Oh, brother. This is so predictable, and stupid. Hillary Clinton said in a recent speech at UC Davis:
“It’s been a tough couple of weeks with hurricanes and earthquakes and now these terrible fires,” she said, according to KXTV in Sacramento.
“So in addition to expressing our sympathy, we need to really come together to try to work to prevent and mitigate, and that starts with acknowledging climate change and the role that it plays in exacerbating such events.”
“What Happened” ? Reality bites:
PG&E power lines linked to Wine Country fires
As the first reports came in Sunday night of numerous fires that would grow into one of the most destructive wildfire disasters in California history, emergency dispatchers in Sonoma County received multiple calls of power lines falling down and electrical transformers exploding.
But it could have been prevented, but thanks to the idiot governor of California, common sense legislation aimed at improving power line and wildfire safety was vetoed:
Wine Country fires: Gov. Brown vetoed 2016 bill aimed at power line, wildfire safety
A year ago, a bipartisan bill aimed at reducing the risk of wildfires from overhead electrical lines went to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.
It was vetoed.
The author of the measure — passed unanimously by both houses of the Legislature — now says the governor missed out on a chance to tackle one of his state’s longstanding vulnerabilities: massive wildfires endangering residential communities. But the governor’s office and the California Public Utilities Commission say the bill duplicated efforts already underway among the CPUC, Cal Fire and utilities like PG&E.
Now, as a series of deadly fires rages in Wine Country, serious questions are once again being asked about the safety of overhead electrical wires in a state prone to drought and fierce winds.
…
In the first 90 minutes Sunday night, firefighters were sent to 10 different spots where problems had been reported with the area’s electrical infrastructure. The crews reported seeing sparking lines and transformers.
During that same time period, radio transmissions indicate 28 blazes — both vegetation and structure fires — breaking out, mostly in Sonoma County. Firefighters were sent to eight fallen tree calls, with many reports of blocked roadways.
I really need to think about getting out of this lunatic state.
Note: within 10 minutes of publication, a photograph and video of power line issues in Sonoma County, CA were added.
Why would anyone live in California. High cost of living, highest taxes, highest fees in the Union. Crazy people running things.
Weather.
So was it the power lines slapping together in the wind causing the sparks or was it the Trees that no one wants to have cut that brought the wires together?
Was it exploding Transformers that lit fires or was it the fires that caused the transformers to explode??
Was it wires coming down onto Trees or Trees coming down into the wires???
The Number 1 cause is usually transformer or pole maintenance not done leading to failure hence the questions about maintenance being asked. Trees, lightning and animals trail well after that.
Looking at the second photo, poles down but no fire. Third photo shows a transformer down and fire. So, do poles fall down and cause fires, or do the fires cause the poles to fall down. The two stories (after the Hillary quote) don’t really say.
Bryan A. says “Trees that no one wants to have cut …”
Interesting. I live in central WA State. Today, a contract crew came and trimmed trees overhanging electric lines along the county road, and leading to our house. We had suggested this to the Utility when they had an open house about a year ago. Trees are relentless, so this is an on-going activity in the region.
Our house is “all-electric” and one of the worst things that can happen is for the lines to go down in the winter when the temp is about -10°F. We can survive, but it is not fun.
People in CA also need to investigate the “Firewise” programs.
Warm weather causes climate refugees remember!
California could be really nice, but for the crazy people running it. Perhaps just a little too much dope, from their student days, has left them wide eyed and rather dopey.
http://www.clevver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/snow-white-dopey-diamond-eyes.gif
Becoming a Hollywood star. So what if groping and abuse is involved, you’ll be rich and famous!
Legalization is big in California Next up they intend to legalize Groping and abuse so long as a credited movie/TV role is offered in exchange.
Judging by some of the big names who were groped before they became big names, I’d say they got more for their travails than Bill Clinton gropees did.
The producer’s casting couch is a golden oldie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casting_couch
California would be a great place to live if 3/4 of the people left. It doesn’t matter which 3/4 leave, they just have to leave.
Unfortunately, if they leave Kalifornication, they’ll infest a “red” state and, over time, turn it into a Blue Mess. Example: Colorado.
A better idea would be to “build a wall” to keep the Kalifornicators in, and let them extinct themselves. In a few years, 3/4 of the people will be “gone”, and you’ll be able to walk in and enjoy what’s left.
“Deplorable B Woodman’
lol. Best user name I have seen in a long time 🙂
But, seriously, is Hillary running again or something? I know she has a book to sell, but shirley shomebody in the Democrat Party must be hoping she’ll start shutting up a bit sometime?
Wasn’t Moonbeam supposed to build a wall around California if Trump became president?
They live there for the give-away programs and for Hollywood.
A sweeping generalization, and probably slanderous. Many of us live here for the climate – beats shoveling snow by a long shot. However, many of us are also thinking of leaving and, have no fear, should we land in a red state, we’ll be reinforcing it.
One guy I work with here in Missouri, could not get his disability pay here. But he could if he moved to California. So he moved to California. Not sure how much it cost him to move, but he was living here pretty cheap. I know it will cost him out the wazoo to live in California.
James
Interesting. You get disability pay for moving to CA…
Incredible weather, stunning scenery, mountains, ocean, deserts, palm trees, national parks, etc.etc. etc. It’s a popular misconception that the state is populated entirely by lefty moonbats when in fact there are tens of millions of conservatives in CA. There are many red counties in CA particularly in the central, northern, and eastern areas of the state (26 counties went for Trump in 2016), although they are indeed outnumbered by coastal lefties.
Bottom line, I don’t plan my life around other people’s politics, let alone allow them to determine where I live.
