Fire Season Strikes in California

[Kodiak]

Slightly less well known than hurricane season is California wildfire season.

Thousands evacuated as fire in Santa Cruz Mountains rages

BONNY DOON — More than 2,000 people have been evacuated. More than 1,000 structures are threatened. And a steady stream of cars continue to make their way down the mountain as residents are forced to flee their homes, some for the second time in 14 months.

Tensions are running high in the Santa Cruz Mountains as smoke billows from the ridges and ashes cover the ground carried by a southerly wind.

"Don't wait 'til the last minute to get out of there," Cal Fire Battalion Chief Julie Hutchinson from Riverside said.

At 11 a.m. Cal Fire officials hit the "trigger point" and announced the mandatory evacuation of Bonny Doon sending sheriff's deputies door to door. Not everyone complied.

Harold Poehler, who lives at 90 Carter Road in Bonny Doon, said "I'm a trained firefighter, I can run a hose, and I'll help out if they need me."

Poehler was refusing to obey the evacuation notice. "I'm going to wait until it gets over that hill, then I'll run like hell, but I don't think we have anything to worry about."

Cal Fire has set trigger points that prompt the evacuations. They say homes are not necessarily in danger but they need to get fire crews in place to attack the blaze and need residents out of the area.

Pinning down the acreage burned — which ranged from 1,900 to 2,800 acres — has proven difficult, a situation not uncommon for a working out-of-control wildfire.

Cal Fire spokesman Mike Mohler said after flying over the area this morning, they believed the fire to be 1,900 acres. At the Cal Fire Command Center, the estimate ranged up to 2,500 acres at 11:30 a.m., Battalion Chief Michael Borelli said. The Cal Fire Web site, updated at noon, put the acreage at 2,800.

"It's still making runs, but it's not growing like it was last night," he said. "But the winds will pick up this afternoon."

Two thousand firefighters, six air tankers and eight helicopters, were among the resources fighting the fire that ignited just after 7 p.m. Wednesday. Fire crews are fighting steep terrain, high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts, Mohler said.

"It's way too early (for a cause)," Mohler said. "We don't have anything yet."

More than 1,000 structures are threatened. Mandatory evacuations affect 500 to 1,000 homes in the Bonny Doon area, and 300 people in the Swanton area, but none had been reported destroyed. Evacuations were ordered in the Swanton area, Last Chance Road north of Davenport and all of Bonny Doon. Roads at least partially closed today include Empire Grade, Swanton Road, Bonny Doon Road, Pine Flat Road, Ice Cream Grade and Smith Grade.

"We're bringing in hundreds of engines," Mohler said to dig fire line and protect structures.

"Its weather and topography that really affects our fire fight," Mohler said.

From high atop Filice Ranch on Warnella Road, John Filice and his son, Anthony, watched the fire grow and begin to eat away on the western edge of their property this morning.

The 400-acre cattle and horse ranch has been in the family for 60 years and the men weren't about to leave.

"I'll do what I have to do to fight it," the elder Filice said.

They'd cleared a huge defensible space, evacuated Anthony's wife and all but one horse, Old Paul. The 33-year-old quarter horse is "old and wouldn't withstand the trip," John Filice said.

A half-dozen cattle were roaming the ranch, which also has a working logging operation.

Filice has two houses on the property and was hosting a handful of firefighters and engines from the Cal Fire station in Soquel.

The view from the ranch gave firefighters the perfect angle to alert air support to hotspots. As the rancher watched the fire gobble up the edge of his property, he helped firefighters map the roads and work out their plan of attack.

A nearby logging operation on the Cemex property was evacuated Thursday morning as fears flames would overtake it grew. A half-dozen men left the site; one with a water tender remained to help fight the fire.

Cal Fire Capt. Stuart Clawson of Soquel had been on the Filice Ranch since just after the fire started Wednesday night.

"We were the only eyes and ears out here this morning," he said.

The ranch sits above the fire, due east of Swanton in the hills about four miles west of Empire Grade Road.

Their most immediate fear: a 90 percent chance that fire would jump Warnella Road.

On the border of Bonny Doon along Bonny Doon Road fire trucks were amassed prepared to protect the town from encroaching fire.

Residents were packing up after being told about 11 a.m. that the voluntary evacuation had become mandatory.

Sonia Toren and her family were putting boxes into the pickup carrying suitcases from the house. "This is rotten scary I have to tell you," Toren said.

Many of these residents including Toren are facing their second fire in 14 months.

Thom Zajac carrying hanger loads out to his car on Pine Flat Road said it's difficult to assess the danger. The firefighters did such a fantastic job last year with the Martin Fire he hopes they'll be able to save homes this time around too.

"But despite their best efforts, when a fire makes up it's mind what it's going to do, there's not much you can do," Zajac said.

A woman just across the street from Zajac's house had already loaded a horse into a trailer. Her two little terriers were in a crate in her SUV. She didn't stop to talk but she acknowledged she was scared as she ran back to the house.

At Pacific School Thursday morning, office manager Noel Bock is the acting as the community liason for Davenport residents and school staff.

"I'm just fielding a lot of phone calls," she said. "I would like to be doing enrollment packets."

Wednesday night, the school acted as an emergency shelter for evacuees. Thursday, that facility had moved to the Vintage Faith Church at 350 Mission St. in Santa Cruz.

