Massive wildfires rage in California

[NorthStar]

Hi Gilles,
Climate change science by expert peer reviewed scientists had only just began in earnest in the early 90’s with the first report of the United Nations Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change in partnership with the World Meteorological Orgsnisation. By the turn of the millennium scientific consensus on climate change as a result of human activity and the need for adaptation was at 66 per cent. Climate change science has moved forward considerably since then and consensus now sits beyond 95 per cent.

If you feel comfortable enough in the assurances of your 1 olive growing expert friend from the 90’s that you have better grasped the metadata of the weather patterns of the planet to the point where you can so easily dismiss the broad current understanding on the issue by the specialist scientists who have researched this and used evidence gained on data provided from over 400,000 years of recorded green house gas emissions that what we now have is clearly something beyond any natural climate patterns.

After the last 10 years of continuous researching and training in this area myself I now tell my students (as a baby boomer myself) that the coming generations are just waiting for all us baby booming dinosaurs to die and get out of the way so that the next generations can finally have a fair go at repairing the damage that the previous recent generations have done and that they need to ignore our lassitude saw an impediment to their future for the sake of their own survival.

We are only in the way of the inevitable surge to survival and our unhelpful and at times clueless anecdotal observations about how all is actually fine and dandy are among the very last gasps of a gen that now represents the tipping point in both human and planetary development. The future requires them (scary young people) to take charge and let go of the past. I am not in the least bit concerned about our generations, our time on this earth is very nearly done. My only concern is that we join their fight if necessary to let all the next generations have a real shot at the future. This isn’t about ego, this is about what’s fair for the future of all. Your mileage may respectfully vary. I say none of this to be at all incendiary. There is more than enough heat in both the planet and the debate already. But at this point our differing opinions aren’t terribly important to the future. The young will do what they need to do. They are already under way and fully engaged. We elderly audiophile types just haven’t caught on yet that we are mostly no longer relevant. Said with much love always for the human spirit and for all ecology.

I've read your post earlier this morning; our future generations will always remember.

 

[Folsom]

After the last 10 years of continuous researching and training in this area myself I now tell my students (as a baby boomer myself) that the coming generations are just waiting for all us baby booming dinosaurs to die and get out of the way so that the next generations can finally have a fair go at repairing the damage that the previous recent generations have done and that they need to ignore our lassitude saw an impediment to their future for the sake of their own survival.

IN SO MANY WAYS. I say this all the time. Figures the only person really noticing is an academic who's paid to think about something.

I'm sure it is, but since the last several years, three or more months of the year with smoke when I don't remember so much from the past tickles my conspiracy cortex.

I know exactly how you feel. Smoke is my least favorite season. Kids are losing a month or more of summer, etc. It's pretty bad. It's not a conspiracy it's just the consequences of a lot of things. I'll elaborate more on some other quotes.

Government’s primary function is to provide for the local security of citizens’ homes, garbage pick-up, roads and street repair. Surely protection from annihilation from wildfires is part of this fundamental governmental purpose and obligation.

Why is such a tiny part (less than 1%) of the State of California’s annual budget of $200 billion spent on preparing for and defending against the completely known and predictable threat of wildfires?

Ron, it's a huge problem for sure. States typically have smaller parts in the funding. The majority is federal. The problem is at the federal level no one wants to pay anything, and only some people are from the areas affected. Once fire season is over, it's very easy to just forget. At the state level you have to convince people to pass resolutions for taxes that'll go towards fire fighting. And people not affected by it don't want to pay for it. In California it would probably be hard to convince Silicon Valley.

The fight isn't during the fires, it's that no one has the funding to work year round to prevent them, and create defensible areas that border burnable woods - or around homes. When a fire is coming through an area the fire crews will go to houses to try and do what they can to save them. But if they come to a house that has never tried to buffer the fuel area, they simply move to the next. They don't even attempt to help houses that clearly haven't started the process to make it defensible. They get sued for it often, but there's no reason to save something that can't be. What they need is year round funding to educate people and help them create defensible homes.

Right now there are crews running around for expensive house to expensive house trying to do something about it. They're privately contracted by the insurance companies that will have to pay for the home loses. The problem is that the estates they come to would need hundreds of people working for days to make a difference. If year round education and prevention was deployed they could manicure their property in safe ways, just using the usual people that tend them. As is right now the only option to save houses is to bulldoze a bunch of houses to stop the fire from spreading because houses are perfect fuel. You can probably see the issue with that scenario.

How did we get here? Well one of the number one things is the loss of wood industry in the US. The deal with that is we buy lots of cabinets and wood products from overseas. Wood we do process in the US comes from Canada by the numbers now. I can't recall if Canada is subsidizing or not, but they've flooded the market with cheap wood. Why does all of this matter? Because private dollars from Sawmills, loggers, etc, was spent to maintain the forests. Back before this was happening the feds didn't have to spend a lot of money. If you logged in most states where clear cutting is totally illegal, you were required to replant. They also cleared underbrush. Commercial dollars were spent maintaining forest, which was ultimately from consumers getting a product for what we can now view as "protection" - instead of paying taxes for nothing. It wasn't perfect but an interesting fact most people don't know is through the 90's where this was all happening the US also had more trees than at any point in history despite logging and building etc. Now we are just trying to get people who don't really to allocate money, or increase their tax burden to make up for it.

