Bush fires are threatening suburbs in Southern California. …several homes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties were evacuated. Seven-hundred fire-fighters battled the blazes, the largest covered 2,800 hectares. The fires were whipped by high winds of up to 70 km/h. Some homes were destroyed and flames and smoke were visible for several kilometres.
Read more here: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/09/29/california_fires20050929.html
And that article is a couple of years old. Yesterday CBC was reporting:
Firefighters in Southern California are battling more than a dozen wildfires that have destroyed 16,000 hectares of land and forced the evacuation of more than 250,000 people from their homes in the area. …Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declared a state of emergency late Sunday in seven counties where fires have killed one person and injured dozens, said Monday that “it’s a tragic time for California.”
Read more here: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/22/fire-california.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
And we’ll be seeing more of that here, too, I guess. Apparently conditions are very dry and windy.
California has seen a distinct drying trend over the last century (like many subtropical locations) – http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/sep/Reg004Dv00_palm06_01000907_pg.gif . The drying is due to a combination of increasingly poor rainfall (particularly a lack of wet years) and higher temperatures. There is a very strong correlation between forest area burnt in the SW US and temperatures (Westerling et al. Science 18 August 2006), and California has seen plenty of warming (about 1.5C in total) in the form of a trend overlaid by a cycle (an exagerated version of the northern hemisphere trend).
AGW has been attributed as a driver for a large increase in wildfires in neighbouring Canada (Gillett et al. GRL 31, 2005).
Closer to home, we are facing up to probably the most extreme lead up to a bushfire season on record. Southeast Australia is suffering an unprecedented extended drought and record high temperatures.
David: Can we prove a common bush fire link via conditions in the Pacific?
Both areas seem to show worsening dryness, the S E coast of Oz and the west coast of the US. Is the ocean in between showing other signs of stress?
Are there any serious fires in Baja California? It did not look like it on the evening news. If not, then Richard Minnich would seem to be correct. (www.californiachaparral.com/images/Minnich_An_Integrated_Model.pdf ) Have a look at the mosaic north and south of the political border – do I need to say more? The gringos are crazy.
Green D we have other views expressed on the issue “Dr. Minnich neglects to communicate by focusing on only one variable (chaparral age) is the impact of fine, flashy-fuels”
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2007/halsey-on-minnich.htm
“Research over the past twenty years has clearly shown that large, wildland fires in Southern California are not the result of past fire suppression practices, but rather a function of severe fire weather conditions: drought, low humidity, and Santa Ana winds. If you would like a more detailed analysis of the Baja California mosaic theory, please go to our Fire & Science page on our website at –
http://www.californiachaparral.org.
Dave: The fine flashy fuels are a drought product in our part of the world too.
Add wind then light a furnace!
http://www.apogeephoto.com/nov2001/hitchman1_112001.shtml
If you all want to know about California, you ask a Californian. That would be me.
Getting dryer? Distinct drying trend over the last century? Drought, low humidity, and Santa Ana winds?
People, give me a break.
You ever heard of Death Valley? How about the Black Rock Desert? Or the Lucerne Dry lake?
Bonneville Salt Flats? Ringing a bell with anyone?
These are all examples of lakes that use to be back in the ancient past, so just stop with this talk of “trends” and “distict drying”.
How about this catchy Albert Hammond tune from the 70’s:
—Got on board a westbound 747
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
Oh, that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true
Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya
It pours, man it pours
Out of work, I’m out of my head
Out of self respect, I’m out of bread
I’m underloved, I’m underfed, I wanna go home
It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya
It pours, man it pours
Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it
Had offers but don’t know which one to take
Please don’t tell them how you found me
Don’t tell ’em how you found me
Give me a break, give me a break
Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya
It pours, man it pours —
Albert based it on experience I can assure you.
You know why Los Angeles exists? Because of the All America Canal and the California Aqueduct. They import water from northern California and the Colorado river. Without it, there wouldn’t be a big city on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert.
Even here in Sacramento where I live, we only get an average of 19 inches of rain. This is normal.
Go find some other crisis to paint up with your AGW fantasys.
James: You got your knickers and legs in a knot like an old twisted bristlecone.
Stop squealing about AGW fantasies and try focusing on what created volumes of fine fuels in the hills. The speed of local bushfire fronts on a bad windy day does not depend on some ancient history.
