Chris White Tech Reporter
October 28, 2019 12:58 PM ET
California officials are working to beat back a massive wildfire that is charring the state and sending citizens sprawling for cover.
The so-called Kincade Fire scorched over 54,000 acres as of Sunday evening. Nearly 94 buildings and other structures were burned and 80,000 more have been threatened, according to The New York Times.
More than 180,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes. Much of the fire is impacting Northern California’s wine country and is making tracks southwest toward Sonoma County’s population hub of Santa Rosa.
Meanwhile, citizens are also dealing with rolling blackouts. Pacific Gas & Electric engaged in preemptive shutdowns Saturday afternoon that affected 38 counties up and down California. Nearly 3 million people were forced to prepare for a weekend without electricity.
WATCH:
California declares a statewide emergency as high winds and low humidity continue to fan devastating wildfires. More here: https://t.co/st986rBh2p pic.twitter.com/2Qw3cCKjFd
— Reuters (@Reuters) October 28, 2019
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a San Francisco Democrat who is under pressure as gas prices increase, told citizens Saturday that things are going to be tough in the coming days. “The next 72 hours will be challenging,” he said at a news conference. “I could sugarcoat it, but I will not.” (RELATED: Gov Gavin Newsom Struggles To Stay In Control As California Goes Dark, Wildfires Spread, And Gas Prices Spike)
WATCH:
California is looking like The Nether in Minecraft. pic.twitter.com/z2tYJJ00FG
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) October 28, 2019
Embers fly around a burnt out truck during the wind-driven Kincade Fire in Healdsburg, California, U.S. October 27, 2019.
Two firefighters sustained injuries since the fires began chewing up the state Oct. 26. The first blaze began 75 miles northwest of San Francisco, a few miles away from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district.
At my nothingburger SF Bay Area suburb (no risky high danger fire zone) the power was OFF for 24 hours (second outage in October) from Saturday afternoon to Monday afternoon. And … during the outage … when I needed it the most … I had NO cell phone service (Verizon – but every other carrier FAILED too). Seems as though even the NYT was aware of the problem …
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/business/energy-environment/california-cellular-blackout.html
… however, nobody at the CPUC seemed to notice. Calls of complaint to Verizon were treated like I was some kind of cranky malcontent … straight into the circular file.
Those cell towers are supposed to have battery backups. If the power was off for more than 24h the batteries may have been depleted
We had the same problem in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We’d have cell service then we wouldn’t have cell service, then we would. It seems that they had batteries for temporary outages but no generators to recharge the batteries. They tried driving around with a generator and recharging a cell tower and then driving to next tower. Then they finally started installing generators at the towers. The they had to learn to remember to refuel those generators. It was a fun month. The last thing they had to deal with was stolen generators.
Stealing a generator from a cell phone tower is far more serious chargeable set of offenses than just stealing a generator say from a contractor’s equipment yard or truck. In Arizona, a cell tower equipment and fenced area at the base is considered “critical public service facility.” Even just entering that property around the cell tower base (all these cell towers have Warning placards on them against unauthorized access) is felony trespass. Stealing vital equipment there disrupts can disrupt emergency service calls, people could die. Federal charges can also be filed by the US Attorney if they catch the thieves.
So it takes a special kind of stupid to steal cellular phone tower equipment from an active cell site.
re: “Those cell towers are supposed to have battery backups.”
Can you cite the “requirement” document? (State law, industry or FCC mandate, that sort for thing. Note: Guideline (mere suggestions) or “best practices” docs don’t count.
I don’t know about cell towers however, a typical wired telephone exchange had battery backups installed. I would assume a similar requirement for a cell phone tower to be installed because, especially here in Australia, emergency services make their announcements on twitter, facebook etc and usually publish a mobile number to call for updates.
In India they put solar panels on their cell towers to constantly charge the batteries
Evidence please. Do you know how much solar would be required to charge those batteries?
Apparently India has done this.
https://inhabitat.com/india-to-install-2200-solar-powered-cell-phone-towers/
Hello Griff,
what happens in the rainy season?
Get yourself some solar panels and a battery (with the cut off from grid capability).
you’d be mad not to, in California
I wonder if anyone has thought this out? (I doubt it). No power=no water to fight fires=no power to fill pump the fuel for the fire trucks & aircraft that fight the fires=no power for communications. Turning off the power just makes it that much more impossible to stop the fires. I’m willing to bet that this fall’s fires are going eat up more property just because the powere was turned off and nothing could be done to stop the fires.
Fire engines have almost the best water pumps in the world. They are run off a dedicated diesel engine separate from the main engine. Not electrically powered. The only better turbo-pumps available are on rocket engines.
Engineers who design these things are far more intelligent than the politicians who deploy them or the journalists who talk about them. The engineers account for potential issues like no electricity or no water pressure.
Fire pumps are great – but if they don’t have access to water they don’t do much good. And urban fire departments like those in question are not used to and don’t have the equipment to shuttle water around to where it’s needed.
Yes, those pumps sure are powerful. I don’t think that the ER loonies that organised that fake blood stunt using a fire engine realised just how powerful they are. The clip of them getting knocked all other the place trying to control the fire hose was hilarious. Talk about Keystone Cops
My point is that the pumps that they use to get the fuel from the tanks to the trucks don’t work without power, I am not talking about the trucks.
I’d go to a station that has deisel; all area owners will have been alerted, and the cops would have a key for emergency use (Of course, with armed law enforcement present, locking the place becomes sort of superfluous). Use a generator to power the station, including the pumps.
For water, any source, such as a stream, pond, or lake, has that. A fuel-powered pump, or a generator and electric driven pump, would take care of that problem.
These are such obvious potential problems that you can bet they’ve been anticipated, and solved.
“Fire engines have almost the best water pumps in the world. They are run off a dedicated diesel engine separate from the main engine.”
But if you are XR you’ll still make a total cock of the nozzle connector….
The world is going to take economic and political planning advice from douches too thick to use a hosepipe… yeah sure….
Wut? Dedicated engines for pumps?
20+ years in the fire service here, never seen that. Even on ARFF rigs. Are you talking about wildland firefighting brush trucks? Petrochemical plant foam pumpers?
Not trying to thread-jack, but I just want to understand what you’re talking about.
Hey, everyone back off a bit. This is California we’re talking about, here. The firetruck pump may be the world’s best, most powerful, humongoid water pump ever imagined by the most fever-brained water pump imagineer who ever lived, but in California, they put a flow restrictor in the nozzle. Need I add “to save the planet”? No, I don’t think I do.
During the serious 2013 bushfires in southeast Tasmania, I spoke to some friends in a village outside the fire area. They were providing refuge to a dozen or more people, some of whom had lost their houses. The big attraction was their land line phone, since the cell/mobile phone towers were down. As more people do away with fixed phones and depend entirely on mobile phones, this will become a much bigger problem in emergencies.
With all due respect, bushfires and forest fires are not exactly comparable. Utility poles and wire insulation are usually consumed also. Telephone wire is quite delicate and shorts out easily, just ask a wireman.
well since the forced NBN connections in aus
unless the owner of a landline springs 100$ for a pissant 2hr battery backup
they lose ALL landline coms when the powers out.
and in areas like mine where mobiles arent able to get signals for a lot of the area
youre stuffed unless you have an old battery radio
It’s remarkable how fragile modern, electrically powered, society has become. Still I guess with many years of Gov. “Do no forest management” Brown adding to the what, 40 years of do no forest management policies, I guess the big wildfire was inevitable.
We have the same issue here in Australia. We also have relevant authorities conducting controlled burn-offs, which is a good thing, but then we have the usual armchair whingers moaning about the smoke hanging around on light wind days such as today.
I’ve got news for you. The cell phone thing is not just a CA issue. No cell system will survive in an emergency. They don’t have the bandwidth, or the power backup to contend with anything more than daily life. Claims otherwise are formed from unicorn tears…and sparkle. If I were you, I would operate on the assumption of there being no viable cell service whenever anything goes wrong.
In a natural emergency TEXT, don’t call. Text will get through when voice won’t.
California’s acreage burned by wildfires in 2019 is far below last year and far below average. Perhaps the Sonoma fire will change that, but it looks like this will be a below average year. Nevertheless, the governor has declared an emergency and the news treats it like a world-ending event. Last year many lives were lost in the Paradise fire. This year almost no lives have been lost
99.9+% is unburned fortunately. Hopefully, efforts will be made to prevent loss of life and to minimize future damage.
I’ve got an idea, LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE!!???!!?!!
I’d go to a station that has deisel; all area owners will have been alerted, and the cops would have a key for emergency use (Of course, with armed law enforcement present, locking the place becomes sort of superfluous). Use a generator to power the station, including the pumps.
For water, any source, such as a stream, pond, or lake, has that. A fuel-powered pump, or a generator and electric driven pump, would take care of that problem.
These are such obvious potential problems that you can bet they’ve been anticipated, and solved.
The “number” of fires is irrelevant if it is YOUR house that burns. The problem is HOW these fires are starting? And a shocking number of the WORST fires are due to FAILING PG&E equipment … including an exploding transformer that burned 10acres and several structures in Lafayette, Ca neighborhood, which but for outstanding firefighting … would have been windswept right over my property. If MY home burned on Sunday … I wouldn’t care about “statistics” … but I still DO care that PG&E is spending ratepayer dollars for inessential socio-eco-warmist nonsense.
Welcome to an electrical grid managed by politicians and judges.
Kenji, I agree with your comments, except that I do care about statistics. The narrative has been that fire extent has been increasing in recent years due to climate change. This year’s low burn amount will eliminate the “upward trend” story, even though the media will not realize it and will continue to claim an increase in fires.
Of course. I was just emotionalizing my own personal experience. Our Public Power Utility is being used as an extension of the fascist State’s imposition of WARMISM on the public … and it is interfering with their basic mission; deliver cheap, abundant, safe electrical power and natural gas.
re: ” including an exploding transformer ”
It takes TRULY FAULTY EQUIPMENT to fail in such a dramatic manner. More likely, “downed lines” owing to a traffic accident (car hits pole) or lines were snagged by farm or industrial equipment (e.g. a bucket truck with the bucket partly up) . The EXPULSION FUSE on the “high side” from the transformer to the distribution is meant to “go first” on an overload, unless a ‘metal’ bar has been used in place of a fuse (this happens on occasion too.)
Other sources include “tree contact” with a live distribution line, or even Mylar balloons! There are some pretty dramatic videos on youtube showing Mylar balloons in contact (as in “between phase lines”) … this occurs with distribution lines (and not so much transmission lines) on account of the much greater spacing used on HV transmission lines than the spacing between phase lines on distribution lines.
Kenji
Is there the slightest hint in any news coverage that lack of resources for safety measures have been caused by other kinds of spending? I only became aware of those trade offs in the last couple of weeks. It certainly wasn’t covered in my Great Lakes region. But why should it when it’s all leftwing media regardless of where you live.
The SF Bay Area News stations are all hardcore leftist global warming shills. There is a 0.0% chance they will publicize any connection between the Legislature, Governor, and PUC making PG&E into their personal global Warming errand boy … and the shocking lack of basic maintenance and repair of their infrastructure.
But the WSJ editorial today pretty well summed it all up. And no, that editorial will never be broadcast here in the Bay Area. Sadly, nothing is going to change. This State is BLUE-BLUE forever. Thank God enough Great Lakes folks wised-Up and voted Trump. No such thing will EVER happen in CA … ever again. Hope you all go Trump 2020 … so our country doesn’t become California again.
And for legal fees from the lawsuits. Lawyers getting rich (er)!
Do you have a link to that information, John S? It’s hard to convince Alarmists that your statement is true. A link might help when discussing this with them. Thanks.
Try this site, but not details by state:
https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm
nifc = National Fire Information Center
Near the top is a table of fires and acres for the last 10 years, as of the current date. Both number of fires and area are below the 10 year average. Current fires in the western states are below that table.
Somewhere there will be state numbers, but I haven’t bothered.
A little premature to say this, the Paradise fire last year didn’t start until Nov 8 and burned for 17 days (150,000 acres destroyed). Given the weather I think we need to keep our fingers crossed that some rain will come in the next week.
“150,000 acres destroyed”
Recycled. In a couple of years you won’t know it happened.
Jeff Alberts
Yes, and the people who just barely escaped getting burned out in Pair o’ Dice ten years earlier did little or nothing to prevent what happened last year.
The Grand Jury report after that fire makes prophetic reading:
https://www.buttecounty.net/Portals/1/GrandJury/08-09/Grand_Jury_Report_FY08-09-Sec10.pdf
“By some miracle, the Humboldt Fire Incident did not cross the West Branch of the Feather River. Had this occurred, property damage could have been huge and thousands of lives could have been threatened in Paradise and the Upper Ridge.”
I wonder if their recommendations were acted upon:
R1. BCGP2030 needs to address emergency evacuation routes and fire preparedness for the foothill areas of Butte County.
R2. Review the limitations of Forest Road 171 such as traffic speeds, volume of cars, and fire prone area and consider other feasible evacuation routes. Additional roads for evacuation of the Upper Ridge, such as Doe Mill Road, should be investigated.
R3. Consider immediate modification of Skyway, from Paradise to Chico, as an emergency evacuation route, by removing trees and brush and creating fire barriers on both sides of the road.
R4. BCGP2030 should address how to handle disabled vehicles on emergency evacuation routes and the use of both traffic lanes for evacuation.
R5. Address the need for creation of Emergency Evacuation Plans for all high-risk fire areas in the Butte County foothills.
R6. Put a moratorium on all multi-home development in fire prone areas until all fire safety, traffic, and emergency water supply issues are resolved.
R7. The Butte County Board of Supervisors should request and implement a County Fire Code Ordinance specifically designed for the Butte County foothill’s environment.
R8. In cases of emergency, the County Emergency Broadcast System should update information frequently, with specific, current information about evacuation recommendations, lo- cation and status of the emergency, and the forecast of future actions.
R9. The Board of Supervisors should encourage the formation of a Benefit Assessment District on the Ridge.
R10. Consider inserting, in the local phone directory or property assessments, information about emergency travel routes and public assembly points, as shown in Appendix C.
So after reading the WSJ Opinion piece on PG&E it is apparent that this utility is the American version of PDVSA, the oil company piggy bank in Venezuela that is expected to operate as an oil company after diverting its revenue to all manner of social spending causes and vote buying efforts in addition to assorted corruption payments.
Climate change makes for a handy excuse in California as long as the low information audience does not wise up.
It is the low information voters who got us into this mess. And the media wants to keep them that way.
The media is part of BIG government. To sustain BIG (Brother) government you need a permanent ‘the sky is falling’ psicosis ‘So we from the government can help you’.
Good analogy. In the case of PDVSA, most competent employees were fired because they didn’t support Chavez.
In the case of PG&E, they still have competent employees, though they are hamstrung.
Is it really that sensitive an issue for PG&E to state the grand total of RE spending forced on them vs. the cost of grid maintenance for all to see?
Yep, it is forbidden by CPUC rules. Besides, as antagonistic as the CPUC, the governor, and the legislature is towards the Investor Owned Utilities, they sure don’t wouldn’t want to poke that bear if it was not forbidden.
You don’t even have to go allllll the way to Venezuela, Pemex is a piggy bank for the politically corrupt elites in Mexico.
Back when it was raining heavily and everyone was touting the end of the drought, many were also predicting a rather nasty fire season due to all the additional growth. The very fact that average citizens were aware that this situation, has in the past, is in the present and will continue to exist. It is NOT UNPRECEDENTED, it is predictable and was predicted. And, predictably it was ignored.
In the previous post on this topic a rather telling comment was made:
CA never had any forced pre-emptive power shutdowns when it was a Red state. …hmmm
And not a single power outage during the entire Gold Rush.
thass not true, ol’ Toothless Ben’s mule got sick for a whole week one time.
The only ones who have ignored this reality is PG&E and Sacramento. PG&E’s FAILING infrastructure is STILL sparking fires! Including one in my own suburban neighborhood.
Failing stuff – perhaps. Perhaps also lack of maintenance due to restricted budgets? Perhaps also overload – for various periods of time – shortening the useful life? No money to put in properly sized equipment or replace worn out stuff?
Back when it was raining heavily… many were also predicting a rather nasty fire season due to all the additional growth.
Additional plant growth from CO2 was not discussed, as that is verboten!
Hats off to the brave men and women trying to deal with mismanagement enhanced wildfires in Kalifornia.
30 years ago, I saw the writing on the wall for where California was heading. Nearly 20 years ago, I executed my escape. Nothing of what is currently happening there from the taxes, war on the middle class, our of control de-criminalized criminal activity to the power going out is any surprise.
I’d say “The last one out turn off the lights”, but that’s clearly not necessary. It was a great place while it lasted.
I’m stuck a couple more years waiting for my wife’s retirement to mature … not sure I’ll survive the wait … literally! I may be incinerated by PG&E, the CPUC, and every leftist Pol. in the State.
someone should tell California that “Atlas Shrugged” wasn’t supposed to be a How-To manual.
Following that manual, they:
1) create problem
2) blame the people who are trying to fix the problem for the problem
3) create legislation to prevent the people trying to fix the problem
4) blame them for the problem getting worse
5) repeat
Instead of doing it piecemeal, they should just pass Directive 10-289 and be done with it.
This happens EVERY year. Why do they never ever prepare?
Maybe this will be the last wildfire
Were any preemptive burns done when the rains came and the forests weren’t dry? Or even selective harvesting to thin out dense forests and provide fire breaks?
Of course not.
Someone somewhere somehow might make a profit.
California needs to replace the image on their flag with Smokey the Bear.
Ohhhh … I see you forget to get the memo from the Forest Services … “Fire is Natural”. So we no longer deliver Smoky Bear’s message.
Coming soon to the NY Times; an editorial titled “Why Climate Deniers Are Partly to Blame for the California Wildfires”.
“Why Climate Deniers are to blame for the California Wildfires”
There — I fixed it for you
Keep it burning. Winter is coming. It could be your only heat source.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-125.81,42.77,750/loc=-106.857,44.488
This reminds me of the stories you see where a home owner wants to clear out an old leaning tree that is hanging over their house, and the bureaucrats won’t issue a permit on their private property to remove that old rotten tree. And then it blows over on the house in a moderate wind storm and kills the home owner. I have heard of this happening in more than one jurisdiction including Kalifornia. I would never willingly live in such a place. What a tragedy Cali has become.
I live in Ohio. Tomorrow I’m having the 3 largest trees removed from my property. All are doing badly and a danger to either my home or the utility lines. Others will be trimmed, fertilized and otherwise cleaned up. No permits, no gov’mint interference.
I like Ohio.
With all the blackouts, do the firefighters have power to run the fire water pumps?
You can’t blame this on “global warming”. Most of the western United States will have record cold temperatures tonight, such as 10 degrees in Salt Lake City.
re: “Meanwhile, citizens are also dealing with rolling blackouts. ”
Mis-stated. These are power cuts performed for safety’s sake.
The term “rolling blackouts” is a specific term indicating ‘pain is to be shared by all’ as a result of a limited amount of (electricity) supply (that is, there are insufficient generation resources to maintain ‘the grid’ at 60 Hz, and at nominal supply voltage).
There isn’t a ‘shortage of supply’ in this case. Maybe this is not fully understood?
I attribute the misstated conditions on the media, who in their ignorance and combined with their desire to promote further ignorance, used the only convenient phrase they could remember, because “it’s just y’know electrical stuff and you know what I mean.”
…abdication of intellect
Well said, Jim. They are blackouts. There is nothing ‘rolling’ about them.
I have little to no sympathy for anybody in California regardless of the their political ideology or world views.
For me to have sympathy would be the first act of enabling. While none of what is occurring, in terms of the natural events is unexpected and are in fact normal for this time of year, what the humans, in charge of the situation, are doing is making it worse and their lapdogs in the media are complicit. Every citizens of California bears responsibility and all have blood on their hands for their actions and lack of actions.
Elections have consequences. Why should I have sympathy for a path that Californians chose for themselves either by electing the morons they have elected or through direct ballot referendums?
While, I have no control of where my tax dollars are spent; I refuse to mentally, spiritually, be a part of it. I will not donated to Red Cross this year for the CA wild fires.
Frankly, California needs to burn to cleanse itself of this moronic monolithic political ideology. There is a systemic hubris across that state’s entire citizenry, regardless of the political ideology, that even their s–t does not stink.
I have no faith, none, that anybody in California will learn anything. I am tired of the hubris of California and Californians ruining the lives of every other American citizen and potentially humanity at large.
Native Americans knew how to manage forest and keep their villages from burning. You would think from a state that self-proclamation on how woke and socially aware they are that they would not trample on “ancient” wisdom.
Living in a blue state myself, I certainly do have sympathy for those who live in Cali but did not vote for the madness. Not all the citizens of Cali are far-left loonies but all of them have to suffer the results of the far-left loony policies. It’s the people in California that voted *for* the terrible politicians and policies that I have no sympathy for. They’re reaping what they sowed. Pity the ones who didsn’t want those politicians/policies but are forced by dint of geography to live with them.
The main disconnect is that the urban areas in the state determine the vote in any election. Their vague and ignorant understanding of nature and climate results in laws and rules that damage rural people. Rural counties voting against the stupidness are simple out numbered at the poles.
This is a problem in many states in the U.S. not just California. New York, Colorado and Illinois are three off the top of my head that have similar problems with the less populated rural area (which is the majority of the area of the state) having to deal with the dictates of the large population areas.
Soon this may become a problem with all of the U.S. if the Dems come back into total power and become successful in abolishing the Electoral College.
Yes, and….. every conservative that stays home because his vote “doesn’t matter” lets the Democrats win. It is literally half a vote for the Democrats and the insanity that is destroying California. If you care, you vote. Otherwise, STFU. Your state. Your family. Your choice. Your vote.
But that would make them guilty of “cultural appropriation.” Using Native American methods to better themselves would just be wrong.
Our all-together friend Rahmstorf always connects bush fires to heat, what will he say now ? Think, he will have a serious problem while searching arguments for his max. half-cooked idea.
It aint the heat, it’s the stupidity.
Best quip today! +Farenheit 451!
Haven’t heard from Anthony or Willis here in a while.
Y’all okay?
The late November rains… they are a coming, just not fast enough.
They might not have the ability to get online if they’re in the black-out areas.
Joel, Willis posted on Lord Monckton’s article this morning
These outages are good conditioning exercises for the GND way of life. Sometimes you’ll have power, sometimes you won’t . It’s Green. And righteous asceticism in the Great Climate War.
California needs to label itself as a cause of cancer since smoke and smoke-promoting grid policy caused this.
The winds are coming back.
http://www.lightningwizard.com/maps/North_America/gfs_cape_usa12.png
The socialist state of Communifornia has been run into the ground by state teachers unions and other public employee unions, in particular that of the prison guards. They have used their political influence to turn the state progressively more blue in every election for the last thirty years or more, all the while negotiating sweetheart contracts for themselves with the very politicos they are contributing so generously to. This is why the state has such huge pension liabilities that will become more and more apparent as the working and middle class taxpayers are driven out of the state by the high costs of housing and taxes. Now that the electrical grid is being destroyed, the cost of EVERYTHING will rise dramatically as well.
It is so sad for me, as a fourth generation Californian, to see the destruction of this once great state. The schools brainwash and indoctrinate their students, filling their heads with the lies of the Green Blob and leaving a sizable minority so illiterate that a life of crime is virtually assured. A few more years will see widespread collapse of the civil society, just like Venezuela! At that point I hope there will be many who will return and try to make California great again by dividing the state in two and making the L.A. basin a sealed-off refuge for the socialists and fascists who predominate in the urban areas. If they are isolated maybe we can prevent them from reinfecting the rest of the country.
” by dividing the state in two ”
There will be 2 more senators from the left coast.
Likewise for the SF Bay area.
When the place becomes like Venezuela the cure is to take voting (in National issues)
away and allow them only observer status.
There will be 2 more senators from the left coast.
Depends on how the state is divided as to whether or not that would be a bad thing. There are red areas of the state (mostly rural) and blue areas (mostly urban). If the split results in a red state and a blue state, that’s a good thing. If it results in two blue states that’s a bad thing.
It’s not just California, there are several other “deep blue” states that could do with splitting the saner sections away from the loony-left sections.
Climate Change is having a dramatic effect on California…. but it is the political climate that has changed. California used to be run by pragmatic conservatives that supported utilization of natural resources and cost efficient power systems. Now it is run by psychotic nonscience socialists insisting you can subvert power systems reality with ecotopic virtue signaling as economic policy.
Golly! What could go wrong??? Let’s ask Venezuela…..
California also has no EARTHQUAKE RECOVERY FUND building up $$ reserves for re covering from the large earthquakes THAT ARE 100% CERTAIN TO OCCUR.
No, they plan to put their hands into the wallets of the citizens of the other 49 states when “The Big One” hits.
If you refuse to manage forests, refuse to clear trees from power lines, continue to build in and around forests and dont properly configure and maintain the grid, pretty soon nature will take care of all that for you. But not in a good way.
Krazycats fiddle while California burns.
Has anyone tried to quantify the air pollution caused by these fires, both the real pollution and the carbon dioxide “pollution”?
@ Ray
Don’t call carbon dioxide “pollution”… that’s what alarmists do.
saveenergy, alarmists don’t call carbon dioxide “pollution” they call it pollution. note the lack of scare/sneer quotes in their version. The quotes around the word pollution indicate the word is being used in it’s normal sense, IE it indicates the carbon dioxide “pollution” isn’t really pollution.
“…is not being used…”
where’s the edit button when you need it?
“I could sugarcoat it, but I will not.” How about fixing the problem Gov. Newsom? Tell your liberal environmental friends to take a hike and eliminate all though devastating policies. This can be fixed but it will involve getting rid of policies that do not allow the utilities to do the job properly.
The two fires in California are substantial but would not even make the top 100 list in North America in recorded history. Lots of multi million acre fires up to 5 million acres. Even the 100,000 persons ordered evacuated pales beside a typical hurricane evacuation in recent years, which typically hit in the millions in a large state like Florida or Texas when they approach landfall. Great for generating mass hysteria, ratings points, and mouse clicks, though.
It seems California could reduce CO2 emission if it did things to prevent forest fires.
Yeah, but burning trees do count. Just ask those English power plants burning wood pellets imported from North America.
“don’t count” – I hate when my fingers miss drop off important parts of words/sentences.
I have half a dozen “hand crank” radios that stay charged for over an hour with just a few cranks. They include a flashlight and a flashing amber light. They are cheap and come in all sizes and capabilities. I also built a bicycle-powered generator as well. I can keep a 12-volt car battery charged for my short wave set (R/T capability for emergency communication). Old bicycles are cheap at garage sales, and automobile generators and alternators are cheap at junk yards. Use your imagination and prepare for all emergencies as your resources allow.