Fire

[JD_Slasha]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire25jun25,0,155165.story?coll=la-home-local

So yeah. this is the freaking town I live in. Right now a huge fire is raging 5 miles away from where I sit, and the cause was some negligent camper (or atleast something to do with humans as is being reported) What gets to me is that hundreds of people I know have lost their homes because of this and it all could've been prevented. Any thoughts on the matter? I'm curious to see other point of views, as mine is going to be biased since this event is happening in my near vicinity. Anybody live in similar heavily wooded areas like Lake Tahoe, CA.? It really makes me take it seriously when people are told to be careful when they camp and kill out any and all fires they make. I dunno, it might be just me feeling a little stressed bout' this, but I felt like sharing. Discuss.

EDIT: If this happens to be in the wrong forum, sorry, can someone move it please?

 

[Fafnir]

Yeah, big as hell fires are NOT FUN. Of course, quite a few are natural, and the only thing to do is whatever you can to stop them from reaching homes(or, if it's someone you don't like, fanning the fire to them....).
Of course, people who start fires in dry seasons in the middle of the woods are idiots...

 

[Rhazdel]

It's a very scary idea. It is always terrible to hear about the destruction and loss of homes due to an incident that could have easily been prevented.

And yes, I used to live in a heavily wooded area (about an hour and a half from South Lake Tahoe!), so I have seen the devastation fires can cause. I grew up in Camino/Placerville. You probably know Placerville as the ONLY place on Highway 50 that has traffic lights between Tahoe and Sacramento. :s

Got to love "Old Hangtown"
/sarcasm

 

[JD_Slasha]

Lol, yeah Plcerville's pretty close. Crazy stuff with this fire. now it's estiated that 150 homes have burnt down in town. Again, I cannot stress the importance of fire safety out in the woods.

 

[Roman Candle]

I wonder if they regularly fire the woodlands there. If not, then it wasn't exactly an easily preventable accident, it was only an easily preventable accident this time.

 

[JD_Slasha]

Well our town has worried about this for over 10 years now, we have this agency in town called the TRPA (Tahoe Regional Planning Agency) that has this intention to save the woodlands in Tahoe, problem is they have such high restrictions with what you can and can't do with treees and dry woodland around your houses. Well sure enough a fire began and some say that because of the TRPA's regulations, many houses that could've been saved were lost. It's pretty devastating to see somewhere I grew up in become chaotic like this, luckily the community's banding together and there aren't any fatalities and slowly we're beginning to step foward again. Anyways, it can be debated whether or not the fire was preventable, I don't think it really was, they call out town a matchbook area because of the fact that we have fire fuel EVERYWHERE, but yeah. I think that instead of cutting forests down, the real plan would be to stop building houses so far into the woodland areas. Maybe that is what could prevent such a great loss...

 

[Monk]

Well our town has worried about this for over 10 years now, we have this agency in town called the TRPA (Tahoe Regional Planning Agency) that has this intention to save the woodlands in Tahoe, problem is they have such high restrictions with what you can and can't do with treees and dry woodland around your houses. Well sure enough a fire began and some say that because of the TRPA's regulations, many houses that could've been saved were lost. It's pretty devastating to see somewhere I grew up in become chaotic like this, luckily the community's banding together and there aren't any fatalities and slowly we're beginning to step foward again. Anyways, it can be debated whether or not the fire was preventable, I don't think it really was, they call out town a matchbook area because of the fact that we have fire fuel EVERYWHERE, but yeah. I think that instead of cutting forests down, the real plan would be to stop building houses so far into the woodland areas. Maybe that is what could prevent such a great loss...

I would actually be pretty interested to see the data on what percentage of forest fires were caused by what (i.e. what percentages were caused by cigarettes, arson, out-of-control campfires, etc).

 

[Rhazdel]

Most fires up in Northern California are caused by recklessness/carelessness. Very few fires are caused by direct arson (at least, according to the police reports in the newspaper).

An unrelated/semi-related tragic story that happened not too far from me, rather recently:

A woman was driving drunk on a small back road and weaved into the other lane. She struck a motorcycle head-on (the rider was tragically killed in the accident), and then she hit-and-run. She continued to drive down the road, fleeing the scene (and later police), but she had blown out one of her tires and was riding on the rim. The sparks created from the rim on the pavement shot off the road into the grass, creating 22 separate fires, which burned several acres (and destroyed 2 homes, I believe).

 

[WeissRaben]

Well...even if it's not America, some years ago I was on holyday on the island of Ischia, near Naples.
Ischia is called the "green Island", and it's not hard to understand why: woods everywhere. A magical place.
Yet, I was saying, some years ago I was at my friend's home and I could say the fires burn on the nearby hills...it's quite a terrifying view...