How an Oregon Wildfire Became One of the Most Destructive | Visual Investigations
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
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The Almeda fire left a path of destruction as it tore through the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon. About 24 hours after it started, an estimated 2,350 homes had been left in ashes. We used satellite images, videos and social media posts to track what happened.
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Hello all, this is Christoph from The New York Times. For our latest video, we took a closer look at one specific wildfire on the West Coast of the United States. The Almeda Drive Fire in southern Oregon stands out among the many fires because of the high number of homes and businesses it destroyed: More than 2,300 homes burned down in less than 24 hours on Sept. 8. I wanted to find out why this fire, which burned a smaller area compared to some of the other wildfires, turned into one of the most destructive ones. I used satellite images, social media posts, first responder radio traffic and text messages shared with me to reconstruct what happened.
Did trees and other plants that were too close to buildings play an important role or was the wind taking the sparks to the buildings? There are stories about a gender reveal party that caused a fire, is that the case?
@@hl6283 I understand your need for national support but sadly it isn't that easy. There are multiple types of crises the government already provided financial support. But the amount of support differs for different regions and kind of catastrophic event instead of corresponding to the necessary help to prevent poverty and an economic crisis. I am not against aid but I want it to focus on those who need it most and I hope you can agree with that. Currently rich people get enough money to rebuild their beach villa while others that lost their house due to COVID-19 are left alone. Furthermore, attempts to stop those payments if people build their villa on the same spot the third time only to wait until they can rebuild it after the next flood are difficult to implement. Many people don't want to pay insurance and taxes but when their house is destroyed want to magically get money. However, there are many poor people that can't just move because they cannot afford the land elsewhere. We need measurements that allows everyone to live in a saver area with weatherproof buildings while also allowing people to live in more risky areas but then either they need to pay an insurance or more taxes to compensate the costs this lifestyle is causing.
But was it antifa or a gender reveal partym
OUR Oregon Govender knew about the fire not far from Detroit earlier that month, she was advised and still said no for necessary fire crews.
What version are you gonna report after, the real one or the one the paper/media wants to promote?! I don’t know you but I hope you will do the right thing...
“The fire moves so quickly that some residents who left their homes for work aren’t able to return.”
Breaks my heart to think of all the people who had pets at home... 😢 not to mention prized personal belongings, entire livelihoods, etc. all destroyed so quickly. Devastating.
That’s life dude. It breaks my heart to think of the millions of the CHRONICALLY homeless people and families, who struggle with no where to go, sleep, or eat, every day of thier lives. Meanwhile the government is helping homeowners, but doing nothing for the homeless. THATS what breaks my heart. Wake up!
@@TheAngelMicheal boohoo dude, learn to be compassionate for all
@@TheAngelMicheal I have more than enough compassion to go around for those affected by disaster and those affected by the brutal pressures of poverty. It’s absolutely frustrating that world governments seem unwilling to recognize that this isn’t a dichotomous choice (support homeless people or homeowners who are struggling), so I feel you there.
No mention of pets.
What is really to blame here is the selfish "social driven" party culture, this toxic culture helped to spread the fire and virus. The amount of damage caused by this kind of social stupidity is probably in the trillions each year. Yet there is no cure for stupidity.
My house burned down earlier this year in February. Almost everything we owned was destroyed. Furniture, keepsakes, souvenirs from countless trips, priceless family and baby photos, all gone. I can not imagine what each of these families are going through. My heart goes out to them.
Were you paying a mortgage? A lot of these people were 10 or 20 years paid up. Unless they had those docs in asbestos-lined safes,all they have now are ashes...and the wind will blow.
@@raymondfrye5017 I had a fire in the eighties. TODAY, what you do is scam docs. and photos and send them to an archive and email to yourself. Photos, anyway, will survive that way. just suggestin.
@@dwightstjohn6927 Yeah. Times have changed. It's just that I'm Old Guard and can't see myself sending sacred mementos to :"The Cloud in Utah".
Regards
🙏
This fire initially broke out just north of my home. It's so surreal how many people I know lost their homes while mine remained
Legit investigate this dude.
