How Do Santa Ana Winds Influence Wildfires in Southern California?

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In summary, the Santa Ana winds have caused widespread destruction, with over 250,000 people being evacuated in Southern California. Homes have been destroyed in Poway and other areas, and firefighters are concerned that the winds could change direction and cause more fires.
  • #36
animalcroc said:
I live in San Diego. Bad air quality.

Same here in L.A. I had to get up last night and take Benadryl because I was having something like asthma attacks that woke me up. I wonder if an air purifier in the house would help.
 
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  • #37
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  • #38
1300 homes and businesses destroyed. The number of evacuees amounts to 1/6 th the population of San Diego county. Witch creek fire won't be contained till Nov 4.
 
  • #39
I just have to ask wheter there is any risk being in San Diego city now? I guess the fire won't have any chance to reach it, but what about smoke and so on? I have zero experience with these fires and my girlfriend happen to be in San Diego for a conference right now you see...

She's in downtown I should add...
 
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  • #40
zoobyshoe said:
1300 homes and businesses destroyed. The number of evacuees amounts to 1/6 th the population of San Diego county. Witch creek fire won't be contained till Nov 4.

EL said:
I just have to ask wheter there is any risk being in San Diego city now? I guess the fire won't have any chance to reach it, but what about smoke and so on? I have zero experience with these fires and my girlfriend happen to be in San Diego for a conference right now you see...

She's in downtown I should add...

I have colleagues who are supposed to be heading to San Diego the end of next week for a conference as well (I was originally supposed to go too, and had to cancel for other reasons), so if these fires are still expected to be burning that long, I'm interested in the answer to that question as well. I haven't heard anything from conference organizers if they have any contingency plans just yet.
 
  • #41
EL said:
I just have to ask wheter there is any risk being in San Diego city now? I guess the fire won't have any chance to reach it, but what about smoke and so on? I have zero experience with these fires and my girlfriend happen to be in San Diego for a conference right now you see...

She's in downtown I should add...
The city proper is OK.

Here is a good overview of the situation. The fires are in the north part of the county and east of the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wildfires_of_October_2007#Witch_Fire
Over 200,000 acres burned, 500+ homes destroyed! Several 100 more damaged.
 
  • #42
Astronuc said:
The city proper is OK.

Thanks, good to hear.
 
  • #43
Astronuc said:
The city proper is OK.

Here is a good overview of the situation. The fires are in the north part of the county and east of the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wildfires_of_October_2007#Witch_Fire
Over 200,000 acres burned, 500+ homes destroyed! Several 100 more damaged.

The City Proper itself sustained fire damage in the northern part. Hardest hit was the City locale of Rancho Bernardo.
 
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  • #44
animalcroc said:
The City Proper itself sustained fire damage in the northern part. Hardest hit was the City locale of Rancho Bernardo.

This is what makes it hard figuring out where the fires are and what's being affected. The news talks about various neighborhoods or towns that are burning, in the path of the fire, or pending evacuation, but those of us who don't live there have no idea where these places are. They talk about San Diego, but I'm not always sure if they mean the county or city or the greater metropolitan area surrounding the city, etc. I wish someone would put a bit more of a zoomed in map up for us on the news. They show this giant map of the entire state of CA, and plot out where the fires are, and it's hard to tell where they really are relative to anything. Zoom in, put in a nice big colored blotch for the area where the San Deigo and LA city proper are, and then tell us how far from those blotches the fires are. Or at least, when naming towns/neighborhoods, whatever, tell us something to help put it in perspective, i.e., located 20 mi north of San Diego, or 3 mi east of... etc.
 
  • #45
animalcroc said:
The City Proper itself sustained fire damage in the northern part. Hardest hit was the City locale of Rancho Bernardo.
I think of the city proper as south of the 8 and S or W of the 5 - or I might stretch it to the 163/805. The rest is suburbs. :biggrin:
 
  • #46
Astronuc said:
I think of the city proper as south of the 8 and S or W of the 5 - or I might stretch it to the 163/805. The rest is suburbs. :biggrin:

The well-to-do in the northern part of the city won't like it! :-p
 
  • #47
Moonbear said:
This is what makes it hard figuring out where the fires are and what's being affected. The news talks about various neighborhoods or towns that are burning, in the path of the fire, or pending evacuation, but those of us who don't live there have no idea where these places are. They talk about San Diego, but I'm not always sure if they mean the county or city or the greater metropolitan area surrounding the city, etc. I wish someone would put a bit more of a zoomed in map up for us on the news. They show this giant map of the entire state of CA, and plot out where the fires are, and it's hard to tell where they really are relative to anything. Zoom in, put in a nice big colored blotch for the area where the San Deigo and LA city proper are, and then tell us how far from those blotches the fires are. Or at least, when naming towns/neighborhoods, whatever, tell us something to help put it in perspective, i.e., located 20 mi north of San Diego, or 3 mi east of... etc.

It's pointless to keep referring to the City proper "San Diego" when the geographical area is large. That's the point of breaking up a city by locale. In NYC, they too have numerous locales to distinguish one end of the city from the other.

But of course the media likes to play stories to their advantage in reel in viewers. I'm not under exaggerating the effect of the fires but the media did play too much on it.
 
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  • #48
Moonbear said:
I heard on CNN that one of the fires (hopefully the largest) has already burned 70,000 acres! Did I really hear that right? I can't even wrap my head around the enormity of fires that large and destructive.

The 2003 fires will pale these one in comparison. Had the winds continued then (and now) the whole county would have burned to the ocean.
 
  • #49
The media dumbs things down, too. If there was a big fire in Doraville or Tucker, they would say that Atlanta is burning. Generalizations can get in the way of comprehension to the point where the people watching the broadcast come away with "Fire", "Big City", XXX,XXX people evacuated, and little else.
 
  • #50
Moonbear said:
This is what makes it hard figuring out where the fires are and what's being affected. The news talks about various neighborhoods or towns that are burning, in the path of the fire, or pending evacuation, but those of us who don't live there have no idea where these places are. They talk about San Diego, but I'm not always sure if they mean the county or city or the greater metropolitan area surrounding the city, etc. I wish someone would put a bit more of a zoomed in map up for us on the news. They show this giant map of the entire state of CA, and plot out where the fires are, and it's hard to tell where they really are relative to anything. Zoom in, put in a nice big colored blotch for the area where the San Deigo and LA city proper are, and then tell us how far from those blotches the fires are. Or at least, when naming towns/neighborhoods, whatever, tell us something to help put it in perspective, i.e., located 20 mi north of San Diego, or 3 mi east of... etc.

You could check a map - San Diego Fire Map

One of the better ideas I've seen on the internet. All in all, California is handling this a lot better than Louisiana handled Katrina.
 
  • #51
BobG said:
You could check a map - San Diego Fire Map

One of the better ideas I've seen on the internet. All in all, California is handling this a lot better than Louisiana handled Katrina.

Wow, that one actually works. I tried looking at maps online before, but none of them would open for me.
 
  • #52
animalcroc said:
The well-to-do in the northern part of the city won't like it! :-p
The CEO lives in La Jolla in a multi-million $ home that overlooks the ocean, and pres lives in P.B. in nice home that also overlooks the ocean. My company is based in La Jolla. I prefer to live in the NE where it is not so crowded.

I spend about 10-20% of my time in SD.
 
  • #53
turbo-1 said:
The media dumbs things down, too. If there was a big fire in Doraville or Tucker, they would say that Atlanta is burning. Generalizations can get in the way of comprehension to the point where the people watching the broadcast come away with "Fire", "Big City", XXX,XXX people evacuated, and little else.

Don't get me wrong, the city itself, not the outlaying areas, were burned. The whole county was affected.
 
  • #55
It looks like it's reached Rancho Santa Fe.
 
  • #56
According to our news, the weather should be changing, but they say it will be several weeks before the fores around San Diego are fully controlled; two of the biggest fires have come together.

Apparently though, the "Richest state, in the richest country in the world, is showing a first world response".
 
  • #58
Astronuc said:
The CEO lives in La Jolla in a multi-million $ home that overlooks the ocean, and pres lives in P.B. in nice home that also overlooks the ocean. My company is based in La Jolla. I prefer to live in the NE where it is not so crowded.

I spend about 10-20% of my time in SD.

I live by the border. I head that La Jolla tried to become it's own city once (lol) but I'm not sure if it's true. Won't be surprised. You live in the NE part of the county?
How close was the fire?
 