So why is the state legislature overwhelmingly Democratic, for that matter far left Democratic?
Edwin
Why? Because Grant’s statement “in fact there are tens of millions of conservatives in CA” is laughably false.
The 206 presidential vote (as a proxy) was 8.8M D & 4.4M R. Extrapolatng that to the state’s 40M residents (yea, I know this is a hokey thing to do…), and you get 1/3 of 40M = 10.3M (not Grant’s “tens of millions”).
The big one. First warnings were from Christian prophets, now seismologists.
Climate
I lived there (LA). Great place. Surfing, scuba diving and skiing. Just loved the global warming there.
Politics and some loopey people never bothered me. I ignored it and just enjoyed the lifestyle and my job.
You can ignore the politicians, the problem is the politicians don’t ignore you.
Probably wanted the money for Jerry’s toy train.
That’s a good guess.
And yet it’s not even the most insane transport proposal in California: “Richard Branson’s Virgin Group invests in Hyperloop One”. Elon Musk, whatever his faults, can clearly spot an idiot with more money than sense at a distance of several thousand miles.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41595297
C’mon join the joyride?
Let’s see how far this revelation goes in the MSM. Moonbeam is more than happy to spend state money on meager wind and solar energy production but ignores the immediate, and deadly, danger of failing energy infrastructure.
I’ll be surprised if it gets much traction in the MSM. The Leftists and the MSM (sorry for the redundancy) are still doing their contortionist act over the Harvey Wienstien ridiculousness.
MSM: Marionette Sycophant Muckrakers. If it’s news but there is no about it that can be scandalized, they’re just not interested.
NPR had picked it up this morning. You’d have a hard time to find a more “watermelon” outlet than NPR.
Failing energy infrastructure? Our energy infrastructure is based on 1890s technology.
After viewing this I’m surprised some California legislature hasn’t introduced legislation to ban electrical service. No cars, no electricity to detract from pursuing deeply romantic Harvey Weinstein style intimacies. Utopia at last!
“No phone, no lights, no motor car,
Not a single luxury
Like Robinson Crusoe
It’s primitive as can be.”
Now where have I heard that before?
But, that was in WVA. In Callyforn-i-ay they had them a seement pond!
@rocketscientist I think you’re confusing the OP’s reference to the “Gilligan’s Island” theme with the “seement pond” of the Beverly Hillbillies.
Although I don’t believe it was ever specifically stated in the program, it was implied through numerous “back home” town name references that the Clampetts were from the Ozarks of Missouri or Arkansas, not WVa.
Correct you are.
Wikipedia (which is never wrong) says that the Clampetts are from Tennessee. Granny is from Limestone, Tennessee; her favourite song is “My Little Girl of Tennessee”; and in one episode she says “when I was a girl in Tennessee …”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beverly_Hillbillies#Granny
Simply because the Beverly Hillbillies was in the fictional category in the Ozark’s that spun off to other shows Petticoat Junction and Green Acres where there were family ties linking the characters. There was never a real location ever given in any of the shows…simple fiction.
Well they did refer to him as “a poor mountaineer”. Mountaineer is the nickname for the University of West Virginia. So by that lyric perhaps they were from WVa which certainly would have hillbillies.
Further down under “recurring characters” it says “Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs … are longtime friends of the Clampetts ‘back home’ (Kimberling City, Missouri)”.
“Mountaineers” may be the nickname for WVU but it is also just a word.
While there is an opening here for a joke at the expense of WVU, there was never even a hint that Jed or anybody else graduated from or even attended WVU.
Except maybe Jethro.
(Sorry WVUers, I couldn’t resist.8-)
It could protect them from North Korea. Kim Young Un might not try to pick a fight if the Left Coast were as dark as His Lands
Moonbeam is working on no cars, proposing a ban on all fossil fuel vehicles by 2040 I think it is. One of those bonehead unintended consequences moves that our idiot govenor is famous for. How is delivery of goods from out of state going to happen? What about jets taking off from CA airports? I know. They can put wind turbines on them. How about heavy road building equipment? Oh that’s right. Won’t be needed because there is no way to generate enough electricity to power millions of electric cars. But that is the whole point; isn’t it. Stop people from being able to freely move around where the statists have no control over them
When people start walking out, they’ll ban feet.
According to the Beatles, they won’t ban feet, they’ll tax them.
“How about heavy road building equipment? ”
Ever hear of extension cords? Jeese, some people.
California, as leftist as they are out there, would never allow whorehouses like the State of Nevada. After all, there is Beverly Hills to think about. LOL
We always thought it was Tennessee but you all are probably right that it is not definitive, just what was convenient for that episode. “Granny says, after seeing a character pretending to be from Tennessee lose a match, “nobody does that to a fellow Tennessean.”
California dreamin’….
Increasingly becoming California nightmarin’ for the residents who actually pay the taxes.
Somewhat OT, but about the wildfires…has there been any news or reporting of the fires endangering any wind or solar farms?
When there was a wildfire at the 11 turbine wind plant south of my house, it just burned around the turbines. It was very fast moving, so I don’t think there was any attempt to keep the fire from going through—the houses nearby were the priority. If it did any damage to the turbines, that was not reported.
There was a burning wind turbine in southwestern Wyoming that started a wildfire in the sagebrush. There wasn’t much wind, so the fire was out fairly quickly.
Sheri,
Thanks for the reply. It was just a curious question. I was just thinking that if nothing else, wildfires are commonplace in California, and as more and more solar and wind farms are built, Eventually the two will meet. Maybe not solar farms so much because I think they tend to be located in more arid, sunny areas, but bird mincers don’t have that limitation and can be located in areas with much more potential fuel.