@@paulemaykerbrat9714 tf you think he is a firebender?
It started just north of my home as well. I could see the flames. My house is fine but my grandparents and aunt's houses and many friends homes were completely destroyed and also the house I grew up in. I can't believe how bad the destruction is in Talent and Phoenix. I'm glad your place made it through.
Fire is often referred to as an animal. I lost my home to a fire but I never had my animals in the home while at work. I came home and we all moved into the barn for the summer. What was destroyed, I could replace. Fortunately I had irreplaceable (1980's) family photos that the negatives were long gone, but I had them and other "stuff" in a Marine shipping trunk that took the hit.
@@dwightstjohn6927 I'm sorry you had a house burn down. That's a huge fear of mine because I collect historic artifacts that are irreplaceable.
My heart goes out to all of these people. I am a survivor of the Paradise Camp Fire that took out our entire town of 15000 homes and businesses. Our entire town of 22, 000 people ecsaping Paradise through flame filled streets and roads. Many tragically died a terrifying death. . It has been 2 years now and we are still waiting for the nightmare to end. The battle with the Insurance Companies and the Electric Company that caused the fire has been dragging on since November 2018. Many of us forced to live in Limbo until PG &E and the Insurance Companies finally compensate the losses. My prayers go out to all of you.
I lost my home in that fire.
Just. ..I'm really sorry. ..don't even know what to say. ..wish you strength! ...
I will pray for you ..tonight
So sorry. Hope your ok?
I know you're not gonna be
Ok for a while. Just feel
For ya.
proof
Ashes ashes it all falls dowowownnnn
I’m there right now and the whole town is a grey pile of rubble
#youtu_be_ebwk58BGTTs 0
Bitcoin is the future, Investing in it now will be the wisest thing to do especially with the current rise
For real it's very profitable
I’m sorry to hear that.
Scott Marvis Service tf are you talking about crypto has nothing to do with this
@@techleadshow8843 stfu
Whomever started this fire is never gonna come forward now. Even if it was an accident.
I really hope they find them
It’s no accident; Antifa, BLM, MB and other fascists groups have been bragging and called for more with hezbollah and China’s blessings
Rev. Bob Martin Yeah yeah and they caused Hurricane Katrina and COVID too
@@PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim no they have arrested numerous ppl. I know its been reported as " conspiracy theories from right wingers " one man has ties to BLM and had been to numerous defund police rallies. They dont want it out because what would you do ? If you lost everything because some asshat.
I thought they caught him? Someone was arrested in association with this fire.
Should have millions of views. Nope, I am sitting here on day 3 of the upload and CZcams has merely shown independent journalism to 77k people,
when this is the kind of content that America needs in rough times. I salute you The New York Times
I would hate to be the person that the investigation finds to be responsible for this fire...😬
When a campfire you started is starting to get out of control don't think about that you might be blamed, call the fire department immediately. Trying to cover it up increases response time.
Lol, I think all the evidence was destroyed in the fire or something.
@@jogemuat calm down, not every comment has to be serious. I wasn't saying that because he should've made sure not to get blamed. I said that because they mentioned launching a criminal investigation. Of course, you should always report it.
@@drunkmexican814 I am thankful that you agree on reporting, I didn't want to attack anyone. I wanted that everyone knows that it is important to react and quick too.
Don't worry! You will get to see the arsonists chopped heads roll into the basket,if they find the former. It will be televised.
Prayers sent over there much love from New York
Rafy prayers aren't helping. 45 has its hands on the money he hasn't said a word on this. should tell you sum
Only stupid people live so close with other houses.
There must be minimum of 100 meters between houses.
It’s been 7 months and many of us have not been able to rebuild yet. We lost close to 100 animals, we raised chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys. My parrots died and a horse. They gave us no evacuation notices. We got a message to stay in our homes 1 hour after our home burned. The poor fire department people were devastated as water ran out and they desperately tried to save lives.
Remake Talent wants to help with fire affected folk regardless of location. Looks like we will even be able to pay some folks to help their neighbors find help: check out our Zone Captains Program at: remaketalent.org/
I’m so sorry for your losses. All I could think about was the helpless animals who can’t open doors and gates to get away. At least people have a chance.