James
don’t believe it’s getting drier, take refuge in a pop song.
Most fire behaviour scientists will tell you that once FFDIs reach ‘Extreme’ (50-100) suppression becomes increasingly difficult, and ultimately impossible.
There is a wealth of research in Australia and the US about ‘weather driven’ fires, where fuel is not the dominant driver of fire behaviour.
And for the record, I’m a proponent of prescribed burning (for fuel reduction around assets, and for ecological purposes in national parks etc.)
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, JD.
They tried to have a controlled burn off at Wilson’s Prom a few years ago, and even outside the usual fire season, it just went out of control.
Gavin,
I know Richard Minnich has his critics, but I think they are far outnumbered by his supporters. Have a look at the citations appended to his 2001 paper in Conservation Biology 15(6): 1549-1553. Santa Ana has always been there – large areas of heavy chaparral have not. They were broken up by mosaic burning. Look at the satellite map of fire mosaics north and south of the political border. His chief critics Keeley and Fotheringham say that is due to natural vegetation differences. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. They remind me of some ‘fire experts’ here in Australia, who could not light a good billy fire.
People build homes in areas prone to wild fires, mud slides, and earthquakes, and then they are surprised when their houses are threatened. Clearly, global warming has affected their brains. Watch them rebuild exactly in the same place with no added protective measures, just like the folks in New Orleans. Oh, most of the voters in California are opposed to controlled burning of the underbrush because they are environmentalists.
Lying, Democratic dumbass.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/wildfires-get-personal-for-lawmakers-2007-10-24.html
“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.
Moments later, when asked by a reporter if he really believed global warming caused the fires, he appeared to back away from his comments, saying there are many factors that contributed to the disaster.
Greenie D: The facts are authorities including urban planners here and there are not coping with the elements. Also experts on both sides of the fire risk equation are hiding under various layers of “science” one way or another in the face of public concern.
JD’s “There is a wealth of research in Australia and the US about ‘weather driven’ fires, where fuel is not the dominant driver of fire behaviour” seems like a classic cop out. One mob reckons we have to burn the woods to save them, JD reckons it’s just the weather that’s wrong. Can we get two bob each way?
Industrial experience has taught me both fine fuel and wind are necessary to create an inferno. Bushfire on the run is no different. SJT raises again the fiasco at Wilson’s Prom. Let me guess there was a sea beeeze! I once watched a bunch of well meaning dudes fire another scrubby park on the far side of the strait just hours after I gave up on steep bracken covered slopes. Whoooosh!
Bracken, blackberries, scrub and grass all behave like ripened oats and barley in an updraft fire. Add a pine or eucalypt crop for an overnight fire display hey.
Until all bloggers like Woody acknowledge drought, climate change and AGW as drivers of adverse fire conditions in certain parts of the world there will be another penalty besides the immediate impact and that’s the hike in everyone’s home insurance bills.
Mosaic burning between properties on the expanding urban edge is a brand new challenge for modern man.
““One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.
Moments later, when asked by a reporter if he really believed global warming caused the fires, he appeared to back away from his comments, saying there are many factors that contributed to the disaster.”
He said “one reason”, then a reporter asks something completely different, “global warming caused the fires”. That wasn’t what he said. Global warming is going to affect the severity of the fires.
And of course, we can’t afford to prevent global warming, but free enterprise will win the day, making it easy for us to adapt.
Were any bearded men with tea-towels on their heads seen in the vicinity of the California fires? With current continuous fuels, they must, by now, have twigged that they don’t need expensive explosives to severely harass us. Just trail bikes, GPS, and cigarette lighters. Are you reading this Osama? You will probably understand what I am saying better than some of our urban ‘environmentalists’.
In the Middle East, Arab herders have a long tradition of using fire as a weapon. See Naveh, Z. (1973) The Ecology of Fire in Israel, Proceedings of Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference No. 13, Tallahassee, Florida.
One reason for the fires is that we spend more on global warming studies than on fire prevention in high risk areas. Harry Reid didn’t mention that, either. When he singles out one cause, then the message is that is THE cause.
sea level rise, ice melts, species die off, less or more rain, increased fire danger…
It seems to me in the laundry list of possible negative impacts that global warmers propound, there is only one that any idiot with a match can actually make happen.