If you look at most wind farm’s and solar farm’s they’re in area’s that have few tall tree’s and the construction sites are usually cleared of all flora before building starts. Thereby killing natures carbon sinks to build products that take a lot of carbon in their creation today in their ideologies to reduce future CO2 emissions. Liberal logic at its twisted best is to not care about now to plan for the future when screaming about how high it is now since the industrial age increased CO2.
Looking in Google Earth, the area that was Coffey Park lost around 600 homes and about 10% had Roof Top Solar but I don’t believe that there was any Commercial (grid level) Solar installations involved nor Grid Level wind either
To comment on johchi7’s comment, I did some research and the evidence does not support your claim. While there are some environmental concerns around deforestation and green energy (such as wind and solar farms), they are unrelated concerns unlike you suggest. CO2 emissions have increased substantially since the industrial revolution because of humans, including deforestation. Forests are massively important carbon sinks, you are completely right; however, forested areas are rarely chosen for wind or solar farms. The convenience of solar panels is that they can be placed on existing infrastructure, which is very sustainable and environmentally sound! Wind turbines are often placed in farming areas because of the low-lying crops and wide fields. Also, the IPCC has cited solar and wind farms as key low-carbon energy options! This is very exciting news because it means that our investments into these farms are beneficial, not detrimental, as you suggest. For more information, I strongly suggest: http://www.ipcc.ch/ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204615000249 and http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/988.full
“I really need to think about getting out of this lunatic state.”
A lot of us have been trying to tell you that for almost 10 years now!
It’s just going to keep getting worse, and worse, and worse. Leave while you can still
salvage some value from what you have, don’t wait until there’s nothing left to lose.
Anthony – FWIW: I lived at various times in Santa Clara, Sacramento, Davis, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, and Redding. I loved growing up out there, but left 15 years ago and am SO glad I did. Yes the weather and geographic diversity are second to none, but I found I could no longer enjoy them given the surrounding lunacy. I have lived now in the humid/cold/flat Midwest since leaving. One thing is for sure, I now treasure good weather days rather than taking them for granted. Despite many family members still living in the state, I doubt I could ever move back. The peace of mind of having slightly saner folks as friends and neighbors is just too valuable to me.
BTW – my brother-in-law is a quadriplegic living on his own in an apartment in Santa Rosa. He had quite the harrowing experience trying to get evacuated, but thankfully made it. To say this story made my blood boil would be a sever understatement.
Oops severe, not sever.
formerpe,
Similar story here. Left 14 years ago and thought that I might return when I retired. However, I get so much more house for so much less money, and don’t have to deal with the Kalifornia lunacy, I decided to stay in Ohio. When it snows I can just relax in front of the fireplace and pretend that I’m in a cabin at Tahoe.
California has had various propositions to limit the government’s power to collect taxes. On the other hand, the governor worships communist China. Lots of people must agree with him because he gets elected.
The two things above don’t work well together in the long term. If you’re going to rely on a socialist state to provide many services, you have to put up with taxes. If you don’t want to pay taxes, you have to settle for a bare bones government. Do the people of California really think they can get something for nothing?
They don’t think it’s a something for nothing exchange. It’s your money for their ideology exchange so it’s OK.
Since going into effect in 1978, Proposition 13 greatly suppressed real estate taxes for homeowners who stay in their residences. Social Security income isn’t taxed, which can really help, especially for those who don’t retire early. Pensions are quite good for people who worked for state or local governments (at least the ones that aren’t going bankrupt). Most residents don’t fit into that trifecta, and have to keep asking themselves whether the climate and natural beauty override all the other issues.
If both houses of the legislature passed the bill unanimously why couldn’t they override the veto?
Good question. How does that happen?
They probably voted for it, to look good to their constituents, knowing the Gov would veto it, so they wouldn’t have to find the money to pay for it. Override? In this case, nope.
I don’t remember if the CA legislature is year round or not.
If they had adjourned before Brown vetoed the bill, there would be no chance to over turn the veto.
I suspect they’ll do so now. (Like closing the barn door after the horse has left.)
“…we need to really come together to try to work to prevent and mitigate, and that starts with acknowledging climate change and the role that it plays in exacerbating such events.” Oh my.
We really need to come together and work to prevent and mitigate such fact-free emotion-laden warmatarded claims as hers, and the role they play in the dumbing down of America.
This explains both the large number of fires and that they all started nearly simultaneously (~90 minutes per the video). Moonbeam vetoed a bipartisan bill because ‘duplicative’ when it obviously wasn’t. Diabolo winds are a known fall hazard in the bay area. Different mechanism but same fire hazard result as Sanra Ana winds in the LA region. Not engineering power lines to withstand them (including tree trimming) is tantamount to criminal negligence by PGE.
Maybe this [blunder] will do to Moonbeam what Gary Davis’s blunders re energy did to him (recall). Someone should start a recall petition—it would be at worst an amusing provocation.
He’s leaving next year anyway. Term limited out. Then we will get Gavin gruesome..I mean Newsome and you all will have the opportunity to elect him as President.
Minor difference in hat the Santa Ana winds are surface winds that are blowing south onto the LA basin from the high and very dry Mojave desert. Diablo winds are generated by descending air from higher altitudes.
both have the same effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_wind
Interestingly when the Santa Ana winds blow it creates stagnation at the coast. Bright clear sunny and hot with nary a stitch of breeze.
