Posts Tagged: fires
Wildfire Fallout--Ash.
By David Layland, UC Master Gardener of Napa County In early October, I chose fall garden...
Near Lake Berryessa (Noah Berger, Napa Valley Register)
Ash on tomatoes (today.oregonstate.edu)
Ash on squash leaf (aroundalaska.wordpress.com)
Near Big Sur (usatoday.com)
Elizabeth Frost, The Bees, and The Fires
The wildfires that raged through California, crippling and/or destroying beekeepers' homes and...
Boone Vale, a volunteer with the Bodega Bay Fire Department, took this heartbreaking image of a fire reaching the Pope Valley hives of Caroline Yelle, owner of Pope Valley Queens. Yelle credits him for saving some of her hives. (Photo by Boone Vale, used with permission)
UC Davis alumnus Elizabeth "Liz" Frost (foreground), employed with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, transferring nucs in a holding yard. (Photo courtesy of Liz Frost)
UC Davis alumnus Elizabeth "Liz" Frost worked at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Taquero Drives Out To Wildfire Evacuation Camp, Feeds Hundreds Left Homeless By Blaze
The Camp Fire, California's deadliest wildfire, rages on. So far, 52,000 people have been evacuated, 11,000 homes burned, 71 confirmed dead, and over a thousand still missing.
Jose Uriarte's taco and burrito shop, Gordo Burrito in Chico, CA, is just outside the wildfire's range. Every day, Jose, who immigrated from Guamuchil, Sinaloa, gives free food to the firefighters, EMTs, police and social workers working tirelessly to serve their fire-ravaged community.
Last Sunday, he closed up the storefront, gathered up a crew, and drove his taco truck out to the Elk's Lodge wildfire evacuation camp. The scene that greeted him was apocalyptic.
In a phone interview, Jose could not find words to describe the scope of the devastation. "It's so...big," he said, before going on to describe how the dense smoke blocked out the sun and made everything "cold and surreal."
Jose couldn't hold back the tears when he talked to KPCC about his experience at the camp, saying that some people cried when he arrived.
"Everybody was really appreciating that we were there for them. They take pictures; they all tell a little story. But everybody was really appreciating that they can have a hot meal."
His voice breaking, Jose recalled that one woman said to him:
"I would like to talk to the [President] and tell him he cannot make American great without you, without people like you."
Jose was deeply affected by her words.
"This is something that really touched me," he said, "because I came to the US with nothing, and now I have a lot, by working hard, and I'm really proud of that."
Jose is going back again this weekend with more free meals. Jose and his crew are proof that "when Mexico sends its people," they send their very best.
Gracias Jose.
Source: Published originally on LatinLive.com, Taquero Drives Out To Wildfire Evacuation Camp, Feeds Hundreds Left Homeless By Blaze, by O. Delgado, November 2018.
/h4>IGIS and UCCE assess the spread of fire in Sonoma and Napa Counties
Recently I was fortunate to work with the IGIS team in Santa Rosa and Sonoma to explore why so many homes and buildings were lost in the October Tubbs and Nuns Fires. With the IGIS's Shane Feirer we collected drone-based video to record how the fires burned through the vegetation near and around the lost structures.
We observed several sites where there was little fire activity in the forests or woodlands, yet the homes burned. This type of video helps us document how devastating a wind-driven ember fire can be and of the important lessons we can learn to be better prepared for wildfire.
From this experience I came away with a painful reminder that we all need to do a better job at focusing on fuels near our homes (e.g. combustible wood mulches used in landscaping, lawn furniture, leaf accumulations, dry landscape plants, etc.), especially in the 5 feet immediately adjacent to our homes. While the Tubbs Fire originated in grassy area in Calistoga it easily picked up embers from the burning vegetation which were moved by the 40-70 mph winds and created spot fires ahead of the flaming front. In short time these embers were blasted into homes via attic or soffit vents (critical to let moisture out of a building) or they ignited combustible materials close to buildings; these types of exposures are the primary way the Tubbs Fire started to consume homes. Eventually the Tubbs Fire moved to the more densely populated areas of the Fountain Grove subdivision in Santa Rosa and with each new home that was ignited a new source of embers were created. The embers that came from the burning buildings included 2 x 4s, chunks of wood the size of a frisbee, and other materials. These materials were blasted over Highway 101 on to homes and businesses in the urban center of Santa Rosa- a place most thought could not be impacted by wildfire. The winds persisted till mid-morning on October 9th providing considerable time for an ember to find a weakness in the home. All of us hope we never have a fire like this again, but as history shows us, California's most damaging fires typically occur in the September and October and are often wind-driven.
For many years UC has worked in educating homeowners about fire preparedness in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). These fires have resulted in the largest number of structure losses to date in California and we all need tools to better understand how to learn from these experiences. I greatly appreciate IGIS's willingness to help me collect some critical data in a time sensitive manner.
Ash, Ubiquitous After-Effect of the Wildfires.
In early October, I chose fall garden cleanup as the topic for this article. Proper garden...