Still, North Coast residents turned to the school for information. Bock said she was e-mailing people as quickly as she got information, which ranged from fire updates to where their pets were being housed.

Residents of Swanton and Last Chance roads were ordered out Wednesday night, and Bock said most people had evacuated.

The evacuation center moved from Pacific School in Davenport to Vintage Church, 350 Mission St., in Santa Cruz and residents of Bonny Doon were being asked to evacuate because of concerns about shifting winds later today that could push the fire east.

Lisa Palm, president of Bonny Doon School District board, lives on Empire Grade Road, five miles south of the Lockheed Martin campus. She got the call to evacuate at 11 a.m. At noon she her husband Michael Fairman, their daughters Sage, 11, and Amber, 8, are walking out the door to stay with friends in Scotts Valley. They took with them two 6-week-old kittens, six dwarf hamsters and enough clothes for three days as well as family picture albums, jewelry and musical instruments.

"We don't question it after last year," Lisa Palm said of evacuation orders and last year's Martin Fire.

Fire crews were staging at a Davenport firehouse this morning.

At Lud and Barbara McCrary's property in Swanton, the fire was burning on the ridge about a half-mile from their house.

The McCrarys refused to evacuate when the Lockheed Fire broke out Wednesday night.

"I think I had about two hours of sleep last night, maybe three," Barbara McCrary said.

Thursday morning, she motored around their hilly property in a John Deere Gator to feed the cows, see the fire damage and assess what Cal Fire crews were doing.

So far, the flames hadn't threatened the couple's home, though flames had blackened some of the grass in their pastures.

"Our poor field — stripped. No more cow food," she said.

Wednesday night, the McCrarys watched the fire start north of their land.

"It jumped from ridge to ridge, jumping the canyons," she said.

The area where the fire is burning is remote, difficult to access and steep, covered with old knobcone pines and manzanita trees.

Big Creek Lumber spokesman Bob Berlage said he and his wife refused to evacuate their home on Swanton Road on Wednesday night.

"I have good clearance around the house and I've got a couple, hundred-foot hose lines and a 5,000 gallon water tank," Berlage said this morning.

Berlage said if the fire got too close he planned to douse his property with water before he evacuated. But about 1 a.m. the winds shifted "about 180 degrees," he said, and flames no longer were coming his way.

Berlage said he took "a nap" about 3:30 a.m., and then went into work at Big Creek Lumber early this morning. A friend there has a stash of fire-retardant gel that, if necessary, Berlage said he will drive back home and dump on his house if flames once again grow too close.

My family and moved from San Jose 6 months ago, and a year ago my wife was working right where the fire is. I hope they can get it contained soon. On top of the damage on sight- one nasty effect of wildfires on the coast is terrible air quality and asthma attacks for those of us in the Valley.

[Erik von Nein]

Fires in California? I'm shocked! SHOCKED!

Well, not that shocked.

Yeah, the air in my area has been all wonky from smoke from various fires. Granted, I live all of 15 minutes from the coast, but it's still enough to turn the skies orange around sunset.

[Sea Skimmer]

Maybe if people didn’t live all over some of the most naturally fire exposure areas in the US we could you know, let the fires burn naturally, so we don’t get colossal fire outbreaks every couple years thanks to rapid suppression of small blazes the other years.

[Nephtys]

Maybe if people didn’t live all over some of the most naturally fire exposure areas in the US we could you know, let the fires burn naturally, so we don’t get colossal fire outbreaks every couple years thanks to rapid suppression of small blazes the other years.

You're totally right! People shouldn't live in places where mild inconveniences of nature may occur.

Fires are just the way things are down here. People in some brushier areas evacuate annually, and a few unlucky people have houses burned down sometimes. Just like how people experience floods, earthquakes, and dozens of other things that occur all over the world.

[Sea Skimmer]

You're totally right! People shouldn't live in places where mild inconveniences of nature may occur.

Fires are just the way things are down here. People in some brushier areas evacuate annually, and a few unlucky people have houses burned down sometimes.

Except that damage from wildfires in the US has increased by something like sixfold in the last ten years, even though the trend in acres burned in the US has been going down. It’s all because of poorly planned suburban sprawl. That not only exposures more and more homes to fires, it also makes it impossible to naturally mange forests ensuring that when fires do happen they are far worse then they should be. Wikpedia has an image perfectly demonstrating the long term effects of suppressing wildfires.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... erroot.jpg

Notice how absurdly denser and unhealthy the forest becomes. Then when it does finally burn the odds of a firestorm forming rise dramatically and that’s when the firefighters start being killed. It’s retarded long term planning, and its only going to get worse unless someone puts on the breaks now. Its not like fires are the only reason to be against it either.

Just like how people experience floods, earthquakes, and dozens of other things that occur all over the world.

Which is why risk management is fucking important, and when it comes to California and wildfires it doesn’t even begin to occur on a proper scale. Australia just had 200 people killed by fires because of the same ‘its just a minor problem’ thinking going on too long.

[Stormin]

I just checked the site for the Mars water bombers, one of which was sent down to Cali to help with the wildfires and according to the location and status information, the Hawaii has been sitting in a lake doing nothing.
Has anyone in the area seen this aircraft doing anything? They usually fly from my home town and it would be pretty stupid to have it doing nothing in the U.S. when it could have been used up here.