I read through the new tariff bill. IMO the most foolish thing was not putting on on foreign wood and wood products. It would provide A LOT of jobs that provide a livelihood (not just a shit job), and protect us from wildfires if we went back to commercial dollars doing maintenance. We would however still need to increase our efforts. California has been a drought state for too long not to have some problems. I get a lot of information from my career brother in the Wildlife fire fighting field... none of them are surprised in the least that California is burning. In fact he said it was going to happen a few years ago.

The good news is a few million here and there has slowly been allocated to keep crews working longer. A few dollars in preventive measures GOES PRETTY DAMN FAR compared to begging FEMA every year for money to fight fires. Sadly it's too slow. Baby boomers are holding it up, but really it's a tug of war with money. The boomers just want to do everything like it's yesteryear, and they're in all the top positions.

What's truly sad is how bad the public often treats the fire fighters who are out risking their lives for not very much money - and abusing their bodies. They can be VERY UGLY, especially if they lose something. The problem is we're simply smaller than nature and can only do so much (especially on a budget). Our president I am sure won't cut funding but needed to make a statement, and all that talk about dumping water into the ocean is nonsense. I'm not a hater of him at all, he just spouted nonsense about the subject is all. It needs funding, not de-funding. There is plenty of water, but there isn't money or resources to dump enough on the fires - they can also be too hot to stop with fire, and as humans we don't have the means to dump concrete or rocks on it till it's fixed. The best approximation of his comment would show that he's confused about what rivers are (which I find hard to believe, he's not dumb).

 

[NorthStar]

 

[Number9]

To clarify, In political terms Global Warming refers to changes in temperature due to the unnatural burning of fossil fuels, whereas Climate Change is viewed as a natural phenomena that has been at play since the beginning. Think Ice Age.

 

[NorthStar]

Yes, I checked the differences from NASA. You were right; not to be confused.
_____

Another pic.

 

[Ron Resnick]

NO POLITICS!

I feel sorry for the animals left behind.

 

[NorthStar]

Did anyone was talking politics Ron?

 

[Ron Resnick]

I discerned some politics beginning to leach out. Just making sure . . .

 

[NorthStar]

Same here, just making sure no one is getting overboard.
There is no politics here, and I've read each and every single post, you can rest assured.

* Post #23, the first picture, do you see a figure in the clouds of smoke?
...A ram.

 

[NorthStar]

In 1933 Los Angeles had a fire with 29 fatalities, the most fatalities in California history.
This latest Paradise fire in California has now 29 confirmed deaths, equalling the one in 1933.
Last year was bad for wildfires in California, with several fires among the top 20 most devastating for human lives.
This year is even worst, and tomorrow the winds are forecasted as hurricane winds, from the weather news network.

Some celebrities have lost their homes, like Neil Young...twice now that he lost his home to wildfires.

 

[Ron Resnick]

While of course a total tragedy, losing one’s home twice to the same type of natural disaster, just like people with beach houses which get washed away repeatedly, suggests that maybe houses shouldn’t be rebuilt in the same spot, that the homeowners should take increased precautions in terms of greater brush clearance from buildings or greater distance from tide lines, and that homeowners are not paying the full insurance cost of the risk they undertake because they rely upon governmental mutualization of risk and partial subsidization of insurance.

 

[NorthStar]

I'm sure the high heeled homeowners are fully insured.
Emotions motivate most people to rebuild where they live most of their lives.

I've read few good articles from experts on California urban, rural areas (zoning, housing, ...) and the natural elements from the last five years. It is becoming part of life. The Pacific coast is beautiful, it comes also with unique phenomena from the dryness, the canyons, the mountains behind, the bushes, trees, scrubs, the fueled soil, the winds, ... and the wildfires.

But California is not alone. It is happening in several parts of the globe. ...In Canada, Europe, Portugal, Venice, Hawaii, ... for not necessary the exact same reasons but with similarities to the global picture in scientific proven climate change.

Fire prevention is number one priority for Californians, for all dry areas in the world. It is a fact.
The pictures speak for themselves, the people who don't have time to flee, the ones who have to abandon their cars by the sides of the roads because the roads are jammed, the older people who don't have assistance and cars and cannot move, the heavy smoke burning the lungs and making everyone weak, including the brave firefighters.

It is absolutely devastating; 31 lives lost so far and many unaccounted for.

 

[Steve Williams]

I'm sure the high heeled homeowners are fully insured.
Emotions motivate most people to rebuild where they live most of their lives.

