A post-fire ‘nightmare’ in New Mexico: Eight floods in four weeks

 

...Ruidoso, a scenic town of nearly 8,000 in southern New Mexico, is now at the mercy of an enduring, double-barreled disaster. Two massive fires broke out last month along the mountains encircling the town, torching more than 25,000 acres, burning nearly a thousand homes and killing two people. Then, eight times and counting since June 21, including Saturday, floodwaters have cascaded down those same mountainsides into the village.

...It’s a worst-case scenario that may become more frequent as weather extremes intensify in the American West. Studies suggest climate change is increasing the risk that severe rainfall comes in the wake of wildfires. Increasingly hot and dry conditions breed fiercer blazes. Warming air can also hold more moisture, leading to more intense storms. The burn scars from fires can elevate the flooding risk for more than five years, as vegetation regrows.

The fires in June sheared hillsides of their evergreen trees and shrubs and even altered the composition of the soil, dramatically reducing its ability to absorb rainfall. Andrew Mangham, a National Weather Service hydrologist, said it was as if giant plastic sheets had been draped on the mountains, then covered with ash and tree trunks that would tumble down at the slightest invitation. The blazes came just in time for the state’s monsoon season — and suddenly even normal rainstorms could produce supercharged flash floods...more

On the second day of the Smokehouse Creek fire, Dale Jenkins was looking out his window. He could see the wispy white smoke passing over the hill on the horizon of his Candadian ranch. A squad of local volunteer firefighters had worked all night to contain the fire. Jenkins, a life long rancher in the Texas Panhandle, had witnessed enough wildfires to know this wasn’t over. It was too windy. The ground was too hot. This was just the beginning. The Panhandle rancher and his family hurried to save more than 100 heads of cattle that were to be sold for breeding in two weeks for more than $300 per head. Each cow needed to be protected. Jenkins personally wrangled 24 cows and 11 calves into a fenced-in area on his land. One stubborn calf refused to comply. Not long after Jenkins thought his cows were safe, the cattle panicked and jumped over the fence.

On the second day of the Smokehouse Creek fire, Dale Jenkins was looking out his window.

He could see the wispy white smoke passing over the hill on the horizon of his Candadian ranch. A squad of local volunteer firefighters had worked all night to contain the fire. Jenkins, a life long rancher in the Texas Panhandle, had witnessed enough wildfires to know this wasn’t over.

It was too windy. The ground was too hot. This was just the beginning.

The Panhandle rancher and his family hurried to save more than 100 heads of cattle that were to be sold for breeding in two weeks for more than $300 per head. Each cow needed to be protected.

Jenkins personally wrangled 24 cows and 11 calves into a fenced-in area on his land. One stubborn calf refused to comply. Not long after Jenkins thought his cows were safe, the cattle panicked and jumped over the fence.

...Jenkins and his peers stressed the fire’s hidden costs.

“Historic homes and ranches burned to the ground — literally museums to our region and way of life. Genetics bred into cows over decades, and generations have been lost. Historic trees used as land markers by the early pioneers are gone,” said Andy Holloway, a Hemphill County extension agent for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. “This is the hidden cost that deeply affects our ranchers and way of life.”

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I was a wildfire fighter for six years. The reason they’re quitting is simple.

 

...In wildfires, safety depends on your co-workers. There’s luck and there’s the strength to resist stupidity, but often you rely on the experience level of the person beside you.

The U.S. Forest Service is losing experience. Federal firefighters are quitting. Leadership is leaving. Recruitment is abysmal. The reason is simple: The government hasn’t significantly raised pay in decades.

Thirty years ago, a fire job could afford you a modest home. The value proposition was fair — work a year’s worth of hours in one summer and come away with a year’s pay.

But wages have barely gone up since then. An ordinary wildland firefighter will have a pay grade from GS-3 to GS-6. In 2024, the base rate for a GS-3 was $12.93 an hour. In 2014, it was $10.57. To keep up with inflation, this summer a GS-3 firefighter starts at $12.93. No step increases — you get laid off every fall. No matter how many years you work, each one counts as your first...more

Forest Service sued over loss of life, property from Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak wildfire

 The wildfire, New Mexico’s largest in history, destroyed more than 314,000 acres and 900 structures, but there were no deaths reported while the fire raged. The U.S. Forest Service took responsibility for starting the blaze, which began as a prescribed burn but spread out of control in high winds in April 2022 and took more than two months to contain.

Congress set aside nearly $4 billion to compensate victims. And last week, FEMA announced its claims office has paid more than $101 million so far for claimant losses.

