[thechat] SoCal Wild Fires

Terry Fowler quackamoe at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 28 18:10:26 CST 2003


--- "Luther, Ron" <ron.luther at hp.com> wrote:

> Fires are scary.

Scary indeed, especially now that they're talking
about the winds doing a 180 in the next day or so.
Here's a large jpg (770kb) that shows the situation
quite well. As you can see the smoke is blowing
to the southwest, away from me. If the winds change
the smoke, and probably the fire, will be heading
right for me. 

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Oct2003/California.TMOA2003299_lrg.jpg

Here's what looks like an infrared or some such 
coolness. This one's 860kb.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Oct2003/California_fc.TMOA2003299_lrg.jpg

A totally amazing photo. Be warned, this one is 4.5mb!


http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Oct2003/SanBerFire_TAS2003298_lrg.jpg

Unfortunately, this photo starts maybe 5 or 6 miles
south
of my house. I'm guessing that if you start at the
left
edge and go about 40% of the way to the east I'd be
due north from that point.   

On the upper left hand you can clearly see I-15 as it
goes through the Cajon Pass. All the light brown
territory was burned in last year's fires. The dark
grey stuff is what burned this week. This photo is at
least 2 days old as it shows Devore untouched. As you
follow the I-15 south it 
bends a bit to the east and just between the I-15 and
the smoke you can see a small community; that's
Devore.
It's been ravaged by the fire since this photo was
taken. I'm going to have trouble getting home from
work
because of a new flareup just a wee bit to the
northwest of Devore.

The I-15 is currently closed through this whole area.

South of the first lake from the left (Silverwood
Lake)
and just west of the second, smallish lake (Lake
Gregory) is Crestline. The third lake from the left is
Lake Arrowhead. If you look closely you can get an
idea
of how many homes and cabins are in this area. About
40,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.

This area has a bit of a double whammy. There's been
less than normal rain and snow for the last three
years and there's a bark-beetle infestation that has
left
over one million dead pine trees. Some disaster
planners did some research and figured out that this
is the worst set of fire conditions in the last 300
years. 

Well, this is your Southern California correspondent 
signing off for now.

terry

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