent disasters such as this. They allow building of homes, but regulate the amount of natural vegetation you can remove.

We may need a new rule book. Of course, common sense should enter in somewhere. I don't think this is the first fire we ever had there............

 

[spaceman]

I just spoke to QuadBob. He was never evacuated, and his property is fine: The flames made it to within 2 miles of his house.

Glad to hear that QuadBob is safe, and I hope no other AKers had any losses either. My internet's been down for about a week, so I'm catching up on some threads. They covered the fires pretty extensively on our local news, & reported that a man was shot & killed by the police, because they caught him starting a fire, and instead of surrendering, he was reaching for a gun. :screwy: Even worse, they "suspected" that more than one of the fires were arson, and that there were probably others involved, wether linked or not. There sure are some sick people out there. :thumbsdn:

 

[jpdylon]

I almost wonder if there are some group of arsonists who do this on a regular schedule. The last great ceder fire that nearly consumed san diego happened on my birthday (oct 26th 2003) They believed that most of the fires may have been started by twisted people as well.

If they find out who started these fires (if it was a person or people), I really think the responsible parties should be tied up, lynched and burned alive. The devastation and loss of life caused by these fires deserve far much more than a prison sentence, and they obviously do not care about the lives of others.

 

[jpdylon]

either that or housing developers who are all loosing money due to the decline in the market. They know they'll never make money selling the developments they're building, so why not cash out on the insurance now and get back their losses?

There are tons' of possible scenarios. I'm sure the truth will pop up, and the media will cover up the truth because they will have been paid off by the responsible party so as to keep it from the public and to avoid being publicly tried for their crimes.