Re: Fires in Southern California

Dear Nan -

I read with morbid fascination your detailed and very human account of the
fires we've all been hearing about via the news.  It brought back memories of
the Oakland Firestorm of 1991, when we housed another family who were forced
to evacuate (their neighborhood was spared but other friends were not so
lucky).  I am glad to hear that you and yours are safe during this horrendous
time!

I am c.c.ing this to the MGS Branch Head forum as some of those people have
been inquiring about state of things.

Some of my colleagues here at UC Office of the President in Oakland were
scheduled to fly down to UC San Diego for a big campus meeting - we were
stunned to hear that the entire campus was shut down, literally closed because
the air quality was so bad!  It makes sense and I applaud the administration's
decision - it is just brought home the reality of the situation!

Best to you and everyone else at the Southern end of our state,
Seán A. O'Hara
sean(at)gimcw.org
www.hortulusaptus.com
(ask about mediterranean climate gardening forum)

>Subject:   	Fires in Southern California
>From:   	"N Sterman" <TalkingPoints@plantsoup.com>
>Date:   	Thu, October 25, 2007 10:54 pm
>To:   	"Medit Plants" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
>
> Hi there....
>
> Several people have asked me how we are managing with the fires here
> in San Diego, and other areas around Southern California so I thought
> I'd send out an update -
>
> In Southern California, we have these incredible dry, hot winds that
> blow from the deserts to the east, between October and December or
> January.   They happen two or three times each season and last four
> or five days, maybe a week. We call these winds Santa Anas.  The rest
> of the year, we have humid, onshore breezes from the ocean.
>
> During a Santa Ana, humidity drops into the teens or single digits.
> Skin dries out, hair sits flat on your head (not good for a curly top
> like me) and lips crack.  Static electricity reaches an amazing
> high.  As kids, we took joy in poking each other to give each other
> shocks.
>
> This year marks So Cal's 8th year of drought, so all vegetation
> (native and exotic) is dry as a bone.  With the dry Santa Anas there
> is an abundance of dry fuel, so any kind of spark can start a huge
> huge fire. That is what started happening this past weekend.
>
> On Saturday, or maybe Sunday morning, a transformer exploded
> somewhere in the southeastern part of the county and sparked one
> blaze.  Another fire started, due east.  I haven't yet heard how but
> it could have been a discarded cigarette butt, a house fire that
> under normal conditions would have been easily extinguished, a spark
> from a chain saw or a muffler or .....
>
> Once the fires start, the winds send embers flying everywhere.  The
> dry vegetation catches, or someone's wood shingle roof, or a
> eucalyptus tree or....  and an entire neighborhood is burning.  And
> then a community is burning.  And then....
>
> Sunday afternoon (before the fires really took off), I had to meet
> someone about 15 miles south of my home in Encinitas (Olivenhain to
> be precise) into San Diego.  At one point along the freeway, I drove
> down into a dip between mesas, where the estuary merges into the
> ocean. Smoke from the fires to the east funneled through the opening,
> and sat, so thick that it looked like ground fog.
>
> By Sunday night, there were more fires in our county.  Some started
> by accident, and some I am sure were started intentionally (what kind
> of cruel mind does that?).   At one point, there were 8 or 9
> independent fires burning just in our county.  Another burned in
> Riverside County to the north east, one in Orange county directly
> north, one in Malibu (that's LA county) north of that, and so on all
> the way up, almost to Santa Barbara.  And one of our San Diego fires
> burned over the border into Tecate, Mexico.  That's a several hundred
> mile stretch with a dozen or more major fires burning all at once.
>
> Fire creates its own wind.  So while a Santa Ana may blow at, say, 20
> mph, the wind generated by the fire may double that, so fires that
> start 20 or 30 miles from each other can merge, creating a huge fire
> storm.  That is part of what happened (and is still happening).  In
> addition, a fire that is 30 miles away when you went to bed at night,
> can be at your doorstep before you wake up in the morning.
>
> Sunday night, we stayed up until 1 am watching the news and tracking
> the fire.  One of our neighbors is a fire chief who works
> communications so we usually have a pretty good line into what is
> going on.
>
> The phone rang early Monday morning while we were still sleeping. It
> was one of my husband's employees saying that she tried to get from
> her house to work (about 20 miles) but the roads were blocked.
>
> We checked outside and it looked like hell.  Literally.  The sky was
> amber.  The wind was blowing at what seemed like hurricane velocity.
> Snowflake sized ashes swirled down with the air currents.  The air
> was so thick that it hurt to breathe.
>
> I walked outside to check our pet bunny and he, unfortunately, had
