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A FIERCE WILDFIRE is raging on north of Los Angeles, threatening other towns after already charring vast swaths of land.
The so-called Thomas fire is only 15% contained, now threatening the city of Santa Barbara and the nearby coastal town of Carpinteria, and is on track to become one of the worst wildfires in California history.
It has already destroyed 583 structures and scorched 155,000 acres (60,000 hectares), the authorities say.
A photo posted by Santa Barbara police this morning showed a wall of flames several meters high very close to buildings in Carpinteria.
Evacuation orders were issued overnight for some parts of Carpinteria close to Los Padres National Forest, where the fire was raging.
Conditions remained very dry in southern California, according to the National Weather Service, but strong winds that have fueled the fires for much of the week have eased significantly.
At least five other blazes in southern California are now largely contained, the state agency Calfire said.
After a five-day siege, some Californians were finally able to return home to inspect the damage wrought by the wildfires, which together have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee and destroyed more than 850 structures, including multimillion-dollar mansions.
Despite the intensity of the fires that raged on multiple fronts – stretching from areas north of Los Angeles down to the San Diego region – authorities have reported only one fatality.
US President Donald Trump has issued a state of emergency for California, authorising the release of federal funds.
The week’s infernos capped California’s deadliest year ever for wildfires. More than 40 people died in October when fires swept through the state’s wine-producing counties north of San Francisco.
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Such a beautiful part of the world.
We really need to get off fossil fuels asap.
Solar, wind, and wave are the only ways to go.
@Franklin Roosevelt: Tell that to Trump!
@The Thinker: Trump fiddles while America burns.
@Franklin Roosevelt:
Nothing to do with fossil fuels, wildfires are a natural phenomenon. You need education.
@Remy: It has everything to do with fossil fuels – Drier hotter conditions caused by global warming are fueling these mega wildfires and the normal wildfire season of a few months is now almost a yearly event, even in in cooler conditions in Winter. A melting Arctic means ice can no longer reflect heat back into atmosphere and this extra heat has directly impacted on places like California and lead to creation of atmospheric patterns called Rossby waves which in turn, have led to formation at midlatitudes high-pressure systems, or “ridges.” , which are driving rain from California and into Pacific Northwest instead.
@Franklin Roosevelt: Offaly doesn’t thinks so with objection to solar panels.
@Remy: the frequency and extreme nature of three events is what’s being changed but you’ve had that explained to you so many times now that it’s clear that you’re deliberately throwing aside scientific evidence because you don’t like it.
These wildfires are fueled by global warming creating drier hotter conditions https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/12/16458242/risk-wildfires-worse-climate-change-california-san-francisco-los-angeles
Not only that but now there is a clear link between a melting Arctic and wildfires in California where due to extra heat in atmosphere rain is being driven into Pacific Northwest and avoiding California http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/vanishing-arctic-ice-could-drive-future-california-droughts
@GO GREEN: Sure but don’t we all know this already
Now lads, I’m in California since leaving Ennis 2 years ago. Let me provide a little background. Before there were people, and certainly before there were white men in California, there were lightning-caused wildfires that ran unchecked over the West, including what is now California. In a typical year, scientists say, more than a million acres would have burned routinely. That would result in the entire area being completely burned over on average every 20 years. This had been going on for 5 million years. So all the flora had adapted to these periods of fire. Some can’t reproduce without fire. Imagine that. What has changed is that we began a hundred years of fire suppression to protect our “property”, and as a result of that there is a tremendous backlog of fuel on the forest floor. When it ignites, well, as they say, “there’s hell to pay”. Still even with this year’s exceptional fire season and the huge size of these blazes (the one in Ventura County is about a quarter million acres now) we are nowhere near the historical “Million Acre Fire Year”.
When I am out and about and enjoying the magnificent California countryside, I try to imagine what it was like here before the white man settled. Birds enough to blot out the sun. Massive herds of elk and deer, mountain lions, big horned sheep, whales off the shore and in the bays. God. It must have been magnificent, because it still is, a bit.
Imagine trees 10 m across at the base and 150m tall.
But sadly, there are just too many of us bipedal hominids having our way with the planet. Hope we haven’t gone past the point of no return. I bet we’re close though.
@seamus mcdermott: Just be happy the Burren is non flamable!
Last year there were nearly 50,000 people homeless in LA County alone. I don’t believe there has only been 1 fatality. Homelessness in the State of California is unbelievable. So much for the American Dream!
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