Why would anyone want to live in CA. Well it’s nice by the coast. When LA is sweltering in triple digits, a mere 12 miles away there are onshore zephyrs and margaritas. But good lord don’t move inland towards the 909. (SoCal residents will know what the 909 is)
For those who are unclear Los Angeles is not a coastal city. The Port of Los Angeles is, but it is an annexed parcel in San Pedro that the city usurped for tax purposes, about 25 miles from LA city proper.
And, LA county is HUGE. it is 4 times the size of Rhode Island and almost as big as Connecticut.
Side note:
If these winds happen often enough to have a name then they are hardly the result of any change in the climate.
Hit by a big rig? Call Hillary
Need your Deputy Counsel eliminated? Call Hillary.
Yes call Hillary now – she’ll pin it on climate change and make you famous – fast.
(a donation to the Clinton Foundation may be required)
Want to attacked a US embassy and get away with it? Call Hillary.
(Better yet, send her an email.)
This news reads like an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged…..
The socialist governor of California vetoes necessary electrical infrastructure improvements to divert taxpayer monies to socialist causes. Subsequent electrical infrastructure failures lead to catastrophic wildfires in ‘brie and chablis’ CA, with great loss of property and lives. The sacred cow leader of the socialist democrat party in the USA blames the electricity grid failure initiated wildfires on ‘climate change/man made global warming’, the socialist agenda for greater control of… everything.
The rational Californians that haven’t abandoned the state already say
“I really need to think about getting out of this lunatic state.”
You forgot to mention the valley in Colorado Rockies.
Oh. Sorry. Forget I said anything. Sworn to secrecy about that.
Galt’s Gulch?
California is an absolute tinder box due to many decades of bad forest management coupled with terrible wildfire policy. Unfortunately its people have been reaping what’s been sown long ago. The ever increasing encroachment into wilderness doesn’t help either.
On top of that the individuals who do build their mansion in marginally suitable locations and are required to by “assigned risk” insurance policies that are far higher than policies for residential zones are crying “UNFAIR!”
Somehow their concept of “fair” is having the rest of California subsidize their lifestyle choices….oh wait, that pretty much describes a great bit of Californians.
deebodk
Things of course are made much worse by all this damn CO2 fertilisation. The deserts are blooming, literally, and the dry brush areas are expanding into the bare zones. A “Palm Desert lawn” consisted entirely of a few rocks and cacti. Now it has actual plants.
The real solution to Californian fires is to get the CO2 level back down to where plants are unable to grow much at all. Either that, or substitute the present policies with ones that treat the environment as if people and infrastructure mattered.
Anthony,
Regarding your last sentence. I am.
I finally made the rational decision to get out and move to AZ a couple of months ago. I love it here (and it’s largely Conservative as well).
Born in 1951 I’ve watched my beautiful state turn into Mexifornia and LibTard “utopia”.
Never, ever going back. For any reason. Not even to my beloved Napa Valley.
I don’t know why you love Napa Valley, but check out “Niagara on the Lake” and the surrounding wineries. It’s a village in Canada not too far from the falls, but not corrupted by commercialization.
I love the mountains and that part of Canada is very flat, but given a choice of going to Niagara on the Lake or Napa for a week, I’d take Niagara on the Lake. Obviously, it snow covered in winter, but summer is fantastic.
socabill
Skip Niagra and try Burgundy…
I’m with Bryan A.
Are the stories trying to say the utilities are vulnerable to wildfires, or that wildfires are started by decrepit utilities?
both
Did the grid control system fault somehow (or get hacked) such that some circuits overloaded blowing transformersall over the lace. High wind does not seem to explain the initial observations to me. As described it sounds like something systemic went wrong.
If a hack it clearly illustrates we are far more vulnerable to cyber attack than most of our adversaries, so if we take up the call to “war” over Ruskie “meddling” in the 2016 election we have way more to lose than the other guys.
One man’s opinion.
I have twice now (Wilma, Irma) watched pole mounted distribution transformers explode under hurricane force winds. Spectacular blue flashes and showers of sparks from melted electrical steel. More than enough to start fires in dry California. Here, the cause is almost always wind, not rain. Most common cause is three phase transformer losing a single phase because the wire or the clipped lead to the corresponding transformer pole is compromised. Simple wind driven pole sway (can be large and amazingly rapid), or wind blown debris. Wooden Pole sway is the reason almost all of Fort Lauderdale is now reinforced concrete rather than wooden utility poles. Lots of post Wilma upgrading.
Insufficiently strong wooden poles, plus apparent (from images) inadequate tree trimming, easily explains multiple independent electrical fires originating under Diabolo wind conditions. Known problem or legislature would not have passed a bipartisan bill to fix.
You haven’t been in FL long? Have you?
17 years. Which compares to 15 in DC after year 4, then 11 in Boston metro, then 6 in Munich metro speaking German, then 17 in Chicago metro, before Florida now ~17 years. So DonK31, your bona fides are?
Urban areas don’t count Rud, as most power cabling is below ground.
>>
Urban areas don’t count Rud, as most power cabling is below ground.
<<
Underground transformers make beautiful blue explosions when they blow up. I’ve seen several here in the Northwest–with resulting power loss, off course.
Jim
Interesting speculation, but that’s all it is at this point. Those downed power lines in the video burned as a result of wildfires that destroyed whole neighborhoods. Power poles are unlikely to survive that kind of devastation. The primary driver of this devastation, as Anthony should well now, are the dry katabatic “Diablo” winds that are common around this time of year. High winds whip small fires into uncontrolled infernos.
I thought the high winds were called “Santa Ana’s”.
They are, in the Los Angeles basin.
Similar but different. See my earlier comments.
We obviously aren’t looking at the same pictures.
In the picture above the poles are snapped, not burned.
Nor do any of the trees and shrubs visible through the smoke show any signs of being burnt.