Man-made fire... Well, It should be considered as a crime
It is...
Even if it was accidental, it is criminal at this point.
no no no! remember what the government said now, its only global warming
@@DiamondGunProduction Climate change is a factor. Not only is the average wildfire season three and a half months longer than it was a few decades back, but the number of annual large fires in the West has tripled - burning six times as many acres. Drought will continue to be one of the first pain points. Soon no one will be able to deny climate change.
@@DiamondGunProduction Nobody said that all fires were caused by global warming. Just that most of these wires are caused by and intensifying because of global warming Also that's not what the government said that's what the scientists are saying. The government is full of people, including the president, who think the earth will just "get cooler".
So devastating.
What most people don’t know is that during this fire there were multiple other fires happening at basically the same time all in Central Point and eagle point and in central point all the fires were along the green way and the green way stretches along i5. I think someone was Traveling up and down the greenway setting fires because in CP there were multiple fire in the same location at different times. Gnarly times
Embers can be sent by the wind and act like this. In the video it shows the wind was in the direction of the fire. This would be typical behavior. I had heard at one point they believed it was a homeless person that started this. I don’t know if this was confirmed.
i dont think I'll ever forget that day. sleeping waiting to go to work that night, only to have under 90 seconds to get what i could before the power was cut, and the smoke enveloped my home. freaky stuff
Addicted to NYT Visual Investigations - thank you for the hard work, the insight is truly stunning.
A couple things made this fire a worst case scenario. The first was wind, the second was dryness. The video mentions the wind, but it was a lot worse than it says. The rogue valley has seasonal fall wind storms that will shift from a typical NW flow to an extreme South-East flow, reaching speeds up to 30MPH with gusts up to 45-50MPH. It's very common for these wind storms to uproot trees and cause damage to homes. The Almeda Drive Fire started at the very beginning of a wind storm, making it fast and impossible to keep up with for the whole week the fire burned.
On top of wind, there was dryness. Usually there is rain that comes with the fall seasonal winds, but for months there were nothing but hot dry days. Everything was parched. Grass and foliage was baked day after day by unyielding hot weather. All this fuel was a bomb waiting to go off.
Months of dry days combined with this starting at the very beginning of a seasonal wind storm made for a worst possible scenario. ANY other time in the summer would have meant more moisture or calmer winds. Even in the summer, the typical valley flow blows at most 20-25MPH from the north west. Instead we got the driest day of the summer with the windiest part of the fall. More perfect conditions for creating absolute devastation could hardly be imagined.
With Climate Change, these two things will cross over more often. Please listen to and support the local fire fighters. They saved an unbelievable number of homes under impossible circumstances. We will need them more than ever in the coming years.
The irony of the first town being named ‘Ashland’..
Every year, I hear more and more about these fires. Maybe its time we put more resources towards wildfires? Like creating more hotshot crews and quicker responses? Idk
Gotta have $$$ to make it all work. That’s the politics of fire response. Who’s going to foot the bill?
And more money put towards climate change efforts. As for who’s going to pay for it, consider it like insurance. It protects your house, and so you should pay for it. Your property and lives are worth more than a bit of taxes.
Fire mitigation, fuel reduction, and a proper DA would have helped you a lot through these fires/arsonists.
Maybe don't live under the tree? Safe distance is enough.
So sorry for your loss. Praying
Why aren't they arresting people who start them there's something wrong with that
Becuase they dont know who
They arrested a man on suspicion weeks ago for the almeda fire
@Disney is the Devil The FBI has put out a statement saying that Antifa was not in fact behind any fires in Oregon and that it was a rumor.
@Disney is the Devil id take that up with your commander in chief if thats true #trumpisantifa
It's not like we live in a surveliance state where they know what everyone does all the time. And fingerpointing wont help here, so whats the point
Turns out there was arson too. Ain’t that somethin
This is excellent reporting. Kudos to the reporters.
Excellent evaluation supported by science.
I hope to god an arsonist didn't start the fire. That would just be too cruel and unfair.
