Posted on 10/25/2007 3:49:20 PM PDT by AuntB
Growing up on Southern California’s fault line, I learned to love the tremors that as elementary school children we felt every week.
Earthquakes were terrifying and destructive, but each quake also carried an important lesson — the material possessions we traded life’s precious hours for and looked to as a security blanket could be destroyed at any instant.
As I write this under a blood red rising moon, smelling acrid smoke with every breath, I’ve begun to ponder the lessons to be learned from living on this fire line that by one estimate this week turned 900,000 Californians into evacuees.
San Diego County exemplified calm and courage under fire, with neighbors so eager to help one another that shelters had to turn away an overabundant flow of donated food, clothing, and other material items.
One of every six county residents became an evacuee during the fires. But as dry Santa Ana winds blasted fires towards the sea, more than half of county residents contemplated evacuation and which possessions should be saved.
Weighed in this balance of natural destruction, a wedding picture or baby photo was suddenly recognized as more valuable than trinkets that cost far more in mere dollars.
Heroic firefighters put their lives on this line to defend homes. Near where I dwell, wealthy folks such as conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza live in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe. Firefighters stopped the Witch Creek fire’s tongues of flame licking the wall surrounding one of Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ homes. Several other multimillion-dollar homes there went up in smoke.
As the embers cool, investigators in public and private will begin asking some hard questions, including how in blazes these fires happened: Were some of the purportedly wild fires scorching more than 600 square miles of Southern California this week set by border-crossing Islamist terrorists?
San Diego County, hit hardest by the fires, is the Pacific Command Center of the U.S. Navy, home port to several of the warships now in and around the Persian Gulf, and home to the huge U.S. Marines training facility Camp Pendleton.
As many as one third of San Diego area residents are present or former active military personnel or otherwise employed in defense-related ways.
San Diego is also home to a large community of Chaldean Christians who fled their native Iraq to escape Muslim persecution.
At least two al-Qaida suicide skyjackers on 9/11 had lived and trained in San Diego.
Although a new Osama bin Laden video was issued at almost exactly the same time these fires began, and might have contained a coded command to his operatives to carry out planned arsons, it makes sense that al-Qaida has claimed no credit for the fires.
These blazes have cost Federal, state and local governments an estimated $100 million in fire fighting expenses, and have cost Southern Californians and their insurance companies billions.
An Oxford-educated engineer, bin Laden knows the power of asymmetrical warfare wherein a few matches and bottles of gasoline can cause millions of times their cost in damage to enemies, from military families in San Diego to morally-corrupting Hollywood stars in Malibu.
But bin Laden would probably be embarrassed, in the wake of his astonishing terrorist “achievement” on 9/11, to be seen resorting to mere fire setting around the homes of innocent people. This is the sort of insanity Earth Liberation Front enviro-terrorists used in San Diego in 2003, torching a large housing development under construction.
Other possibilities: the fires were all accidental, like the one north of Los Angeles reportedly touched off by a spark from welding equipment.
Or, perhaps, one or more of these fires were ignited accidentally by an illegal alien’s campfire, as has happened before in Southern California. Even if evidence points this way, do not expect the liberal media to report anything this politically incorrect — or this likely to give inconvenient fuel to critics of our liberal border policies.
The Sierra Club not long ago nearly had a schism over the huge ecological damage done by illegal aliens but voted that its deepest loyalty was not to the environment, but to the power illegal aliens could give to the Democratic Party.
At least one of these major fires reportedly began almost simultaneously in three different locations — a likely sign of arson.
A recent major blaze in Arizona was set by an unemployed firefighter who saw firebuggery as a great way to get re-hired and make money. And some arsonists will set a large fire to blow smoke over the destruction of a specific target, e.g., the property of someone they hate.
Some have been quick to exploit the fires. California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer blamed their destructiveness on the war in Iraq, arguing that the war diverted personnel and equipment that could have been used in fire-fighting by California’s National Guard.
Environmentalists have used the fires to push their agenda against global warming. But recent dryness in the West is more likely caused by natural drought cycles and by a Pacific Ocean phenomenon, known as La Nina, associated with reduced rainfall.
Contrary to ignorant Al Gore-like assumptions, global warming could very well bring more rainfall to the Southwestern United States — the kind of enhanced rainfall that once grew the trees that turned into Arizona’s Petrified Forest in what today is desert.
TV and radio talk-host Glenn Beck deserves credit for having Competitive Enterprise Institute experts Chris Horner and R.J. Smith explain how radical government environmental policies under President Bill Clinton interfered with rational forest and brush management, and set America up for today’s catastrophic super-fires.
A typical example of such government mismanagement came in a Southern California beach community a few years ago where residents were prohibited from clearing brush near their homes, lest they harm an “endangered species” of rat that lived there.
When fire, a natural part of the region’s ecology, recurred it burned the homes, the brush, and the legally-privileged rats.
Now we have become fire-burned experimental animals for left-wing firebrands.
Earlier on radio, I heard that one fire starter had been arrested, an illegal alien. I don't know if this is what they were talking about, but it's the only article I could find.
"Two more people have been booked for investigation of arson in Southern California. Authorities say an adult and a juvenile were arrested after they started a small brush fire Tuesday night in the San Diego suburb of Vista. The fire burned about 200 square feet before firefighters put it out.