There is some charred wood in the second photo, but no evidence whether the equipment on the ground started the fire or was a victim of it.
“In the picture above the poles are snapped, not burned”
Yes, that does look odd.
“WOW”, …….. that’s AMAZING.
What were those power lines made of, …….. surely not CU or AL.
So the burned poles are the big story and not the property loss?
The burned poles are the first step in blaming the Utility for causing the fire. BUt the real cause for the Catastrophy is the state not agressively fighting the fire before it reached the populated areas and also not after it reached them. I live in Santa Rosa and still haven’t heard or seen ANY Air Tankers flying over to fight the fires.
Still have to wonder if it isn’t part of some plan to depopulate the state and reduce it’s Carbon Footprint.
With all the Ash I am walking through daily, I am leaving many Carbon Footprints everywhere I go
You can’t fly tankers in high wind situations.
Lauren,
I’d say it’s more than speculation. That the downed pole in the photo didn’t cause a fire doesn’t mean than many other downed lines and transformers downed or set ablaze didn’t start fires.
Your colleagues (?) at the Merc make a compelling case. IMO it’s highly likely.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/10/pge-power-lines-linked-to-wine-country-fires/
Parker Hill Road, in the first picture with the downed power lines is a few miles downwind of where the Tubbs fire apparently started on Sunday and is right in the middle of the fire’s path as fast, dry, northeasterly katabatic “Diablo” winds blew the fire to the southwest and into Santa Rosa through the neighborhood of Parker Hill Road. Showing powerlines downed by a raging wildfire isn’t evidence that PG&E had anything to do with this. You might just as well blame people for building their homes from wood which helped fuel the fire.
We’res your evidence that it was fire that brought down those poles?
None is visible in the picture.
Look at the burns near the base of the pole where it splintered. The photo was taken from a point that doesn’t display the trees and structures that burned around it.
Also, read my explanation of the location of Parker Hill Road which is downwind of where the fire started and right in the path of the fire. Here’s a fire map to help you.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/09/maps-napa-wildfire-santa-rosa-evacuation-area/
Wasting quality time doing this, but here are 2 problems:
1. Picture of downed power lines on Parker Hill Road are not at the northeast edge of the fire, they are right in the middle of the path of the fire, a few miles downwind from where the fire started near Calistoga. If it wasn’t the fire that brought them down, it could have been the wind which brought them down as it did in other areas nearby, but these power lines in this picture weren’t the cause of the fire. It started a few miles northeast near Calistoga.
Google Street View from same location as picture:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4789669,-122.7048405,3a,75y,356.63h,81.45t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1siii0gn7Sn6sXbz91RfifnQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Diii0gn7Sn6sXbz91RfifnQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D243.63547%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
Location in Google Maps where picture was taken:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/3572-3574+Parker+Hill+Rd,+Santa+Rosa,+CA+95404/@38.4790852,-122.7054233,202m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8084479d63717c73:0x46c0e99276fbb081!8m2!3d38.4790842!4d-122.7048761
Fire maps of Tubbs fire and Santa Rosa:
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/09/maps-napa-wildfire-santa-rosa-evacuation-area/
2. Location of downed power lines mentioned in video are not these power lines. The caller says “Mark West Station Road power lines down.” According to the fire map, the were no fires in that area.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mark+West+Station+Rd,+Windsor,+CA+95492/@38.5109459,-122.8428715,15.51z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x80843c4e7b2b9137:0x20449a8794cca7cc!8m2!3d38.5082313!4d-122.8394738
Probably meant Mark West Springs Rd instead of Station
Anthony, brother, I hear you. One year, maybe two.
Down here on the Eastside (of the Sierra Nevada) we have 2 mile visibility because the USFS once again allowed another “natural” lightning caused fire (Lion fire) to become a wildfire that is threatening mountain communities. So now that it has become a threat they are fighting it when they could have easily put it out back in Sept. In the meantime communities within a 50 mile radius gets horrid air quality for weeks or months.
Mark West Station Road, the location where the caller in the video reported power lines down, is not in the burn area. There was no indication on the call that a fire started or spread from there and there is nothing on the fire map that shows that area was burned. You can see the map of the fire’s extent here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/09/maps-napa-wildfire-santa-rosa-evacuation-area/
It looks like the video is carefully edited to promote a theory that has yet to be proven. PG&E may be lousy at maintenance and Governor Brown says and does things I find bizarre but that doesn’t mean either of them are complicit in these fires. The high speed winds are the main factor in spreading fires that might have been easily controlled and extinguished in other circumstances.
Here’s a theory: The high winds caused the lines to contact each other and spark, and the sparks caused the fires. It’s known that sparking is a big risk with high-voltage power lines, and is the reason why they’re spaced so far apart. Upgrading the lower-voltage lines as the vetoed bill presumably proposed would have eliminated this hazard, perhaps by inserting “spacers.”
Except that the power lines in the picture are in the middle of the areas burned by the fire, not on the upwind perimeter (which is a few miles northeast near Calistoga). And the downed power lines mentioned by the caller in the video are outside of the burn area (and not the ones in the pictures) and unrelated to the ones in the burn area.
@LA: True, but the guilty ones could have been others than the ones in the picture and the video.
You would be welcome in Colorado, Anthony. Heck, I could probably take you to the very same Starbucks that Steve visited on his famous tree-ring expedition in Colorado Springs. 🙂
Anthony you don’t need to go far just to Nevada(Reno, Carson City). Another upside to this move is no State Personal Income Tax, not sure about business tax tho.
“Another upside to this move is no State Personal Income Tax”
But will they tax all those Big Oil checks?