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  • #59
animalcroc said:
The dot that marks "San Diego" is downtown, not the whole city.

Most people who don't live there only know downtown as the city anyway. To me, "city" means the part with tall buildings, the rest is neighborhoods and suburbs, even if the mailing address is San Diego. Beyond that, it's pretty murky where the city ends and suburbs begin. So, using downtown as a reference point is much more helpful. Or, even just talking about "the neighborhoods on the ...side of San Diego"...then I understand it's the residential neighborhoods, not the business area of downtown. If you have tree-lined streets and grass lawns, it's not city, but suburb. :biggrin:

(My colleagues apparently reserved a hotel about 15 mi outside of downtown though, so they're rather anxiously watching the news about where the fires are, and what roads are open or closed...of course they're also wondering if the conference will still be held if they need to turn the convention center into a refugee camp, especially if the city loses power, which was the last thing we heard the fire was threatening to do as it heads toward or through areas with power lines supplying a major part of the city's power grid. I think this conference needs to stop being held in disaster-prone areas of the country...we had to drop the New Orleans venue for a conference after Katrina, they dropped Miami as a venue after a hurricane struck DURING the conference, now San Diego is burning...Zz might want to be worried that they're planning to hold the conference in Chicago next year, which is the venue to replace N.O.) :rolleyes:
 
  • #60
It appears that the long term health consequences could be significant. The EPA described the smoke as a toxic brew that can be extremely damaging. They stated flatly that anyone exposed to the air for significant periods of time has black lungs by now. And even the n95 filters don't stop the most damaging particles.
 
  • #61
Ivan Seeking said:
It appears that the long term health consequences could be significant. The EPA described the smoke as a toxic brew that can be extremely damaging. They stated flatly that anyone exposed to the air for significant periods of time has black lungs by now. And even the n95 filters don't stop the most damaging particles.

I think that last week's announcement that CA was going to sue over Federal emission standards may have been a bit poorly timed. :rolleyes:
 
  • #62
California has been dealing with the Santa Ana winds and the related fires for as long as people have lived there. But for the first time ever, I heard the following sentiment [actually twice now]: "Maybe it's just too dangerous to live here". Some people have lost their second home in four years.

I wonder if the building has exceeded the practical limits of the terrain. Also, GW is apparently expected to increase the intensity and frequency of these events, so that may affect people's thinking as well.

The news sounds bad regarding the smoke. It is expected to swirl around the LA basin and slowly drift to the East over the next few days. One meteorologist said that even Vegas will be affected eventually.
 
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  • #63
The folks I've been reading and hearing interviewed today have suggested that as well, that there are just too many houses being built out too close to the national forests, and it's the worst combination possible. It combines all the combustibles of a house, along with all the hazards of human inhabitants (bbq's, campfires, carelessly tossed cigarettes, electrical and gas lines, etc.) in an environment that's already a tinderbox. They were also commenting that it's so bad this year because two years ago they had a really wet year that helped all the underbrush grow rapidly, and now the drought turned that all basically into kindling.

The other problem is with more houses out near the forests, they can't really manage the forestland like they would like to do...no more prescribed burns if there are houses too close by, and no letting smaller fires burn out, again, for the same reason. They know that not allowing small fires can allow fuel to build up for these large fires.

An interesting thought that was raised after some of the hurricanes too is whether it's appropriate for the insurance companies to refuse insurance, or make it exhorbitantly expensive, to those who rebuild in these high risk areas. I'm leaning toward thinking it's perfectly within reason for them to be allowed to refuse insurance. Perhaps the knowledge you can't get insurance if you build in a certain place, or at least certain types of insurance, might make people think twice about building there. And if you do it anyway, then you're assuming the risk without burdening others for your foolishness. When the same area is hit multiple times in a short time frame, you have to start thinking it doesn't make sense to rebuild, and there's no reason an insurance company should have to help you keep doing that. Cover you to rebuild, and then drop you for future policies should be it.
 
  • #64
I heard one scary report today. Some of the affected areas are known for their population of illegal immigrants hiding out in the hills. Many of these people, if there, had no way to escape the flames which advanced at speeds of 50 mph and greater. And we will probably never even know because in many areas just about everything was turned to ash.

