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Subscribe to RSSA wildfire burning in a steep canyon between the towns of Colfax and Foresthill in Placer County, Calif., destroyed one home, threatened 170 more and injured nine firefighters, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing fire officials.
Cal Fire officials said Saturday that the Robbers Fire has burned 1,950 acres since igniting Wednesday afternoon, and was 20 percent contained. More than 1,900 firefighters are fighting the fire.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday called in more firefighters and the California National Guard to help battle the fire.
Officials said they fire had moved into a rural subdivision Saturday evening known as Brushy Canyon, and three strike teams were being deployed to protect homes in the area, NBC station KCRA reported.
The area is in Placer County, west of Lake Tahoe.
Ken Pimlott, the state fire director, said a two-year reprieve from wildfires in the region appears to be over.
"The exceptionally dry winter has set the stage for a more active fire season this year, and we're seeing fire activity now that we would typically not see until late August," he said in a statement.
This article includes reporting by NBC station KCRA of Sacramento and The Associated Press.
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Dry season, wet season is there any season that doesn't promote more fires than normal?
must be disco season...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M
I know that many state budgets are underwater right now, but I think it should be the law to require that all western dry states have a massive fleet of B-52 bomber airplanes, all redesigned to only carry huge amounts of payload water, so we can stop these fires from destroying big sections of our states.
Wet season produces more growth to burn. Dry season turns that growth into a tender box. I am really worried about the Santa Ana winds come fall here in southern California. Worried about our whole state and most of our neighboring states period! So many fires already...
"...tender box", eh....
Lots of 'em in California...
someday california may learn to build fire breaks and not only allow but encourage the clearing of dead trees for firewood and clearing undergrowth. This is what you get when you do not practice wildfire management but instead practice do nothing but punish anyone that may even walk off of an approved path as they may damage a plant in nature.
Bluthunder: California has a lot of wild forest just like other states. There is no way to manage all of it, so your statement that our state should encourage clearing dead trees and clearing undergrowth is ridiculous. This fire is in wild forest, within a very small community. And, our local fire departments do encourage landowners to have 100' of clearance around their homes.
Also they do control burns to clear underbrush in that area
I can't even begin to count the number of "controlled burns" that resulted in major uncontrolled wildfires.
If I lived in that area I would have a concrete house with a metal roof and a pea gravel lawn.
Easy to see why California is broke, 1900 firefighters on this little fire with more on the way. Overspending at its finest.
Broke? Wouldn't say this is a good example for saying calfornia is broke! What if this was your house and family in jepordy, @!$%# personally they should take any amount of resources needed to put out the fire to protect the families and homes that are in danger. This has nothing to do with overspending or being broke.
Did the article state how many of the firefighters were volunteer and how many were paid?
Matt, your complete ignorance is showing regarding this fire. I know this area well, and the terrane is very steep narrow canyons, and difficult to access. Without all these firefighters and equipment getting a handle on this fire right away, it would be disastrous.
It is all the people on the free hand out list. if you do not contribute to the system, you do not get anything from the system.
To add to what DJ said, and how many of them came from other states? I know we send firefighters to California all the time when they need help.
Stay safe y'all, hope they get this contained quickly and hope y'all don't have too much damage!
I guess this just echoes Mitt Romney's call saying "We don't need any more firefighters." I wonder if he knows that the people who live in this area of California vote mostly Repuglican.
Overspending at it's finest???? There are 170 residences threatened. That is not a little fire. If they did not bust their asses to get this blaze under control there are 3 entire towns in potential danger of being devastated. How much do you think it would cost the state to rebuild 3 towns as opposed to getting the fire out? Also it is common practice to send convict crews to cut the lines in around the fire, and there are volunteers.
Wow!!! Some of these comments are just mean and ignorant. Becareful what you say, don't be too quick to judge. How does that verse go? "But for the grace of God, go I."
Wait till it's your home or someone you love. I bet you'ld feel differently.
If they didn't have that many firefighters on the fire it would be MUCH larger now and the losses huge. It's in steep terrain that in a lot of areas can only be reached by handcrews and maybe by a bulldozers. The helicopters and planes can only do so much because of smoke and obstacles that can't be seen from the air. Without those firefighter doing the equivalent of hand to hand combat our town might well be gone by now and couple other mountain communities as well.
Do you REALLY want to know why California has problems with "Fire" each and every year? Hmmmm, Do you really? If you do not already know by now, just check the back news reports of those tree hugging losers that blocked at every turn of clearing dead debris and other dried ground clutter that could have and is causing the fires. So if you still don't understand what I am trying to say. I will put it in simple words. Blame the fires on the damn tree hugers, fro they stopped the clearing of what the fires are burning on. So will all the burnt victims go ahead and send your replacement cost to all those tree huggers and have them pay, for they are the real cause of the problem about these fires..... That is fact not fiction.
