Thank God for small favors. At least there were no Santa Ana winds – the hot, tornado-like desert winds so common to California during fire season, were nowhere to be found during the largest brushfire to hit Los Angeles County in history.
That was a blessing for the thousands of firefighters on the line of the Station Fire trying to get the flames under control but conditions were still awful: scorching heat, low humidity, light wind and land filled with an accumulation of brush that hadn’t burned in decades.
U.S. Forest Service incident commander Capt. Mike Dietrich told the Associated Press it was a “perfect storm of fuels, weather and topography … essentially the fire burned at will; it went where it wanted to, when it wanted to.”
It was a disaster waiting to happen – and it did. It’s called the Station Fire, the largest fire in county history, and it continues to burn, tearing through the Angeles National Forest.
“It ain’t over till it’s over.”
We’ve all heard that line, but in the case of California wildfires, it’s true. Even after those blazes are “controlled and contained,” they burn for weeks – sometimes months, until they’re truly out.
The Station Fire has already devastated more than 242 square miles of the Angeles National Forest and, as it swept across the hills and canyons, it took with it homes, property, history and lives.
The investigation is now an arson homicide case. Two firefighters were killed as they attempted to evade the roaring flames. Their vehicle careened off a mountain road, tumbling down a canyon. Capt. Ted Hall of San Bernardino was 47 and firefighter Spc. Amaldo “Arnie” Quinones of Palmdale was 35.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to those responsible for the fire. The investigation at the fire’s point of origin continues.
At least three residents were severely burned after choosing not to evacuate and 10 firefighters needed hospital treatment.
As of Friday, officials reported 76 residences were destroyed, 13 damaged; two commercial buildings destroyed, one damaged; and 86 outbuildings destroyed, 18 damaged.
There’s no estimate on the numbers of wild and domestic animals injured or killed.
The devastation looks like a war zone. The remnants of homes, outbuildings and businesses are blackened skeletons punctuated by stark silhouettes of chimneys surrounded by the melted wreckage of vehicles, appliances and personal belongings.
Remains of animals are scattered in a landscape burned clear of trees and brush. Once verdant landscape is a stark black and white horror.
I was in Los Angeles when the Station Fire broke out Aug. 26. It was a hot and crystal clear day, the last such clarity Angelinos would enjoy for a long time. By evening, blue sky turned steel gray, the odor of smoke was pervasive and ash began to fall.
As I left Friday, the mountains were ringed with columns of grey/black smoke.
I flew in and out of the city again Monday, and the billowing smoke from the flames looked like volcanic eruptions. I shuttered to think what it was like for fire crews battling the flames searing land and underbrush that hadn’t burned in more than 40 years.
Unfortunately, virtually all California forests face such possible devastation and not solely because of the three-year drought.
The forests of the state are in dangerous condition because of activist environmentalists who have, via propaganda, lobbying and lawsuits, managed to virtually stop commercial logging and debris salvage in the woods.
They claim the land needs to be free of “human intervention.” Fire roads, providing firefighter access to remote areas, have been reduced or removed. Following a fire, salvage of still viable trees for lumber is forbidden and underbrush and debris removal prohibited.
The green rationale is that “nature” will take care of it. Unfortunately, “nature” also involves fire, whether lightening or man caused, and fire feeding on ample, dry fuel burns more ferociously, destroying everything, including healthy trees.
Centuries ago, “nature” did take care of it, cleaning forests with smaller, ground-hovering fires that destroyed brush, didn’t harm big trees and burned themselves out.
As humans moved into the areas and began “caring” for the forests, they worked to extinguish fires. The idea was nice, but in reality it led to accumulation of underbrush and dead wood, which encourage insect infestation, which in turn, kills healthy trees.
The environmental view that nothing should be removed from the woods caused the situation that exists today.
According to Bob Mion, spokesman for the California Forestry Association, “…dead trees account for 38 percent of the forest in Stanislaus National Forest and 34 percent in El Dorado National Forest.”
Bob Tanner, owner of Tanner Logging, told Ag Alert “… we’ve got a lot of standing firewood in our forests.”
And it burns. Figures show that compared to a five-year average, disastrous California wildfires increased 300 percent in 2007 and 315 percent in 2008. The 2009 fire season has barely begun.
Fighting fires last year cost taxpayers $1.4 billion. It’s not an exaggerated expectation that the 2009 bill will be higher.
For a state teetering on bankruptcy, and the fact the emergency fund to fight fires was half depleted by Aug. 24, the future doesn’t look good.
