San Diego: Major fires burn homes, force evacuations

[aggiesal]

Source: San Diego Union Tribune

A second chaotic day with a steady spate of wind-blown wildfires hit San Diego County Wednesday, with one major fire in Carlsbad damaging more than a dozen homes and other fires forcing evacuations in San Marcos, Oceanside and Camp Pendleton and leaving residents across the region on edge. The forward spread of the Carlsbad wildfire that destroyed at least eight homes was halted as of 3 p.m., although the threat remained high as hot spots burned throughout the city's Aviara neighborhood, one burning to the back of a middle school and shooting 40-foot flames running up a hillside to the backyards of canyon rim homes while firefighters battled to keep them at bay. Late in the afternoon, additional fires broke out around North County, including ones that threatened homes in San Marcos and Lakeside. Carlsbad fire Chief Michael Davis said ...

Read more: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/local-topics/public-safety/wildfire/

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San Diego is burning.
Over 30 home reportedly destroyed.

Our house is up a hill just off of I-15, but against open space, so we're constsntly monitoring.
Their are about 5-10 wildfires in the county.
The closest big fire is about 10 miles away behind Black Mountain in Rancho Bernardo.

All we need is burning embers to find their way on the open space, and we'll be in a world of hurt.

[stuffmatters]

1. The fires are in Issa & Hunter, Jr's Congressional districts

Both have voted consistently against green energy & pro Koch. These are somr vividly destructive consequences. Yeah, Issa & Hunter will both dance around it, but these fires are just the beginning of growing climate change generated, man made disasters; these two Repugs have rote denied and voted over and over against measures to lessen their inevitability.

I hope the Dems running against these two miserable creatures denounce them loudly and publicly. Some freeway bloggers at rush hours along the north 5, 15 and 52 would be very effective (since our Repug monoplized MSM won't make any accusations against either Issa or Hunter.)

Ca is in terrible drought. San Diego County right now in extreme climate, uncharacteristically triple digits in these guys' districts today,with a plethora of uncontained wildfires through out their districts. Yet no San Diego tv news or mainstream paper has mentioned that the districts of these two climate deniers are where the climate change is playing out right now.. Politics have real life consequences.

Time to remind their voters to Save San Diego from Issa and Hunter.

[aggiesal]

3. Actually they are in ...

Issa's and Scott Peters (D) district.
The major fire in Rancho Bernardo is in Peters district.
While the major fire in Carlsbad maybe in Issa's.

[stuffmatters]

4. Thanks, I'm not sure of the boundaries either

El Cajon is Baby Hunter isn't it? Escondido maybe too? Issa is RSF, Bonsal,San Marcos, Carlsbad, Oceanside I think. Fires all there yesterday & today.

More fires..Poway, Rancho Bernardo, Carmel Ranch, Elfin Forest, Fairbanks Ranch, Scripps Ranch...these are deeply Pepublican pockets ...not sure with the 2012 lines whose districts, but they majorly vote Republican (i.e. anti-environment) If De Maio's running ag Peters and his DOD contractor/RW olds base is Poway/RB, then I think you're right that area is probably in Peters district. Or DeMaio couldn't live there (it was DeMaio's SD Council district) & run ag Peters.

Peters' district is the coast only up to Del Mar. Issa got inland Del Mar & coast from SolBeach up to So OC. You're right. I don't know
Hunter's district well, but think it must include some of his Dad's military contractors in the rightwing Poway/Rancho Bernardo dark money nexus...there's even a "Koch Membrane" there among the Pentagon big boys. If they aren't Hunter's voters, I deeply suspect that area holds many of Hunter's heavy donors/supporters inherited from his DAD.

[Liberty Belle]

6. A couple of days ago there were smaller fires in Vargas' district too

Including the Dulzura Fire and Campo fire. Also a small one in Spring valley today was in Susan Davis' district.

[tomm2thumbs]

2. I hope you stay safe - with the smoke and all, it can be plenty frightening

Hope the cooler temperatures bring a break in the fires for you and others. Hang in there!

[Liberty Belle]

5. We have many updates on these fires at our site: www.EastCountyMagazine.org and free wildfire alerts

for anyone in San Diego County; you can sign up on our site or follow on Twitter at ViejasAlerts.com (Viejas sponsors our wildfire and emergency alerts)

As of midnight, over 9,000 acres have burned and emergency evacuation or prepare-to-evacuate notices have gone out to 121,000, the County reports. The Lakeside fire is out, 17 acres, no homes lost. Homes have been lost in the Poinsettia Fire. Over 6,000 acres on Camp Pendleton have burned. The San Marcos Fire is also a very dangerous fire and resources are getting spread thin with so many.

The Governor has declared San Diego County a disaster area. Santa Ana winds are predicted to continue through at least tomorrow.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. This sucks. This is so preventable.

There are many MANY local mitigation strategies to prevent this. Fire breaks, building/property zone codes. Backburning and clearing in the winter/fall.

Ok, can't backburn because of the drought? Well, you gotta go in there and rip all that tinder and shit out by hand. Thousands of acres worth of it. It's gotta go.


This isn't so different from the work to prepare for quakes here in Seattle, or the effort to prepare for tornadoes in the Midwest.


Gotta do it. And you gotta do it before it's bearing down on you.


I have family down there, and I'm worried. If there's something more to this than what I've observed, fine, but it looks, to an outsider, like a total failure of local governance to prepare for one of the most obvious threats to the area.

[aggiesal]

8. Yea, I think the county supervisors ...

which all 5 were (R)'s, strip ths budget of that service, years ago (like 10-15 years ago).

[AtheistCrusader]

9. I don't doubt it. They 'starve the beast' at every level.

Especially when people aren't actively looking.

That has consequences.


AGW has consequences too. Like increasing the margin of safety that we relied upon in the past for flooding, drought, storm damage, etc. Any of those events can be skewed, or come one after another when we used to see fewer of them, etc.

Building safety margins costs money. If we don't do anything to shore up safety nets, AND we don't do anything about AGW, there are going to be a lot of people in a world of hurt soon.

This is a tragedy locally, but a warning sign nationally. Time is running out.