You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.Update California Wildfires July 2008 - now 1420 wildfires reported
Two of Northern California’s more than 1,400 wildfires choked parts of the Sierra Nevada foothills, darkening parts of a 100-mile stretch between Sacramento and Reno with clouds of black smoke.
The fires in the Tahoe National Forest blanketed portions of the Interstate 80 corridor linking the two cities and the foothill communities in between where tens of thousands of people live.
Along the Pacific, firefighters hoped coastal fog would help them gain ground against a blaze that was just 3 percent contained in the storied town of Big Sur. John Heil, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, said it had blackened nearly 62 square miles, or about 39,600 acres.
Firefighters made headway against a blaze of comparable size in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, increasing their containment to 23 percent. But the location hampered their efforts.
“It is extremely steep, very rugged territory, and there are a lot of injuries, twisting ankles, slipping on hills,” said Jason Kirchner, another Forest Service spokesman. Burning debris is “rolling downhill right past your containment line. It’s very complicated, difficult, dirty firefighting work.”
Fire crews inched closer to getting some of the largest of 1,420 blazes surrounded, according to the state Office of Emergency Services. Some 364,600 acres - or almost 570 square miles - of forest, grass and brush had burned.
A “red flag warning” - representing the most extreme fire danger was still in effect for extreme northeastern California, northwest Nevada and eastern Oregon, the National Weather Service said.
Lower-than-average rainfall and record levels of parched vegetation likely mean a long, fiery summer throughout northern California, according to the Forest Service’s state fire outlook, released last week.
The fires were mostly started by lightning storms that were unusually intense for so early in the season. But summer storms will probably be even fiercer, according to the Forest Service.
“Our most widespread and/or critical lightning events often occur in late July or August, and we have no reason to deviate from that,” the agency’s report said.
The blazes have destroyed more than 50 buildings, said Gregory Renick, state emergency services spokesman.
In Arizona, strong wind turned a wildfire that had burned nearly 4 square miles of wilderness away from the remote mountain community of Crown King north of Phoenix, officials said today. However, there was still no containment and the community was still considered threatened, said Prescott National Forest spokeswoman Debbie Maneely. About 120 residents voluntarily evacuated Sunday as flames got to within a mile of the former mining town.
Crews in central New Mexico’s Manzano Mountains were doing mop-up operations today on an almost 9-square-mile fire that destroyed six homes and 10 outbuildings. Residents who left last week were allowed to return home Sunday. The fire, started by lightning June 23, was 85 percent contained.
In Guffey, Colo., about 40 miles west of Colorado Springs, most of the 100 residents who fled a 1,115-acre lightning-started wildfire were allowed back home Sunday. Final evacuation orders were expected to be lifted this morning.
source: San Jose Mercury
10:15 pm on July 2nd, 2008
Why is this so hushed up? With almost 1420 lightning strikes, shouldn’t there be some footage of lightning striking? Of is that just a cover-up story? Does anyone else smell terrorists turning California into deserts like their homelands?
7:00 am on July 3rd, 2008
Mary, the only thing I smell right now is paranoia… How about Mother Nature finally kicking our butt?
2:06 pm on July 9th, 2008
I doubt, as Mary writes, that terrorists have caused the many fires in California. It has been widely reported that of the 1420 fires many were sparked by dry lightning. Dry hot North sustained winds above 40 miles per hour helped to spread the flames across the countryside which has not seen such a dry spring since 1921.
I don’t recall this extreme of a weather event in my lifetime (since 1954). Richard Lemon surmises that it is Mother Nature. I would like to suggest that there is a source of power greater than ourselves. His name is Jesus Christ, the creator and sustainer of the universe. His power can be seen in the recent events of which we speak.
Is it possible that there is a connection between our social slide into immorality and the destruction we are seeing? Can you connect the dots between our state’s Supreme Court lifting the ban on same sex marriage and the burning of our forest land?
5:33 pm on July 9th, 2008
Ahh… We have two comments and both comments are based on one feeling: fear. Let me get this straight. The wildfires are not ignited by terrorists nor is it the work of a higher force. It’s lightning that struck the dry land of California. I know, it’s a shocker…
But it proves once again that both the religious and political tactic is working. Bring fear into play and you will control the masses. They have been doing this for centuries and it still works (sadly enough).
Connecting the wildfires with same sex marriage? You gotta be kiddin’ me! I guess you think the AIDS virus is a punishment for the gay community by God as well. Listen, I respect whatever religion you believe in. Trying to change one’s believes means only trouble. I’m not even trying.
Connecting the two is an insult. A marriage is about love, something we should be focusing on instead of focusing on fear. Love should be cherished and celebrated. Instead the Bush administration and the Church are preaching fear by justifying destruction (wildfires and the war in Iraq). How immoral is this?
If God is punishing immorality He’s a few decades too late. Sounds incompetent to me for someone who build the world in 6 days.
It’s not a Higher Force or Al Qaeda. We, the people, are destroying ourselves. We are trying to shape the planet to our needs. Not possible! We’ve been on this planet for only 200k years and we think we’re superior to anything else that lives here. Dude, another 10,000 years and we are all gone. Pack your bags because the last train is rolling into the station.
I apologize if I’m too harsh on the religious people and the republicans (hmm… maybe it’s the same group…) but please use common sense. It time for change in this country. Change we can believe in
11:26 am on July 11th, 2008
What are you apologizing for?
Tell it as you see it bro!
You wrote:”If God is punishing immorality He’s a few decades too late. Sounds incompetent to me for someone who built the world in 6 days.”
I am going to use that one myself - what a brilliant come back! Thanks Richard - right on for Change!
12:02 pm on July 26th, 2008
On July 25, 2008 I was sitting on the Woods River in Southern Oregon. It looked like overcast weather, but there were no clouds. When we drove into Klamath Falls there was a line of pickup trucks with fire emblems on the side, followed with a sheriff truck. People in Klamath Falls said that what I thought was overcast was the smoke from the California fires. I couldn’t believe the fires were still burning. The news wasn’t covering it, so I googled it and came across this site.
I thought I was the only one who noticed the correlation between the state’s Supreme Court lifting the ban on same sex marriage right before the dry lightning sparked these fires. But John Schuff also noticed. There was also a gay pride parade being planned before Katrina had her levee break.
Also, this was no media buzz. A few years ago at Christmas time the Muslins ran the Christians out of town and told them they couldn’t celebrate Christmas. They were told to go to a hill outside of the villages if they were going to celebrate. On the 26th the tsunami hit. Those Christians on the hill didn’t die.
God isn’t late in punishing immorality. He has been warning people for thousands of years and there is plenty of literature to prove it. But the good news is that God is a rewarder to people who choose to be obedient to His will and law.
Turn to Jesus and you will find eternal life!
12:33 pm on August 2nd, 2008
Our Climate is changing.
after all the stuff us humans have done to modify and change it .. its changing for the worse we can only expect more damage, more natural disasters. It’s pretty sad.
its too late for all the hybrids and solar power energy.
hopefuly its just a phase the earth is going through.