>
La Canada Flintridge fire
(Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times)
A brush fire above La Canada Flintridge moves down a canyon toward Angeles Crest Highway just before midnight Thursday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / August 29, 2009)
Flames from the Station fire sweep across Angeles Crest Highway.
Station fire
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / August 29, 2009)
U.S. Forest Service firefighters survey the flames of the Station fire along Angeles Crest Highway.
(Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times)
A brush fire above La Canada Flintridge moves down a canyon toward Angeles Crest Highway just before midnight Thursday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / August 29, 2009)Flames from the Station fire sweep across Angeles Crest Highway.
Station fire(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / August 29, 2009)
U.S. Forest Service firefighters survey the flames of the Station fire along Angeles Crest Highway.
It’s all about the wildfires that burn out of control across the Southland that’s grabbing the headlines these days as unrelenting heat, low humidity and shifting, complex wind flow snake through tinder canyon’s and narrow gaps. It’s the typical late season set up across California. After months without rain and dried out brush and scrubs, all you need is high pressure to shift, or built which often brings hotter weather (remembering that it’s always at least warm away from the coastline) and dry east wind flow which downslope and compresses, heating further the already toasty air as well as the alignment of the coastal canyons and valleys in relation fot the wind flow which excellerates the intense winds generated by the push-pull of the northeast winds racing towards the low offshore as it is squeezed through the narrow complex channels of canyons and valleys that seperate coastal California from the lofty 10 to 12,000ft San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains to finally the high and low desert region where the high it positioned. During winter time Santa Ana’s the high desert can be chilly despite high pressure overhead, but it’s the low offshore that triggers the mechanisim which revs up the winds and through their downsloping of the coastal mountains, they heat adiabatically bringing 80s, 90s and in extreme cases 100s to the beaches from Long Beach in the south, up through Huntington, Venice, Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey to Malibu and LA basin whilst it may be in the 40s east of the mountains during the months of January, February and March.
Unfortunately, each and every summer displays periods of blowtorch heat, chockingly arid air and firey winds that creates the perfect conditions that ignite the hillsides and scare residents that find their mansions sudenly in harms way. Firestorms happen every so many years and ironically they tend to be worst during the month of October with 2003 and 2007 ranking as the worst ever firestorms in Southern California history, said to have burned 3,500 homes in 2003 and 2,500 homes in 2007. Those years had perfect conditions that started back in mid-winter when the winter rains did not come, summertime heat dried out all the vegitation and Santa Anas kicked in to bring raging firestorms and utter devastation to thousands.
Wind speeds range from modest 40 to 60 mph which can cut power and bring fan palms down as well as scatter garbage bins across streets etc. But strong Santa Ana’s bring down trees, shed roof shingles off homes and cause all sorts of problems. In narrow canyons and mountain ridges winds have been known even in recent years to have ranged between 70-100 mph. These winds are extremely dry and fiery hot. Indeed their greatest threat is when fires start in the hills, they become raging storms when winds rage..
Luckily, this is not 2003 or 2007, yet! The perfect scenario isn’t in place this year and the fire season overall is nowhere near as bad as the past few recent years. But thousands of homes are now threatened as these current fires blow torching the landscape around the LA basin and could change a fire season that’s be ok, to a really bad one if temps don’t start cooling down and winds increase. The station fire went from 5,000 acres to 35,000 acres between Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Not because of wind strangely enough but simply because of such intense heat and single digit humidity.
The thing we need to remember is this is a naturally dry place. It’s always been that way and always will, yet with the beautiful most-of-the-year-round sunshine and warmth comes less rainfall and with the complexities of geography and topography which seperate interior desert from high mountains, coastal mountains and a vast maze of generally southeast to northwest oriented canyons and valleys that are covered in dried out creosote bush and chapparal come the risk of wildfires and firestorms as it’s only inevitable that these fires will blow up at the end of a long hot, rainless summer and sometimes throughout summer from as early as soring to as late as December, it can happen anytime if conditions come together. High and low pressure work hand in hand at the change of summer into winter to bring powerful Santa Ana windstorms, dry, hot winds that ignite fierce fires and in the perfect storm-setup firestorms that wipe out thousands of glamorous, expensive and beautiful real estate. The problem comes when more and more choose to live in harms way. More homes are being built in places they shouldn’t be, places that have seen wildfires rage in the past and will do so again. That is why more and more homes become consumed by fires every year, because those houses weren’t there in the past. California is continuing it’s worrying trend of population growth, more and more seek for year round summer sun and the beauty that Southern California has to offer like few other places anywhere in the world do, but earthquakes, mudslides (when it does finally rains, the arid soils can’t cope) and those same homes that are threatened by summer wildfires are at risk in winter of sliding down steep hillsides when rainstorms arrive, ususually during El Ninos.
Wildfires are nothing unusual and in fact they are simply a natural cleanser of rmoving waste growth of the landscape and this allows new growth. Wildfires are an act of nature in this part of the world just like hurricanes that form in the tropical ocean basins across the world.
To keep up the date with all of what’s happening right now in SOCAL click on to http://www.latimes.com/ and http://cbs2.com/ for great photographs and information.
Thanks for reading.
– Mark
Recent Comments