California Apocalypse

[JudyJB]

No AC in 100 degree + weather sounds like a good reason to get out of town!

[Cudedog]

Just testing:



How is this, Anne? I set up an Excel file, then did a screenshot, and used http://photoposting.is-great.net/. Only problem is that the image seems to big. I just inserted the file it produced into the email. Only problem is that I had trouble cutting it down a little smaller. I have something called SnagIt, but was too lazy. File was https://i.imgur.com/gHuBLf6l.jpg, and I put it inside the IMG link. Actually the RV.Net software put it in the [img] code on its own.

Thanks, Judy. I was hoping not to have to do it this way, but after a couple more hours searching for a way to insert a table into a phpBB forum post, it looks like a table function is not available, so thus can't be done.

I did it a slightly different way than you; copied the original data into Execl, then copy-and-pasted the Excel data into PhotoShop, then saved the resulting image as a .jpg to some personal webspace that I pay for (might as well use it!!).

Here it is. It certainly is much easier to look at than the way I did it previously, and I'll make the image larger next time. Easy enough to do in Photoshop.

Thanks, Judy. Have you made it to Massacre Rocks yet?



Anne

[Cudedog]

Here are photos of the El Dorado fire east of LA. It looks like it is moving to the north away from Oak Glen...

This one was taken from Palm Springs yesterday...

Oak Glen sign. Looks like they might be spared once again, luckily!

Great photos, Barbie.

Thanks for sharing.

Anne

[BarbaraRose]

El Dorado fire near Oak Glen 50 miles northwest of me

[BarbaraRose]

These are from the Dome fire in the Mohave National Preserve full of threatened Joshua trees. This was a couple weeks ago...

[Cudedog]

Wow, Barbie. Just wow. Really AMAZING photos!!! Thank you for posting.

Heavy smoke overcast here yesterday, the sky a grayish-brown. The sun just looked like an orange disk in the sky, and the quality of light was yellow-orange. Difficult to picture if you have not experienced it. Again, it was dim outside, as before a pending storm - but no rain in the forecast.

My poor Joe is beside himself. He is a large-ish dog, on the "active" side, with (thankfully) an "off" switch, provided that he gets sufficient exercise. I generally take him outside in the backyard for a "Kong session" at least once per day, often twice. These sessions last from 20 minutes to 1/2 hour.

It has been so very hot here (112 on Sunday, never did go out to check the thermometer yesterday, but temps here are generally somewhere around what Velda has, so it was probably 109) that it is difficult to get in his exercise, but I get around this by making the sessions shorter, as soon as I see he is beginning to pant very hard I bring him inside where he willingly jumps into the bathtub and I spray him all over with cold tap water until he is dripping wet. Within a few minutes he cools off and stops panting ("cold" tap water here during a heat wave like we are having is probably around 70 degrees - not really very "cold").

Joe is a bit of a "short-faced" (brachycephalic) dog; these dogs generally can't cool themselves (by panting) as well as longer-faced dogs can, so in hot weather I am always very careful. I need to be. Brachycephalic dogs can die from over-heating during hot weather.

It is 4:30 a.m. as I write this (a bad night for sleeping) the temperature outside is 80 degrees at the moment. Even with the porch light on, I can tell there is a lot of smoke outside - really strong smoke smell; my free-standing hepa filter keeps most of the smell out of my house.

Went out last evening and immediately noticed that the ash fall was heavier than it has been (I could visibly see small flakes of ash falling; often one doesn't see it because the ash particles are too small). It almost looked as though it was beginning to spit snow. But, of course, it wasn't snow. Well, that was that for evening exercise, and poor Joe was visibly disappointed.

Ash fall has come and gone several times over the past weeks. If annual Santa Ana winds begin to blow today as predicted - current forecast states that winds here could be as high as 37 mph - this will create a hellscape on the fire lines (19 active fires still burning, the Creek fire - the fire where around two-hundred campers had to be rescued by helicopter - has surged to 135,523 acres, with "0" containment, and no estimate of when containment might begin).

