How are Californians so stupid? Hundreds missing in wildfires.

[Old Rocks]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Really? I find it hard to believe anybody can be that stupid. Simple physics. 50 mph to 80 mph winds, conifers that explode, (yes, I have personally seen that fighting fires in Eastern Oregon) throw large limbs many tens of feet into the air, and wind carries them for miles, especially if that trees is on a ridge. Fire breaks are not useful in those conditions.

 

[westwall]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

It is the environmentalists who don't allow forest deadfall cleanups. The Forest Service would love to clear that crap out.

I knew it! No fire cuts!

Oh! You can't cut a line in a patch of trees! (Say the tree huggers)

So the whole damn thing burns.

Sad.

I cut 2 tons of tree today. It didn't cry, it thanked me.

Fire breaks do exist, but they are used to delineate corporate owned forest sections in general. The biggest problem is the environmentalists not allowing deadfall to be cleared away. The whole forest now is one giant powder keg just waiting for a spark. It is not the fault of the people who live there, but I do place a great deal of the fault with the environmentalists who through ignorance will cause the forest to be incinerated instead of going through the normal forest floor burns that were part and parcel of forest life for millenia.

 

[otto105]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

In other words: No firecuts.

Nope....The enviro-nuts have screwed US again.

You speaking in nonsense...you must realize this.


In some sense, right?

 

[Marion Morrison]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Really? I find it hard to believe anybody can be that stupid. Simple physics. 50 mph to 80 mph winds, conifers that explode, (yes, I have personally seen that fighting fires in Eastern Oregon) throw large limbs many tens of feet into the air, and wind carries them for miles, especially if that trees is on a ridge. Fire breaks are not useful in those conditions.

They don't use fire breaks, that's why the fire spreads, derp! Idk what else to say.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

One would think, but with winds and certain terrains some fires would outrun a NASCAR. They can be burning merrily along one direction and switch on a dime. Embers can travel and settle miles away to start a fire no one is even aware of immediately.
Our last year in northern Cali we had a fire about ten miles out, heading away from us. I plopped my 250 pounds of dogs, our bug out bag and my brother in my truck and we were off. But getting in the truck we could see the flames just down our street, engulfing the tall pines. It had went into a dry creek bed that accelerated it to frightening speeds.

Too many underestimate fire and don't understand how it works.

I would think Californians would have a unique insight into the danger wildfires represent just as people in tornadoe alley do with tornadoes.

Lots of Californians recognized the smell of wildfires versus structure fires- and yeah wind and warm temperatures tend to alert us.

But most people are not awake at 2 in the morning to notice these things.

And this was a wildfire that became an urban fire- jumping a freeway, a highway- and an entire parking lot around a K-Mart- and setting it on fire.

It burned down an entire urban neighborhood on the flat land with the closest 'wildland' a mile away.

And no officials set off any alarm systems....

I pose the same question I did in the title...

Or course you do- since I answered your original question- and now you are trying to dance away from how idiotic and ignorant your OP was.

This took me 15 seconds to find on Google:
Emergency alerts get scrutiny after deadly Sonoma, Napa county wildfires

"People were in bed, asleep at midnight, and these fires came down on these communities with no warning within minutes," said state fire agency Chief Ken Pimlott.

"There was little time to notify anybody by any means," he added.

In emergencies where a few minutes or even seconds can save lives, the notification systems have inherent blind spots. Not everyone will get the message. Sonoma County uses a service that sends out text messages or emails when an evacuation is ordered, but residents have to sign up to receive them. The county also uses a mobile phone app that can receive messages, but again it requires a resident to opt-in to participate.

The county can also trigger automated emergency calls to landlines in an area threatened by fire, but that would only reach homes with those phones.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said the county's emergency alert service texted thousands of warnings to residents to flee Sunday night. However, nearly 80 cellphone towers were knocked out or badly damaged, officials said.

You do know the deaths are not all from one fire right... there were 24 deaths before the fire that you're even talking about.
But i digress, if there were wildfires within 20 or 30 miles of my house I would not be doing business as usual.

 

[otto105]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Really? I find it hard to believe anybody can be that stupid. Simple physics. 50 mph to 80 mph winds, conifers that explode, (yes, I have personally seen that fighting fires in Eastern Oregon) throw large limbs many tens of feet into the air, and wind carries them for miles, especially if that trees is on a ridge. Fire breaks are not useful in those conditions.

They don't use fire breaks, that's why the fire spreads, derp!