I've read few good articles from experts on California urban, rural areas (zoning, housing, ...) and the natural elements from the last five years. It is becoming part of life. The Pacific coast is beautiful, it comes also with unique phenomena from the dryness, the canyons, the mountains behind, the bushes, trees, scrubs, the fueled soil, the winds, ... and the wildfires.

But California is not alone. It is happening in several parts of the globe. ...In Canada, Europe, Portugal, Venice, Hawaii, ... for not necessary the exact same reasons but with similarities to the global picture in scientific proven climate change.

Fire prevention is number one priority for Californians, for all dry areas in the world. It is a fact.
The pictures speak for themselves, the people who don't have time to flee, the ones who have to abandon their cars by the sides of the roads because the roads are jammed, the older people who don't have assistance and cars and cannot move, the heavy smoke burning the lungs and making everyone weak, including the brave firefighters.

It is absolutely devastating; 31 lives lost so far and many unaccounted for.

In California my biggest fear is not "the big one" earthquake or even many of those shakers and rollers but rather these wildfires

We live in a canyon not far from the Holy Fire (less than 10 miles) and when we see and smell the smoke and see the destruction of lives and property, this is serious business

In fact the community in which I live has been beleaguered lately by new people buying houses in our little area only to find that none of the home owners insurance companies would sell them fire insurance

 

[NorthStar]

They cannot buy premium fire insurance? About earthquake insurance?

The fear of fires is also present in British Columbia where the climate is getting hotter and dryer every year, plus the rural areas right under the forest's canopies. Fire travels from one roof to the next with its own generating whirlwinds.

On the island here we know what's under us, the big fault, and we are aware that someday we'll have the big one. And the danger of a huge tsunami. Even what's happening in Japan is affecting our fishes and beaches. ...The nuclear reactor's spilling caused by the big tsunami of not many years ago.

My guess is that there will be some big changes under the power lines. They need to be free of tree branches. And the dry stuff has to be worked on, the tree lines farther away from rural communities. It is part of California new "abnormal" very hot and dry life. ...Yes, including climate change.

 

[Steve Williams]

They cannot buy premium fire insurance?

No

 

[Folsom]

Getting money from the insurance companies is going to be brutal and long. The companies will do whatever they can to fight payments. It is very sad, all of this.

Steve do you have fire insurance?

I really hope this will be a big enough wake up call to get the people in federal positions to fund year round fire fighter activity to work against the problem. It is more important than a lot of other things we spend money on.

Rebuilding will happen in many areas. But the issue is going to be that it’ll be very hard to get builders, laborers, electricians, plumbers, etc. They will be busy for a long time. And they will follow the money so it won’t exactly be first come first serve.

 

[Ron Resnick]

The business model of insurance companies generally is to do everything possible to deny claims, whether on the basis of exception, exclusion, expiration or the absence of some required related policy.

I believe the only company with a different business model is Chubb. Chubb’s business model is to pay claims readily. The quid pro quo for this different business model is extremely high insurance premiums.

I pay Chubb for fire insurance, flood insurance, mudslide insurance, earthquake insurance, personal property insurance, automobile insurance, liability insurance and excess liability insurance. And the total premium amount is absurdly, offensively high.

But if our house goes “poof” I believe Chubb will write a check (unless, of course, too many other peoples’ houses go poof at the same time, and Chubb’s liabilities exceeds its assets and it becomes insolvent).

 

[DaveyF]

Ron, you know what they say about insurance... you're only going to know how good it is, when and if you have to use it. Here's something for everybody to ponder....it is a known fact that 90% of all lawyers in any given state work exclusively for insurance companies.What does that tell us?

Back to the terrible fire situation. Since I have lived in S.Calif for more than forty years, I can say this...most people simply fail to understand that the whole area is a "reclaimed" desert. Plain and simple. As such, the climate of drought is normal for the area...as are replenishing wild fires. ( In fact many native plants actually seed only upon being burnt!) Add to this the fact that man has essentially disregarded nature in this regard...resulting in construction that is in the path of these fires..and as someone who was actually born here stated ( I wasn't)-- what the heck do we expect!
Not saying I necessarily agree with him, but it does shed a slightly different light on things!

 

[Steve Williams]

Steve do you have fire insurance?

you bet I do. As I said what I fear most is wild fires such as these. I lived through many earthquakes in my 40 years in California and they have been scary but nothing so devastating as what we are witnessing now.

Not sure if anyone was watching the Thursday night football game from San Francisco. The northern California fire was 200 miles away and there was a haze over the football field

 

[DaveyF]

I'm not sure how anyone can not have fire insurance, if you have a mortgage---your lender is going to require it! If you are free and clear, well that's up to you, but you would be crazy not to have it, IMHO. With the recent fires, many companies are not going to want to write fire policies ( or try and cancel those that they have), this is where I believe the insurance commissioner has to step in...and maybe require them to write it...or leave the state and not conduct business here. That is IF the insurance commissioner has any balls...which in the past, they have NOT!