Original Story: yahoo.com
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. (AP) — Two of California's fastest-burning wildfires in decades overtook several Northern California towns, killing at least one person and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and sending thousands of residents fleeing highways lined with buildings, guardrails and cars still in flames. A Minneapolis environmental lawyer is reviewing the details of this case,
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection confirmed one fatality in the wildfire north of San Francisco that raced through dry brush and exploded in size within hours. Officials also counted 400 homes, two apartment complexes and 10 businesses destroyed by the flames, department spokeswoman Lynn Valentine said.
Valentine couldn't provide details on the circumstances of the death. A call to the Lake County Sheriff's office has not been returned.
In addition, up to 1,000 structures such as barns, sheds and other outbuildings were burned, said Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant.
The devastation comes after a separate wildfire to the southeast destroyed at least 81 homes.
Residents fled from Middletown, dodging smoldering telephone poles, downed power lines and fallen trees as they drove through billowing smoke. A Charleston environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
Whole blocks of houses were burned in parts of the town of more than 1,000 residents that lies about 20 miles north of the famed Napa Valley. On the west side of town, house after house was burned to their foundations, with only charred appliances and twisted metal garage doors still recognizable.
Firefighters on Sunday afternoon could be seen driving around flaming utility poles to put out spot fires. Homeowner Justin Galvin, 33, himself a firefighter, stood alone at his house, poking its shin-high, smoking ruins with a piece of scrap metal.
"This is my home. Or it was," said Galvin, who spent all night fighting another massive fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Valentine said most of the destruction occurred in Middletown and Hidden Valley Lake, as well as numerous homes along a shuttered state highway.
Wind gusts that reached up to 30 miles per hour sent embers raining down on homes and made it hard for firefighters to stop the Lake County blaze from advancing, Berlant said.
Four firefighters who are members of a helicopter crew suffered second-degree burns during the initial attack on the fire Saturday afternoon. They remained hospitalized in stable condition.
The fire continued to burn in all directions, triggering the evacuation of a stretch along Highway 281, including Clear Lake Riviera, a town with about 3,000 residents. It was threatening critical communications infrastructure as well as a power plant, Cal Fire said.
The 78-square-mile fire erupted Saturday afternoon and rapidly chewed through brush and trees parched from several years of drought. Entire towns as well as residents along a 35-mile stretch of State Route 29 were evacuated. Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday declared a state of emergency to free up resources.
Brown had already declared a state of emergency for a separate 102-square-mile wildfire about 70 miles southeast of Sacramento that has destroyed at least 81 homes and turned the grassy, tree-studded Sierra Nevada foothills an eerie white. A Cleveland environmental lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of environmental law.
Crews increased containment on that blaze to 25 percent.
The fire, which broke out on Wednesday, was threatening about 6,400 more buildings.
Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said this summer's fires are the most volatile he has seen in 30 years of emergency response work. The main cause behind the fast-spreading fires is dry conditions from the four-year drought, he said.
"The bushes, the trees have absolutely no moisture in them, and the humidities are so low that we are seeing these 'fire starts' just erupt into conflagrations," Ghilarducci said, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Lake County saw devastation in just the last two months. In late July, a wildfire east of Clear Lake destroyed 43 homes as it spread across 109 square miles. As firefighters drew close to surrounding that blaze, another fire erupted several miles from the community of Lower Lake on Aug. 9 and more than doubled in size overnight.
Residents in the area had to evacuate from their homes two times in as many weeks.
East of Fresno, the largest wildfire in the state continued to march westward and away from the Giant Sequoia trees, fire spokesman Dave Schmitt said. The fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 31, has charred 203 square miles and was 31 percent contained Sunday, the U.S. Forest Service said.
Firefighters have maintained a precautionary line around Grant Grove, an ancient grove of Giant Sequoia trees, and set prescribed burns to keep the flames from overrunning it.
Some fire came through the area but it hasn't done much harm, fire spokesman Frank Mosbacher told the Fresno Bee.
The grove is named for the towering General Grant tree that stands 268 feet tall. There are dozens of Sequoia groves in the Sierra Nevada, and some trees are 3,000 years old.
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
CALIFORNIA'S THIRST SHOULD BE NATION'S WAKE-UP CALL
Original Story: freep.com
California Gov. Jerry Brown broke the bad news from a parched field bereft of greenery or moisture: "We should be standing on 5 feet of snow," he said. "We are in a historic drought."
For Californians, a fourth consecutive year of below-average rainfall and snowmelt will mean the first mandatory water restrictions in the state's history.
