California Wildfires
California is known for its tendency to have many wildfires during the fall. The outbreak of wildfires in October are due to the dry, sunny summers. California had been parched by a drought for years, which leaves it with plenty of fuel for fires in the form of dry vegetation. The unusually high winds have enabled the otherwise small fires to spread at a much faster rate and quickly become large fires. This month, California has had many, large wildfires, causing a lot of damage.
The severe wildfire outbreak is to a combination of factors. California had a record breaking heat over the summer. This and the ongoing drought has put California in prime fire condition. The fires were fueled by these hurricane force winds, the highest being 79 mph. The fires are advancing at a rate of more than a football field every three seconds. This makes it extremely difficult for the firemen to keep up with. About
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8,000 firefighters from local, state and federal agencies are working to put out the fires. In fact, on last Monday alone, a fire burned 20,000 acres in only about 12 hours. The largest fires are taking place in a region where many people have built their homes tucked into forests in Northern California. Many homes and many acres of land have been destroyed in the path of the raging wildfires.
More than 170,000 acres have been destroyed and an estimated 7,000 buildings destroyed or damaged, these numbers are still increasing. The deadly wildfires have caused over one billions dollars in property damage.
Many people are being evacuated from their homes. Over 50,000 people have been left their residences, as the police continue to work on locating hundreds of people reported missing by panicked relatives. With communication down and people making rushed escapes, the hope is, most people will turn up safe.
In addition, lots of people have been affected by the enormous wildfires. At least 17 people have died in the Tubbs Fire, Sonoma country alone received more than 240 missing person reports but many have already been found. The total death toll so far is at 41 lives. On Tuesday, the air score in parts of Napa hit 486, and it is considered very unhealthy when the index reaches 201. These numbers are similar to the air condition in Beijing,
China. These wildfires are a serious, ongoing problem for the residents in Northern California. Many people remain evacuated from their homes and many are still missing. This years wildfires are the largest we have seen in a very long time. The firemen are continuing to work on controlling these fires and preventing any more deaths.
Malibu and Yosemite share similar ecosystem, which encourages wildfires and periodic firestorms. In his book Ecology of Fear, Mike Davis argues that Malibu should burn because wildfires are a part of its history. To illustrate his point, he relates numerous historical events from the first settlement of the region to modern days. Despite the high frequency of wildfires in Malibu, humans have continued to settle there in droves. Those settlers have fought the fires, which has done nothing but augment their intensity. Unlike Malibu, with its populated areas that have been damaged by wildfires, Yosemite benefits greatly from wildfires. Yosemite’s ecosystem has evolved with wildfires; indeed, without wildfires, Yosemite would lose its uniqueness. Also, Yosemite is not as heavily populated as Malibu, so fires in Yosemite would not affect humans to the same degree that they do in Malibu.
Wildfires started as an annual and seasonal occurrence in the south western region of California since the early 1930’s in part because of the hot dry summers and the hot dry turbulent Santa Ana winds that blow in from the desert during the fall months. Now it has become a yearlong event (Mckay, 2010). These conditions greatly contribute to the “fire season” throughout this area. This set of circumstances in conjunction with downed power lines and humans that ignited fires took place in October of 2007. This led to a series of fires that burned more than 500,000 acres, destroyed 1,500 homes, killed 9, injured 85, and forced the successful evacuation of around 500,000 people out of harm’s way.
As people of the twenty-first century, we are all too familiar with the frequent occurrence of wildfires in our nation’s forests. Each year millions of acres of woodlands are destroyed in brutal scorches. It has been estimated that 190 million acres of rangelands in the United States are highly susceptible to catastrophic fires (www.doi.gov/initiatives/forest.html.). About a third of these high-risk forests are located in California (www.sfgate.com). These uncontrollable blazes not only consume our beautiful forests but also the wildlife, our homes and often the lives of those who fight the wildfires. The frequency of these devastating fires has been increasing over the years. In fact, in the years 2000 and 2002, it has been reported that the United States has faced its worst two years in fifty years for mass destruction fires (www.doi.gov/initiatives/forest.html.). The increased natural fuels buildup coupled with droughts have been a prevailing factor in contributing to our wildfires and unhealthy forests (www.blm.gov/nhp/news/releases/pages/2004/pr040303_forests.html). Due to the severity of these wildfires, several regulations and guidelines have been implemented to save our forests. In fact, the President himself has devised a plan in order to restore our forests and prevent further destruction of our woodlands.
