So Far, 2019's Fires Less Deadly, More Cinematic. So Far.

Just three years ago, in this era of nonexistant current events caching, a firefighter died Christmas day fighting a weeks-long wildfire and hardly anyone noticed. That was before people had quit Facebook kaleidoscope and re-joined the real world. Since that time, Californians have adapted somewhat, ironing out alert techniques, running practice evacuations in towns with narrow roads, and clearing brush to create a defensible space within 100 feet of homes and buildings. This frees up firefighters from the duty of saving people to actually dousing flames or cutting fire breaks. It's only November 2nd, though, and we're holding our breath in the back of our minds as we breath through the day, dutifully carrying on business as usual so as not to abet panic contagion.

This year because our statewide power company PG&E decided to preemptively prevent fire with planned power grid blackouts, the drama is amplified. Also, thanks to uber-environmentalist and 360.org founder Bill McKibben's observation, we notice another drama amplification:

"The spectacle was cinematic: at one point, fire jumped the Carquinez Strait at the end of San Francisco Bay, shrouding the bridge on Interstate 80 in smoke and flame."

Fire also threatened the Reagan library and one was named after the famous Getty museum which it charred. Someone should have captured a Twitter scroll from last week, of cars lined up bumper to bumper on highways up and down the state aside orange flame walls, awkwardly turning back due to fire-blocked roads ahead.

Reports of people buying noisy, dirty, gas-powered generators abound. Reports of people creating solar or renewable energy battery storage, on the other hand, are hiding in the witness protection program. Calls to allow logging for the purpose of preventing future urban-wildland interface wildfires have dropped off considerably.


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Further Reading:

California is still very dark and very loud:   theoutline.com

Reporter John Muir Embeds for Days in Forest Fire, 1875:   offlinereport.net

60 Minutes Segment From May 2017 - How to Fire Proof a Home:   offlinereport.net

From Dec 2018: Fire Datelines from the S.F. Chronicle going back just 60 days.   offlinereport.net





This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.