Things are not going well in California

"John Norris (AngryDrifter)" (angrydrifter) 11/10/2018 at 10:42 • Filed to: None

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Obviously this is an ongoing human tragedy in both Northern and Southern California. There is plenty of reporting on that. I thought I’d focus on the automotive side here.

There are lots of minvans, trucks, and SUV’s that some may not miss, but I think every automotive fan can find some heartache here.

There is an impressive amount of automotive damage in this video here.

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More video with a collection of cars and trucks.

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Another view of an earlier car photo. Looks like an engine stand, so car was probably a project.

wafflesnfalafel > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 11:34

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Jesus... those shots of cars (and bus) along the side of the road are painful - you know those folks had no where to go...

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > wafflesnfalafel 11/10/2018 at 11:43

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Indeed.  I didn’t read specifics on the bus but y ou have to think they had people in them and the fire stopped the cars and bus and they had to scramble out of there by some other means.

vondon302 > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 12:40

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Damn did that move quick.

I sometimes think maybe people shouldn't live in parts of California.

DipodomysDeserti > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 12:43

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Interesting imagery if you think about the impact roads and vehicles have had on forested wilderness.

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > vondon302 11/10/2018 at 13:01

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I lived in California for pretty much the first 30 years of my life. My Dad and Sisters still live there. If you have open space on your property yo u have to keep it cleared or you get fined. I think that’s been pretty effective where it’s been successfully implemented. But there is so much space out there covered with combustible brush and if you are within a half mile of that and are down wind, it can li ter al ly rain down burning brush on your house. T hat’s pretty hard to combat.

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > DipodomysDeserti 11/10/2018 at 13:01

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So what are you saying, payback?

vondon302 > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 13:31

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For sure. Just a total different landscape to me.

DipodomysDeserti > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 13:48

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No, not at all.

The photos are a grim and surreal reminder of the impacts society’s behavior can have on the natural world. Humans tend to think of ourselves as insulated from the natural consequences of our actions. Events like this show us all fairly bluntly that we most definitely are not .

Godspeed to everyone affected by these fires. Hopefully we all actually learn something from them.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 13:55

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Time to go film a low budget post apocalyptic movie. 

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > DipodomysDeserti 11/10/2018 at 14:10

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Not sure what started these particular fires. But the history of California as I learned long ago is there were big fires long before it was populated. It’s just prone to it. Certainly we cause the fires more frequently than mother nature, but lightning started a lot of forest fires before careless people and pyromaniac s showed up.

Interestingly enough t he giant s equoia trees out there that can be a few thousand years old are fire resistant and evolved to benefit from forest fires.

DipodomysDeserti > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 11/10/2018 at 14:49

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Sorry for the long post. This isn’t meant to be a rant, and I’m definitely not blaming anyone for losing their property and lives. I study and teach about some of this stuff, and it’s a bit of a passion of mine. I also realize my own actions are hypocritical in my interaction with natural systems. That said:

Yes, fires are a natural part of a forest’s ecosystem. They need them to survive. In a healthy forest, natural ground fires help clear away dry, dead material, and allow cones to sprout (creating more trees) , thus preventing hotter, more destructive crown fires from raging. The s equoia is a great example of how humans have disrupted this process in California.

As you correctly pointed out, large sequoias are basically fire resistant. In a ground fire, they may char on their outer bark, but they won’t light up like a candle. Anyone who has tried to start a fire with a log of wood and no accelerant knows how this works. Doesn’t matter how much fuel you have if you can’t get oxygen to it (just like flooding an engine). Unfortunately, around 95% of California’s sequoias have been cut down since Europeans started settling there . This has greatly disrupted the natural fire systems that have existed in these ecosystems for millenn ia. The removal of these large trees not only makes the area more susceptible to fire (less moisture held in the soil and the air), but also more susceptible to having larger/hotter fires (crown fires).

When you remove so many fire resistant sequoias , you run the risk of of having much more destructive crown fires. These fires burn much hotter than ground fires, and are able to consume full grown trees. They become so hot that they jump from tree crown to tree crown (hence the name). Add to that the fact that lots of people are living in areas that have always experienced natural fires, in wood homes filled with flammable stuff, and you have a recipe for disaster. Less flame resistant trees, less moisture in the air and soil, more flammable houses, and more people to start fires ( close to 90% of wildfires are caused by humans ). So, even though a human might not have been directly responsible for this fire, although it’s likely one of us was, human activities are most definitely responsible for these stronger fires we are now seeing. And that doesn’t even get into how our affect on the climate has created a longer and drier fire season.

I’m from the desert, but I fucking love these forests, and it breaks my heart to see this happen to both the forest, and the people who I know love them as well.