But what kind of losses are eligible for compensation is now at issue in two federal lawsuits filed this month in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, including one filed by the relatives of the victims who died in the flash flood.

That wrongful death lawsuit filed Oct. 11 alleges the U.S. Forest Service not only was negligent in the management of the prescribed burn, but was to blame for failing to close roads and prevent access to areas at risk for life-threatening flooding that followed.

The agency didn’t follow “mandated directives to put in place barriers or other protective systems following damage to the land” in the burn scar, the lawsuit contends.

The Forest Service also allegedly failed to provide adequate warnings to the Cummings couple and Greenhaw about the dangers caused by the wildfire, and the dangers of potential flash floods in the area.

Meanwhile, 10 survivors of the fire sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency last week over an aspect of its final administrative rule related to compensation for fire victims...more

NM senators pushing to keep Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon claims office open longer

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency office set up to help victims of the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire could remain open for several more years under legislation introduced by members of New Mexico’s Congressional delegation. Additionally, a new FEMA claims office could be created for victims of the Cerro Pelado Fire.

Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, all Democrats, introduced legislation Thursday that would keep the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office open until 2027. The bill would extend the timeframe fire victims have to file a claim, moving the deadline from November 2024 to 2027 by amending the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act.

The extension legislation is being introduced a year after the passage of the assistance act, which provided $2.5 billion in aid to fire victims. An additional $1.45 billion was provided in a separate appropriations bill...more

Here we have the three tit model of governance

First, the federales implement statutes and policies on federal lands that result in more fires, larger fires and hotter fires.  And you take it like a baby.

This wildfire will eventually occur, and the feds will rush to you with a tit full rehab goodies.

Finally, when the regular milking time is over and folks are still suffering from the aftermath of the fires, the feds can grow a third tit, and extend your goody gettin' time.

And no, this is not three strikes and you're out.  This is three sucks and you're in. In their grasp forever. 

Wildland Fire Dispatchers Are Critical Workers, and They’re Burned Out

Lightning strikes in a dry forest* and starts a wildfire. It’s a hot, windy day, and the embers quickly spread. Smoke rises, and it’s detected, sometimes by satellites, lookouts or people who call 911. Reports bombard an interagency dispatch center: There’s a new start, and it needs firefighting resources, fast.    

The wildland fire dispatchers who respond are a critical link in the fast-moving series of decisions needed to begin battling a blaze. When a fire sparks, they’re the ones responsible for figuring out who’s nearby to fight it, and sending resources where they need to be as quickly as possible. “A good dispatcher is make-or-break if you want to keep a small fire small,” said Rachel Granberg, a wildland firefighter in Washington. (Granberg asked to keep her employer private because she could lose her job for identifying it in the media.)

When a new blaze needs air tankers and helicopters dropping retardant and water, aircraft-certified dispatchers coordinate what’s flying where, so the aircraft don’t collide. If firefighters get hurt, dispatchers send medical help to often-remote scenes. Once a fire is underway, dispatchers relay crucial information to and from the fire line, including wind, humidity and temperature forecasts that can determine fire behavior and influence planning and safety on the ground...MORE

More than a million Coloradans live with elevated wildfire risk, Colorado State Forest Service says

 New data reported by the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) shows approximately 2.5 million Coloradans live in wildland-urban interface. Of those, over 1 million people reside in areas with moderate to very high risk of wildfire.

The wildland-urban interface is defined as a place where human development is close to parts of the state more susceptible to wildfire- like open space and vegetation. The same study from CSFS found around 4.5 million acres of Colorado are considered to be within the wildland-urban interface, which also accounts for about 1 million buildings.

...Recent research from de Gouw has focused on the impact of the Marshall Fire on the indoor air quality of homes that did not burn, but were close to the blaze.

“People were wondering, is it safe to return? When? What am I exposed to? And also, how can I clean up my home?” de Gouw said. “Even scientists didn't think about this issue before the Marshall Fire.”

He said the pollutants appeared to last at higher levels than normal inside the homes for around five to six weeks, which was longer than expected.

“What our research showed is that the air quality effects actually linger after the fire is out," de Gouw said. “Your home sort of acts like a sponge, it soaks up the smoke. And then after the fire is out, it slowly releases that smoke again and it can still expose you to some levels of of smoke compounds.”...more

Blame, Trade-Offs, and the Maui Wildfires

Anthony Gill

 A week after the devastating wildfires on Maui, accusations for who and/or what was to blame for the disaster are sweeping through the media faster than the flames that destroyed the historic town of Lahaina. The desire to seek blame is a natural human instinct. Indeed, finding fault can be useful in identifying the source of serious problems that we hope to avoid in the future. However, as punitive action is likely to follow, it is important that we “get it right” when it comes to assigning blame properly.