But those of us living in the other 49 states won't be exempt from the fallout. California farmers, who provide about half the country's fruits and vegetables, have already lost hundreds of thousands of acres of previously productive farmland. The impact on produce prices at your local grocery store will only intensify if the drought, already reckoned the worst in California's recorded history, persists.
As U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, noted, "the entire nation should take notice that the most productive agricultural state in the country has entered uncharted territory." A Tulsa natural resources lawyer is following this story closely.
Californians have contended with water shortages for more than a century, and meteorologists and climate scientists disagree about the extent to which climate change is culpable for the current crisis.
Most say that natural variability accounts for the state's dramatically reduced rainfall, although a group of researchers at Stanford University blame greenhouse gas emissions.
But California's lack of rain has been exacerbated by a warming trend that is more conclusively linked to man-made climate change. Higher temperatures accelerate evaporation and reduce the snowpack that has historically served as a natural reservoir for California farmers. This year's snowpack measures just 6% of the historical average. A Chicago auto accident lawyer is following this stroy closely.
Brown's drought-fighting strategy has so far focused on a combination of long-term efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and conservation initiatives. The 25% reduction mandated for California's towns and cities this week was imposed only after the state fell far short of the 20% reduction that Brown sought when he issued voluntary conservation standards in January 2014.
Republican legislators skeptical that Californians can conserve or ration their way out of the current drought have called for new water projects that could boost the state's fresh water supply. They are the ideological brethren of the drill-baby-drill crowd that seeks to parry a looming energy shortage by increasing the domestic production of oil, coal and natural gas. An Atlanta natural resources lawyer represents clients in environmental, land use, and natural resources matters.
But many of these supply-side efforts are energy-intensive, threatening to deepen California's dependency on fossil fuels even as the drought reduces hydroelectric power.
Our proximity to abundant supplies of freshwater may give many Michiganders a false sense of security, at least until they wander into the produce aisle. But Brown's emergency edict makes it clear that the consequences of climate change are growing less theoretical, and more concrete, with each passing season.
Global warming is the challenge to which all of our destinies are increasingly linked. Michigan policymakers to whom California's troubles seem remote are missing the point, and squandering an important learning opportunity.
California Gov. Jerry Brown broke the bad news from a parched field bereft of greenery or moisture: "We should be standing on 5 feet of snow," he said. "We are in a historic drought."
For Californians, a fourth consecutive year of below-average rainfall and snowmelt will mean the first mandatory water restrictions in the state's history.
But those of us living in the other 49 states won't be exempt from the fallout. California farmers, who provide about half the country's fruits and vegetables, have already lost hundreds of thousands of acres of previously productive farmland. The impact on produce prices at your local grocery store will only intensify if the drought, already reckoned the worst in California's recorded history, persists.
As U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, noted, "the entire nation should take notice that the most productive agricultural state in the country has entered uncharted territory." A Tulsa natural resources lawyer is following this story closely.
Californians have contended with water shortages for more than a century, and meteorologists and climate scientists disagree about the extent to which climate change is culpable for the current crisis.
Most say that natural variability accounts for the state's dramatically reduced rainfall, although a group of researchers at Stanford University blame greenhouse gas emissions.
But California's lack of rain has been exacerbated by a warming trend that is more conclusively linked to man-made climate change. Higher temperatures accelerate evaporation and reduce the snowpack that has historically served as a natural reservoir for California farmers. This year's snowpack measures just 6% of the historical average. A Chicago auto accident lawyer is following this stroy closely.
Brown's drought-fighting strategy has so far focused on a combination of long-term efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and conservation initiatives. The 25% reduction mandated for California's towns and cities this week was imposed only after the state fell far short of the 20% reduction that Brown sought when he issued voluntary conservation standards in January 2014.
Republican legislators skeptical that Californians can conserve or ration their way out of the current drought have called for new water projects that could boost the state's fresh water supply. They are the ideological brethren of the drill-baby-drill crowd that seeks to parry a looming energy shortage by increasing the domestic production of oil, coal and natural gas. An Atlanta natural resources lawyer represents clients in environmental, land use, and natural resources matters.
But many of these supply-side efforts are energy-intensive, threatening to deepen California's dependency on fossil fuels even as the drought reduces hydroelectric power.
Our proximity to abundant supplies of freshwater may give many Michiganders a false sense of security, at least until they wander into the produce aisle. But Brown's emergency edict makes it clear that the consequences of climate change are growing less theoretical, and more concrete, with each passing season.
Global warming is the challenge to which all of our destinies are increasingly linked. Michigan policymakers to whom California's troubles seem remote are missing the point, and squandering an important learning opportunity.
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