It’s not a hard sell, telling Angelinos that cars are the root of all evil, as they sit idling in bumper to bumper traffic on the Ventura freeway (of course it’s the other guy’s car that’s the evil one, not their own).
The newbies to that sprawling city would tend to gulp down the proposition that 90 degree heat is “unusual” in October, without regard to the fact that they live in a concrete jungle built on the seaward edge of the Mojave Desert.
Not coincidentally, Los Angeles has a disproportionate percentage of AGW believers who might not be above giving Mother Gaia a helpful nudge in the direction they want history to take.
Add to this concerted effort by media, deceitful politicians, and shady psuedoscientists, leveraging ignorance for their own short term gains.
In this environment authority figures propounding that fire is a result and “proof” of AGW, isn’t just deceitful anymore. At this point it becomes felonious incitement to arson and murder.
Knickers twisted writers don’t help much either James. There is still far too much head in the sand approach to extreme weather events caused by everybody else’s car and a few other things. Writers need to get out in that traffic on foot, or get off the swivel chair in the study at home and do some individual research.
At this point I don’t know which way the Santa Ana blows but I can guess its associated with the Gulf of Mexico flows over land margins, i.e. at the contrast. Either way extreme weather needs a generator like warming seas. We have a similar local pit of turmoil at the edge of Bass Strait and the Tasman that regularly hots up quickly over summer. But thinking globally helps when it comes to oceans.
Back to cars: Curiously here, a most popular private vehicle on the global scale has suddenly become an extra liability for a major insurer compared to my old trusty chariot from the 70’s.
Guess what, hundreds of newer fleets got wiped out by rocks from the sky! Super cell storms have shifted premiums for the lightweight about 20%.
I can guess from the above posts, James is also harbouring a grudge but uses a keyboard to express his frustrations.
Tracking arsonists is something I did over decades with an interest in clearing the air during industrial type disputes and campaigns to attract overtime through the hotter holiday months etc. Much anti social behaviour here is just kids with a grudge. Schools are their usual targets.
Understanding dropouts takes years. Dealing with extreme forms of vandalism is something the whole human race has yet to concur.
Re Santa Ana winds, wiki is up to date with the L A Basin smoke pic.
IMO, down slope “at typical speeds of 35 knots” they would hardly blow out a candle.
There must be something wrong with the heater hey.
‘JD’s “There is a wealth of research in Australia and the US about ‘weather driven’ fires, where fuel is not the dominant driver of fire behaviour” seems like a classic cop out.’
‘Industrial experience has taught me both fine fuel and wind are necessary to create an inferno’.
Well, duh!
It’s called science Gavin. All fires need fuel. Of course. For fuels to burn, weather conditions must be conducive. Of course. There will be fires where fuel is the dominant driver of fire behaviour, and these are more easily suppressed. There are also fires when weather is the driver of fire behaviour (and fuel, including quantity) is less important, and suppression is difficult.
Funny, I just read in the paper that weather conditions have eased and they’ve been able to get some of the Cali fires under control.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/10/wildfires-due-to-global-warming.html – research.
1998 was a so/so year for wildfires on the global scale. 1997 was a good year for fire but for global warming, not so much. In fact there is no correlation between fire and global warming at all when you look at the statistics…
FBI Investigates As Arson Linked To California Wildfires
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_16088.aspx – more research.
Doesn’t change the fact that these were weather-driven fires.
‘Much anti social behaviour here is just kids with a grudge. Schools are their usual targets.
Understanding dropouts takes years. Dealing with extreme forms of vandalism is something the whole human race has yet to concur.’
Posted by: gavin at October 25, 2007 05:25 AM
Clearly you have a penchant for ill-informed, brash statements, but you might like to read this report on arson from the Australian Institute of Criminology:
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/61/
I thought this blog was about evidence??
Here is a satellite pic of the California fires.
http://patterico.com/wp/wp-content/images/wildfires-from-space.jpg
Pay close attention to the wind blowing off the big desert region. See the grey patch inbetween the ocean and that sand colored plateau? That’s Los Angeles.
You see the white patches in that desert?
Those are all dry lake beds. A long time ago there use to be a lot of water.
So you can see that southern California had been drying out a long time before Al Gore invented global warming – just like I said.