Ten million California residents who lived closely from the major fault lines could have been endangered in many extreme ways. (House, 56). A tragic thing was that after the earthquake a multitudes of fire followed right after. The situation led to the water mains being destroyed and the firefighter being left with no water to settle the growing fire which continued blazing. The bay water was planned on putting all of the dure out but it was to far in distance to be able to transport it (Earthquake of 1906, 2). The firefighters who were putting out the fire were either surrounded or being burned by the fire that was blazing in all directions (San Francisco Earthquake, 2). A resident who was present during the event mention that he/she saw men and women standing in a corner of a building praying, one person who became delirious by the horrific ways that were surrounding him while crying and screaming at the top of his lungs “the Lord sent it, the Lord”. Someone also mentioned that they experience themselves seeing Stones fall from the sky and crushing people to death. Reporters say there were 100 cannons going off (San Francisco Earthquake, 3). People who lived fifty miles away from the fire was able to “read the newspaper at
It is so sad to see the horror of forest fires and how they corrupt our beautiful land. So much damage comes out of what started so small. At least 603 square miles of land were burned in the early stages of the Arizona fire only a couple of years ago (BBC 2). In a Colorado fire 2.3 million acres had been burned (BBC 3). That land could have been saved if the use of prescribed burns had been in the area.
For everyone involved in the Yellowstone fires, there is a particular day that stands out above the rest. For Carol Shively, interpretive ranger, it was July 31st; the day the fire hit West Thumb. “We headed into the geyser basin to clear visitors, but some were reluctant to leave—they were captivated by the mushroom- like clouds of smoke rising to the north, the helicopters dipping low to fill their water buckets in the lake, and the planes dropping red retardant drops that streaked across the sky. And then it came. Tongues of fire whipped through the air and seemed to roll over the horizon toward us. With terrific force, the wall of flames approached the road, hesitated slightly, and then rushed up on the other side, even greater than before. The fire was crowning in the trees surrounding the geyser basin. I stood frozen in place, mesmerized by the sheer power before me.” (The Yellowstone Fires of 1988)
Prescribed fires are used to clean up the dead plants that will produce harmful fuels after a wildfire. The problem with these fires are even though these fires are supposed to be controlled, they can get out of hand. May 20, 2016, a prescribed fire in Minnesota escaped and burned more than what was planned and continued unstopped for a few days. Firefighters finally were able to put a stop to it. This has increased in the United States quite a bit this year. The acres burned by escaped fires are forty-six percent above normal. Unlike what many think, prescribed fires are not always watched. Sometimes, they will be left for a couple days with no one checking on them. How do they expect to keep them controlled when no one wants to control them?
The Great Chicago Fire started on October 8th, 1871 and is said to be one of the biggest events in Chicago’s history. To this day, nobody really knows how the fire was started; however, most say it started in a barn behind the home of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary. There are claims that their cow was the cause, but that’s just one of the many myths that were started. The way that most of the buildings were built during this time, it was only a matter of time before a major fire happened. With all the catastrophic events that took place during the fire, there were also many great effects that occurred after the fire was over and the reconstruction process began.
It's is still unknown to exactly what caused this fire to start. Due to the ground being dry and the houses and building being constructed of wood, the fire consumed the area rapidly. When the fire broke out and fire fighters were dispatched they were sent to a different location by accident. Fire fights that arrived were exhausted from a large fire from the previous day. The fire had consumed the city and was so wide spread the firefighters were unable to control the fire.
Thesis: Politicians are proposing sweeping changes in bills, which have caused great controversy, in efforts to correct the problems that the Forest Service has
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.
The natural fuels in the forest build up and the fire's intensity becomes even greater as well as spreading faster. Just as a wildfire gets out of control very easily and quickly, there are steps, precautions, and certain weather conditions of which must be planned and prepared for in order to keep a prescribed forest fire in control and safe such as Professor Rick Laven explains in the "Benefits of Prescribed Burning" article. As long as the research and planning is done to ensure the fire will remain in control, the worry for an attempt to fail into disaster is not
Most commonly found in the western United States and known for wiping out our national parks, wildfires can be found almost anywhere warm and dry. Sadly, “in 2015, 58,916 human-caused wildfires burned over 2 million acres [of the world],” according to smokeybear.com. Although there are ways of slowing down these fires, they are very expensive and cannot completely stop them. So until we can advance our technology enough our parks will be in danger,
Other factors that contribute to natural bushfires are dry, hot climates with minimal rainfall, the availability of fuel and the presence of oxygen. Disposal of excess fuels in the forms of dried and or dead leaves or vegetation must be encouraged to reduce the chances of ignition by diminishing the medium for fires.
The Forest fire is occurring very frequently nowadays, reasons for it are a heavy increase in global warming and an increase in temperature.