When a fire is moving at 60 miles per hour...at the direction of the winds...what break are you talking about?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

It is the environmentalists who don't allow forest deadfall cleanups. The Forest Service would love to clear that crap out.

I knew it! No fire cuts!

Oh! You can't cut a line in a patch of trees! (Say the tree huggers)

So the whole damn thing burns.

Sad.

I cut 2 tons of tree today. It didn't cry, it thanked me.

Fire breaks do exist, but they are used to delineate corporate owned forest sections in general. The biggest problem is the environmentalists not allowing deadfall to be cleared away. The whole forest now is one giant powder keg just waiting for a spark. It is not the fault of the people who live there, but I do place a great deal of the fault with the environmentalists who through ignorance will cause the forest to be incinerated instead of going through the normal forest floor burns that were part and parcel of forest life for millenia.

"The biggest problem is the environmentalists not allowing deadfall to be cleared away."

So, when I go check the opinions of professionals from the USFS, and the universities in the west, and various scientists..... this is the dominating opinion I will find? I have a feeling they are going to put droughts and climate change above this as bigger problems.

 

[Eaglewings]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

I have heard. I'm not a Californian and I would know to leave.

When we get tornadoes in our area I always send my pets & grandkids to the basement even if it is miles away. I don't need to see it across the street to know the danger it poses & how unpredictable it can be.

The grounds are very dry, put that together with winds you get a out of control raging fire that destroys in seconds. People tried to get out but were trapped.

This area are fields of grapes for wineries and it is beautiful area with wealthy people.. T=People calling them illegals are fucking morons..

Running in these fires were like trying to run from the Vegas shooter not know where it was coming from..

Very sad indeed.

 

[jon_berzerk]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

I have heard. I'm not a Californian and I would know to leave.

When we get tornadoes in our area I always send my pets & grandkids to the basement even if it is miles away. I don't need to see it across the street to know the danger it poses & how unpredictable it can be.

The grounds are very dry, put that together with winds you get a out of control raging fire that destroys in seconds. People tried to get out but were trapped.

This area are fields of grapes for wineries and it is beautiful area with wealthy people.. T=People calling them illegals are fucking morons..

Running in these fires were like trying to run from the Vegas shooter not know where it was coming from..

Very sad indeed.

The grounds are very dry,


all the more reason to clear away dead fall

 

[Old Rocks]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

Forest Service has a let it burn policy for ground fires, not crown fires. And that let it burn policy has been advocated by the very people that are now castigating them for letting it burn.

If you have private property of a couple of hundred acres of acres of less, there is not reason for you not removing the understory.

 

[westwall]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Really? I find it hard to believe anybody can be that stupid. Simple physics. 50 mph to 80 mph winds, conifers that explode, (yes, I have personally seen that fighting fires in Eastern Oregon) throw large limbs many tens of feet into the air, and wind carries them for miles, especially if that trees is on a ridge. Fire breaks are not useful in those conditions.

They don't use fire breaks, that's why the fire spreads, derp! Idk what else to say.

This is an example of what they are up against. A fire break is simply not going to do a thing in this sort of fire. Not one damned thing. The second video is a scientific study on fire propagation.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I dunno about all of that but you don't need an alarm to know about the fire that the whole world is watching on tv. It's visible for miles. How can you not know to leave???

it seems to me that lots of illegals are between a rock and a hard place. They may not have a place to which to run. They may be afraid of ending up in public shelters and thence
into the hands of the INS

I don't think it's illegals dying but either way self preservation exceeds everything. You don't need "somewhere to go"...

Go the opposite way of the fire!

Problem is, you don't know where the opposite way is. Lighten up Grampa.

I'm not trying to be an ass. I truly don't get it.
In winter I have preparations in my trucks in case of emergency while out in the cold.
In spring I have stored water food & batteries in case of electrical outages from our usual spring storms.
And when bad weather with tornadoes or microbursts is in the area I am glued to the radar determined to see if it is headed our way.

Naturally if I lived in an area prone to hurricanes or wildfires or avalanches or whatever I would likewise be prepared.
I just don't understand it

No, you don't understand it. You have never seen a fire run before a wind gusting to nearly 80 mph. You have never seen a large evergreen explode, and burning limbs as large as your arm carried for miles by that wind. And where they fall, a raging fire, many acres in size explode in minutes, and repeat the process all over again. So the fire that began ten minutes ago five ridges over, and ten miles away, is now in your front yard. And it is at night, you are already in bed, and you wake to the fact that your neighborhood is engulfed in fire. No, you don't understand, and you don't want to understand. You want to blame the victims so you can whine about paying taxes that aid your fellow Americans that have lost everything they own. You are a shameful person.