James,
Assuming you are writing from California (?) are Prof Richard Minnich’s views on the role of mosaic burning in making fires easier to control (not, of course, preventing them altogether) being discussed in the US? Also, has anybody commented on the apparent lack of large, dangerous fires south of the border, down Mexico way? Perhaps climate change has not yet arrived in Mexico?
It’s arson. My belief is it’s ecoterrorism. Mexicans don’t have any pretensions about being eco friendly or worshipful of mother gaia, plus they don’t have media politicos and celebrities hammering away at how they are all dirty little rapers of the planet. So no fire starting planet crusaders south of the border.
Gracias amigo, si, the gringos are loco. The most sane thing Arnie and George could do would be to seek advice from your real fire experts like Professors Richard Minnich (USA), Steve Pyne (USA), and Hank Lewis (Canada).
Politicians and the media, in Australia, have made an art form of seeking fire advice from the wrong people, so we have ever worse fires, just like California, Greece etc. Summer is icumen in down here. White pella ‘e blurry fool wit fire.
JD in Australia we simply don’t know the numbers. I am aware of the report and probably contributed to background info on bushfire arson My previous post reflected experience in fire protection (biz) across a range of issues affecting urban and rural dwellers including detection of foul play round the margins.
“In the brief discussion above about causes of bushfires, a number of sources were cited which suggest that anywhere up to 90�per cent of bushfires are deliberately lit. A lack of consolidated national data makes this hard to confirm. In response to a question on notice in the Australian House of Representatives, which asked whether it was a fact that 70�per cent of bushfires are the result of arson, Dr�Brendan Nelson, Minister for Education, Science and Training stated that the Department of Education, Science and Training did not have any statistical information on bushfires arising from arson (Hansard 2003). In response to the same question, Wilson Tuckey, Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government was also unable to advise whether the suggested rate was correct, stating that while a significant proportion of bushfires are suspected to be due to arson, there is no consistent national approach to the collection and analysis of bushfire data (Hansard 2003)”.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/61/06_part2.html
“A lack of consolidated national data makes this hard to confirm” is familular from from private discussions post Jan 2003.
During the 1980’s-90’s I had a lot of contact with communications staff servicing instalations in remote areas. Strike damage like fires and perhaps sabotage was part of our daily business. These days I need to conceed that bushfire ignition from dry lightening storms is probably on the increase.
Regardless of the situation, industrial or other emergency “evidence” either way on causes of damage was extreemly hard to get. The report above is only a review of the literature on bushfire causes ie the documented cases!
Green Davey Gam Esq,
You might also like to look at papers on the subject by Bessie and Johnson, Moritz and Fernandes and Botelho.
Stop being so selective.
The FBI report is disturbing but not unexpected, man has a history of creating havoc. I have a blanket policy of not discussing specifics of threats but we must plan for odd events.
The Australian case is outlined here again
During the 20-year period from 1976-77 to 1995-96, some 2,499 fires (21%) on Victorian public land were assessed as deliberately lit (Davies 1997:�6). The only more prevalent cause was lightning strikes, which accounted for 3,024 fires (26%). The relative prevalence of fire causes was highly variable across different regions of the state, with deliberate lighting causing 12�per cent of fires in the north-east region but 39�per cent in the Port Phillip region (Davies 1997). Deliberately lit fires accounted for more than 80�per cent of the area burned in the Port Phillip region, but only six per cent in the north east (Davies 1997:�19). While further and closer analysis of the data would be needed to properly analyse the implications of this variation, it does suggest the perhaps expected conclusion that bushfire arson is far more prevalent in more urbanised areas
Prior to the period above I had a spot or two near Melbourne and could watch a long series of attacks. One experienced individual was nabbed after authorities twigged he was using their two way radio. Later another close to me interstate was likewise picked up from the air after the radios were silenced. Both had lit hundreds of fires under our noses.
On the second occasion my boyhood haunts became the center of a long investigation. We had to know but missed all clues except the pattern. Reflecting through shared childhood was the final key.Hazard reduction had been taken to excess at impressionable ages and that’s one good reason to back off with the burn to save rhetoric.
JD,
I am familiar with Fernandes and Botelho – useful review. Thanks for the other two – I will look them up. Glad to read any ideas, as long as the authors appear to be sane.