The adult was identified as Gorgonio Nava. The other was not identified because he is a juvenile.
At least four people have been arrested for investigation of arson since the wildfires broke out over the weekend."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/24/state/n125813D95.DTL&tsp=1
What’s Algore’s take on man-made arson?
global warming induces feelings of inadequacy in liberals and they take it out on us in the form of arson and higher taxes
If these fires were terrorist related, why would Lake Arrowhead be on fire? This is a resort area with many full timers.
I don’t know what the most recent figure is, but yesterday I was hearing some estimates that 1,400 plus homes had been destroyed. I hadn’t heard the illegal immigrant angle on this yet. That’s interesting.
What if it did turn out to be an illegal immigrant that did this? I wonder if Bush would continue to claim that we need them, family values don’t stop at the border and all the other cutsie catch phrases that seem to keep him and his globalists delighted.
The illegal immigrant angle may not be the case at all. It is worth pondering if for no other reason than to show how vulnerable we are to illegals and foreign nationals that come from nations where the prdominant Muslim sect is quite anti-American.
This is no laughing matter. These firestorms are serious. We are vulnerable, and yet the prevailing view from Washington, D.C. is not how to protect us, but... “...how to slip one through on those citizen who were stupid enough to vote for me.”
Bush needs to contemplate this. So do the rest of the Republicans, specifically those in Congress and those at the top of the RNC.
One of these days, another group or individual that shouldn’t be here in our nation are going to take out some of our infrastructure. And next time folks may not be as forgiving of our government officials as they were the last time around.
We demand to be protected from obvious threats to our security, whether this time was attributable to that or not. It should have been an eye opener. Let’s hope it was.
Some of these may have been started by downed power lines and some may have been started by arson. It’s probably a mixed bag.
That is very true! But, terrorist, I don’t think so!
I reference that because evidently one of our security details found terrorist’s notes that mentioned setting fires as a way to attack this nation. Forest fires was the way to go according to the plans.
Did that happen here? No. Is it a possiblility? Should we act as if it is a threat? Sure we should.
I had heard this before, but someone the other day was talking about Japan’s use of incindery balloons during the Second World War.
Now that it’s been made fairly clear how 1400 homes could be taken out by one match, I doubt terrorists are doing to dismiss the thought as easily as some here might.
Thanks for the post. Prayers to the victims.
I understand 1 fire started from a power line, 1 started from an automobile crash, and another from a welding mishap.
The video may have been a signal for the fires to be set. The fires may be the signal for an even greater attack involving bioterror according to a plan clearly laid out after 911. 911 could have just been a distraction to allow the placement of many trained bioterrorists. The full moon followed 48 hours later by mosque day...the timing is right. Pray and watch.
Well, Aunt B, from my recent trip back to CA, I’ve noticed that many Californians are happy in their slavery. Otherwise, why would they fear cutting back the manzinita and sugar pine licking against the sides of their homes? They’e afraid what the eco-fascists might say, afraid they might get fined for destroying titmouse habitat, afraid that they’d have to confront the biggest nature-worshipping fascist gang since Nazi Germany fell.
Californians live in fear and slavery and don’t have the fortitude to fight. In fact, some get angry and defend their serfdom.
The few good peoople remaining in California are doomed, much as the few productive people remaining in my state of Michigan are likewise buzzard bait for the socialists.
The illegal problem is really coming home to roost! America will figure it out eventually, but until then, we are in for a heap of pain.
I volunteer for a town information office where I live, here in Virginia. A very nice lady from San Diego came in today and we had a long chat on this subject.
Her home was fine as it was in the origional area of San Diego. It seems they have expanded building north and east of town into these dangerous areas and that they were the only ones effected. She estimated that 7 to 10 thousand people actually will be homeless.
In the Running Springs Lake Arrowhead area, there is old growth. If you’re going to clear away all the combustibles from around your home, you’ll be cutting down a lot of old trees 50 to 100 feet tall. And if you and your neighbors cut down all threats, the Forest would essentially be gone for a significant area.
In the newer developments, the landscaping was such that the brush was cleared away from the homes for a fair amount of distance, but when the wind is blowing at 60 to 80 miles per hour through the canyons and in the foothills, it doesn’t make much difference.
I live around 70 miles from Lake Arrowhead. My car was covered with ashes for the last couple of days from that fire. The sun didn’t come out over my home all day on Wednesday. The smoke from that fire has wafted at least 120 miles to the ocean.
I’m not implying that sparks came all that way, but believe me they do go for a significant ways.
You are right to point out that some folks don’t clear the brush around their homes. They should. A lot of people do a good job trying to keep their homes clear though. Sometimes that saves the house and other times it just doesn’t.
The homes that burned during the last few days in San Diego weren’t terrible overgrown with brush. If you were watching on the television, there were a lot of homes burning that were standing in the middle of clearings.
There are going to be times when large fires take out homes. There are going to be times when hurricanes or tornadoes take out homes. There will also be times when earthquakes take out homes. There’s only so much you can do.
One fire fighter was doing an interview on the television and the subject of tile roofs came up. He stated that they are better of course, but that the tile roofs can’t protect the homes in serious fires. Sparks blow from 100 yards away and soon you’ve got smoke an flames even on those roofs.
You MUST see this video. It’s an interview of some of the ‘immigrant’ thieves at Qualcom stadium.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apLPDKInafo
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