I never blamed the victims and I've never complained about disaster relief so you too can blow me along with westwall for thanking your post.

Jackasses

 

[westwall]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

Forest Service has a let it burn policy for ground fires, not crown fires. And that let it burn policy has been advocated by the very people that are now castigating them for letting it burn.

If you have private property of a couple of hundred acres of acres of less, there is not reason for you not removing the understory.

The problem is thanks to the environmentalists suing anyone who tries to clear away dead brush is that pretty much ALL fires become crown fires in minutes. That's the point.

The corporate tree growers DO clear the undergrowth and deadfall away which is why they suffer much less damage when the fires come.

 

[Old Rocks]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

In other words: No firecuts.

You stupid fuck, in other words, you have not brain one. And how to you create fire breaks in areas that are mostly private property? There were many four lane roads these fires have jumped, and those are wider than most fire breaks. Your obvious ignorance and stupidity is profound.

 

[Syriusly]

One would think, but with winds and certain terrains some fires would outrun a NASCAR. They can be burning merrily along one direction and switch on a dime. Embers can travel and settle miles away to start a fire no one is even aware of immediately.
Our last year in northern Cali we had a fire about ten miles out, heading away from us. I plopped my 250 pounds of dogs, our bug out bag and my brother in my truck and we were off. But getting in the truck we could see the flames just down our street, engulfing the tall pines. It had went into a dry creek bed that accelerated it to frightening speeds.

Too many underestimate fire and don't understand how it works.

I would think Californians would have a unique insight into the danger wildfires represent just as people in tornadoe alley do with tornadoes.

Lots of Californians recognized the smell of wildfires versus structure fires- and yeah wind and warm temperatures tend to alert us.

But most people are not awake at 2 in the morning to notice these things.

And this was a wildfire that became an urban fire- jumping a freeway, a highway- and an entire parking lot around a K-Mart- and setting it on fire.

It burned down an entire urban neighborhood on the flat land with the closest 'wildland' a mile away.

And no officials set off any alarm systems....

I pose the same question I did in the title...

Or course you do- since I answered your original question- and now you are trying to dance away from how idiotic and ignorant your OP was.

This took me 15 seconds to find on Google:
Emergency alerts get scrutiny after deadly Sonoma, Napa county wildfires

"People were in bed, asleep at midnight, and these fires came down on these communities with no warning within minutes," said state fire agency Chief Ken Pimlott.

"There was little time to notify anybody by any means," he added.

In emergencies where a few minutes or even seconds can save lives, the notification systems have inherent blind spots. Not everyone will get the message. Sonoma County uses a service that sends out text messages or emails when an evacuation is ordered, but residents have to sign up to receive them. The county also uses a mobile phone app that can receive messages, but again it requires a resident to opt-in to participate.

The county can also trigger automated emergency calls to landlines in an area threatened by fire, but that would only reach homes with those phones.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said the county's emergency alert service texted thousands of warnings to residents to flee Sunday night. However, nearly 80 cellphone towers were knocked out or badly damaged, officials said.

You do know the deaths are not all from one fire right... there were 24 deaths before the fire that you're even talking about.
But i digress, if there were wildfires within 20 or 30 miles of my house I would not be doing business as usual.

Sigh- no there were not '24 deaths' before the Tubbs fire- which is the one I am specifically talking about- there are around 24 confirmed deaths in all of the fires so far- virtually all starting during the same wind storm- most of them from the Tubbs fire- all of them that I have heard about so far happened the first night- technically Monday morning.

It is unlikely that most of them went to sleep even knowing there was a fire within 10 miles.

 

[Old Rocks]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

I have heard. I'm not a Californian and I would know to leave.

When we get tornadoes in our area I always send my pets & grandkids to the basement even if it is miles away. I don't need to see it across the street to know the danger it poses & how unpredictable it can be.

The grounds are very dry, put that together with winds you get a out of control raging fire that destroys in seconds. People tried to get out but were trapped.

This area are fields of grapes for wineries and it is beautiful area with wealthy people.. T=People calling them illegals are fucking morons..

Running in these fires were like trying to run from the Vegas shooter not know where it was coming from..

Very sad indeed.

