California fires

Today's WSJ included a story about a 1930s 2-bedroom home at 486 Conejo Road that had survived the Sycamore Canyon fire of 1977, the mudslide of 1984, the El Nino rain storm of 1998, the mudslides of 2005 and the fires last week. Or course, only one other house in the neighborhood was left standing. But the view of the ocean, they say, is worth it. I'm not sure where you could live in California where you'd be safe from disaster, but whether you've got an ocean view on the east coast, a forest setting in California, or you're enjoying the balmy breezes of Florida, and the gulf view in Texas, I suspect those of us in the plain vanilla midwest, fly-over country, are sharing the pain in our insurance bills and the government disaster insurance plans.

I think I can give the folks in Iowa a pass for those terrible floods last summer. Who would have expected all that heavy snow (isn't there global warming?) and then the spring rains on top of that. But they've been fiddling with those California fires since the late 1700s, and although it is known that fire is essential to the healthy growth of the local trees and plants, residents, builders, environmentalists, forestry officials, local and state administrations and academics just keep dabbling and getting it wrong. See The burning wind, Los Angles Magazine, Nov. 2008.

Atop the Santa Monica Mountains and in Orange County, Santa Ana winds have been clocked at speeds above 110 mph—the force of a Category 3 hurricane like Katrina when it made landfall in Louisiana. . .
Usually wind blows into L.A. from the Pacific, a daytime airflow generated as the sun warms the desert and coastal plains. When in early October the year’s premier Santa Ana stirs, it wakes at night. The sun is no longer dominant, the desert is cooling, and the Santa Ana can begin its flight to the sea. . . If you look at just three years—2007, 2003, and 1993—more than 6,000 homes were destroyed by Santa Ana fires, housing loss that surpasses that of the Northridge earthquake. Given the annihilating potential of the Santa Ana winds, you’d think by now we’d be able to define them.

This web site with Santa Barbara Outdoors has many interesting accounts of the fires over the years beginning around 1955.