There would be no punishment great enough
@@aaronpannell6401 maybe 100,000,000 hours of community work and rebuilding homes and then death penalty at the end... no that's not enough.
I bet it was a gender reveal.
How did this fire start?
Arson...
This is so sad. I'm not from the USA but this is just really surreal. What is the world coming to?? 😵
For those who want to leave this area, there is a CZcams video titled 26122 Pinion Creek Rd this is an absolutely lovely home within a non-restricted subdivision in Magnolia, TX. Magnolia, TX is near Tomball, TX. This home is ready for immediate move-in. The name of the CZcams channel is Tamara Barnett-Mimms. This home is on a bidding system so, you would have to contact Tamara to put your bid in. Tamara gives people her phone number in the video titled September 13, 2020.
The start of the fire has a human involved. My prayers go out to all who lost so much.
I'm wondering.. Why are most houses in the US made of wood? Any ideas?
its always been like that in some states..
Say if it made of concrete too there's no guarantee that the fire wouldn't spread like that
@@fatiyahdanaa1748 alot of people in the states choose wood houses more than bricks because they're warm supposedly but wood houses are a risk especially like whats been happening in Washington Oregon and California state with that fire and everything.. and if you look in the canadian rockies. alot of them houses are wood.
They are made of wood because of earthquakes. Homes on the pacific coast are susceptible to earthquakes, from Seattle to Los Angeles. Wood can flex in a quake, stone and brick completely collapses. Homes in the central part of the country aren’t all wood like the earthquake zones. Unfortunately the earthquake zones are also fire zones
This fire season hit our state especially hard. We seriously have to do something its getting scarier and scarier every year.
Maybe find out how to pronounce Almeda. It is heard 1:22 in on the scanner recording.
Well done documenting the facts. What are your conclusions on why this spread so quickly and how to combat it in the future? Gold Hill, Rouge River, Grants Pass, Wilder... the entire Rogue / Applegate valleys could benefit greatly from this analysis.
they did such a good job investigating the facts of documentation that they completely forgot the facts of physics and how weather patterns in valleys work.. the only "chance" involved in why the fire spread as it did, was the fact that there was wind that day and which direction was that wind blowing. the narration seemed to think it was a freak event, somehow inexplicable, that a fire would spread this way and cause so much property damage. in reality, the freak event was the fire itself. completely predictable how it could spread like it did tbh.
Can you please do a visual investigation on the Kyle Rittenhouse incident. There was so many different social media videos, pictures, and accounts
Check out on youtube by Colion Noir a good recap. He is a lawyer.
Hi Nicolas, thanks for your comment. We have done an initial visual investigation the day after the incident, but in the form of an article www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html And we keep looking into a few more things. Christoph
Christoph Koettl thank you! Love your work, please keep it up.
I don’t know what’s confusing, you can clearly see he was attacked at every point where he fired his gun in self defense. Not to mention he was trying to get away from his attackers.
There is no one at the NYTs that would touch that, Kyle is being held on ridiculous charges that would only stand up in a Kangaroo court. The NYT backs that type of justice. There is no evidence to suggest that Kyle murdered anybody, and overwhelming evidence that Kyle was just protecting his own self.
How many times I witnessed smokers chucking cigarette butts out their vehicles? Many many times.
One landed on my windshield, fell in between the hood and melted a plastic trim. Good thing I saw to stop in time.
Another one landed in the back of a truck bed full of canvas fabrics in front of me. The driver didn’t notice until vehicles around him started honking.
Now it’s tragedies for the wildlife
I agree. I can’t believe it when I see someone throw a sparking cigarette butt out a car window, even after all the fires that have devastated homes, animals, people’s lives.
Dis she said was man made? did they capture anyone yet?
@49jubilee most likely antifa. this fire was organized. my grandparents neighbor hood had some people trying to start a fire. the neighbors would drive around constantly to keep watch.
Prayers for anyone who's lives were affected by the wildfires and everything else thats happened in 2020! 😭
Too many fires, in the west, most with no natural ignition. My place caught in the 'beast' in Washington with no lightening just wind and wind alone doesn’t a fire start.
