California is Burning (Again)

[LightRanger]

I donated here:
https://www.firefamilyfoundation.org...wn-relief-fund

Gas cards makes sense. Yesterday/Day before the RC and Napa/Lake Co authorities were saying they were pretty set for a lot of stuff, but tents were good. And cash to help people get into rental housing. First and last month's rent, security, etc.

[LightRanger]

Super intense story here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_288135...g-rescued-from

Ignition was here:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/V...#photo-8636690

Also, gotta love Northern California culture...

Yoga Tent for evacuees at Napa County Fairgrounds


Sign in an evacuated area of Pope Valley

[~mikey b]

Word in the hills is that a PG&E power line started Butte fire. I'm sure they'll take full responsibility just like in San Bruno.

[LightRanger]

^^^ I smirked. Though sometimes a downed line isn't anybody's fault. The despicable shape of their pipelines was/is something else.

[~mikey b]

They are responsible for clearing trees around their power lines.

[bodywhomper]

And in many places they have been deferring maintenance for decades.

Here an example http://m.appeal-democrat.com/pg-e-fa....html?mode=jqm

[~mikey b]

Just as bad as bad pipes. Two dead, thousands evacuated, couple hundred homes gone.

San Bruno

[LightRanger]

I'm aware. One of the leading inverse condemnation cases was a fire caused by a power line. My point was that you can have tree fall on a line that nobody could predict and their maintenance in that area was otherwise up to industry standards. The pipeline disaster would not have happened *but for* (legal term used for a reason) their negligence. There is a qualitative difference at this point. Further investigation may reveal their fuckup, but at this point who knows.

[~mikey b]

Reverend! (Gabby Johnson)

[bodywhomper]

Where i live, pge did their first easement maintenance in over 30 years. I have been told that this performance of deferred maintenance was due to a legal action against pge, which might have been related to the Sims fire. Pge crews spent weeks doing tree removal on less than a mile of distribution line on my road, mostly within or immediately adjacent to the roadway easement.

I still can't believe they use trees for their distribution lines here in places instead of power poles.

Speaking of utilities, if we really get heavy rains, i think Ebmud, smud, and Georgetown are going to have problems from sediment loads from burn areas. Probably calaveras co water and Amador co water, too.

[LightRanger]

Huh. Interesting. I know they've been out at least once, if not two or three times to my folks' place in the last 15 years or so.

As soon as the fire started last week, that was my immediate thought re sediment. SFPUC dodged a(n immediate, at least) bullet on that issue with the Rim Fire burn scar being a couple years old and having low years. Should be interesting to see what happens this winter.

[~mikey b]

[~mikey b]

PG&E has contractors scrambling in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. Marking and dropping lots of trees. They marked 20+ on and about my 1 acre property that they will drop soon. It's a good thing. They will drop a few I was going to pay to remove. They will drop a few I was considering paying to remove. They will drop a few others. It will change the canopy here. It will improve fire protection, add sunlight and give me wood to burn.

[Meadow Skipper]

PG&E has contractors scrambling in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. Marking and dropping lots of trees. They marked 20+ on and about my 1 acre property that they will drop soon. It's a good thing. They will drop a few I was going to pay to remove. They will drop a few I was considering paying to remove. They will drop a few others. It will change the canopy here. It will improve fire protection, add sunlight and give me wood to burn.

There's a lot of that going on here in NM - power company clearing lines. I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with this :
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/new...c704434d7.html

That Las Conchas fire was a monster. Could/probably be talking many millions of $$. Too bad for the power company that it wasn't a lightning fire.

[LightRanger]

Should be interesting to see what happens in the next several months in terms of runoff/mudslides and trees coming down. A lot of big new fire scars (including, say, the Rim Fire that still hasn't seen much precip...) and then the drought-stressed trees.

[~mikey b]

Rim Fire is not as big of a deal as Butte Fire. Rim way more remote. Butte has many more homes gone and many more homes that can be affected this winter.

[bodywhomper]

king fire, rim fire, and butte fire are all going to be problems in terms of downstream sediment loads, loss of soil, and movement of big dead trees; the extent of the problems will vary. the little water district for the georgetown area is likely to have their only raw water reservoir heavily sedimented from the king fire. i believe there are some smud facilities facing a similar fate from the same fire. i'm not sure how the rim fire restoration is going, the basis of SFPUC's federal disaster declaration was for the loss of natural infrastructure. butte fire area and downstream locales in the same watersheds have a BIG problem.

private timber lands are known to be able to implement large scale bmps the easiest for wildfire restoration/recovery because it's pre-approved in their permits. i'm sure about the lands ownership composition.

after the socal fires in 2003, the 2-10 yr floodplain drastically changed in the burn scars and areas downstream. a bunch of bridges and roads were washed out during that winter and some boy scouts died from a mudflow while camping. luckily for the very populated downstream, like uplands and ontario, the debris basins at the foot of the mountains are fairly large and peeps were able to dig them out enough to accommodate the increased debris flows from the burned areas.

[old goat]

At Donner Lake the Donner Ridge fire of 1960, which was started by a caltans crew building I80, the hillside above the lake was never restored (other parts of the fire were) and 55 years later there are still large sediment and rock flows into the lake with big rain events , which nobody seems to give a shit about. Even the Truckee Watershed Council, a private nonprofit, doesn't seem to care. They'll come out to your house and suggest BMPs but have no interest in dealing with Caltrans or the Town of Truckee, despite the fact that the flows from Donner Ridge are orders of magnitude greater than the runoff from private lots.

[LightRanger]

And... we're back at it again.

The Trailhead Fire in Todd Valley (Foresthill) has a bunch of homes evacuated. Burning in the Middle Fork American River Canyon. My brother-in-law's sister may be one of them. Haven't checked in yet. CalFire/Eldorado unified command with lots of air resources. Here's what the flight pattern looks like with a LOT of heavy air resources including the DC-10 and C-130 with MAFFS flying out of McClellan:
https://www.flightradar24.com/38.98,-120.89/13

Here's the modis data:
http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=38.96...&b=ter&a=modis

This plus the terrible Erskine Fire. It's too early for this shit. Not unexpected, but definitely teh suck.

[MTT]

And... we're back at it again.

The Trailhead Fire in Todd Valley (Foresthill) has a bunch of homes evacuated. Burning in the Middle Fork American River Canyon. My brother-in-law's sister may be one of them. Haven't checked in yet. CalFire/Eldorado unified command with lots of air resources. Here's what the flight pattern looks like with a LOT of heavy air resources including the DC-10 and C-130 with MAFFS flying out of McClellan:
https://www.flightradar24.com/38.98,-120.89/13

Here's the modis data:
http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=38.96...&b=ter&a=modis

This plus the terrible Erskine Fire. It's too early for this shit. Not unexpected, but definitely teh suck.

Dam, that started today? I did not watch the news this morning.
Thats a bad spot. I guess i will start smelling smoke by tomorrow.

[LightRanger]

Started yesterday mid-afternoon. Yeah, I'd think it's gonna get pretty smoky in Reno/Truckee/NLT if they don't get it out quick. Bummer for the holiday weekend too.

[~mikey b]

It's never too early. My first experience with wildfire was the Lexington Fire in July of 1985. Things aren't really that different now.

[Meadow Skipper]

Map of the Trailhead fire (made by my closest friend):
https://www.twitter.com/Info_CIIMT1/...728384/photo/1

Fuckin' steep, especially that west flank where it jumped the river.

[LightRanger]

Super steep. I've hiked and biked in the North and Middle Fork Canyons a good bit. #quads

[LightRanger]

Last night looking across at the Eldorado County side...