[cypedembeda]

Lightning Ignites Hundreds of California Wildfires

SACRAMENTO, California, June 24, 2008 (ENS) - Hundreds of strike teams with fire engines and 4,300 firefighters from local agencies have been dispatched across northern and central California to do battle with more than 800 wildfires. Conditions of summer rain, wind and lightning along mountains and deserts over the last few days have caused hundreds of small fires and several larger blazes.

At least 57,940 acres have burned due to the Indians Fire in the Ventana Wilderness area of Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County. It is considered to be 66 percent contained. Two residences and 13 outbuildings have been destroyed, while 1,063 homes, 265 outbuildings and five commercial properties remain threatened. Nine firefighters have been injured as a result of this fire.

Although no evacuation orders have been issued at this time, a voluntary evacuation is in place for upper Pine Canyon and Arroyo Seco. An evacuation advisory is in place for lower Pine Canyon and Thompson Canyon.

Some 2,000 acres have burned due to the Gallery Fire, which began to burn on Saturday in the Big Sur area, causing imminent danger to a large number of residential and commercial properties and resulting in widespread evacuations.

On Friday, lightning strikes ignited a series of wildfires, known as the Lime Complex Fire, in Trinity County. This complex fire in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, five miles south of Hyampom, consists of more than 70 separate wildfires, ranging in size from one to 400 acres, which are driven by continuing dry conditions and wind.

The Lime Complex Fire has burned more than 4,000 acres. It is not yet contained, and the flames are threatening 1,200 residences and 300 outbuildings, as well as several youth camps, forcing evacuations.

In Shasta and Trinity counties, over 130 fires are burning on a total of 5,000 acres, threatening 13 communities. Eastbound Highway 299 may be affected by these fires.

The Basin Complex Fire is located near Big Sur in Monterey County. The fire is burning on 2,000 acres and is about 10 percent contained. At least 00 residences and 20 commercial properties in the Big Sur area are threatened.


Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, center, is briefed by
Del Walters, assistant regional chief, California Dept.
of Forestry and Fire Protection. (Photo courtesy Office
of the Governor)

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled Monday to Lagoon Valley Regional Park in Fairfield, the base camp for the Wild Fire incident in Napa and Solano counties where he was briefed on the status of firefighting efforts statewide.

The governor Monday proclaimed a state of emergency in Monterey and Trinity counties as a result of the numerous wildfires.

On Saturday, the governor ordered the California National Guard to mobilize a total of six helicopters and one RC-26 remote sensing platform to assist in combating the wildfires in Northern California.

Five National Guard helicopters with water dropping capabilities were deployed today to support firefighting efforts; two from Nevada, two from Oregon and one from the California Guard.

These are in addition to the six National Guard helicopters, RC-26 imaging aircraft and two Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems aircraft that were requested on Saturday and were moved into place in California earlier today.

Special Operational Area Satellite Information System, OASIS, trailers have been sent to the Indians Fire. OASIS trailers provide communication capabilities to emergency responders in remote parts of fire-damaged areas, where normal telephone and power sources have been disrupted.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2008/2008-06-24-093.asp
Copyright 2008 Environment News Service

[Podborodok]

Fire Unexpectedly Worsens; Big Sur Is Ordered to Evacuate


Smoke billows from the wildfires on Wednesday in Big Sur, Calif.

By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: July 3, 2008

BIG SUR, Calif. — Facing a stubborn fire, California officials ordered the evacuation of Big Sur on Wednesday as flames flared on nearby mountaintops and moved steadily toward this coastal retreat.

Firefighters have been attacking a fire near Big Sur for 11 days and had been helped in recent days by fog, moist conditions and lighter winds.

Seventeen homes have been lost here — more than half the total

destroyed statewide from the first major wildfires of the season — but many residents had been allowed to remain as the fire stayed to the east and south.

But overnight Tuesday the fire unexpectedly intensified, prompting mandatory evacuations of residents on both sides of Highway 1, the scenic coastal byway that runs through the Big Sur valley.

