California fires

I do feel very badly for those suffering losses.
What I referred to earlier are those folks we have seen, seemingly countless times, on TV who are crying because they have lost the third home in five years to brush fires. They keep rebuilding in the same location and the fires, predictably, will happen again. These are not low mentality people. They are successful, wealthy and supposedly smart people. I don't get it.
But, that said, these current fires are much worse than most others. It is terrible.

I hate to sound negative here, but as I get older I seem to gravitate towards that side more and more. Anyway I have found over the years that news coverage does not come anywhere near being accurate. Every time Maine hits the national news they get some white trash Mainer that has no teeth, no money and no work ethics who spouts off about how cold it is, how they don't have any money and are freezing to death from the latest blizzard or whatever. That is about all we have for bad weather. Still most of us know come this time of year you better have three things

A. Big pile of firewood
B. Tanks filled with propane or oil
c. Big pile of money in case you need to buy A or B.

I agree with you that the news media does show these people all the time, but I just learned that they are 1% of the population there. The other 99% are out helping, doing something good and are just to busy to be bothered by reporters.

California is a very big state with a lot of people, so I think that state is not all that bad to live in, its just the number of disasters that come from so many people over such a big area makes it APPEAR to be disaster prone. Still I will stay right here in Maine. We have gorgeous summers but thankfully very cold winters. I think the latter is what keeps the riff-raff out.

Up in Smoke

From our home in Anza California, to the left we can see Palomar Mtn. vigororsly burning along with other smoke trails from San Diego County. To the right, in the distance, a large smoke plume from the fires in Los Angeles County, including Arrowhead. The winds yesterday were sustained 50-60 with gusts to around 100. We had whole wood storage units blow away. Today, the wind was only 40-50 mph. The counties don't seem to be communicating well with each other, let alone to the state of California. There are fires everywhere around here and only a fraction of what is actually happening is being reported by the news media. We watched Mt. Palomar burn for hours before it hit the news this evening.
We make our living milling dead or fallen trees from these burn areas. It remains to be seen once the smoke clears what will be left economically, politically and socially. A huge number of good folks have lost everything. California is not what you see on TV.

rob durfos said:

We make our living milling dead or fallen trees from these burn areas.

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I am not sure what you are saying. I think that you mean that you harvest these areas before any fire occurs. Is there usable wood after a fire has gone through or is it mostly a total loss? I lived in Orange Co. and Rancho Bernado for a lot of years but did not think about that aspect at the time.

Rob, you're a lot closer to the nasty stuff than I am. I lived in Rancho Bernardo one summer years ago, but I've still got family in the area.

Watch your back, and I hope you've still got timber to gather when this is all over. Wishing the best for you.

Good luck out there.

Hearing about things like this puts things in perspective - the worst weather we get out here is either (but usually not both) needing to stay home from work for a week due to snow (I know, this is absolutely horrifying) or losing power for a week due to ice. One of these events may happen every other year. Once every 5 years or so, a tornado will touch down close enough to where you live to make you nervous. That's about it for the strange and dangerous weather out here.

I hope you guys out there make it through unscathed and that the insurance companies don't try to weasel out of making reparation payments in a timely fashion.

Again, good luck!

I talked to my cousin yesterday. She lives in Corona, CA. She said the fires surrounded her community but were between 20 and 35 miles away. I guess that is good news but that zone of comfort sounds pretty small to me. With the reported winds 20 miles can become zero miles pretty quickly. She did say that in past couple years she has cut and removed trees and brush surrounding her property. But, unfortunately, neighbors haven't.