Is that you ted?
It's true dave and you know it. "Save a logger, wipe your ass on a spotted owl" anyone else remember that sticker?
Amercia is Burning - - Welcome to that hot place below - - Is it God's Wrath poured down from above, or simply the result of mismanagement under successively dumber governments elected by successively dumber electorates - -
Ah, well, you get what you pay for.
The disasters that we have seen in the last several years are nothing compared to what is coming for America.... They will be increase 10 fold and your liberty and freedoms are being lost because you have taken the liberty and freedoms from the most innocent of all through abortion.
Just as He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, so too will those He calls His children will goes through many trials, but He will provide His children strength to endure and on the last day He will lift them (Those that have been washed with the Blood of Christ) up not to go through His wrath. And all those who supported abortion in any ways will be thrown into darkness.
It's the wrath of CO2! Its science!
kornfed ,too bad that CO2 didn't come inside lots of fire extinguishers :P
Thanks for that fire and brimstone speech Watchman 48!
Now let the nice people help you get your straight jacket back on. Other wise they will Taze you and you know how much you dislike that!
watchman-
let a smile be your umbrella today.
Piss poor management of our public lands. The whole Northwest and Rocky Mountains are plagued with a timber beetle. It has left millions of standing dead lodgepole and other pine thickets dead. The USFS would not do controlled burns, nor would they allow for harvest to contain the outbreak. Look for astronomical fires this year. Taliban just has to drive around throwing out road flares. Look at the resources on just this one fire. Pretty sure they could turn jihad loose by just doing that. We are not as safe as you may think. Please prepare for emergencies. You owe it to your family to be prepared.
I concur with you about the poor management of the Public Lands by the USFS. However, I have attended meetings with tree huggers and Forest Service personnel, and the enviros think that beetle kill is part of the natural cycle. So too, they think fire is nature's way of eliminating the dead trees allowing for a new crop of trees to grow.
They rigorously opposed fuels reduction of the ladder fuels in the forest that help create crown fires. Only patient reasoning and compromise accomplished anything. But, we did get many acres treated and right now it is raining here in eastern Idaho and western Montana.
Your thoughts can create and influence reality. I suggest you look for rain rather than astronomical fires.
This fire was started by some stupid people lighting fire works in the forest or at least that's what they said started it. I have family and friends that are in the path of this fire and I pray they can get it out before any more people are hurt and any more homes are destroyed. The fire started in a river canyon that you can not get to by car or truck and the fire fighters are having a hard time getting the tankers and other equipment in to the fire area to stop it. If you lived in this area you would know that it is not easy to get to the fire until it comes up and out of the ravine and when it does come out of the ravine its heading straight for homes. Cal Fire does the best they can to put these things out as fast as possible. Are any of you fire fighters and have any of you even been to the place that this fire is burning? I think not so if you don't know what you are talking about keep your mouth shut. If your home was in a fires path how many fire fighters would you want there to protect it?
It is all the ones that are changing what we do,and how we live in this world.What we can use to keep our familys alive. In fact that bad co/2 is what trees take in to live, keeps trees green and alive. Its not nice to fool around with mother nature.She is getting pissed cause of the changes being made to kill her trees and ect.She can adjust to what we throw at her.
M04: Well said!
There must be cuttings, openings in the forest
with regulary plouphed ground between
to protect fire spredding.
Is it there?
Usually national forests have fire lines, im not sure about any other forests but im 100% that all national forests have fire lines.
There's more grasslands in this area than dense woods. fire spreads rapidly in this knee high dry grass and it comes back every year even after its been cleared a couple years later its right back.
First it was Drill baby Drill....Now it seems like its Burn baby Burn...... Lets see if i am right in late 2013 when we get Snow baby Snow.... Plus i hope that they can save many homes as possible. I cant imagine what its like to lose everything to a fire. NY is next people. We have been very very dry here. I dont wish this on anyone. Just wait and see what happens. Anything is possible.
Sad, so sad to see so many destructive fires in the west this year. My heart breaks for those who have lost so much.
This has not even been a major fire year. Fewer fires and fewer acres burned so far.
Ummm Colorado had the worst fire in history, they may feel differently.
Srich, I was not stating a feeling. I was stating a fact.
First, let me say that i feel sorry for those who lose their homes to this fire.
