California on Fire
by 
Southern California is not like other places, with just the four main seasons; winter, spring, summer & fall. We also have another very important season, that comes around annually. It's called the fire season. Right now i think there are about 3 to 5 fires, huge fires, burning in the wilderness areas and near residential areas in SoCal. For the past weekend, the sky has constantly been filled with ash and smoke. So far, 300 homes have been lost, and about 20 or so have been brother's homes. The clouds of smoke are being carried by the santa ana winds all the way down to San Diego and Mexico. Technically, these fires are a natural event in a dry, hot area like the wilderness of southern california. But it takea a toll when people start to populate those areas. In some places, only a highway and about half a mile of wilderness seperate homes from fiery destruction. There is even a fire right across the hill from where my sisters attend school, and many people have had to evacuate. And outside right now, the air smells like smoke.
Don't I just love California?
satelite images:
big: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003299-1026/California.A2003299.1840.500m.jpg
smaller: http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20031026/capt.ny11310262336.california_wildfires_ny113.jpg
AI Summary
50 Comments
i heard a little bit about this, but i didn't know how bad it was. wow adam is everyone you know okay?
yea, everyone that i know is okay. Over here all we get is a lot of smoke and ash. But i'm a little worried bcuz one of the fires is right by my sister's school
is there any sort of relief effort in place for the families that have been affected?
i dont know. there probably might be, or maybe there is already as for the homes, they can't realyy do anything as of yet, cuz the fires are still burning
Yeah there are They are located in near by schools mainly in Simi Valley
yea. i thought she meant from brothers tho
yeah that's what i meant.
Oh in that case brother bolin told us sunday that there was a sister that was giving shelter to the brothers and sisters that lost their homes which was about 7 and still counting but he said when he called the sister all he heard was laughing and happy conversation so everyone is alright.
just proves california is hell, fires and earthquakes!
why dont you all just make houses out of glass and water.
Those pictures are pretty insane. I hope everyone is ok!!
ok i don't get it.. what exactly starts these fires?
some arson, some are just naturally occuring fires due to the heat and dryness in certain area. It's a natural occurence ususally. But it has been so hot and dry lately, i dont think we've seen much rain for a looong time. So all this dryness and heat is drying out forests and brush, making it easier for those dried plants to catch fire
there was some show on over the weekend where these 'settlers' had escaped the fire. they showed how close it came to their tents. the trees were scorched about 20 ft up. unfortunately, their pig had 3rd degree burns. they had to shoot it to put it out of its misery. it was sad.
its natural
in bio class we learned how there are plants that grow their seeds and surround them in sap so every year when all the trees get burned down, the seed packs just fall to the ground and the fire burns away the sap so then the seeds just plant themselves and a new tree grows.
god's creations are beautiful. everything coiincedes and works so beautifully together.
i heard about one couple in their car trying to "out-run" the fire, but the flames caught up to them. really sad.
i wonder how much firefighters out there get paid. it's not all volunteer right? they gota make good $ cuz its hard to fight fires.
its so weird that people name the winds. the santa ana winds??? why? he was a crazy dictator. figures that his winds would cause such destruction and fires.
don't u love it when people answer their own questions? well, yes i do
they were named after a spanish saint named anne. i guess these winds are named because they always come and the have such an important affect on the invironment and weather
Umm..isn't Santa Ana that important Mexican guy?
i have no idea. i just know that the settlers named the winds santa ana becuase that's where the winds were named, in santa ana
wasn't that one of columbo's ships?
columbo only had a trench coat, my friend. fortunately monk has that chick to hand him wipes.
Nope..he only had the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.
Santa Ana is definetly some important mexican guy! I remember from the movie Zoro.
ohhhhhh! that guy! yea i know who you are talkin about, but i cant think of who he is really. I think it's general santa ana? i think he fought at the alamo, and he wasthe mexican president at that time
Yes! He definetly was a mexican president.
Yeah. He's the one who was responsible for the massacre at the Alamo.
There're several theories as to why they are called what they are. Some people believe that they are called the Santa Ana winds because of the Santa Ana canyon in orange county. Some people, who call them the Santana winds, say that the name comes from the time the Spaniards ruled California and that the name means "Devil winds". These people tend to believe that the "Santa Ana" name comes from a mispronunciation of "Santana". I'm not sure which is correct, but I tend to call them the Santa Ana winds just because so many other people do.
I think they're named after the guitar player, Santana.
update: up to 1000 homes have been burned
Yeah, I always heard of the fires here in Cali, but it's weird to see and smell perpetual smoke in the air... here in Northern Cali it's more natural to see it, with all the mountains and trees around. It's also very dry here.. very little rain.
actually i have friends that are moving to san diego, and they said that a LOT of friends out there lost homes and even one of the kingdom halls got burnt down
wow. I really don't know about as much what's goin on down in san diego, i just know that it's really bad. I'll have to ask my freind who lives down there.
Do you know which Kingdom Hall it was? I used to go to the Ramona congregation, and I know that a few friends there have lost their homes, but I haven't heard about any Kingdom Halls burning down.
ocy 31: IT"S RAINING!!!!!!
yippee!!!
question - is this 'forest fire' worse than usual, or is the news just covering it so much because there's nothing else going on?
well all ten of the fiorest fires are worse that usual. And it's not really just forest fires, since they are burning through towns and neighborhoods. and there is plenty of other stuff goin on: 4 citywide strikes, change in governor, newly escalating gang violence....
And this just end a crazy man shot a lawyer where you asked right outside of the van ness court house and to make it even weirder it was during the robert blake hearing and just icing on the cake that would mean that there was hundreds of news camera crews just sitting there but hey they got a bonus story...
i saw that video! insane! some old dude went buckwild! didja see the dude jukin' him behind the tree?
there was tons of stories about this in people magazine and lots of pictures. made me very sad. the colors just look so pretty and then you think of all the destruction they cause.