[AccessD] Perspective on So Cal fires 2007

This is probably not the place to have this discussion, but I can't help but
comment.  

I live in the County of San Diego, in an area that burned in 2003.  Several
of my neighbors lost their homes. Most of the whole community of Crest, just
up the road from me lost their homes.  Several families in Muth Valley lost
members due to lack of warning.  The biggest criticism of how that fire was
handled was that people were not given adequate notice.  I am all for
getting information out and the reverse 911 system is probably the best way
to do it.  We were ready to leave for this fire but our area never got
beyond voluntary evacuation.  From my perspective, living in a fire area,
I'll take all the news I can get.

We can't control the media, but we can thank all the city, county, state
folks who have helped with this event.  If you want to see the extent of the
fires on what I think is one of the best fire reporting maps go to
http://www.kpbs.org/news/fires and click on the interactive fire map.  Great
use of a Google maps mashup.

Doug 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Greg Worthey
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 1:14 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] Perspective on So Cal fires 2007

I live in san diego.

Facts on the So Cal fires:
- has affected about 640 square miles (410,000 acres) so far. 
- 1,000,000 people have been forcibly evacuated (last number I heard for San
Diego county was 513,000, yesterday)
- most of those people were ordered to leave by an automated recording,
several miles in advance of any possible fire path. This "perfect storm", in
fact, came nowhere near 99% of their homes.
- 1,250 homes have been destroyed; half that from the 2003 fires
- information about the size and location of the fires remains wildly fuzzy
at best. Best mapped info is here:
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/kml/conus.kmz (note: you need google earth)
- while a million people are forced to sit in parking lots and auditoriums
(as if panic were called for), only about 1000 people in all of so cal are
fighting fires (as if no one could help)
- Planes were scooping water from the pacific ocean to drop on Malibu, tout
suite, by early Monday morning. As of Wednesday morning, officials are still
TALKING about doing the same here. It has nothing to do with wind
conditions; same lie they used 4 years ago.


While it's depicted on the news as a wild inferno racing to wipe out the
western seaboard, the reality is that it's mostly low brush fires in scantly
covered (semi-desert) unpopulated areas. It's a tragedy for wildlife, but
mostly it's just insane overreaction (and underreaction) re people. The news
picks the most impressive clips (i.e. a house or patch of trees in inferno),
rather than the prevalent lowscale desert brush fire, and loops that image
over and over. Most of the 1,000,000 people evacuated were in no danger at
all. 

Most of the 1200 houses were randomly hit (i.e. one destroyed, while
neighbors were untouched). This indicates that in many cases a person with a
garden hose could have put out the incipient fires on the spot, before they
consumed anything and grew. Not in all cases, of course, but when an ember
hits, it's going to start a SMALL fire, and a quick garden hose can put it
out (whereas a firetruck hours later can only try to calm the all-consuming
inferno).

So not only did this new "reverse 911 system" massively inconvenience and
frighten a MILLION people, and nearly shut down the whole county, it also
removed all witnesses to small brush fires becoming infernos due to the fact
that no one was there to do the least thing to prevent spreading to big fuel
(ie. trees and houses).

Insanity. Kind of like dutifully confiscating toothpaste and nail clippers,
while allowing 75% of bombs through airport security.

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