“It’s tough to move out of your home; we understand that,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who visited the town with federal emergency officials on Wednesday, “but do it.”

Yellow smoke and ash mixed in the air as a procession of possession-laden cars, trucks and vans streamed north out of town. Horses, goats, cats and dogs were also being trucked out by animal welfare workers, as helicopters ferried back and forth to the ocean, drawing out water to dump on smoldering hillsides east of town.

One of those evacuating was Erica Sanborn, 28, who was living with her husband and their dog in a hotel in Big Sur, having already been forced out of their home, farther south on the coast.

“I’m kind of numb,” said Ms. Sanborn, an emergency room nurse who awoke to an evacuation order after a night shift. “I would never think that Big Sur could burn.”

Statewide, more than 19,000 firefighters and other workers have been fighting fires since June 20, when a line of storms and lightning sparked hundreds of blazes across the northern and central parts of the state. The blaze near Big Sur — known as the Basin Complex — is just one of some 1,100 confirmed fires on federal and state lands in California, according to CalFire, the state fire agency, though exact figures were hard to confirm. Hundreds of others have been contained or put out.

Costs were also rising. State officials have spent more than $50 million on the current fires, according to CalFire. On Tuesday, Mr. Schwarzenegger had ordered around 200 National Guard troops to provide ground support to firefighters.

The major culprit in the blazes is a persistent drought that has made for volatile fire conditions. Steep terrain was also complicating firefighting efforts. Tina Rose, a spokeswoman for the fire operation, said that about 20 miles of Highway 1 along the coast were closed, shutting down access to famous — and currently shuttered — resorts like the Ventana Inn and the Post Ranch.

One local celebrity, the Beach Boys’ guitarist Al Jardine, said he had loaded up a trailer with musical equipment on Monday night, and was hoping to hold out before the evacuation order came.

“It’s depressing,” Mr. Jardine said. “People are walking around like zombies.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/us...hp&oref=slogin
Copyright 2008 New York Times Company

[VoriEremiagem]

The constant reminded of living in California. Having more than 1,000 wildfires within the same state is simply mind blowing. How do they put it all out is another question. I guess it's all up to mother nature, the same way she started the blazes

[jimmy28]

The question being, how many of these 13 communities are recent developments?

I do not remember this being such a problem in the past, even during drought seasons.



You know, it seems simple to me. You build a house in a flood zone, you build it on piers.

You build it in a fire zone, you think they would come up with some way of abating much of the risk (like the eco-friendly sub-terranian type houses that were shocased as far back as the 80's).

You build a cheap wooden house in a dry brushland... hell, you build a COMMUNITY of cheap wooden houses in a dry brushland you are just asking for problems.

[VYholden]

With Pride, Californians Step Up to Fight Fires


Members of the volunteer fire department in Comptche, Calif., fought a 2,000-acre blaze for nine days.

By CAROL POGASH
Published: July 7, 2008

ELK, Calif. — When he spotted a small fire two weeks ago atop a steep hill outside this blocklong town, Charlie Acker, 57, the president of the local school board and a volunteer firefighter, jumped inside his stubby red 1965 fire truck and, with a skid and a prayer, drove up the nearly vertical incline to check out the situation.

Knowing that every other volunteer firefighter in this community of 100 residents was battling a larger blaze nearby, he used his cellphone to call his wife. She roused a crew of young kayakers who cater to tourists in this picturesque old logging town at the edge of the Pacific, some 140 miles north of San Francisco, and joined Mr. Acker on the line.

The state fire agency, CalFire, had promised to send a helicopter, but just as Mr. Acker was waiting for the whump-whump of the blades, it was diverted, he said, “to a higher rent district” in another county. When he radioed for more firefighters and an air tanker with fire retardant, he was sent 13 state prison inmates and told he was on his own.


Charlie Acker, a volunteer firefighter in Elk, Calif., monitored hot spots on Thursday in a fire just outside the town, which is about 140 miles north of San Francisco.