Turns out that The News Hour had a discussion that touched on the land use.
...MARGARET WARNER: And what about the role of development? We're hearing a lot of criticism about how close development is now to the wilderness areas that burn every year.

GLEN SPARROW: That's, of course, a problem, is that people are building in the wrong places. They're building way too close to the brush and the forests out there, because they want to get in a lovely place so they can live and feel good about it.

But the places are not properly built; they're not properly fireproofed; they're oft times surrounded by brush; they aren't properly cleared. And when these fires come through, they just rip right through there.

Up through canyons, people living on top of hills and on canyon edges that they want to see the view and have that pristine environment, it just doesn't work in the fire season.[continued]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec07/fires_10-25.html

As with the areas that have flooded in recent years, I would imaging that the insurance companies will get wise to California soon enough. As the population continues to boom, the resulting damage with each event will surely rise, on the average.

If they get rain, this winter it will be mud slides.
 
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  • #65
All in all, California is handling this a lot better than Louisiana handled Katrina.
A much different situation. The fires are relatively isolated compared to the general flooding of New Orleans. Also we (southern California) had more warning time, and the roads were usable being that they weren't submerged.

Then again, the idea of building a city below sea level and relying on dirt based dykes to never fail always seemed risky.

Up through canyons, people living on top of hills and on canyon edges that they want to see the view and have that pristine environment, it just doesn't work in the fire season.
Newer canyon residentual areas always have a large fire break zones. Still between the high winds and large fires, embers can manage to get embedded into a flammable spot on a home and that's what takes them out. It's mostly a case of how quickly firefighters can get to the area. In this case, a lot of firefighters were initially diverted northward for the fires near Magic Mountain.

Still I'm surprised that a home with stucco walls and a tile roof can catch on fire from a well placed burning ember. If you look at the photos of burnt down homes, you'll often see that the grass in the yards is still green, along with certain types of trees, so heat wasn't a major factor in some of the homes catching on fire.
 
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  • #66
Jeff Reid said:
A much different situation. The fires are relatively isolated compared to the general flooding of New Orleans. Also we (southern California) had more warning time, and the roads were usable being that they weren't submerged.

That's a point that's been bugging me for days. The fact is that in the the case of NO, access to an entire city was denied in a matter of hours and after the perceived threat had passed. There were no escape routes once the dikes failed. It would be like the fires erupting everywhere at once throughout San Diego County. What's more, California has been been through this many times before, so they have had much practice, and they are relatively rich so they have more resources.

New Orleans was a shockingly outrageous national disgrace, a complete management faillure, and a disaster in every sense that matters, but it hardly seems fair to compare that situation to this one.
 
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  • #67
Jeff Reid said:
A much different situation. The fires are relatively isolated compared to the general flooding of New Orleans. Also we (southern California) had more warning time, and the roads were usable being that they weren't submerged.
Yeah, they shouldn't compare us to them: the city, itself, was flooded, and everyone was devastated there. Here most of the population is perfectly fine and in a position to help the evacuees with donations, which people have been doing with enormous speed and generosity. In New Orleans, and the general area hit by Katrina, there wasn't anyone in a good enough position to help anyone else.
 
  • #68
One think we hear far too little about is how people in southern CA are deliberately building in chaparral areas that need to burn periodically in order to regenerate. Many of the scrubby-brushy plants in these areas cannot reproduce unless they are exposed to the high temperatures caused by fires. I took a course in ecology in the early 70's and one of the prof's favorite examples of what not to do was building houses in chaparral. The plants in these areas thrive in wet winters and dry up every summer/fall and are ripe for burning at the first lightning strike. Suppressing brush fires only allows more combustible material to accumulate until another fire comes along that is impossible to suppress. Then, the heat from the fire may be so intense that seeds and root-stock are destroyed and the plants cannot regenerate, leaving the soil unprotected so that the next wet winter season will be prime for mud-slides. A wet winter in SoCal will be a sensationalist's hey-day for news teams as they document un-burned mansions sliding into the canyons.
 
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  • #69
zoobyshoe said:
Yeah, they shouldn't compare us to them: the city, itself, was flooded, and everyone was devastated there. Here most of the population is perfectly fine and in a position to help the evacuees with donations, which people have been doing with enormous speed and generosity. In New Orleans, and the general area hit by Katrina, there wasn't anyone in a good enough position to help anyone else.