It will be very interesting to see what reports ascribe any of the fires to the sub par electrical infrastructure. If so, then let the legal court cases fly. There is no excuse for any Gov’t or private electric utility to have any vegetation growing into their lines or electric infrastructure. Their right of way for the power line gives them the authority to remove any such brush or trees. PG&E have already been fined many millions of dollars for their failure to maintain their infrastructure, which have caused many fires in the past costing tens of millions in losses and several lost lives. And many more ruined lives.
Just looking at the video and pics of this nightmare of broken power poles and downed transformers shows that these power poles are much to busy too handle the weight and forces acting upon them in a major wind gust situation. The wooden poles look like 50 year old Cedar, and while they may hold up a normal span of wire, start adding transformers and all the additional hardware, and they fall like dominoes when conditions are right. That one tree branch in Ohio in 2003 that cascaded the second largest blackout in history that affected 55 million people cost USA and Canada billions. All because of a tree branch and a malfunctioning alarm! Sure could have done a lot of power line upgrades and tree pruning for that kind of coin.
Hopefully this will necessitate the need to need to classify the Transmission and Distribution electricity grids and networks as critically essential necessary infrastructure. Just looking at all the money that is spent in repairing these old power lines, including loss of power sales when the power is off, makes one think that it is time we invest in a much hardened electrical utility infrastructure. For all the money that has been spent on fixing old lines or wasted in negligence such as causing fire, we could have had some of these power lines already buried underground where they should be. Especially the old antiquated distribution power lines that serve a large population in a forest susceptible to burning.
And BTW, what does any of this have to do with global warming or climate change? Fire burns accumulated fuels when conditions are ripe, and having thousands of homes now in the forest is only going to add to the risk. Operating delinquent power line infrastructure in that environment is only going to exacerbate that situation. The only thing that additional CO2 might have to do with it now is making the underbrush and forest grow a bit more quicker as compared to when we had a CO2 drought the last 100,000 years.
When I was in California, there was also an issue with some greens objecting to vegetation clearance near power lines, or controlled burns due to air pollution.
Are there Eucalyptus trees in the area? If not, just ignore this comment.
Visiting Chile some years ago, we were alarmed at the spread of the Eucalyptus trees that had presumably been imported for vineyard windbreaks. We have since heard of devastating fires near Valparaiso. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Valpara%C3%ADso
Eucalyptus trees are a horrendous fire hazard. They drop vast quantities of bark and branch litter, covering the ground with fuel. When that burns, glowing embers can “jump” many miles, rapidly spreading the fire. Although such a fire does tend to run up tree-trunks and into the canopy for the benefit of TV crews, the real fire tends to be at ground level. Even isolated houses can be burned, thanks to ember attack.
http://library.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/Bob_Santos-The_Eucalyptus_of_California.pdf#%EB%B6%EA%AE%81%03H%A1%F0%23%03%E3%97%96rA%20Fire
“H.H. Biswell, Professor of Forestry and Conservation at the University of California, Berkeley made a prophetic statement too on March 1973: When eucalyptus waste catches fire, an updraft is created and strong winds may blow flaming bark for a great distance. I think the eucalyptus is the worst tree anywhere as far as fire hazard is concerned. If some of that flaming bark should be flown on to shake roofs in the hills we might have a fire storm that would literally suck the roofs off the houses. People might be trapped.
[..]In his book, Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia, published in 1991, Stephen Pyne told the story of an Australian firefighting expert who attended a conference in Berkeley. The expert visited the hills in and around Berkeley and saw how the eucalyptus forests in the area were allowed to grow. He was struck with terror by their volatile nature and fled back to Australia. This occurred just prior to the 1991 firestorm. “.
Heck yeah there are eucalyptus trees. And I can attest to their messiness. Not just shedding bark, but they can shed entire limbs and kill people on the ground.
http://www.ocregister.com/2011/09/25/eucalyptus-safety-in-spotlight-after-womans-death/
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-20/local/me-4807_1_eucalyptus-trees
Limbs, branches, twigs, leaves and the nasty gum seeds. And they rain flammable resin down onto the ground beneath them. About every week in the fall I need to hose the sticky resin off the patio or it feels like walking on fly-paper. Eucalyptus also burns very hot and energetically.
Also eucalypts produce an oily vapour in hot air (Why the Blue Mountains in Aust are blue). This vapour easily ignites and adds to the firestorm. Where I live in Australia, eucalyptus bushfires are a regular occurrence each summer and often produce huge firestorms. Anybody who surrounds their house with these trees must be mad.
Graeme#4,
Not insane, just incredibly ignorant. These are essentially invasive species here and to an ignorant tree- hugger all green trees are good trees. They are taking them down around school yards, not because of the fire hazard, but because of the limb shedding. The word needs to get spread regarding the fire danger imposed by these as well.
They also use a lot of water and can be used to dry up swamps.
Yea, but they smell good, especially bicycling thru a grove on an isolated road.
Yup. Both northern and southern CA are infested with the fire hazards, and have been for a century.
http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/giant-eucalyptus-trees-removed-for-vine-trail/article_f9477ee6-fb4b-5572-8a2c-c3ca97a52f13.html
The never ending cycle:
The California “Perma-Drought” was caused by “climate change”.
Then the heavy precipitation that busted the “Perma-Drought” was caused by “climate change”
The heavy precip resulted in heavy growth of vegetation. Much of the vegetation has dried out making excellent conditions for wild fires.
So wild fires get started for what ever reason and are blown by fall winds. And this is the result of?