For two weeks that has been the case here in Mendocino County, known for its majestic redwoods, prized grapevines and pungent marijuana plants. Resources have been stretched thin since lightning ignited about 1,100 fires throughout the drought-ridden region.

While the few cities in this county have paid firefighters, in the small communities that dot this region, fires are fought mostly by trained volunteers.

To fight the 123 fires that have been burning over 41,000 thickly wooded, mountainous acres, there was only one helicopter, no air tanker with fire retardant and no one tending to 17 of the fires. But help began arriving on Sunday: 15 helicopters, 3 air tankers and the promise of 200 National Guard soldiers. Tracy Boudreaux, the public information officer here for CalFire, said that with 1,700 personnel already working on the fire lines, the county could use twice that and more fire trucks and water tenders.

The fires are 45 percent contained with only two fires unattended.


Lori Kaye, a volunteer firefighter in Elk. Many areas have relied on volunteers since the fires started.

When the lightning fires struck in June, Mr. Acker said, “The entire governmental system broke down; we had to rely on ourselves and our neighbors.”

Residents ran tabs at local stations to pay for gasoline for fire engines. Merchants placed tall jars on counters seeking contributions. A restaurateur offered firefighters free meals.

The owner of a hardware store refused payment from volunteer firefighters for crucial supplies. When a local radio station called for money to help defray firefighting costs, people descended on the Redwood Drive-In, known for its malts, shakes and curly fries, and donated more than $4,000.


A window display in a hardware store in Boonville, Calif., saluted volunteer firefighters.

Landscapers whacked and carted away brush around houses free of charge. A caterer fed 150 volunteer firefighters daily. One market delivered submarine sandwiches to the weary workers, while residents baked gooey cakes and made quinoa salads. A fire chief’s wife grilled steak fajitas for a crew of inmates. Another woman delivered tinctures and balms to firefighters to soothe sore muscles and dry throats. On a map in the Boonville firehouse, a sign offered free massages.

When the blazes broke out, Leggett, population 300, had more fires than firefighters until an unsanctioned call went out on local radio and some 40 people with rakes and shovels began showing up at the firehouse every morning.


Mr. Acker at the site of a contained fire on Thursday.

Residents expressed both pride and shock that they mostly had to fend for themselves. “This community of rugged individualists pulling together is part of the reason we love where we live,” said Deborah Cahn, who with her family owns Navarro Vineyards. “But isn’t this what government is supposed to do?”

On June 21, traffic on CalFire’s Web site was so heavy that Ms. Boudreaux, the public information officer, could not log on to order equipment. “You got what you got,” she said she was told when she called. “Nothing else is coming.”

Ms. Boudreaux said: “With the number of fires in Northern California, the resources were limited. It has been phenomenal that we have avoided potential catastrophic disasters to life and structures.” Just two homes have been destroyed in the fires.

“This is not a normal situation for CalFire, one of the largest fire organizations in the world,” she continued. The lack of resources has been “shocking across the board,” she said.

Ms. Cahn said that when she spotted smoke near her ridge, the 911 operator told her no resources were available. It took three days before firefighters were available to find and fight the blaze. Bob Roland, a 63-year-old retired aerospace executive and volunteer firefighter died Thursday, apparently of a heart attack, while folding hoses at that fire.

Colin Wilson, the fire chief in Boonville, described managing about seven fires with 30 firefighters working continuously for several days. “We knew we had no resources,” he said.


Andrew Navarro, a volunteer firefighter in Elk, slid down a hillside on Thursday.

Throughout the siege, firefighters have had to attend to medical emergencies unrelated to the fires. When he was off the mountain, Mr. Acker said he helped a woman who thought she was suffering a stroke.

Instead, he said, she was having a strong reaction to a birthday cake laced with marijuana.

Michael Maynard, a fire captain with CalFire who was checking on his parents’ home in a rural development built a few decades ago, said he jumped through flames to save four residents, one in capri pants and flip-flops, who were fighting a fire on their own.