JD,
Have now read Bessie and Johnson (1995). No argument with the idea that extreme weather can cause extreme fires. However, given the same weather, the more fuel there is available, the fiercer the fire will be, at least in our eucalypt forests (they worked on Canadian data).
Also, there is interaction between fuel and weather, in that heavier fuels can create their own fire weather, ultimately a fire storm, like Hamburg in WW2. In severe weather, I know, from hard experience, which sort of fire I would rather face. It is not one in heavy fuel.
Another important point is that broad fire fronts tend to be hotter than narrow ones (Phil Cheney, Jim Gould and Lachie McCaw – Project Vesta?) Long fire exclusion leads to greater fuel patch connectivity, and broader fire fronts, so interaction again between fuel and weather and fire behaviour. Just like California, and Victoria in 2003? Not considered by Bessie and Johnson?
I am interested in your comments on this.
Dave: Your references leading to CSIRO reports caused me to look again at info on the web. Fire storm weather in Victoria and fuels has been a big interest of mine so I challenge some of the info and conclusions re worst case wild fire phenomena.
Mountain Ash forests in the Dandenong Ranges were heavily burnt over wide areas in 1962 (32 perished) then again in 1968 we had more fires and lost firefighters in the Basin area (can’t recall the exact location of their burnt out truck). In between I had a good look at Hobart after that event in 1967. Then we had the 17 souls lost at Lara in grassland on the way to Geelong 1969. Up in the hills Mt Buffalo burnt all over in 1972 then again in 2003 along with Bright about the same time Canberra copped it.
Several other acquaintances remembered all the mess around Hobart so we got the maps out again after Jan. 2003 and reckoned on typical fire ground speeds up down and over what ever at about 15-18 km/h in the heat of the day. In private subs to inquiries I said experts had probably underestimated gas flow at the front on a bad day based on the flash through open woods, grass and scrub on a violent windy day. Note; fireballs, giant columns, brick houses exploding etc had been seen by many. Each had been scared out of their wits in the face of it all.
I also witnessed sheer panic by authorities in the Dandenongs as systems collapsed. During the 70’s after inquiries concluded much infrastructure in both states was upgraded. Towns on the outskirts of Melbourne got a new water supply, rural brigades got new equipment, states got better radios and Australia got a new disaster center based at Mt Macedon. Can you guess what got whipped out on Ash Wednesday?
Back to CSIRO –
“It is often said that bushfires generate their own wind. It is well known that wind boosts the intensity of a fire and the speed of its spread. The inference is that a bushfire will eventually become self-perpetuating—a beast with a mind of its own—spread in any direction and generally be unstoppable. Is this true? Fortunately, no.
Bushfires do generate wind. The strong convection set up by the heat of the fire creates an in-draw wind that can interact with the prevailing wind. Depending on the direction of the prevailing wind and the location of the fire, this in-draw wind may increase or decrease the strength of the prevailing wind”
http://www.ffp.csiro.au/nfm/fbm/ffotm/ffotm_13.html
“The strong updraughts in the flaming zone of the fire can produce sporadic fire whirls. These are wind vortices, much like turbocharged willy-willies, fuelled by the energy of the fire and are fairly commonly reported in forest and grass fires. They are generally only 1-2 m in diameter and last only a minute or two. However, in high intensity forest fires much larger whirlwinds can be produced, up to 150-200 m in diameter, which can last for some time, even outside the flaming zone. They can produce localised winds approaching cyclonic strength—the damage to trees and buildings is similar to that reported in cyclones”
“Preliminary measurements on the recent Canberra fires have noted a large whirlwind (or collection of whirlwinds) that travelled around 15 km, generally just ahead of the fire front. The destruction along the path of the whirlwind resembled that from a tornado, with large trees snapped off or uprooted, and the roofs lifted off many houses. Standard concrete roof tiles were transported in excess of 100 metres”
Thanks guys.
I hate to think, cause what would happen if I got good enough at it to paid by some hard work individual who cause of their Tax being so great that they didn’t time to use it thinking or trying to make the best choices in life, and could make conclusions like I’m reading supra. this puts in of the auzzie, linda hancock- gambling study. the barrer of bad news maybe dealt with harshly by the regalia, regardless of merit or station . I’am Sorry Standing for something not failing to stand for anything is not acceptable in my view and not worthy of a people or their ear. «hp »