The sloped areas that have been burned will be more susceptible to mudslides in the event of heavy precipitation due to the fact that the vegetation was burned and their binding and supporting root structure will die. And, no doubt, some will say it’s all mans fault.
These fires ARE man’s fault. Absent exposed power lines these fires would not have occurred. The winds are not new. Some of the vegetation is (palm trees, eucalyptus, etc.) but the ignition source wasn’t available until people showed up.
The fires are initiated by man, or at least some of them, but the obvious point is that the conditions that resulted in them being what they are, are not. That is the result of the cycles that California has gone trough for millennium. Fires initiated by lightning are impossible in your world?
Now I have to go to work. See ya.
Winds like occurred there prior to the fire can create fires by several means. Two branches rubbing together rapidly by the wind creates friction enough to start fires. Dampened dead accumulations of leaves and twigs smolter from decomposing and the right amount of a breeze can set them ablaze. Just to give two examples.
When lightning cause fires in CA it is usually raining, and not blowing hot dry winds across the foothills and chaparral. Those fires will not grow into these wind whipped wildfires.
In CA we have 4 seasons: Spring, Summer, Fire and flood.
Currently it is fire season. It was even expected that this season would be worse because of the vegetation caused by last years flood season.
“It’s been a tough couple of weeks with hurricanes and earthquakes and now these terrible fires,” she said, according to KXTV in Sacramento.
“So in addition to expressing our sympathy, we need to really come together to try to work to prevent and mitigate, and that starts with acknowledging climate change and the role that it plays in exacerbating such events.”
It’s brilliant comments like this that lends credence to the crazy idea that our space-time reality was mixed with another parallel reality back in the 90s, and in that mix up Hillary et al. bumped their head so hard that it caused irreparable damage.
Hillary is the gift that keeps on giving. She just won’t shut up and go away and I like that.
The one unambiguously good thing to come from Obama’s 8 years– he blocked the Clintons getting back into the White House. Twice.
Even sycophants in the media have to understand that what she is saying makes no sense.
OK, we can argue whether “climate change” exacerbates hurricanes, but EARTHQUAKES…….?
Obama stopped Hillary 3 times (not just 2)…
Wasting valuable time doing this, but here are 2 problems:
1. Picture of downed power lines on Parker Hill Road are not at the northeast edge of the fire where it started near Calistoga. They are near the southern boundary of the fire, a few miles downwind of where it started. The winds were blowing from the northeast to the southwest. If it wasn’t the fire that brought the power lines down, it could have been the wind which brought them down as it did in other areas nearby, but these power lines in this picture weren’t the cause of the fire.
Fire map centered on Tubbs – Santa Rosa fire:
https://goo.gl/3ZGM7y
Google Maps location of photo on overlayed fire area map:
https://goo.gl/uWzK22
Street View from location of photo showing power lines on west side of road:
https://goo.gl/1u35YD
2. Location of downed power lines mentioned in video are not the power lines in the photo or shown in the video. The caller says “Mark West Station Road power lines down” which is a mile or so west of the fire zone. According to the fire map, there were no fires in that area.
Google Maps location of Mark West Station Road on overlayed fire area map. Zoom out to see fire area.
https://goo.gl/EB9P2e
QED
Outside of her self serving, psychopatic interests, she is campaigning for her daughter Chelsea for NY Senator Lowey’s seat, which I believe was promised to her. I’m willing to bet on it.
There is another individual from the Kennedy Clan who is eyeing the same but Hillary made a nice business deal with Lowey and hates the Kennedy ‘heiress’ with a passion for not supporting her in the previous presidential election where Obama got the nod…
Oh, about the deal…it involved real estate…
https://www.google.com/amp/www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/25/brooklyn-election-official-scored-big-profit-from-real-estate-deal-with-hillary-clinton-supporters/amp/
https://www.google.com/amp/www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/news/amp9557/clinton-kennedy-chelsea-clinton-senate-race/
Now that the beans have been spilled, I’m goin to confession as Al Gore has said it’s millions of degrees, 1 kilometer down and even if he us wrong, which I know is true, I cannot bear the thought of him being King of Hades and Hillary the Queen and me goin there….unless I get paid a lot to report on that ensuing fiasco, which will be hilarious and will ask for great HVAC in the contract.
Father, please forgive me but hey, even the devil himself has fled.
Oh, and as observed by the fella that discovered gravity…the apple never falls far from the tree.
PG&E does not do preventative maintenance on power poles. I’ve dealt with them for 40 years on another power pole issue. The company policy is “We’ll fix it when it breaks.” I know this is true.
IMO PG&E needs to have crews that do nothing but inspect poles, perform simple maintenance and write up poles in need of more extensive repairs. They need to touch every pole every 5 years. This would hugely reduce power outages and other lack of maintenance issues.
Poles or lines should not fall down whenever the wind blows 50 mph.
I have no illusions that they’ll pay any attention to me.
“PG&E needs to have crews that do nothing but inspect poles,”
Certainly happens in Australia. Basically constant inspect and repair.
And nobody can stop the electricity guys trimming or removing trees that might affect the power lines.
Often see trees below power lines with the whole centre cut out of them 🙂
And you watch them rebuild that electricity back onto poles. !
Mr. Watts – Please, California it is NOT a lunatic State. It is the Government of the State of California that is lunatic. Really, there IS a difference.
Elected there to by the lunatic population there of. So if the sandal fits……..
California outside the Cisco/Diego/LA zone is largely non-lunatic.
Just how do the lunatics get into government?
Lack of a voter ID law?
“Lack of voter ID law.” great answer.
Mine would be. The ignorance of the population.
The real wildfire is the mental illness epidemic sweeping through the state carrying all before it and reducing the population to some bizarre slobbering mutant state.
