California wild fires

[lapfog_1]

Being a bit bored this afternoon... I decided to use this site

http://fortune.com/2018/07/30/carr-fire-google-map-update-news-redding-california-2018/

and I created a small spreadsheet to sum up all the fires currently burning in CA

name acres contain acres contained acres not contained
natchez 5360 10 536 4824
garner 29039 60 17423.4 11615.6
carr 98724 20 19744.8 78979.2
crestline 51 97 49.47 1.53
corner 35 50 17.5 17.5
whaleback 14098 20 2819.6 11278.4
ranch 35075 5 1753.75 33321.25
river 20911 5 1045.55 19865.45
steele 135 75 101.25 33.75
ferguson 56659 30 16997.7 39661.3
lions 4435 92 4080.2 354.8
georges 2883 42 1210.86 1672.14
valley 1248 29 361.92 886.08
cranston 13139 57 7489.23 5649.77
ribbon 205 95 194.75 10.25
rock 207 75 155.25 51.75
pasqual 365 95 346.75 18.25

Total 282569 208241.02 0.263


282,569 acres are either on fire or burned in active fires (this doesn't include fires already 100 percent contained). 26 percent containment based on the size of each fire and individual containment.

I live near Tracy on the east side of the Big Valley... probably 100 miles from any of these fires. Yet I walk outside in the last few days and the fire haze (smoke) is as bad as I have ever witnessed... and I was here for the Oakland Hills fire in 1991.

Rhode Island is only 988 thousand acres... so this is like 28% of the state of Rhode Island on fire.

[onecaliberal]

1. The air quality is horrendous throughout the state.

[lapfog_1]

2. i haven't seen any warnings in my area...

but I look outside and, well, I wouldn't spend time outside doing anything physical right now.

If I had asthma... I would not venture outside for anything.

[onecaliberal]

4. I'm about 50 miles outside of Yosemite. We have had air warnings for at least the last 8 days.

My son has asthma.

[RockRaven]

5. I second the note that the air quality related to some of these fires is unbelievable.

I saw some numbers in the paper about the particulates in Yosemite valley, they were many, many times higher than the notoriously bad air quality in Beijing. They ended up closing/evacuating campgrounds etc not because of fire risk but because of air quality risk.

And a few weeks back I was driving through Northern CA and stopped in Redding to gas up. There was some fire to the south of there (not the current Carr fire, some other one). The visibility distance and eye/breathing irritation was as bad as the worst L.A. basin smog I've experienced in decades past.


But the worst wildfire smoke I've ever encountered was a decade plus ago in San Diego. Don't know if anyone recalls the Cedar Fire, but even being on the periphery of it was absolutely surreal. I was living between the fire area and the coast at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Fire_(2003)
I woke up in the morning and everything smelled like smoke. I'm slightly confused and disconcerted. The sky was grey, but near the coast it's common to be overcast in the AM. Then when I go outside to get in my car I notice it is raining ash. Obviously I turned the car radio to local news ASAP. Oh there's a fire. I exit my driveway and turn onto the nearest main thoroughfare which happens to face east. And the horizon is glowing -- but it is several hours past sunrise. That's not normal. Every inch of the sky is medium-grey and featureless, except the sun which even at noon is a dull orange disc, like you would normally see at the horizon AND with fog/clouds, and it feels like dawn/dusk even at midday. There isn't the tiniest bit of non-grey sky anywhere to be seen. It took a couple of days for the normal west-to-east winds to re-assert themselves and clear the area out, and it was eye-watering, throat-tickling, chest-constricting, and the average person had no hope of doing anything to get relief. Really awful.

[ghostsinthemachine]

6. My Redding/Shasta area friends went

Home today. That's good. They were evacuated on Friday and now they're home.

But, the apocalyptic scenario is playing out. The Mendo fires (Clear lake) are really going tonight. Lots of wind there.

I live in the foothills of the Sierras, Coloma area, and it seems we are the only high fire area, not currently burning. We've been rebuilding our fire suppression systems over the past couple of weeks. We should be safe.

[lapfog_1]

7. good luck

This is only the middle of the fire season... which won't end until late October this year (my speculation).