Fire currently unstoppable: "will go all the way to the ocean" says San Diego Fire Captain

[NorthernSpy]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3767141

Faced with unrelenting winds whipping wildfires into a frenzy across Southern California, firefighters all but conceded defeat Tuesday to an unstoppable force that has chased an estimated 1 million people away.

Unless the shrieking Santa Ana winds subside, and that's not expected for at least another day, fire crews say they can do little more than try to wait it out and react tamping out spot fires and chasing ribbons of airborne embers to keep new fires from flaring.

"If it's this big and blowing with as much wind as it's got, it'll go all the way to the ocean before it stops," said San Diego Fire Capt. Kirk Humphries. "We can save some stuff but we can't stop it."

:cry:

[XemaSab]

1. Horrible.

Here's a really good map of the fire areas in San Diego:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114250687465160386813.00043d08ac31fe3357571&ll=32.990236,-116.930237&spn=0.946815,1.842957&z=9&om=1

[Cha]

6. Thanks..this is

so unreal..

[emlev]

10. Thank you for that n/t

[truedelphi]

26. THanks, much obliged to the URL. Just emailed to a friend per her request

She's safe and in Chicago but her brother and his family live in or near Poway

[Cha]

2. Let's hope we get a

miracle then and the Santa Anas stop their incessant blowing.

[babylonsister]

12. I heard tonight on the news the winds could be blowing through Thursday. I

really hope they're wrong.

[DaveJ]

3. A map of its path might be useful...

I'm also wondering, how did the fire ignite is so many disconnected places at once?

[girl gone mad]

4. I've heard some officials say..

arson was to blame for at least a couple of the fires.

[DaveJ]

8. At least a couple arsonists at the same time?

Okay, terrorists then, on Bush's watch. They found a hole in homeland security. I'm sure we'll be patching that up ASAP.

[tyedyeto]

19. Here in southern Arizona....

I actually heard someone say these fires are terrorists related. That terrorists are driving all over southern California setting these fires.

Could not believe my ears on that one.

[durablend]

23. Were they wearing Blackwater gear?

Just saying...

[tyedyeto]

24. No, just a retiree at the Am. Legion

He's been drinking the * kool-aid.

[unhappycamper]

52. Kool-aid is the official beverage of the American Legion. n/t

[backscatter712]

29. Makes one wonder.

It's exactly this kind of catastrophe that makes the perfect excuse to "take measures for security," and ratchet up the fascism level a few more notches.

[musiclawyer]

57. That's probably bullshit

.......Nonetheless, I recall very clearly me and my boss sitting around the office shooting the breeze back in the late 90's--probably 1998, and saying to ourselves that all it would take for terrorists to really undo things is to position themselves in the right locations up and down CA, wait until fall, and for the right conditions, and then have at it with the incendiaries. I think they've moved on to bigger and better things, but I'm sure if I thought of it, so did somebody else at one time.

[Raksha]

28. Arson is nothing new. There are always a few twisted freaks

who wait until fire season when the brush is driest, so they can set the biggest blaze possible, and the hardest to put out. That mindset is impossible for a normal person to understand, but it's been going on for years.

Didn't it turn out that one of the arsonists in the last big California wildfire (2003) actually worked for the FIRE DEPARTMENT?

[joshcryer]

31. Greece was arsonists.

Wouldn't surprise me if they were arsonists at least in some places here.

[XemaSab]

5. Also it's been windy for a few days and power lines have blown down in some areas.

My post above has areas indicated, and as for fire path... due west is where they're all heading. :(

[alstephenson]

7. The wind blew power lines down, igniting some of the fires....

and sadly some have been attributed to arson.

[NorthernSpy]

11. I don't understand this situation at all...

Is it common for wildfires to break out in many spots simultaneously like that? I've never lived in an arid climate, and so I just don't know.

[DaveJ]

13. Maybe it's just me...

I find it hard to believe there were that many downed power lines at once due to winds.

I also find it hard to believe that safeguards aren't in place against these inevitable fires, such as fire safe areas to prevent them from spreading. But I also couldn't believe cockpits were accessible to the public before 9/11. Apparently we're just not as advanced as we should be.

[Xithras]

17. 100MPH winds can down a LOT of power lines.

The lines don't really even need to come down to start a fire. A piece of conductive debris blown into the lines will start a fire. Even without the debris, heat makes the lines sag, and the wind can make two lines on the same pole slap into each other. This causes severe arcs, which ignire fires.

But it only takes one 100MPH gust to knock over one pole, and you have a raging inferno.

[girl gone mad]

38. How about burying the power lines?

California does some things that just don't make any sense to me.

[joshcryer]

41. Lighting can still strike underground lines. Repairing *those* is a daunting task.

Also, the electricity lost to air conductivity (electrons floating away into the air) is minimal compared to the costs of covering lines with some insulator. In the end, believe it or not, the power line system we have is the best we could come up with. Decentralizing the grid would prove far more useful.

[Garbo 2004]

46. In the mountains and hills? The fires don't necessarily start in neat subdivisions. n/t

[Garbo 2004]

47. Dry fire season, Santa Ana winds, only takes a spark to start a wildfire.

And that's without any arson involved. The magnitude and nature of the terrain over the fire vulnerable/prone areas, including mountains and hills, of the south state and what would be required to make such "safe areas" is fairly huge.