Because of global warming, power lines falling down and electrical transformers exploding are more likely to occur and be more serious in their consequences.
Or maybe it was the result of an American remake of Where Eagles Dare. (I tried to find a clip on YouTube of the telegraph posts being blown over but was not successful.)
Well in Michigan we have no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no sharks, no alligators, But we do get 6 months of cold lousy weather.
Over the lake in Waterloo, my wife loves the summer evenings and cold winters. Happy wife, happy life.
I’d rather deal with 0F in the winter than 100F in the summer. Especially if it’s combined with high humidity.
I’d rather have 100F in the summer than anything below 50F at any point in the year ;p. Given that I do live where we have 3 seasons: Wet, Summer and Dry, with dry being relative (4.5 feet of rain per year on average and a drought means that we got 4 or fewer feet in a water year). Plus, I grew up before central HVACs were common. In the old days, houses were built to keep you cool and since you adapt to it; when it gets ‘cold’ you put on more clothes to compensate. Thus the jackets seen on Southerners when it gets below 60F.
When I saw the news, I remarked the fires seemed to have a linear distribution and expressed the thought that they had been lit by some climate-crazed lunatic. Also, being a Canadian and having seen and experienced (run away from) really big forest fires, I had the impression that a couple of Canadian water bombers could have doused it in a day,if they were indeed linear.
Gary – makes you wonder if they take it seriously. They should buy a fleet of water bombers to deal with all those future impacts of whatever it is they are scaring people with these days.
You can’t fly tankers when the winds are high.
Re Eucalyptus trees & danger,
A great aunt was killed by a falling branch. That danger is real.
Fire danger is also real. In the early 1990s I visited far west China several times, drove through the southern extension of the Himalayas. Was shocked to see how large was the area under eucalypt plantation. Definitely a fire hazard, especially by now when they have grown larger. There were also many Silky Oaks (Grevillea robusta) that early Chinese diggers had taken home from the 1860-1900 gold rush era.
Here is Australia, too many fires are lit by sick people. Sadly, it is hard to police them and the areas they can hit. After that, poles and wires for electricity are a major cause of fire damage and death. It is a relatively bigger problem here because of sparse population – wires have a long way to go through land where there are few people to pay for them. Next to nothing is underground in the bush. Geoff.
Well, Clinton is a typical populist politician just like Trump and many others. They will do whatever gets them votes. That’s how they stay in power. It’s democracy. Nothing new here.
But still… earthquakes?
More power to the people. More power lines.
Solar and wind!
As a humble Limey, I have to say that we in the UK are bemused by the US electricity distribution grid comprising so much overhead cabling and transformers up poles…
Here, once we’ve distributed the power at 132000 volts, we go to ground-based substations and for all urban areas the cabling is UNDERGROUND.
Regarding eucalyptus trees – we had one at a previous house – not only could you watch the bloody thing growing (it finished up about 60 ft tall) but it damaged our neighbour’s garden wall and the roots started going under his house…
Needless to say we chopped it down – but even the stump tried to regrow..!
The distances are vastly different: One county here is 36 miles x 36 miles (50 x 50 kilometers north-south, east-west). The medium-sized states are larger than all countries in Europe save France, and France is merely equal to the larger states. You simply cannot dig-and-bury (economically) power, telephone, cable, and fiber-optic cables anywhere but the downtown regions of the largest cities. And the surrounding areas of every city are themselves too big to economically bury cables.
Yes, tree and fire damage occur. But not as often as publicized.
The climateers want to ameliorate a risk to our great greats in 2100 but veto a proposal to pre-empt a disaster certainty right now. When I saw the pictures on the news and saw the fires were in a straight line I suspected they were lit by a climatatic.
Are Californians so numb they don’t see there should be a class action lawsuit over this? What could be worse a danger than this kind of fire. Electrical lines running along a residential road in dry brush.
I say ‘disaster certainty’ because it was recognized by even by politicians! Also I live over 3000miles away in a different country and have heard about the regular Santa Ana winds. You know what they do, you know where they are and you know when they happen! For goodness sakes why isn’t there preparedness, water bombers on standby, patrols, brush cutting, maybe homeowners watering their houses down, neighborhood watch, some fire trucks handy on the streets…thats all a mining engineer/geologist can think of in one minute!
These negligent “wildfires” are more predictable than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods and we are more prepared for these than for a disaster you can set your clock by. And you have a serial liar and felon telling numbos in wrapt attention at UC Davis that it’s climate change. I think I’ll set up a “Santa Ana” “wildfires” prediction site in eastern Ontario to let you precautionary principle experts know when to get ready for the next one! Actually someone in California should do just that to shake the system into preparedness.
And they happen almost every October!
Does anyone know whether California does any “fire management” or are the environmental regulations and/ or fear such that you cannot do control burns to mitigate the build up of fuel on the ground? I have heard they don’t except on wildlife refuges and even there the land managers do not follow their own expensively developed land management plans. I know at one point both in Colorado and California people were not allowed to even mow certain areas around their houses and buildings because of threatened and endangered ground squirrels.
There are three types of people in this world.
Those that make things happen.
Those that watch things happen.
Those that wonder what happened.
Hillary reminds us, nearly daily, which camp she is in.
I’d add,
Those who exploit from what happened.
(exploit
[verb ik-sploit; noun eks-ploit, ik-sploit]
Spell Syllables
verb (used with object)
1.
to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account:
to exploit a business opportunity.
2.
to use selfishly for one’s own ends:
employers who exploit their workers.
3.
to advance or further through exploitation; promote:
He exploited his new movie through a series of guest appearances.)