...Wasting no time in pointing fingers, media pundits began to blame global warming within 24 hours (see here and here). Hawaii’s governor Josh Green asserted this cause shortly thereafter. 

Fortunately, cooler heads began to prevail and other causes for the conflagration were offered, including the presence of invasive grasses that are more prone to fire and specific meteorological patterns that produced high winds that are not uncommon on the islands this time of the year. University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass provided a detailed explanation of the short-term weather (not long-term climate) conditions that created a perfect storm for the fires. Ironically, a wetter and cooler spring in Maui (not predicted by the climate disaster models) allowed for extensive growth of grasses that became highly flammable in the drier summer season.

...In a Wall Street Journal article published on August 17, Katherine Blunt revealed that Hawaiian Electric, the public utility serving Maui, had known about the inadequate condition of their utility poles for at least four years. 

...It is becoming clear that Hawaiian Electric (HE) shares some responsibility for the fire. The inevitable lawsuits will determine how much of that responsibility the company will shoulder legally. But might there be more blame to be distributed? 

The aforementioned Wall Street Journal article on the role of HE revealed a valuable clue as to why the company may have been so slow in updating their utility poles and other infrastructure: 

Since PG&E’s bankruptcy [resulting from the Camp Fire tragedy], Hawaiian Electric has made reference in regulatory filings to the risks of power-line fires, but it waited years to take significant action, documents and interviews show. During that period, the company was undertaking a state-mandated shift to renewable energy [emphasis added].

Read that again; it’s important. Hawaiian Electric knew about their aging utility line infrastructure, but they were trying to comply with government mandates to shift to sources of sustainable power.

*******************************************************************

And for those who argued yesterday that we should keep the current structure to keep politics out of the equation, please read this:

If the leaders of HE knew about the problems with their aging infrastructure (and particularly the utility poles) why didn’t they take action? The answer may be that as a public utility, responsible to a governing board and political pressure, they faced repeated calls to engage in policies that were on the top of politician’s agendas. 

Replete with beautiful beaches, mountains, and lush forests, Hawaii not surprisingly has a very strong environmental movement. With “climate change” making headlines daily, and efforts to “save the planet” manifesting in policies as trivial as banning plastic straws, it is perfectly understandable that HE’s board of directors would divert funding and manpower to efforts that played well in the media.

Government mandates to invest in renewable energy meant that something else would have to be de-emphasized. That something appears to have been utility pole maintenance.

 

Biden-Harris Administration Launches New Efforts to Address the Wildfire Crisis

 

Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced expanded efforts to reduce wildfire risk across the western U.S. These investments, made possible through President Biden’s landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will directly protect at-risk communities and critical infrastructure across 11 additional landscapes in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

“It is no longer a matter of if a wildfire will threaten many western communities in these landscapes, it is a matter of when,” said Secretary Vilsack. “The need to invest more and to move quickly is apparent. This is a crisis and President Biden is treating it as one. Today’s announcement will bring more than $490 million to 11 key landscapes across the western United States, and will be used to restore our national forests, including the restoration of resilient old-growth forest conditions.”

The Forest Service announced their original 10 landscape project areas last year as part of the agency’s broader strategy to protect communities, critical infrastructure and forest resources from catastrophic wildfire. Combined with these initial landscape investments, the additional efforts being announced today represent a total USDA investment of $930 million across 45 million acres.

This work spans 134 of the 250 high-risk “firesheds” identified in the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and will mitigate wildfire risk to around 200 communities in the western U.S... Firesheds are areas where wildfire is likely to pose the greatest risk to communities and resources...more

California’s paradox: Confronting too little water, and too much

 It wasn’t so long ago that California prayed for rain. Something to quench the climate-change-fueled drought — the worst in at least 1,200 years — that has caused farm fields to wither and wells to run dry. To ease the blistering heat waves that triggered power outages and sent thousands to emergency rooms. To extinguish the wildfires that have ravaged forests, destroyed communities and blackened the skies.

