Posted on 09/13/2015 6:51:12 PM PDT by jazusamo
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — Two of California’s fastest-burning wildfires in decades overtook several Northern California towns, destroying more than 180 homes and sending residents fleeing Sunday on highways lined with buildings, guardrails and cars still in flames.
At least 100 homes were destroyed by a wildfire north of San Francisco in Lake County that raced through dry brush and exploded in size within hours, officials said. The devastation comes after a separate wildfire to the southeast destroyed at least 81 homes.
Residents fled from Middletown, dodging smoldering telephone poles, downed power lines and fallen trees as they drove through billowing smoke.
Whole blocks of houses were burned in parts of the town of more than 1,000 residents that lies about 20 miles north of the famed Napa Valley. On the west side of town, house after house was burned to their foundations, with only charred appliances and twisted metal garage doors still recognizable.
Firefighters on Sunday afternoon could be seen driving around flaming utility poles to put out spot fires. Homeowner Justin Galvin, 33, himself a firefighter, stood alone at his house, poking its shin-high, smoking ruins with a piece of scrap metal.
“This is my home. Or it was,” said Galvin, who spent all night fighting another fire in Amador County.
Wind gusts that reached up to 30 miles per hour sent embers raining down on homes and made it hard for firefighters to stop the Lake County blaze from advancing, California Department of Forest Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Our friends lost their home in this fire. They bugged out and are safe but sad as you can imagine.
How rude to the host of Free Republic.
It is not a USFS fire. It is a CDF fire and is called Valley Fire. The control thing is a little weird. This fire is not on forest service land, yet.
Why is Mexifornia less capable of managing basic civil engineering than pre-civil war Kansas?
Could it be that Kansas is flat as a pancake while California ranges from sea level to over 14,000 feet in elevation with thousands of square miles of rugged wilderness?
Unfortunately he pretty accurate. The tree huggers have prevented anything close to naturally sustainable forests.
Put every fire out RIGHT NOW, and in few decades you so much fuel built up around the homes that the inevitable fire is devastating.
Yes you are correct. I found that out when I searched the
USFS incident site and couldn’t find “Valley Fire”. I went to the Cal Fire site and there it was.
Yes, every time I’m up there, I only seem to see salt of the earth people. I feel sorry for them all.
Not so. These fires are not in forests, they’re in brushlands and scrub. When low humidity and winds cause extremely low fuel moisture combined with high winds there’s no fuel or firebreak that will stop the advance of the fire.
She’s an elementary school teacher, he’s a writer covering the wineries for a local paper and a local musician. Three daughters around middles school age. Good people.
Some brush/scrub, but quite alot of rather impressive forest, too. Cobb Mountain is thick with springs and associated ecosystems. Was once (perhaps) the most famous resort destination in California. Google “Hoberg’s Resort” for a glimpse of what’s been lost.
I know exactly where they are. I grew up there.
Who or what ignited the fire?
I don’t know.
What a f@cking idiot you are for politicizing this terrible event. Stupid f@ckhead..
As it happens, I lived in California in the early eighties.
Environmental whacko-ism has consequences.
It did when I lived there and nothing had changed when I flew back for a week in 2013.
I choose not to live there because of the Government imposed stupidity.
You can wring your hands and doubt all you want.
At no time ever did I inject politics into the situation.
It would literally be impossible for me to do so.
Weird far leftists injected politics into the situation decades ago by not allowing proper fire breaks to be maintained under the aegis of environmental regulations.
This has caused fires to spread faster and be harder to contain than in other parts of the country with similar terrain.
Pointing it out does not make me the cause.
Valley Fire....
Started in a house next to a church, or so the story goes, up on Cobb Mtn.
I was following it on twitter (#valleyfire).
They say one person has died. To be honest I’m surprised there aren’t more. Although it is still early - but hopefully that is all there is. Still zero percent contained.
This person left Anderson Springs up Hwy 175 on the way to Cobb just a bit later than he should have....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lVPB3HI9Wg
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