One dead, hundreds of Northern California homes burn in wildfires

[Mr Natural]

How many desalinization plants could have been built with the money we pissed away trying to bring some semblance of order to the shithole known as the Middle East?

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

This is a different one called the Soberanes fire, but it is threatening to burn the vacation home of the family my wife has been a nanny for for more than 10 years here in the Bay Area.

I was sorry to hear the other day that their beautiful home in the Carmel mountains might soon be lost or at least the surrounding area badly damaged. The father is a retired vice president of Agilent Corp.

They were going to travel to Carmel yesterday to get possessions out of their home but found out they could not go because of mandatory evacuations. The two girls my wife takes care of are older now, but it must be hard on them. They have horses and like to ride there, but it might never be the same. That's a problem when you have a house in the hills.

Soberanes Fire Day 4: Nearly 15,000 acres burned, 20 homes destroyed

 

[Katzndogz]

Send the EPA a thank you note.

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

WTF? In Califorina's and recorded history. You know the period where we've recorded this kind of data! Right? 1850's, 1840's....

A big drought and shows that we need upgrades in that states ability to supply water.

They have been fighting over the Peripheral Canal for as long as I can remember, probably more than 30 years. It has been such a debacle the will to create new ways of getting water here in California has been lost for many years.

Peripheral Canal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yea, it is unbelievable how little rain we have gotten for several rainy seasons now, and there is no end in sight.

 

[Political Junky]

According to this news story this is the worst drought in California's history. California wasn't in existence 1200 years ago. I'm not sure what they would have called that land / region but it wasn't California. The author is mistaken on at least one other point as well. It isn't about climate change.

California just had its worst drought in over 1200 years, as temperatures and risks rise | Dana Nuccitelli

A new paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by Griffin & Anchukaitis concludes that the 2012–2014 drought in California was its most intense in at least 1,200 years.

One other error I noticed - they speak of the California drought in past tense. I do not believe it is over.
Another 2 or 3 years of drought? Report looks at what it might mean

Should the current drought extend for another two or three years, most California cities and much of the state's agriculture would be able to manage, but the toll on small rural communities dependent on well-water and on wetlands and wildlife could be extensive.

That was the assessment of a new study from the Public Policy Institute of California, released late Tuesday.

Bearing the ominous title “What If California Drought Continues,” the report cautions that “it would not be prudent to count on El Nino to end the drought.”

Regardless of what it's called, the land on which California exists has been there for millions of years.
Science enables finding out what conditions were 1,200 or 12,000 or 12 million years ago.

 

[waltky]

Bring in the choppers...

Deadly California wildfire expected to widen severely
Sat Jul 30, 2016 - A deadly blaze near California's Big Sur coast could widen to more than five times its current size and has destroyed some 60 homes, threatened hundreds of others and spurred mass evacuations, authorities said on Saturday.

The so-called Soberanes Fire, which started on July 22 and is burning just south of the oceanside town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, has roared through nearly 32,000 acres (13,000 hectares) of drought-parched chaparral, grass and timber in the Los Padres National Forest. The blaze is estimated to have a final size of 170,000 acres (265 square miles), according to California Interagency Incident Management Team 1, which is comprised of federal, state and local authorities. The cost of fighting the fire is now at about $6 million a day, it said on its Twitter feed. The estimated final size of the blaze is roughly equivalent to the size of Singapore.

Fire crews watch as flames climb Williams Canyon during the Soberanes Fire near Carmel Valley, California​

More than 5,000 personnel were fighting the blaze that has so far destroyed 57 homes and 11 outbuildings, with at least five other structures damaged, officials said on Friday evening. Some 2,000 other structures were threatened, officials added. More than 500 fire trucks along with 14 helicopters and six air tankers have been deployed to fight the blaze. Containment stood at 15 percent on Friday, up from 10 percent in the previous few days. Mountainous terrain combined with extremely hot, dry weather has hampered efforts by firefighters to hack buffer lines through dense vegetation around the perimeter of the blaze, officials said.

A Cal Fire helicopter flies over Williams Canyon during the Soberanes Fire near Carmel Valley, California​

The fire threat has prompted authorities to close a string of popular California campgrounds and recreation areas along the northern end of the Big Sur coastline, including Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and Point Lobos Natural Reserve. Highway 1, the scenic route that winds along seaside cliffs overlooking the Pacific, remained open, though motorists were advised to allow for traffic delays caused by firefighting equipment entering and exiting the roadway. The blaze took a deadly turn on Tuesday when a bulldozer operator hired by property owners to help battle the flames was killed as his tractor rolled over. It was the second California wildfire death in a week.

Deadly California wildfire expected to widen severely

 

[Katzndogz]

According to tree rings, California once had a drought that lasted for 200 years.