Once your houses and businesses are destroyed the land and trees remain, for confiscation through condemnation by "your" government. Convenient, ain't it?
This is what city in middle East and Africa and post Vietnam looked when usa starts war there, now you feel this
Yep, war is ridiculously stupid, but it's not like the people that had their houses burned are responsible
there's a place to criticize US foreign policy. this is not it.
#youtu_be_ebwk58BGTTs 0
Don't feed the trolls. Their stunted souls thrive on attention.
when did we ever go to war in africa?
Nice reporting on this. I really appreciate the in-depth look.
Problem: 1. Chaotic forest management
2. No fire belts are set up next to the village
3. The house is constructed of flammable materials such as wood
4. People who do not unite and prepare fire fighting tools will only wait for firefighters to put out the fire (this method is useless)
Just like when you need a cop to defend you they’re minutes away. It’s all over in seconds. People need to start taking personal responsibility instead of relying on someone else.
6. Houses are too close to each other.
Basically his house burned that house and that house ignited this house, and so on.
Do wooden houses are increasing this effect 🧐
Lord have mercy. Give them strength Father ♥️
This is quality journalism
I'd say seems like the fire lights to burn houses more than trees
Trees are filled with water. Houses are made of dry wood and have gas lines in them. You do the math
Congrats it's a girl
Dude, wrong fire.
I remember driving home after work and I came across a huge traffic jam I sat in traffic for hours trying to get home to central point Oregon I soon learned that the fire reached the area that I had lived in with my wife I will never forget that day we lost so much all of us many people were completely destroyed watching our homes and memories just gone there’s just some things you can’t replace and this was one of those things that we will never get back I’ve lost everything and now we all have to start all over again which is very hard because now some of us cant rebuild what we had lost some of us are still struggling and we did now receive help from our government only the rich got helped got their properties rebuilt while the rest of us became homeless living from check to check and it been 2 years and here we are in the same position as the day we all lost our homes it’s hard to get back up from this one!!!!
Yes this is what i need instead of tiktok
#youtu_be_ebwk58BGTTs 0
I feel sorry for all the people. Its heart breaking.
Totally not an accident. This is a Crime!
Laser beams weapons
We witnessed it on Dutchsince
I drove through Eastern Oregon and the John Day area just after Federal clean up began on a major fire. Seeing several homes where everything was gone except the chimney just about had me and my ride in tears for the owners, as long term residents probably dating back over a century, those rural homes were subsistence, that is, they probably didn't have insurance of ANY kind, not to mention the loss of personal irreplaceable property. I experienced my own fire on acreage. But THIS; ENTIRE TOWNS? I have trouble wrapping my head around that.
Okay I know nothing about investigating a fire. The one thing I did notice in this video is the trees surrounding and running , a few, through the neighborhoods are as green as can be from the aerial view they show. ?
don't start your conspiracy nonsense
Trees are actually surprisingly fireproof. Most of the things burning in most forest fires are dead trees, shrubs, leaves, etc. Trees usually start burning last because of their thick bark. The houses likely burned down before the trees started burning.
#HelpWestCoast
Why homes are pulverised wnen trees are still standing?
Trees have water running through them, the moisture protects the trees from burning up completely.
Live in Medford,just found out about this vid now, we didn't seem to get much air support,guessing because all the planes and helicopters were down in cali and other places
This is exactly why I live in an RV... When disaster is about to happen, I can just drive away to a safe location and not loose everything... best decision I ever made...
that debay guy sounds really sad. i can hear the um... grief in his voice
Direct energy weapon?
@Haggis Wrangler but satelites feed us
Satellites never hides a thing!
Now you understand how we feel here in Australia 🇦🇺
Did you grow a tree back there ?
Both y'all understand how people feel in east africa because the damage is usually far worse and nations aren't equipped with this Western nations made global warming.
@@PHlophe Fire happens everywhere,always has always will.
@@user-fc2xg5iz7y But it will get worse, both due to increase thunderstorm frequency and hotter temperatures.
@@nonexistant2 It will huh.
Taiwan can help.
Watering system must be built ASAP.