I completely agree, and that's been bugging me with the comparisons on the news as well. Even the folks "camping out" at Qualcomm Arena are in a completely different situation than those who were taking refuge at the SuperDome in N.O. At Qualcomm, there is no immediate threat in the nearby area. People are free to come and go...that includes both volunteers and those who are using it as a shelter. If things get too crowded, you can go outside and take a walk. If you need some supplies, or want something other than what's being offered there, you can head to surrounding businesses and get what you want...they're all still open for business. Qualcomm is an area of safety for the evacuees. With Katrina, the people taking shelter at the SuperDome were literally trapped inside once the hurricane started, and the surrounding area was boarded up, also evacuated, and turned to a ghost town. There wasn't even any feeling of safety there, since they were watching sections of the roof blow off the stadium and the rain coming pouring into the areas they were trying to shelter. The people there weren't just worrying about their property, they were still fearing for their lives. And, when the storm was over, not only did they not have homes to go back to, they had no city to even support them. No businesses were open, their jobs were gone, and everyone in the entire city was in the same boat with them.

Granted, there may have been some lessons learned from Katrina that have helped here, but trying to make comparisons is pretty unfair, and it bugs me when they're all stumping about how well CA is handling the situation compared with N.O., or how much they've learned from Katrina to make things so much better now. When I see a similar scenario as Katrina, then I'll believe they've learned something or not. Plus, much of CA's preparation had nothing to do with Katrina, but in response to lessons learned from the 2003 fires.

Plus, while the total number of evacuees is high, that was phased over a week of evacuations, not a single day. The much-touted reverse 911 system probably wouldn't have worked in N.O...once the phone lines went down, those calls weren't going to go through. The only way the situation would be similar is if the fires encroached upon the city proper, fully surrounding it and blocking all the main roads out, and knocking out the power grid, before starting to burn it down.

But, the fires aren't even out yet, and the media is already getting hypercritical of CA's handling of these fires too. It sounds to me like they handled it very well, but the media is finding things to nitpick about. You can't be prepared for every single event in a disaster situation, because they're all different, and some decisions need to be made quickly without much time to think through all the possible consequences or options. Even worse, much of what the media is criticizing, it seems the alternative probably would have just made things worse...such as having additional aircraft in a crowded airspace on a different frequency from the aircraft of those trained to respond to fires, and the additional aircraft containing crews not even trained to fight these types of fires, so more likely to get in the way, or dump water in the wrong places and cause more damage to unaffected areas, than to really help. They're griping that we'd let these members of the military go to Iraq, but not fight a fire...yeah, because they're trained for Iraq, they're not trained for fighting wildfires.
 
  • #70
Moonbear said:
The folks I've been reading and hearing interviewed today have suggested that as well, that there are just too many houses being built out too close to the national forests, and it's the worst combination possible. It combines all the combustibles of a house, along with all the hazards of human inhabitants (bbq's, campfires, carelessly tossed cigarettes, electrical and gas lines, etc.) in an environment that's already a tinderbox. They were also commenting that it's so bad this year because two years ago they had a really wet year that helped all the underbrush grow rapidly, and now the drought turned that all basically into kindling.

The other problem is with more houses out near the forests, they can't really manage the forestland like they would like to do...no more prescribed burns if there are houses too close by, and no letting smaller fires burn out, again, for the same reason. They know that not allowing small fires can allow fuel to build up for these large fires.

An interesting thought that was raised after some of the hurricanes too is whether it's appropriate for the insurance companies to refuse insurance, or make it exhorbitantly expensive, to those who rebuild in these high risk areas. I'm leaning toward thinking it's perfectly within reason for them to be allowed to refuse insurance. Perhaps the knowledge you can't get insurance if you build in a certain place, or at least certain types of insurance, might make people think twice about building there. And if you do it anyway, then you're assuming the risk without burdening others for your foolishness. When the same area is hit multiple times in a short time frame, you have to start thinking it doesn't make sense to rebuild, and there's no reason an insurance company should have to help you keep doing that. Cover you to rebuild, and then drop you for future policies should be it.

We get around 11 inches of rain per year but our last rainy season we had around 6
 

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