> perished in the night.  He was old and not in the greatest health,
> but it shocked me to see him lying there, clearly dead.  Was he the a
> canary in a coal mine?  Maybe.
>
> We started packing even though there was not yet an evacuation
> order.  Twice before we've had fires burning nearby.  In 1996, one
> burned so close that we could see flames at the ridge behind our
> house.  The Cedar fire in 2003 burned mostly to the east of us.
> Never before, though, had the sky looked so ominous.
>
> We woke our teenagers and told them to pack three or four days worth
> of clothes, and take anything they felt they could not live without.
>
> We packed boxes of photos, our computers, important papers, a few
> keepsakes, and the dog of course.
>
> Interestingly, the kids stopped just about to leave.  Don't we want
> to take my great uncle's camera? Or our wedding china?   What about
> the Russian wooden matrushka doll that the kids spent much of their
> toddler years stacking and unstacking?
>
> My husband tried to discourage them but I quietly made the point that
> if that was going to make the kids comfortable with leaving, we had
> the time and the room to pack a few more items.   So, the brother and
> sister that usually yell at each other instead worked cooperatively
> to figure out  the best way to wrap up this item or that, and decide
> which box it would best fit into without breaking.
>
> With the dog settled in the car, we headed to the home of friends who
> live about 5 miles away, in a direction the wind wasn't blowing - at
> least not yet.  We were the second family to arrive.  The first
> family had received evacuation orders first thing in Monday morning.
> Soon, we were joined by yet a third family, so there were four
> families including 8 adults, four big dogs, a cat, and assorted kids
> sharing a single house.
>
> It was pretty close quarters, but it was like a pajama party. The
> kids all got along (school was cancelled for the entire week).  The
> adults all got along.  Even the dogs did fine together (only one
> serious doggie skirmish).   If the situation hadn't been so serious,
> it would have been a really fun vacation We mostly sat in front of
> the TV, watching the news 24/7 so we could track the paths of the fires.
>
> Funny thing about the kids (all but one was a teenager).  They
> constantly text message with their friends so while we relied on the
> news for information, they were collecting information from friends
> all over the county.  A couple of times, they knew what was going on
> - and knew it in far greater detail - than the news.
>
> At one point on Monday, officials said to expect the largest fire,
> which started 30 or so miles inland, to burn all the way to the
> coast.  Rather than try to contain the fires, fire fighters were
> putting their energy into getting people (dogs, horses, goats,
> donkeys, etc ) out of harm's way.
>
> Throughout San Diego, a half million people (my family included)
> evacuated their homes.  This was, we learned, the largest evacuation
> in the history of the country.  Fires were burning everywhere.  You
> didn't know where they would go next since the wind blows them
> around, and new fires seemed to be popping up everywhere.
>
> Tuesday morning, we woke up to still skies.  The sky was peach
> colored and the air was awful, but the wind had died down.  That
> allowed the fire fighting airplanes and helicopters to do their
> work.  Engines and fire fighters poured in from all over the region
> (including Mexico).
>
> We still couldn't go outside because the air was terrible, even
> though we were just a few blocks from the ocean.  So, we moms
> distracted ourselves by planning the day's menu.   I made a big
> shopping trip to the few markets that were open.  The streets were
> eerily empty and so were the stores.   We made an awesome spaghetti
> dinner that night (what better choice for feeding a crowd?).
>
> Tuesday night, the fires were still going strong, but the wind had
> changed, so the evacuation order for our community was lifted.
> Still, we decided to wait for morning to go home.
>
> By early Wednesday morning, the corner had been turned.  Fires were
> still burning but not spreading as quickly.  The sky was gray (from
> smoke, not clouds unfortunately) but that was better than the brown
> tones that had been.
>
> We drove home and spent the afternoon slowly unpacking and taking
> inventory.  Our home is fine but there is a half inch layer of soot
> everywhere - roof, sidewalks, leaves, cars, street, etc.
>
> Everything needs to be cleaned but how to do that without wasting
> precious water, or sending the ash back into the air is a puzzle.  I
> don't really know what to do but I'll figure that in a few days.
>
>
> Right now, I am just happy to be home - and to have a home to come
> home to!
>
> Nan
>
> Nan Sterman                                   Plant Soup, Inc. TM
> TalkingPoints@PlantSoup.Com
> PO Box 231034
> Encinitas, CA 92023
>
> Order your personalized copy of the all new California Gardener's
> Guide vol II at www.PlantSoup.Com
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