“It was a little hairy,” Mr. Maynard said. “I wouldn’t do it again.”

Larry Tunzi, 49, a cattle rancher and volunteer fire chief in Comptche, a nook where everyone knows your name, stood on a ridge-top recently and counted 30 fires to be fought by his crew, which included a carpenter, a butcher, a nurse, computer programmers and Wally Stubbs, a 70-year-old retired chief operating officer of a manufacturing company. Many ended up working 60 hours on the line without going home.

With two other volunteer firefighters, Patty McCummings, 53, a real estate agent, spent one night with little water and only hand tools fighting back flames that jumped a line on a ridge that “was steeper than a cow’s face,” Ms. McCummings said. Mr. Tunzi called their efforts “the last stand at Tank 4 Gulch.”


Fires are burning in Mendocino and Monterey Counties.

During a break, Mr. Stubbs said, “I’ve never been prouder of working with any people than I was with this group.”

As David Severn, part of an all-volunteer ambulance crew in Boonville, said, “Fending for yourself in this community does not mean you’re standing alone.”

Copyright 2008 New York Times Company

[reawnvam]

Brothers' backfire saves family compound in Big Sur
The controlled burn kept the Basin Complex blaze from destroying homes on their 55 acres on Apple Pie Ridge. But what some see as a heroic act landed one man in jail.


Micah Curtis, left, and son Tyson have been defending their 55-acre compound on Apple Pie Ridge
in Big Sur. Micah’s brother Ross is accused of setting a backfire to protect the property after
disobeying official orders to stop. (Robert Durell, Los Angeles Times)

By Eric Bailey and Deborah Schoch
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 7, 2008

BIG SUR — As flames swirled toward their family homestead, the Curtis brothers figured they'd get no help and had no choice: The only way to hold on to their 55-acre compound would be to fight fire with fire.

In the end, the controlled burn they set helped save the homes on their beloved Apple Pie Ridge -- but not without major consequences.

Outraged authorities arrested Ross Curtis, 48, on Friday on suspicion of illegally setting a backfire after disobeying official orders to stop.

His older brother, Micah, remains in Big Sur but is acting like a wanted man, dodging sheriff's deputies when he descends from the homestead to Highway 1.

"I understand what's going on. They don't want a bunch of idiots setting off fires that could do more harm than good," Micah Curtis, a 57-year-old artist, said as he walked the scene of the crime Saturday. "But we saved our homes. I'm not asking them to condone it, but they've got to understand it."

As fires approach, homeowners often take up garden hoses to face down flames. But for them to light backfires is rare, authorities say -- and they'd like it to stay that way.

Cliff Williams, the law enforcement official with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection who arrested Ross Curtis, said fire crews went to the ridge several times and ordered a stop.

Instead, the brothers kept up their rebel battle.

"Mr. Curtis over a period of three days decided he wanted to fight the fire his way," Williams said. "So he started setting backfires."

And that tricky firefighting technique, Williams said, is best left to professionals backed up by full crews and fire engines. Such fires can blow out of control, he said, burning other houses or inadvertently trapping people.

The brothers, who live with relatives and several tenants in a terraced collection of artsy, redwood-sided homes, including one fashioned from an old water tank, say they knew there were risks but believed there was too much at stake not to take action.

They have plenty of land but are hardly wealthy. Ross Curtis is an electrical contractor. Micah Curtis sculpts steel.

Income from the rental homes pays for the care of their elderly mother, who has Alzheimer's disease. They weren't only fighting for themselves, Micah said, they were defending Mom and Apple Pie Ridge.

The family has owned the 55 acres since the early 1960s, when patriarch Jack Curtis -- a Hollywood television writer, with "Gunsmoke" and "The Rifleman" among his credits -- traded up from a smaller place down the mountainside to this property that straddles a redwood-carpeted ridge 1,000 feet above Big Sur River.