Now, the water that Californians so desperately wanted is pummeling them like a curse. It’s surging over riverbanks and rushing through communities, toppling drought-stressed trees, turning scorched mountainsides into avalanches of mud. The storms cut off power to roughly 150,000 customers across the state Tuesday. The flooding prompted evacuations in Montecito and other parts of Santa Barbara County, and swept away a 5-year-old boy who still has not been found. Officials said at least 16 people have been killed by the storms of the past two weeks — more than the number of lives lost in wildfires over the last two years.

The recent onslaught of atmospheric rivers has underscored the perils of California’s climate paradox: Rising global temperatures are making the region drier, hotter and more fire-prone, but they also increase the likelihood of sudden, severe rainfall. Experts say the state is not prepared for periods of too much water, even as it struggles to make do without enough...MORE

 Is there any mention at all of the fires and their relationship to the flooding?

Yes, finally at the end of this long post there is this:

 

Residents said recent fires and drought made their community even more vulnerable to this year’s storms. In 2020, the Lightning Complex fires scorched more than 86,000 acres across the region, including the towering redwood forests of Big Basin state park. Now, the burned areas are less able to absorb the onslaught of rain. Slopes are collapsing without vegetation to hold the soaked soil in place. Dead trees are being ripped from their roots and carried downstream.

“All the trees up and down the hillside that have been burned, they’re flooding up the river, so the river can’t run freely,” Bethany Rogers said. She had fled her home in the Felton Groves community north of Santa Cruz during the fires. On Sunday, she had to evacuate again.

Idaho’s rancher-led Rangeland Fire Protection Associations work to stop wildfires early

Steve Stuebner

... Back in 2013, the Pony and Elk complex fires roared over the Mountain Home foothills and burned deep into Boise National Forest. Ranchers lost more than 100 cattle to the twin blazes, cabins burned in Featherville, and 281,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land were charred in a matter of days.

Speeding up initial attack and stopping wildfires from growing into huge destructive blazes was a major motivating force in leading Mountain Home ranchers to form the first Rangeland Fire Protection Association in the state 10 years ago.

The idea was to allow ranchers to work together with the Bureau of Land Management – and sometimes rural fire departments – to squelch wildfires quickly when they’re small.

New procedures were rapidly put in place. The BLM and Idaho Department of Lands provided training, start-up costs, firefighting equipment and radios so ranchers could respond quickly to wildfires in remote locations.

In 2013, state legislation was passed to formalize the creation of Rangeland Fire Protection Associations...

...With more RFPAs in place, it builds firefighting capacity. Today, about 335 ranchers and RFPA members are fully trained and ready to fight fires across southern Idaho.

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PGE, Pacific Power begin shutting off power in Oregon communities as winds worsen fire danger

 

Portland General Electric and Pacific Power are beginning to shut off power to homes and businesses in multiple Oregon counties as winds kick up, increasing wildfire danger.

PGE’s “Public Safety Power Shutoffs” began Friday morning, with power now off in the Mt. Hood corridor and foothills, the Columbia River Gorge, Silverdale/Corbett and Silver Falls, the utility company says.

...A “Public Safety Power Shutoff” is used by utility companies when conditions, such as high wind, are forecast in areas with increased wildfire risk. Power is shut off in those areas to help decrease the possibility that downed power lines could start or worsen a wildfire.

...Pacific Power estimates it will shut off power to many customers in Douglas County, Linn County and Marion County around 6 a.m. Friday. Customers in Lincoln County, Tillamook County and Polk County will see their lights go out around 10 a.m. Friday...MORE

What they really need is a "Public Safety Power Protection" plan through increased timber harvest and livestock grazing.

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‘Total devastation’ after wildfire charges through Colorado towns

 More than 500 families may enter a new year having lost their homes after runaway grass fires bore down on the region northwest of Denver on Thursday, but others were returning to their neighborhoods Friday and no deaths had been reported.

Approximately 34,000 residents of the towns of Superior and Louisville in Boulder County fled the “life-threatening” situation Thursday as 100-mph-plus winds acted like a turbine fanning the flames.

...“If people chose not to evacuate, didn’t hear the knocking from the deputies, I’m afraid that we are going to learn of some fatalities in these homes because people literally had minutes to get out,” Superior Mayor Clint Folsom told The Washington Post on Friday.

The estimate from Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle that more than 500 homes burned means the blaze may have destroyed the most property of any fire in Colorado history, local tallies suggest. Pelle said the total may surpass 1,000 homes and several commercial buildings.

The estimate from Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle that more than 500 homes burned means the blaze may have destroyed the most property of any fire in Colorado history, local tallies suggest. Pelle said the total may surpass 1,000 homes and several commercial buildings.

“In many of those neighborhoods that are currently blocked off, it’s still too dangerous to return,” he told reporters Friday. “We saw still-active fire in many places this morning. We saw downed power lines, we saw a lot of risk that we’re still trying to mitigate.”...MORE

Hundreds of Colorado homes lost and tens of thousands of residents told to evacuate due to fast-growing wildfires

 

Hundreds of homes have been lost after two wildfires started and grew quickly Thursday as high winds whipped through the Front Range in Colorado, forcing tens of thousands of residents from their homes, the Boulder County sheriff said.

Sheriff Joe Pelle estimated 580 homes or other structures in and around Superior may have been lost.

A shopping center and a hotel in Superior also were engulfed by the flames.

"Historic" 80-100 mph winds, with gusts as high as 115 mph, fed the wildfires that injured at least six people, prompted a hospital to send patients elsewhere and forced the evacuation of Superior and Louisville near Boulder...MORE

30-year-old former yoga teacher accused of arson in destructive Northern California blaze

 Authorities in Northern California last week announced the arrest of a woman who they say ignited a wind-whipped wildfire that quickly tore through steep, rugged terrain, destroying 144 buildings, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people and becoming one of the state's more destructive blazes this year.

The womalexandra Souverneva, 30, a onetime yoga teacher from the San Francisco Bay Area whom a former colleague recalled as "brilliant," is among more than 100 people who have been accused of wildland arson and arrested this year by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

The charge alleges a rare but significant act that has come into sharper focus as parched, overgrown forests explode across thousands of acres in days...MORE

But is she a terrorist? That was the charge against two Oregon ranchers. 

In November of 2015 I wrote:

After a two-week trial in July of 2012, Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, were found guilty of setting fires that caused damage to federal property.  One fire burned 139 acres of federal land, the other only 1 acre.  The Hammonds claimed the fires were for range management purposes, the federal prosecutors said they were set for more nefarious reasons.  Now-retired U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan sentenced Steven Hammond to one year and a day in prison for setting intentional fires in 2001 and 2006, and ordered Dwight Hammond to spend three months behind bars for his involvement in the 2001 blaze.

That should have been the end of the story.  But it wasn’t.

The feds appealed claiming the ranchers should have received mandatory sentences of five years.  They had charged the ranchers with violation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.  

That’s right, the feds were using a law aimed at terrorists to prosecute the ranchers and that law required the mandatory sentences. Judge Hogan had ruled that 5-year sentences would “shock the conscience”, would be grossly disproportionate to the offenses committed and violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.  A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the feds, however, and returned the case for sentencing. On October 7 of this year, both Hammonds received the mandatory minimum sentence of five years for deliberately setting fires that spread from their property onto federal land.  For comparison, other federal laws that carry five-year minimum sentences are for treason, child pornography, using a gun while committing a violent crime or importing drugs.

The ranchers set backfires to protect their own property, accidently burn a total of 140 acres of federal property and they are labeled as terrorists.

She sets a fire that burns thousands of acres, destroys 144 buildings and forces thousands to evacuate, but is not charged or labeled as a terrorist?

Actually, neither is, but this just demonstrates the glaring inappropriateness of the charges against the ranchers.

The ranchers should have claimed they were former yoga teachers and were just protecting the karma of their cattle.

Whoopy ti yi yoga!

California fires: General Sherman and other sequoias given blankets

 

Firefighters are wrapping fire-resistant blankets around ancient trees as blazes tear through California's world-famous Sequoia National Park.

Officials fear the fire could reach the Giant Forest, a grove of some of the world's biggest trees, within hours.

The forest hosts some 2,000 sequoias, including the 275ft (83m) General Sherman, the biggest tree by volume on Earth and about 2,500 years old.

The Colony and Paradise fires have been growing for a week.

More than 350 firefighters, along with helicopters and water-dropping planes, have been mobilised to battle the blazes.

They have wrapped several trees, including the General Sherman, with aluminium foil to protect them.

"It's a very significant area for many, many people, so a lot of special effort is going into protecting this grove," Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks spokesperson Rebecca Paterson told the LA Times.

By volume, the General Sherman is the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth and is estimated to be around 2,300 to 2,700 years old.

Experts say sequoia trees are very fire-resistant and have evolved to survive flames.

Sparked by lightning, the Paradise and Colony fires have been growing across rugged shrubland in the Sierra Nevada.

More than 7,400 wildfires have burned in the state this year, scorching more than 2.2 million acres...MORE

California keeps burning over and over and over

 

More than 1 of every 100 acres in the state are part of an active wildfire

...It is not new that California would be on fire. The state has a very experienced agency generally referred to as CalFire that is tasked with preventing and combating the regularly emerging conflagrations. It has robust documentation of where fires have emerged over time, records that have gotten more precise and detailed over the past several decades. That data shows us how common fire has been in the state over the past 150 years, like so.

Areas depicted in gray are cities and other urban communities. The red splotches, obviously, are the fires. The darker the red, the more fires in a place over time. So you can see that there have been a lot more fires in the outskirts of the cities in Southern California than, say, on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay area. That’s in part because the Bay Area is better insulated from the worst droughts California faces than is the more desert-heavy southern part of the state.

CalFire’s data on wildfires gives rough windows for when parts of the state burned, allowing us to roughly estimate how much of California’s land area was on fire in any given month. Its data indicates that, through June, about 2.5 percent of the state had burned over the prior 12 months.

Since June, though, the state has recorded two of its largest fires in history. At the moment, more than 1 in 100 acres of California’s land area are part of an active wildfire. That includes the still-burning Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history. The largest on record began in August of last year. In 2020 and 2021, more than 5 percent of the state’s land area has burned. In 2018, Popular Science estimated that the same acreage had burned over the preceding five years.

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'We are shattered and lost': Largest wildfire in U.S. decimates a Northern California town (in 25 minutes!)

 

Nichoel Farris had been living on an apple farm in Greenville, Calif., for four years with her husband, Paul. The farm, located in the High Sierra of Northern California, about 150 miles north of Sacramento, was where they grew sunflowers, raised chicks, rode horses and grew apples. Now all that’s left is a pile of ash and blackened tree trunks.

The Dixie Fire, driven by strong winds, tore through the Gold Rush-era town of Greenville overnight on Wednesday, destroying 75 percent of the town, according to federal fire officials.

“Our Hideaway homestead in Greenville is completely gone from #Dixiefire. House, car, farm, contents, garden, bees, animals, cat…everything we so deeply loved. Our entire town burned. I’ve never felt such a mourning for our normal life,” Nichoel wrote on Facebook.

...“We got out in our truck with our 3 dogs and [a] few suitcases. And everything else is ash,” Nichoel wrote on Facebook. “Birthday cards in my mother’s handwriting, Christmas ornaments Trey made as [a] kid, the earrings I wore on my wedding day. The stuff you touch and feel the warm love of good memories.”

...Greenville, the largest town in Indian Valley, an area composed of four small towns, is rich with history. The Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce website has a self-guided Greenville walking tour, and shows the various 19th and early 20th century buildings that once lined the main street, including an old saloon and stables.

...The fire flattened the area in less than half an hour. "It was just like a huge tornado went through the town. It burnt that town down in about 25 minutes," Greenville resident Jerry Thrall told People magazine...MORE

Dixie Fire becomes largest single wildfire in California history

 The Dixie Fire burning in two Northern California counties is now the largest single wildfire in recorded state history, exploding in size overnight as drought-stricken lands continue to fuel the flames. 

The fire, which has burned for 23 days and forced mass evacuations, razed the Gold Rush town of Greenville on Thursday, destroying 91 buildings and damaging five others. Smoke from the blaze has blown to lower parts of Northern California, including the state capital of Sacramento where the air quality index on Friday reached "unhealthy" levels.

The troubling development reflects not just the dire effects of climate change and neglected forest management, but also that the electric grid remains prone to sparking wildfires. Pacific Gas & Electric disclosed last month that its equipment may have caused the catastrophic blaze.

By Friday morning, the Dixie Fire had burned 432,813 acres and was just 35 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The blaze's overnight growth gave it the grim distinction of becoming the largest standalone fire in state history, but it still ranks behind two multi-fire conflagrations...MORE

91 wildfires are now burning across the US, with Oregon's Bootleg Fire growing to over 400,000 acres

Seven new large fires were reported Sunday, bringing the total number of wildfires raging in the United States to 91, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).

More than 1.8 million acres have burned since these fires began, the NIFC said. More than 22,300 wildland firefighters and incident management teams are involved in battling the blazes.

This year, 37,803 fires have burned more than 3 million acres across the United States, per NIFC. During the same period in 2020, 32,059 fires burned a total of 2.1 million acres.

 Idaho is the state with the biggest number of large fires, at 23. However, Oregon has the most acres burned: 554,587 among its 11 fires. The Bootleg Fire near the California border is alone responsible for burning 413,734 acres...MORE