Nice sharing
It sucks that this happened, and that's really the only way I can describe it honestly because I have no words about it other than those. Because of all these wildfires my city that's maybe we'll I've 100 miles from the nearest fire got covered in a blanket of smoke for I want to say almost a week and seeing and hearing the fire super crane helo going over every day honestly just made me sad to think that those pilots every day go back and forth between refueling water dropping picking up more water and doing it all over again kinda makes it more just unnerving more than anything else. If anyone who legitimately was effected by the fires sees this I wish you the best of luck and I hope you have an amazing day or night.
Who knows how these wild house fires get started.
Mother nature doesn't need any help starting fires people, don't do any pastimes that involve lighting a fire outside.
I lived in Phoenix lost everything
It was like waking up to find myself on Mars. The sky was so orange and the smoke was so freaking heavy. I thought we were going to have to evac, but I wasn't sure if the fire was close or not because we had no power after the wind storm knocked everything out. We're in Newport, the closest the fire got was to Otis before the winds changed direction, but I don't think I've ever shaken as hard as I did that day when the sky the day before was clear, then the next day, it was as orange as amber.
That wind storm was the start of something bad, I knew it. It was not a normal wind storm.
How can these people stand so close to the fire!? I would think It would be hot
Worst day of my life. I’ll never forget
thx
what fire does not burn trees but ashes homes?
exactly!!! I wish more people would come to the same conclusion... and use their judgment and common sense... People look but don’t know how to see anymore...they don’t question anything and if you do , then your the crazy one or a conspiracy theory fan, gee! so sad...
Nat Pic earth is flat
Estate Sales - Trees are more resistant to fire than homes, unless they are dead. Homes are built from dried lumber, not green wood.
Houses are dry and may have other flammable elements, like gas lines that weren't shut off in time. Living trees are full of water. If living trees weren't at least somewhat fire resistant there wouldn't be any trees left on earth. Homes are not natural structures evolved to withstand natural disasters
#Estate Sales what other conspiracies to you spread?
The satellite visuals and anomolies , where are those near infrared beams? Or weather modifications in the field publications? The coast are resetting!!
Please go back to school and study physics, chemistry, and math so you don’t get twisted around an axle by conspiracy theories.
Updates? Any charges pressed? Arests? Did anyone recieve pay out? Did insurance cover it? Where are the residents affected? We relocate displaced foreginers. How about American citizens??
So tragic
i wish people would stop comparing politics to natural causes
If you haven't lived in Southern Oregon, Alameda Dr is very close to the Bear Creek Greenway, a bike path that stretches from Ashland to Central Point, north of Medford. The Greenway is home to many homeless people, and the locals cannot use the Greenway for recreation because it is not safe. When I lived in Medford, a co-worker of mine had his bike stolen moments after he dismounted it on the Greenway. Homeless camps stretch a vast portion of this bike path. In 2017, a rapidly moving fire broke out near the Greenway in Central Point, but didn't nearly destroy as much as the 2020 fires. The locals of Southern Oregon are very jumpy about the safety of the Greenway given two destructive fires have occured. It can't help but get political because it is a combination of city policies that maintain the Greenway. Ultimately, the locals feel this city policy has left this destruction, and they can't help but make it political because of this.
nux i lived in eugene and moved to bend but have family in medford area. and i agree politics do play a role but i’m talking about national government not local.
A piece submitted by a resident of CA regarding the forests of the US west coast:
Take a minute and read this. The timber industry I worked in for years had always said the woods were gonna burn if the two sides for and against couldn't come together for the betterment of our environment:(
Welcome to the (Unnecessary) Mega Fire Generation!
By Del Albright, Fire Chief (retired)
25-30 years ago, a 10,000 - 15,000-acre fire was a huge conflagration. Now we are experiencing 100,000 - 400,000-acre fires regularly.
I would like to offer an explanation based on over 30 years of government service including 26 years with the fire service, as well as beginning my fire career with a Master’s Degree based on Prescribed Burning.
NO! It is not just global warming (climate change).
NO! It is not understaffed or ill-trained firefighters.
NO! It is not Mamma Nature getting even with our urban sprawl.
NO! It is not careless campers or hunters.
NO! It is not kids with matches.