[Misskittycat]

14. Yes. The strong winds blow fire embers all over and wherever they land, a fire can start.

Also, otherwise innocuous activities like a spark from machinery can ignite extremely dry brush. That's why there can be so many different fires without any consideration of arson. Of course, occasionally, arson is involved.

I read that quote about the fire going to the ocean; that alarmed me because I'm about a mile from the ocean, but in the path of the Witch Fire.

[Auntie Bush]

30. The best of luck to you and your family Miss Kitty.

I hope you will keep us updated.

[Misskittycat]

49. Thanks. n/t

[KharmaTrain]

27. Try This Map

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?uid=103734099241550080511&hl=en&gl=us&ptab=2&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=107592071260393044446.00043d12d7e7e7af51aaa&om=1&ll=33.050112,-116.93367&spn=0.273381,0.63858&z=11

[fed-up]

35. heartbreaking to look at the swath of destruction/evacuation on the google map...nt

[Viva_La_Revolution]

40. The big wind gusts (60-80 mph) will blow embers 1-2 miles...

where they land and start new fires. :(

[earth mom]

9. OMFG!

:cry:

[Rex]

15. This is horrible.

:(

[LWolf]

16. .

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. We need to invent a gel that we can spray on a house that will keep it

safe from fire for a day, and then just dissolve and wash away with the first rains.

[KoKo]

21. Some guy was hawking a spray on product on CNBC and CNN today

that he claims will fireproof your house. Always a buck to make by some. Who knows if it works or if it works and is as toxic as asbestos was found to be when it was used so much as a fireretardant as shingles on 60's/70's type houses. You couldn't sell your house in the Northeast unless you had a disclaimer about having "asbestos shingles." Turned alot of folks off. Maybe this guy's spray is great...but what about the environmental issues. :shrug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

34. Do you have any idea what year was the cut-off for the usage of asbestos

shingles.

[slackmaster]

43. Around here it was about 1979

I have asphalt shingles. Pretty hard to ignite.

[ellie]

20. Holy crap

That is absolutely horrible. 1 million people!



edited to fix poor reading comprehension.

[lala_rawraw]

22. oh god...

it is like, one by one, each state is dying:(

[CitizenLeft]

25. oh no

I am so sorry. No words.

[ContraBass Black]

32. Across downtown?

[NorthernSpy]

33. Oh, surely not! Cities have too much concrete, don't they?

The fire would not be able to keep going in a brick and concrete environment, would it?

It would need more fuel, surely!

[TheWraith]

36. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be able to wreak havoc on the edges, though. NT

[FreeState]

37. Its not even close to Downtown SD

there is no way the fires would make it there.

[tinrobot]

39. Further north...

It's moving from Poway/Rancho Bernardo towards the sea at Encinitas/Solana Beach/Del Mar

[slackmaster]

44. If it tries to burn across downtown San Diego the bums will piss it out

No worries.

[slackmaster]

42. It may take out my Tecate cypress but it won't burn up my orchid plants

I'm prepared for this one.

Seriously, the wind is probably going to shift to onshore late Wednesday or Thursday. That will keep the fire from reaching the coast.

[NorthernSpy]

53. I hope you're safe where you are...

Hope the wind changes soon.

[slackmaster]

54. My biggest problem is a pocket canyon across the street

It's roughly 50 acres of a mix of native vegetation (bad), eucalyptus (bad), and landscaping that homeowners have put in place (mixed). There is an informal shared area of a couple of acres that has some nice trails and a couple of gazebos.

If that area goes up, I will have some embers to deal with.

But generally I am in a relatively safe suburban area. Years of drought have made people tend toward heavy succulents, rock gardens, and other landscaping with low fuel value.

[NorthernSpy]

56. latest reports say the wind is possibly slacking off some...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJn8oxEcAMeI&refer=home


The smoke alone must be hell, though.

[Pachamama]

45. Any word on the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park near Escondido? I just looked at the map you have and

the huge 200,000 acre fire looks right near where the park is....

OMG....that park is so beautiful...I was just there this summer...they have so many incredible animals, including rare rhinos and ofcourse elephants etc.....

[regnaD kciN]

48. I heard its O.K....

It may seem counterintuitive, but that isn't a likely place for fire to take hold. Although it looks wild, they are careful to get rid of the kind brush that serves as fuel elsewhere, and they keep the Park irrigated, so the vegetation there is damper and less-likely to catch on fire from a stray spark.

[leftchick]

51. I was wondering too. There this this from 2 days ago.....

San Diego's Wild Animal Park animals are safe and staying put
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 10/22/2007 04:01:19 PM PDT

ESCONDIDO, Calif.—While more than 250,000 people have fled the flames and smoke in the San Diego area, the beasts at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park are staying put.

Zoo spokeswoman Yadira Galindo says the park's 3,500 animals are safest in their enclosures, protected by the park's fire break and irrigated areas, and, if conditions get worse, the animals can take refuge in their watering holes.

Zoo staff spent most of the night moving critically endangered animals, like the California condor and the African cheeta, and a variety of snakes and small birds to the park's veterinary hospital, which is fire-resistant and equipped with sprinklers.

Galindo says the animals are "alert but not showing any concerned behavior."


http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_7250616

[malaise]

50. Too sad

:cry:

[The Stranger]

55. WHERE IN THE FUCK ARE THE FEDS?

I saw the Fatherland Security Skeletal Freak all over television and running from camera to camera but nothing about the feds actually bringing in real assistance to the Californians.

[Uncle Joe]

58. I don't know what to say.

:cry: