The Glade 4.0

Air Quality where I am (Sacramento) gets a D from the EPA. Most of the surrounding Counties get an F. Fires all over my State, thinking of packing the car and going somewhere I can breathe easy. Northeastern Nevada or Southern Utah seems okay. My town is surrounded by rivers and canals, so we should not have a major problem, but almost all of our firefighters are off fighting the big ones.

Over 600 homes lost, close to 400,000 acres burned, approximately half the size of Rhode Island is either in flames or in ashes from fires. As you can tell from the numbers, most of the houses lost are in small towns in wooded areas. Redding is a sprawling spread out city where neighborhoods have burned but most of the city is okay, empty, but okay, they've evacuated the town.

I'm worried about friends in the affected areas. The death toll is still fairly low considering the number of homes and acres burned. Word just rolled over the news of four more today. No reports of anyone I know suffering that fate.

Yeah, I'm a little freaked out. I'll check in from time to time to let you folks know I'm okay. Anyone can post on the thread of course.

Please check in if you are affected by the fires and still lurking around.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Were not having much in the way of fire activity up here in the Northwest. We are however suffering from the smoke from fires in neighboring British Columbia.

Our air quality is awful

I went for a long bike ride (90 miles) up Snoqualmie Pass yesterday, and today, I've pretty much lost my voice.

Same thing happened last year.

I'm ready for some fresh air...

Being in the sensitive groups that the air is currently unhealthy for, I'm still staying inside where the air is filtered and cooled.

Today it was almost 100F and 106 AQI today. The fires are still burning and few have been controlled. There are still 15 major fires throughout the State. We still have foreign professional fire fighting volunteers coming in.

Every year at New Year's Eve some fools are going on about how next year can't be as bvad as this one. I feel like smiting them with Mjolnir and yelling about not tempting the gods to prove them wrong. Of course Thor would smirk at me if I tried to lift Mjolnir, but that's a another story.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

The moon looks frickin' cool, between coughing fits.

The fires feeding smoke here are out, the air quality is back to good.

Some firers continue to burn, of those some are very hard to get to and they are letting them burn out.

So California still continues to burn, but the fires are getting fewer and the weather is having some cool spots, which is helping a lot.

Turn your worries towards our the members in the Carolinas. Disaster relief there is going to be ongoing for awhile after Florence, even as downgraded as it became it still caused a lot of damage.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

November and new fires are hitting California. It is unusual for the fire season to be going this late, but a hot summer and no substantial rain yet have left a lot of dead dry grass and timber around.

Paradise was one of those quaint little towns. Founded in 1877 it had a variety of housing styles and showed its history as an old former mining town. A lot of folk retured there because it was close to Chico, but far enough away to ignore the noise and bustle of a University town.

We'll wait and see what is left, and hope a high percentage of residential owners had enough insurance.

The town of Paradise, a relatively small foothills town, a little under 30,000 residents total, 10 miles east of the famous party University town of Chico, and about 85 miles north of Sacramento, was burned mostly to the ground a couple of days ago

The Camp Fire has expanded since then to over 100,000 acres. More than 6,000 residences are gone. The number of people thati are known have died is this fire is approaching two dozen, with around 115 missing and unaccounted for. 250,000 people have evacuated. For the record 100,000 acres is 156.25 square miles or about 405 square kilometers. If you put all the fires in California right now you have an area about the size of all of the City of New York.

I have a few friends that lived in Paradise. Right now they are scattered all over as friends took them in. They've lost their homes. The fire has moved west to Chico which is why th3e number of evacuees is rising so high. I have a brother who lives in Chico, haven't heard from him yet, but I'm not real worried, I'm sure he's evacuated and we talk so infrequently I'm not who he is likely to call, if he has a phone right now.

Smoke is bad down here in the Sacramento area. Friends are reportedly having serious breathing problems. I'm staying in my home hoping it doesn't get to me.

You remember last year when the Oroville dam almost failed? Helicopters are making many many trips dipping water out of that lake today fighting the fire. The firefighters are showing up in large numbers, but the blaze is still only 20% contained as of the last news I read.

The Woolsey fire in Ventura County down south is nearly as big. The Hill fire, also in Ventura County, is only around 5000 acres.

Luckily, most of the fire is in sparsely populated area, but several fairly small towns are either threatened or already consumed by the fire.

It is going to be a tough winter for the Chico area. Ventura county is going to have it tough as well.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

113,000 acres burned as of Monday Morning.
25% contained.
Wind gusts today predicted to be 30-40 miles per hour.
29 civilians have died and been found.
6.453 residences burned down so far, mostly in Paradise, CA
Air quality is rated very bad here in Sacramento.

I am not in danger. The fire is still 85 miles away from me. Still, checking my go bag in case I need to leave because of the smoke.

By the way, in case some of you are wondering, there are a lot of us around here that have agreed 45 is right about the forest maintenance. Various ecological concerns have stopped the clearing of scrub from in and around forests. Dead trees have been left to rot a s a source of nutrition and shelter for the small animals and bugs. Despite continuing proof that this only leads to bigger and more deadly forest fires, the court cases keep going ion to "protect" our natural spaces from maintenance.

Of course most of us also think that he is trying to set up the rights to clear cut the forests, not maintain them. We don't want that either. He has already come out in favor of selling national park lands tro the highest bidders.

Hope your days are going well.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

A few foilk have gone back to Paradise. Some have confirmed the nightmare.

One lady I know went back to find rhat her neighbor had stayed for six hours after the evacuation call and managed to save both her house and his. When asked what she could do for him for his heroic efforts and saving her home he said a case of beer would be nice, when she can afford it.

Yes there are still fools and heroes who do the selfless things to help others out.

We'll know later what else has occurred, but definitely a mixed bag so far.

Updated: It made the news, so here is the link.

https://krcrtv.com/news/camp-fire/parad ... c7iZVCC18M

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

We've had rain, it helped a lot. The fires are now mostly out over the 153,000 affected acres.

Close to 7000 buildings lost, tens of thousands homeless, nearly a hundred dead, probably more as the recovery crews examine the wreckage.

Still, everybody I know seems to have found temporary lodging with friends and/or family.

The jokes about Trump and his ludicrous inability to get facts right go on and on. Not remembering the name of the town of Paradise and calling it Pleasure, California is near the top of the list. Raking forests is another ridiculousness.

Writing these posts have been cathartic for me as a way to express my frustration. Thank you for reading.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I am glad this one's over... ish.

I'm sad that Cali is constantly on fire now.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Northern California received a wonderful amount of rain, they have listed the Camp Fire as conditionally over. Well, there are still a few trees smoldering but we're watching them . . .

Official death count will keep growing for awhile as they clear the ruins. Estimate from those there and not talking ot the media is a bit over 200. A lot of those will be found off-grid, no services, and no one really knew they were there. Those might pop up for a few years dep[ending on how well the former residents managed to hide their homes.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I thought this was a thread about western fries.

Western fries are way better than fire.