The foothill community where I lived for 30 years is scheduled to have their power cut off for a day or so by PG&E, due to the high winds predicted, to prevent the possibility of their power lines from starting still another fire. Think no ac, and your stocked-full freezer defrosting. I am VERY thankful that my area is not listed for these power shut-offs.

I do offer my condolences to those. . . millions? That are suffering through the effects of Hurricane Laura.

But is bad here too, folks. There really isn't much more that can be said.

Will post an updated fire chart in a little while.

Anne

[Cudedog]

As of 6:00 a.m., September 8, 2020

Current Air Quality in my area is listed as "Unhealthy". At the moment, I can smell smoke inside my house with the windows all closed, and with my hepa filter running. The large fire to the west of me (prevailing winds here are usually west to east) at 349,565 acres (Medocino/August Complex) is only 24% contained, with full containment not expected for almost two weeks. This will likely change if the area gets the predicted high winds.

(The chart below does not include fires that have been extinguished, or fires still burning but with 100% containment, of which there are many.)

There is no rain in the forecast for northern California. Typically, our annual rains begin late October/early November.

Active fires currently burning in California, with high velocity winds (annual Santa Ana) forecast for later today:

[SoCalGalcas]

Thanks Annie for the fire reports. The Valley Fire is the one east of San Diego. We here in downtown are getting some smoke and the orange haze in the sky. If the winds pick up, more to come. California is not the place to be right now. Lyn

[Cudedog]

As of 9:00 a.m., 9/20/20

The numbers below are for California fires only. These numbers do not include fires that have burned this year, but have already been put out, or fires that are still burning with 100% containment.

This information was obtained from YubaNet. There are individual links (some with maps) to individual fires on YubaNet:

https://yubanet.com/fires/

Yesterday total acres burned or burning: 1,735,437
Today's (at 9:00 a.m.) total acres burned or burning: 1,922,982

Thus an increase of 187,545 acres burned or burning over yesterday's numbers, with new fires having ignited overnight with the high winds we had here. Winds here at my home are currently calm.

The four fires with red lettering indicate fires with zero containment that are actively burning. Thus there are currently 172,729 acres burning out-of-control, with zero containment.

I welcome questions or suggestions.

In my lifetime spent in California, there has never been this number of fires, all burning concurrently, throughout the state. There has never been this number of acres burned in California in a single year. And the year is not over yet.

October is our worst month for fires, as vegetation has dried to kindling over the summer and the annual Santa Ana winds begin to blow before the annual rains come.

[Cudedog]

Selection of web cams in the San Francisco Bay Area showing the color of the sky - from red to yellow.

Sandi is correct - it looks like Mars.

Scroll down the page, and click on an image, with many to choose from.

Those images in gray are of cameras out of service.

http://www.alertwildfire.org/northbay/i ... ?v=81e004f

Looks very, very strange. We are having yellow skies here at my house.

Anne

[Cudedog]

From CalFire (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection):

Compared to last year, California has seen over 2,650 more fires and a nearly 2000% increase in the acres burned year-to-date (January 1 – September 7), across all jurisdictions.

And, once again, California's fire season is far from over.

[monik7]

San Francisco Bay Bridge. Yup! Looks like Mars.



There has been so much smoke in my area today causing it to be very dark all day inside that in order to read a book I had to turn the lights on.
Sandi

[snowball]

I saw a picture today on FB that I shared someone who knows how to do it ought to put it on here
was a picture that was taken over the clouds at one of the fires unreal what it looks like
sheila

[Bethers]

I saw a picture today on FB that I shared someone who knows how to do it ought to put it on here
was a picture that was taken over the clouds at one of the fires unreal what it looks like
sheila

I went to get your picture and discovered it's not what it claims. Here's what a news station reported when checking on it:
"The picture was most likely taken from Hawaii and shows the glow of the sun illuminating the clouds.