The grounds are very dry,


all the more reason to clear away dead fall

Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every year, fuckers like you flap your ignorant yaps about that. And every year, the Forest Service spends almost it's money on fires, and is told that it cannot have any more money for thinning and clearing.

 

[Syriusly]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

Forest Service has a let it burn policy for ground fires, not crown fires. And that let it burn policy has been advocated by the very people that are now castigating them for letting it burn.

If you have private property of a couple of hundred acres of acres of less, there is not reason for you not removing the understory.

The problem is thanks top the environmentalists suing anyone who tries to clear away dead brush is that pretty much ALL fires become crown fires in minutes. That's the point.

The corporate tree growers DO clear the undergrowth and deadfall away which is why they suffer much less damage when the fires come.

Virtually none of the property that burned around Santa Rosa was Forest Service land- so pretty much irrelevant in this case.

 

[miketx]

Cali gives illegals all kinds fo free shit and cant give out free fire alarms? Even the inbred redneck rube state like TN does that.
Sad

I dunno about all of that but you don't need an alarm to know about the fire that the whole world is watching on tv. It's visible for miles. How can you not know to leave???

Maybe they are waiting on Black jesus to save them, who knows.

 

[ABikerSailor]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

it seems to me that lots of illegals are between a rock and a hard place. They may not have a place to which to run. They may be afraid of ending up in public shelters and thence
into the hands of the INS

I don't think it's illegals dying but either way self preservation exceeds everything. You don't need "somewhere to go"...

Go the opposite way of the fire!

Problem is, you don't know where the opposite way is. Lighten up Grampa.

I'm not trying to be an ass. I truly don't get it.
In winter I have preparations in my trucks in case of emergency while out in the cold.
In spring I have stored water food & batteries in case of electrical outages from our usual spring storms.
And when bad weather with tornadoes or microbursts is in the area I am glued to the radar determined to see if it is headed our way.

Naturally if I lived in an area prone to hurricanes or wildfires or avalanches or whatever I would likewise be prepared.
I just don't understand it

No, you don't understand it. You have never seen a fire run before a wind gusting to nearly 80 mph. You have never seen a large evergreen explode, and burning limbs as large as your arm carried for miles by that wind. And where they fall, a raging fire, many acres in size explode in minutes, and repeat the process all over again. So the fire that began ten minutes ago five ridges over, and ten miles away, is now in your front yard. And it is at night, you are already in bed, and you wake to the fact that your neighborhood is engulfed in fire. No, you don't understand, and you don't want to understand. You want to blame the victims so you can whine about paying taxes that aid your fellow Americans that have lost everything they own. You are a shameful person.

I never blamed the victims and I've never complained about disaster relief so you too can blow me along with westwall for thanking your post.

Jackasses

You never blamed the victims? You did in your first post you moron.

And, have you ever been around a wildfire? Have you ever seen how fast they can move when the wind is blowing hard? I have, and sometimes you don't have any time to do anything other than grab your keys and pets and boogie out of Dodge, but even then, there could be a traffic jam (like there were in CA), because everyone was trying to leave at the same time.

 

[Syriusly]

California fires: At least 23 dead as hundreds reported missing - CNN

The whole world has been watching these fires for DAYS. How can you not know it's time to GET THE FUCK OUT when you're only miles from the fires. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the heartland and even I know if you're near that shit it's time to go.

I don't mean to seem insensitive but WTF??? These deaths are just mind bogglingly senseless to me.

Have you ever seen a Santa Ana wind driven firestorm? If not, you really don't know how fast they move. Plus, they jump....sometimes miles.

Q Bodey: Do they make fire cuts in the forest in CA?

I find it incredibly hard to believe fire jumps miles. Seriously.

Embers can travel for miles which could be how a fire can 'jump.' The National Forest Service has a 'let it burn' mandate for BLM land and increasingly do not allow forest clean-ups. On my own property I made a firebreak around the perimeter and keep down the fuel.

It is the environmentalists who don't allow forest deadfall cleanups. The Forest Service would love to clear that crap out.

I knew it! No fire cuts!

Oh! You can't cut a line in a patch of trees! (Say the tree huggers)

So the whole damn thing burns. Also people lose their homesteads and everything.

Sad.

I cut 2 tons of tree today. It didn't cry, it thanked me.

Ton's of fire cuts in California.

None of them applicable to the fires around Sonoma and Napa- a freeway didn't stop the fire Monday morning- let alone a fire cut one or 2 dozer blades wide.