However, there are a few simple things that were overlooked when they were built in many cases. With any fire heat rises, like up the sides of canyons. As heat rises it dries the vegetation in it path thus creating more fuel. Many residents of California feel that whatever falls from trees or builds up such as dead grass is natural and should be left alone. This creates large amounts of fuel for the fire to feed on. Once the fire gets going, in many cases, there is no stopping it until it reaches the top of the canyon. Anything in the path of the fire is consumed; vegetation or home, it doesn't matter.
Too bad that these people do not seem to learn from the past. They do, however, reenforce the definition of insanity which is "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".
...Except that all of us in the area of the fire are required to have a minimum 30 foot clearing of "defensible space" around our homes, and a lot of people have 100 feet!!! It's not that we don't do anything to protect our homes, because we do!! But God Bless Cal Fire anyway!!! They do an awesome job!
I find some of these comments from people who obviously don't live in the Yankee Jims/Foresthill area to be very short-sided. You obviously don't know the people who live in this community or you wouldn't be lecturing about clearing brush from their property. It's called "defensible space" and if you think the people in this community don't actively work on maintaining it you're heads are really in the sand. It's a part of self-preservation when you live in this beautiful country. People take medication to help protect their health and lengthen their lives - "defensible space" is just an extension of that for my family and he people in this community.
As far as managing the forest in the remote area where this fire started - this area has incredibly steep terrain and I don't believe it was being managed long before any of us had even heard the term "tree-hugger."
s
Too bad southern California doesn't burn.
Too bad your mom had kids.
Placer County is in central California, not "northern" California.
Get it right.
We would never want to view any natural or manmade disaster as God's wrath. He warns us prior to what HE will
do and He wishes all to be saved in the future events ahead that we will all face. It could be mismanagement or
unforeseen occurence.
Thanks George for telling us what the little people in your noggin are telling you to say.
Or does he wear a suit and speak to you on the TV?
I don't live to far from the fire area. The temperatures have been around 100 and hit 105 just the other day. This area is a steep canyon and I avoid it when I go hiking as the terrain is too severe. What ever these fire fighters get paid, it's not enough. And by the way, we consider this area part of Northern California, and so do all the outdoor river, fishing, and hiking guides.
Then come the floods, mudslides and whining.
But you're starting early.
If it floods here you better have an ark built. We are 2000 plus feet above sea level on a divide between the North Fork and the Middle Fork of the American River. Just saying...
1900 firefighters on a 1950 acre blaze? That is about 1 fire fighter per acre. Overkill! Currently over here we are having 20,000 acre fires and receiving only about 250 firefighters. That is about 1 per 200 acres. It used to be about saving the land now it is about saving homes of people that do not maintain fire breaks or have defensible spaces. I grew up in the foothills of the sierras. It is always prime for wildfires. The grass turns yellow and is dry by May and June it just takes an ignition source. Match, muffler, etc...more population, more sources available. It is not a matter of if a wildfire will occur and a matter of if it will affect homes, it is a matter of when it will occur. Those home owners need to be made aware of the dangers and the fire agencies need to enforce defensible spaces, and enforce this with fines. The system is already in place, but is not used. The taxpayers and those that pay insurance are the ones affected the most for the wanton recklessness of others building in wildland urban interfaces and not taking their responsibilities seriuosly. The homeowners whom choose to build in this wildfire prone areas should be held accountable.
Hundreds of homes burn in Colorado. Millions of people go without electricity for up to over a week during a heat wave in several states in Appalachia -- not much info on that disaster for a good week. Clear to see what and where the MSM thinks the important stories are.
I also want to say how sorry I am for the Colorado families who lost their homes -- my complaint is not that the news was covered, but that another much large story was ignored for many days. When our electricity went out and it was clear it was going to be out for a long, long, time, I called people whom I thought might be worried about me and my elderly mother. They had no idea that anything had happened. The "news" of the multi-state outage in a heat wave of 90 to 100 degrees was briefly sandwiched in on the Weather Channel.
I guess a fire offers better visuals and the Colorado residents are of more interest overall to the media. My cousin made a humorous observation that the "news" to the MSM wasn't that Appalachians had lost their electricity, but that they HAD electricity!
Illegals probably started it
California, unquestionably one of the most beautiful and resource-blessed states in our nation, but also plagued with more than its share of natural and man made issues to deal with, including drought, floods, earth quakes, and, of course, forest fires.
california wild fires.. get to know it.
West Glacier, Montana recorded 7.7 inches of rainfall in June 2012.
Been raining here since Friday night. Another 1.5 inches recorded.
No fires this year.
C'mon up!