(NO! It is not just arson committed by antifa and BLM arsonists)*
YES! It is a combination of many things but more importantly, it is the LACK of forest/brushland/grassland management caused by wacko, radical enviro groups imposing excessive regulations, and restrictions on our ability to keep the west safe from wildfire.
Here are the key takeaways from this article:
· The lack of controlled burning/prescribed fire is directly responsible for the huge build-ups of flammable fuels.
· The end of maintaining fire breaks (roads) in forested areas leaves firefighters with inadequate access.
· The end of logging and good timber management as we used to know it is directly responsible for forests that are now tinderboxes.
Let us take a deeper look at these reasons.
CONTROLLED BURNS:
Going back to Native Americans in America, controlled burning (later called Prescribed Fire) have saved the west from huge conflagrations. By burning large brush fields and using fire to thin brush in the forest, we kept the big boomers at bay. We had programs designed to reduce “chaparral” in the west, thus limiting the ability for fires to get ragingly out of control.
In the early days of settling the west, ranchers regularly burned brush fields to make way for grazing and wildlife habitat.
This entire program of controlled or prescribed fire is a near thing of the past.
ROADS/FIRE BREAKS:
When I started with the fire service in the 1970’s we had regularly scheduled building, repairing, cleaning, and maintaining fire breaks around rural housing areas and developments. We kept fire roads cleared and usable for large fire equipment. We had access to remote areas which allowed us to attack fires when they were small. Roads provided a place to start a safe backfire. Oh, backfires! Another art nearly lost today due to liability and excessive oversight by the media and radical enviro groups who have political power.
LOGGING/TIMBER MANAGEMENT:
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you probably remember sawmills. They are all gone for the most part because the radical environmental rules have made logging a financial nightmare. You wonder why wood is so expensive these days? We cannot log; that’s why. Yes, there are still a few holdouts logging here and there. But the feds are hampered by so many regulations and restrictions that our timber stands either get bug infested or succumb to wildfires.
We used to thin forest stands regularly - fire crews, inmate crews, machines that munch up underbrush, and yes, even pesticides to keep the forests healthy. Now, you can pick about any state in the west with timber and you see more bug-killed trees than live ones!
In our western grasslands, the lack of proactive landscape management in desert states has resulted in vast acreages dominated by a fire cycle that is ruining wildlife habitat and causing bigger and more damaging conflagrations. This invasive species needs to be managed or these western deserts will never be the same - nor will our wildlife species.
In timber areas, for the most part, we no longer control pests and bugs; we no longer do any substantial thinning of the underbrush; logging is kaput, and forest management is a façade. It is not the fault of our public land managers; it is the imposition of radical regulation. It is politics.
SUMMARY:
Public land management is no longer based on science but rather politics. The same goes for wildlife management. Radical enviro groups lobby politicians (and raise untold dollars in support) to STOP all the things that will make our forests, brushlands, and deserts safe and healthy. It is ironic (and pathetic) because for all their efforts to “save the world” they are destroying our world, piece by piece.
To see fires in California reach half a million acres is beyond belief!
What can we do? We must STOP the silliness and over-regulation and allow sound public land management, never forgetting that public lands are FOR the public. Help good politicians get elected and stay in office. Recall bad politicians. Do everything in your power to negate, refute, or STOP the radical movement that has stagnated management of our resources.
* added by me to reflect existential reality. SOME were started by antifa and BLM anarchal arsonists.
Fossil charcoal indicates that wildfires began soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants 420 million years ago. Wildfire's occurrence throughout the history of terrestrial life invites conjecture that fire must have had pronounced evolutionary effects on most ecosystems' flora and fauna. Earth is an intrinsically flammable planet owing to its cover of carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, and widespread lightning and volcanic ignitions.
Strategies for wildfire prevention, detection, control and suppression have varied over the years. One common and inexpensive technique is *controlled burning* : *intentionally igniting smaller fires to minimize the amount of flammable material available for a potential wildfire.* Vegetation may be burned periodically to maintain high species diversity and limit the accumulation of plants and other debris that may serve as fuel.
Or in lay speak, we didn't start the fire, as it was always burning since the world's been turning.
