burritos said:
heartofthebear said:
burritos said:
Not a fire expert here, so maybe someone else can chime in. What is the percent likelihood that these fires are intentionally set? 1%? 25%?
The jet stream is more erratic these days due to, you guessed it, global changes in weather patterns, also known as global climate change. The unintended consequence is more offshore winds, also known as Santa Ana winds. And these winds are happening more often and in more places in California.
If you have trouble understanding how winds can start a bad fire in an urban environment, I can't help you.
Yes you can help me or at least you can try. So you're stating strong winds + incidental low grade sparking from various industrial electrical stuff/cars/industrial machinery and subsequent spread of embers equals 5 large fires all at the same time. If you say that's not only a reasonable explanation but the likely reason, then I'll turn off my conspiratorial detector.
In this day and age where society inadvertently produces mass shooters, I wouldn't be surprised at someone with a strong warped societal grievance use fire as a way to lash out.
I was in California during the 80's and 90's when fires were deliberately being set by a Fire Chief no less:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leonard_Orr
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leonard_Orr][/url]
Since this topic is a booth of a similar thread in Off-Topic, both discussions are incomplete with missing discussions in the other thread. While there have been rogue fire fighters who have set wildfires for the bonus pay; these have always been a small fraction of the wildfire causes. On the West Coast most wildfires will be the result of natural causes like lightening strikes. Even large wildfires this summer caused by lightening garnered little media coverage; probably because the areas were remote and the fires allowed to burn while firefighters protected more populated areas.
The wildfires this week were anticipated; the conditions of extreme fire danger dictated the likelihood. The absence of natural fire starters, e.g. lightening strikes, leaves some sort of man-made ignition source combining with the extreme fire danger conditions as the cause. Fire departments in SoCal put out dozens of fires each day, the fact that maybe five or six fires in a few days grow rapidly due to extreme fire danger that overwhelms fire fighters does not change the fact that fires are a very common occurrence. As I mentioned earlier this week in SoCal a man lost away from a road started a fire to attract attention. He was rescued by fire fighters responding to put out the wildfire he started; they did and the fire did not make the national news. A few years ago SD had a large fire started by lost hunters trying to signal for help. I suspect in some of these areas there are homeless/migrant worker/ illegal alien camps. Nights this week have been very cold, yet building a camp fire to stay warm is extremely dangerous with the extreme winds during the coldest period of the night.
Finally SoCal is a car/truck sanctuary. Not all private/commercial vehicles are well maintained. I had an old pickup truck that had a rear wheel oil seal fail resulting in the bearing melting and welding to the steel axle housing, plenty hot enough to start a grass fire. Ever see disc brake rotors glowing cherry red at night from prolonged braking on grades? In olden times you could downshift and use engine compression to slow a vehicle. With shifting now computer controlled on most cars you cannot manually downshift to use compression braking; result brakes get even hotter. True this only becomes a problem in hilly terrain during extreme fire danger, like where all the fires are burning.
Our family had an orchard/vineyard for nearly 50 years. Annual pruning started in November and had to be complete by Feb 1st. Pruning easily produced a ton per acre and that had to be removed (or burned) by the Feb 1st start of the blooming season. To maintain air quality burning was only allowed on cold wet days without wind, far different than the extreme fire danger conditions current in SoCal. You had to be good to start a fire in those conditions without using fire starters like gasoline and rubber tires. You have to cook the wet wood on a low fire until the wood starts to outgas. Eventually the wood outgases enough combustible fuel and literally will explode like a gasoline fire and the fire instantly is raging. The fire is so hot that wet green wood burns almost instantly when added to the fire. And then you realize what extreme fire danger is really like. Stupid, typical, human behavior during extreme fire conditions will start fires that in less extreme conditions would never spread.
Obviously you have never worked around high voltage power lines or you would not have used the dismissive term, "incidental low grade sparking ". Even the low grade sparking of a wall light switch is enough to ignite vegetation during extreme fire danger conditions (take off the cover plate in a darkened room and watch the sparks). High voltage lines when compromised can produce some spectacular arcing sparks. Even something as flimsy as a curtain rod shorting the poles of a transformer in a substation will blow the transformer and melting metal pieces with an intense arc (welding) event.
San Diego's biggest fires have been started by arcing power lines, lost hikers, dumb hunters, illegal camps, fireworks; actual arsonist caused fires have been smaller. This extreme fire danger event can make anyone a fire starter, no special skills required. In those cases where I know of a fire fighter starting the blaze, the fire danger was not elevated, they were helping mother nature burn...
