Orange County Fire

[ukantor]

I suspect that these wildfires are naturally occuring events. Even if humans were not living in the landscape and trying to manage it, they would still happen regularly. The seeds of some types of vegetation do not germinate until they are stimulated by fire - then when they do start to grow, they have the benefit of all that nutritious ash.

If there are areas nearby that have not experienced a forest fire for several years - look out! They will contain lots of dead undergrowth, and many, many well grown trees. That sounds like a recipe for a big wildfire.

The pictures I've been seeing on the news are heart-breaking. I can't imagine what it must be like to be visited by such a terrifying event.

[Down Up Dick]

ukantor, I agree with what you’ve said. I’ve heard about the “good” fire too, but it just ain’t fair to us humans.

[Nickie]

I've never lived in CA, but I've fought one forest fire, damn near died. I heard that CA stopped doing prescribed burn because of smog. Baby, they got smog now, equivalent to a year's worth of car exhaust. They don't appear to be mowing the wild grasses, either, and removing the cuttings. I doubt if they plow the soil to create barriers, either. I did hear that one fire jumped a 6 lane highway. I also hear that they've lost one hundred million trees this year. That's a large forest, friends. We were just wondering what happened to all the animal wildlife...