@@sarysa Also, burn the plants and other material surrounding the fire so it doesn't have the fuel to continue onwards.
@@sarysa Yes, fires are part of a natural process but there is a difference between a little local fire and a widespread fire that is burning it's way through miles. Humans play an important role in making the fires more widespread by planting bushes and trees to near to each other and buildings.
So it's the responsibility of the federal government to execute strategies to mitigate the sources of these huge fires, including climate change _and_ forest management? After all, science has shown that climate change has exacerbated the problem by decreasing the available time during the year that controlled burns can be conducted. I say that because a large majority of the land in these areas is owned by the federal government.
@@carlos4762 there is talk that it correlates with planned rail track?
Living in valleys that are filled with trees and underbrush... What could go wrong?
the feeling is very different about those things happen to me or happen to someone.
1:09
Man made fire?
Not woman made?
That made me laugh, but generally that’s a true statement.
Very useful information.
.......... Anant yatra (Dr. Vijay Dixit)
THE BEST N1
2020 needs to stop
My grandparents house burnt down in that fire
More arson Confirmed.... So when will there be a bounty for arsonist... When.....
Still calling it a wildfire huh ?
yeah it's wild how it only burned down homes and small business
Jerry Marasco - That’s what it was, regardless of how it started.
GH1618 should have a different label. Wildfire insinuates it was started by natural occurrences.
That's all I'm saying.
I live down here in California and Governor Newscum is saying all our fires were caused by climate change.
While some have this year. One fire was started by fireworks at a gender reveal party and 2 years in a row were started by PG and E our power company and faulty connections in the overhead wires.
@@jerrymarasco8878 small town arson is my submission for a new name.
Donn DeVore wow !
Marshmallows anyone?
Hope to God that they catch whoever started this fire and put them away for life!
At least the whole country knows its a boy now.
common you can't actually think that wildfires of the West Coast were started by a gender revival, an accident with the gender revival caused one small fire out of hundreds of other smaller fires across the West Coast
Disney is the Devil anyway we need a stronger forest management
It started as an embers then turns to fire with vengence at hand. it spreed extremely fast like our universe.
WIND
I don't get it. Why did the resident use the fire extinguisher or a baking soda to put it out?
Larissa Peaks - Presumably he didn’t have one at hand when he needed it. You don’t have time to go get one, even if you have one. One should not be doing anything which could start a fire during fire season.
You're joking right? These flames were like 30 feet high
@@watsonwrote if you had a large enough baking soda, even just 10 feet because baking soda works in a 3 to 1
wtf
Too sad to post any other comment than to say, let’s hope we can get a handle on these fires.
Now imagine what it would have been like if americans didn't build homes out wood and cardboard but from solid stone. The fire would have burned a very small number of homes and then would have been stopped, because you can extinguish flames in solid buildings rather easily. The wooden homes have been what nourished the fires. Americans build wooden homes over solid homes because they only plan for short terms ahead. Part of the reason is the terrible social system which forces americans to move long distances for jobs, because there is little to no job protection and unemployment payments. Americans only plan ahead for months while in most other countries which have social systems people can plan ahead for decades, building solid homes that their children can inherit.
I honestly wish I could help, but I can't. I'm not old enough, i'm not able to travel. I had no idea of this until now, and it breaks my heart. Knowing that hundreds of thousands of people could've died, right there and then. 2,300 homes? Kids lives were scarred, and maybe literally. It's just.. hurts knowing people do this kind of sh**.
Sad part is it was probably someone's cigarette butt or something equally stupid.
It was actually a bunch of homeless people trying to cover up a murder
Did anyone else notice that the trees didn't really burn? Some of these scenes show completely untouched grass in front of devastated homes. This was a failure of of bad architecture, bad home construction, and terrible urban planning. It wasn't a natural disaster.
I live in Ashland where the fire started. One of the reasons so many homes burned down is because the fire wiped out 12 mobile home parks, some of them were pretty large parks. Mobile homes don't stand a chance against fires. Another reason was the wind. That day had the strongest winds I've ever seen in person, it just spread the fire so quickly.