Between a Fire and a Hard Place
By now, many of you know about the massive wildfires that have been devastating southern California for the past couple weeks. While things were certainly starting to look up in terms of containing the fire, Saturday morning brought a fresh new violence to the fire’s growth and I had to evacuate as a result. I’ve been mentioning the fire in stream pretty regularly and was met with a lot of questions that made me realize that wildfires, while a regularly-occurring and thus pretty normal way of life for natives to California, are not as common across the United States or in many other countries where most of my viewers are from. So, while I’m unable to stream, I thought I would take a little time to explain the situation to you and answer some common questions I’ve gotten recently.
California has fires all the time. Why is this one significant?
California has wildfires almost constantly in some part of the (huge) state, so yet another wildfire seems pretty banal. The Thomas Fire, as it’s named, is currently the third largest wildfire in modern California history and is poised to surpass numbers one and two very soon. One of the firefighters on our local news station said that he had no doubt it’d surpass 273,000 acres to claim the #1 spot (as of writing this, it’s already at 269,000).
The Thomas Fire has also grown very rapidly, has destroyed over a thousand structures (homes, businesses, etc), and endangers over 18,000 structures because of its close proximity to cities. At its strongest point, it was powerful enough to generate its own weather system and become what’s known as a firestorm.
Why has this fire been so hard to fight?
Fires need three things to burn — heat, oxygen, and fuel. The cause of the fire’s origin is still under investigation so the source or the heat element is still in question. There’s plenty of oxygen in the air for a fire to burn. Fuel is anything that will burn — trees, brush, structures, etc.
First, the area that is on fire hasn’t had a major fire event in a very long time. This means that there’s a ton of dead or very dry plants just waiting to burn, providing ample fuel for the fire. Southern California is a very dry region with desert-like conditions and scrub-brush called “chaparral” that burns easily.
Second, due to the geography of the area the winds are blowing from the mountains (where the fire is) down to the ocean (where all the homes and businesses are). These hot, dry, and extremely strong winds are known as the Santa Anas or “devil winds” and they are one of the reasons this fire has been so out-of-control. The wind speeds have been both empowering the fire to move quickly and impeding the use of helicopters to fight the fires.
Third, the terrain is unforgiving and makes it difficult for the firefighters to even get to the flames. It’s one thing if you have a house-fire on level ground — it’s an entirely different monster if you have an unpredictable swirling mass of flames on a mountainside that isn’t easily accessible by human visitors.
So what do you do when a wildfire threatens your home?
Basically all we can do right now is stay informed, stay out of harm’s way, and follow the instructions of government personnel. When there are wildfires nearing populated areas, they typically issue voluntary evacuation notices followed by mandatory evacuation orders if the fire gets closer.
Voluntary means that you should be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. Your bags should be packed, your necessary items ready to travel, and your car filled with gas. Some people choose to leave the area just to get ahead of the danger.
Mandatory means that you are expected to leave immediately. In many cases, firefighters, police, or volunteers will go door-to-door to notify people that they must leave the area right away. At this point, you really don’t have time to pack and need to get out of the way of firefighting personnel who will need the roads cleared.
What does this mean for you specifically?
My sister, the dogs, and I are staying with my mom who is out of the evacuation zones. Our horses were moved to a designated evacuation center for animals. We’re keeping a close eye on the progression of the fire. The winds have died down today but they seem worried about strong winds on Wednesday.
I want nothing more than to have a normal week of streams, Christmas planning, and rock climbing, but unfortunately the world had other plans. I had all sorts of plans for the holiday but everything has been uprooted because of this fire, which is extremely frustrating and upsetting for me. I really appreciate all of the kind comments on Twitter and Discord — your support means a lot to me during this stressful time. Because of the unpredictable nature of a huge, wind-driven wildfire, my schedule this week will be equally unpredictable.
I will continue to tweet about my plans and let you know if I’m able to stream at all. You can keep up with the fire’s progress on your own with these sources:
Overview of info including size and containment
Map showing fire perimeter and age of active fires (useful for knowing where the fire is growing)