Over the years, the Curtises have improved the various buildings. They planted a 200-tree avocado orchard, carved out the terraced gardens, laid out a funky spread of concrete ponds with lily pads, and carefully pruned rosebushes and ornamental shrubs.

The brothers took over stewardship of the property after their father died six years ago.

"Dad was the Duke of Apple Pie," Micah said. "I guess that makes me the Earl."

In the last 25 years, they have fought back flames twice before, he said. He learned how as a seasonal firefighter while in college.

But the Basin Complex fire, raging for the last two weeks, has been the worst test yet.

It started when a volley of crackling bolts from a lightning storm sent flames roaring.

The Curtis brothers watched with the rest of Monterey County -- and began to prepare for the worst at the first signs of nearby smoke.

With their tenants, friends and relatives stepping up to help, they used chain saws, hoes and shovels to clear fire breaks around the buildings, hauling away at least 150 pickup-truck loads of vegetation, Micah Curtis said.

On Thursday, the situation got particularly dicey as the fire picked up strength and bore down on their retreat, a five-minute drive up a twisting dirt road from Big Sur village.

Their small team of amateurs toiled into the night, trying to beat back flames by pumping water from the swimming pool with makeshift fire hoses.

As the fire closed in on three sides, Micah Curtis said, they used a flare to set controlled burns no more than a dozen feet from the blaze. That not only steered it away from their houses, he said, but also created a broader line of defense, which helped state and federal fire crews protect the village below.

Giving a tour of the property over the weekend, Micah Curtis bumped into a state fire captain doing mop-up work with an inmate crew.

The captain, who asked not to be identified because of the controversy, praised the work of the amateurs of Apple Pie Ridge.

"I'll tell you what," the captain told him, "you guys did a good job of holding it."

Praise also came from other professionals.

"Awesome," a U.S. Forest Service crew leader said, shaking his head in disbelief. "You did an awful lot of work up here."

Walking his property Saturday, Micah Curtis, still in a silver hard hat and a yellow fire suit smudged by soot and dirt, pointed just down the ridge to a neighbor's home, now only a smoldering pile of debris.

As flames encroached, he said, he feared that the fire would circle below his family's homestead and "come racing up at us through a thousand feet of dry brush."

As for the backfires, he said, "I was the one who OKd the idea. So the buck stops with me."

His younger brother, however, took the fall.

They were at work on the backfires when fire officials spied them from the other side of the Big Sur River gorge, Micah Curtis said. When officers arrived on the scene, Ross Curtis turned himself in as the culprit so the others could keep working.

Micah Curtis still believes that he and his brother should be receiving thanks, not condemnation, from the authorities.

After all, he said, firefighters didn't volunteer to do the job for them.

"They have some computer program that says our place is undefendable," he said. "But their idea of defendable space is something as flat as Nebraska. This is no more dangerous than some sketchy part of L.A., and that doesn't keep the police from going into a rough neighborhood."

Ross Curtis, however, sounds more contrite. Maybe it's the experience of having been behind bars, even if he was bailed out after only a few hours.

He is scheduled to be arraigned July 15 on two misdemeanor counts. In the meantime, he can't get through the police blockade set up after evacuation orders. So he's staying in a trailer near Monterey Bay, lent to him by his wife's father, a Baptist preacher.

Without their two weeks of toil, Ross Curtis believes, the family's ridge-top homes would have been destroyed. He said he doesn't think he's guilty of anything more than protecting land he cherishes. Still, he understands why fire officials are irate.

They explained it to him, he said, during his brief stay in jail. An unauthorized backfire, they said, can catch a team of firefighters unaware and perhaps put those crews in danger. Kill a firefighter, they told him, and you go to prison for life.

"Their concern was for their firefighters, and to them, we were a bunch of renegades or something," Ross Curtis said. "All it takes is one gust of wind at the wrong time and it can go sideways on you."

And that, he said, "can be the difference between a good day and a bad day."

eric.bailey@latimes.com

deborah.schoch@latimes.com