Wildfires wouldn't produce clouds that look anything like this photo."

It's still a neat picture but not what they are saying.

[Cudedog]

And the fires continue. A graphic of the North Fire is at the bottom of this post.

It is no longer just a "California Apocolypse". Hundreds of fires are burning over, literally, millions of acres all up and down the West Coast, from Washington State to Southern California.

Surfing the various news websites last night, the news was. . . alarming? Depressing? Unprecedented?

All of these.

Saw brief snatches of video that were reportedly from Talent, Oregon from where Karen narrowly escaped; what looked like a burned mobile home park was shown that may have been hers, I don't know the area so couldn't really tell.

The breadth and scope of this unfolding disaster is difficult for me to comprehend, even as a person living near these fires.

To try to give a bit of perspective, and also because I know the general area well, I have created a graphic of the North Fire Complex, and, for this same reason, I am concentrating on the North Fire Complex with this post.

The southern edge of this fire is about 25 miles from where I live. I have been under constant, thick smoke for weeks, very heavy ash fall has gone on for most of that time. This ash is (probably) composed mostly of dried brush - but there will be some component of it that is comprised of burned structures. Structures - particularly homes - are built of a lot of toxic materials; plastics, roofing, etc.

In places in my yard I have maybe 1/8 inch of ash. It covers everything - the ground, the trees, the sidewalks, my porches, plants. If you brush by a plant while walking outside, you will be showered with this ash (I will post a few photos later today, so check back).

Thus I can't walk in my yard (was previously doing "pandemic" exercise out there), I can't throw the ball for my dog (he is crazy now for exercise) because the ball (wet from his mouth) rolls in, and is coated by the ash, and when he picks up the ball, some portion of toxic ash coating the ball will be swallowed.

I can't limit my poor Joe's contact with the ash 100%, but I am doing my best. And hoping for the best.

Even with windows and doors closed, the ash gets inside, leaving a thin film of ash over everything. I have a free-standing HEPA filter going 24/7. The filter becomes blackish grey in about two days, and needs to be changed.

The North Fire has been actively burning since mid-August (nearly four weeks now).

A few stats on the North Fire Complex (as of September 11, 2020):
https://yubanet.com/california-fires/north-complex/

1. This fire is still very actively burning, I am about 25 miles from the southern edge of this fire

2. Size, in acres, 252,534. This is just one of the fires burning here, of which there are hundreds

3. This fire was ignited by the dry lighting storms we had here, around August 15. It has been burning since then - coming up on four weeks of burn. It was, initially many fires that then combined into one massive fire.

4. On the map below, the distance, in miles, from the city of Oroville in the bottom left to the city of Quincy at the top of the map is a distance of 43 miles.

5. The eastern "north-to-south" boundary of the fire that is actively burning is 36 miles long, the widest part of the fire west-to-east is 20 miles.

6. With other major fires burning in the state when this fire began, personnel, equipment and supplies were already strained by other large fires already actively burning. This fire, started by lightning, ignited in a fairly remote, difficult to access, area of the Sierras, relatively far away from any populated areas. Until: [from YubaNet]: "On the afternoon of September 8th, 2020 the North Complex fire entered Butte County, driven by high winds, heavy fuels, and steep terrain. The fire exploded burning over 200,000 acres in a matter of a few short hours." This forced the fire into populated areas, as much fire fighting was put "on hold", as fire fighters were engaged in rescuing people (who didn't know the fire was burning so fast, and was coming so close) instead of fighting the fire.

7. The inter-active map of this fire is here: https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/%3F/%3F/39.6856/-121.0544/10

8. I lived for thirty years about 3 - 4 miles south of Forbestown, as shown on this map. All of the communities, spanning the 36 miles mentioned above, are under mandatory evacuation, and have been for several days. Including the community that I still love.

Any questions please ask. Any comments, please post them.

If you find an interesting photo, please PM me the url (the location), and I will see if I can link to it so everyone can see it.

Thanks to you all.

Anne