The local press and national news seems to be adequately covering this very large, week old wildfire. The photos in the above link provide a good sense of the terrain and why under the right humidity and wind conditions that such a fire is difficult to contain.
CalFire was fantastic a few years ago when I was staying in a cabin that is to the west of the Rocky Fire and that ended up being within 300 feet of a brush fire. I ended up having a front row seat to the whole event. So, if any of you have any questions about the Rocky Fire, I might be able to supply a couple of answers.
The LATimes report has some good pictures as well.
14 August 2015 – SF Gate Rocky Fire fully contained — Jerusalem nears same fate
The Jerusalem fire was roughly south of the Rocky fire and lapped into Napa County. Keeping fingers crossed as the temperature this weekend is higher than it has been.
The Soda Fire in Idaho as reported by The Guardian is a monster. There are several other fires in ID and OR that should not be considered insignificant.
An online friend of mine breeds and raises miniature horses in Fort Bragg, California. She’s said that so far the fire is about two hours away from her — but she has friends, and owners of horses she bred and sold, in the endangered area.
She’s got five stallions, almost four dozen broodmares, and a couple dozen foals and yearlings she’d have to move if fire threatened her ranch — and she runs the whole thing with her husband and a couple of helpers. Can you imagine what it would take for her to flee? And to recover if her place was gutted? And she’s just one of who knows how many people with livestock faced with planning for and perhaps dealing with such an emergency — getting their animals out, or having to leave them behind when they evacuate and pray they survive.
We hear about homes lost or threatened, on the nightly newscasts; we hear of human lives lost; but we rarely hear about the horrors faced by people like my friend.
And then there’s all the wildlife….
The Rocky Fire burn area is a pocket that’s sparsely populated and dry even when there isn’t a drought. The coastal fog that Ft. Bragg gets struggles to make it over the ridges to Lake County and rapidly dissipates as it moves east. The Bay Area fog that Napa gets doesn’t make it to Lake. Nor does the Delta fog. Native grasses that begin drying out in spring interspersed with low-level tree and scrub predominate. With rare exceptions the winds in the area blow east, north east. That accounts for while it’s become a huge burn area, firefighters have been able to contain it away more developed areas.
There is, however, concern that the smoke will damage the wine grapes growing in several of the surrounding counties.
Thanks for the info. Although my friend has been very worried over the last several months at the lack of rain compared to her area’s normal rainfall.
As she should be. While the coast gets cool and damp weather, can’t drink fog. The natural topology of the CA coastal west is dry and doesn’t sustainably support large populations.
That’s mainly economic loss. The grape vines themselves will survive. In France they rejuvenate vinyards by burning the vines. They sprout again from the roots. I suppose if the subsoil temperature got too high the roots might die.
Also the cones of the lodgepole pines in Yellowstone require forest fire heat to sprout.
Animals do not benefit or survive fire.
Not sure there are any vineyards in the burn area, but there could be a few. The smoke travels further and there are vineyards in other parts of Lake, Yolo, and Colusa counties which may seriously impact this year’s crop. Those to the south, west, and northwest (Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino) are less at risk unless the winds shift from the normal summertime direction.
Will have to wait and see how the wild Tule Elk have fared.
Even if the elk survive, there will be loss of forage. IIRC, deer are browsers, eating leaves and such unlike cattle and other grazers that eat grass, which grows back quicker.
They only like certain grasses, that’s why there was so much grass fuel for the fire.
I’m sure the natural wildlife organizations will do as much as possible to supplement food stocks for the animals that survive. But it’s not an easy task because the grass needs rain for regrowth and in the best years that’s a few months from now. Unless the predicted mega-el-nino arrives early and hits this impacted region. Of course, that’s not so good for the grapes.
Heard a comment on an NPR newscast, a quick “People are turning horses loose” — yup, they can’t get them out, so in desperation they leave them loose to flee to whatever safety they can find, not knowing if there’ll be any safety to run to, if the horses will survive but be burned, or if they’ll ever find them again even if the animals do make it.
I’ve read a book about the Esperanza, California fire some years ago that took several firefighters’ lives. The affected area, steep, sparsely settled and with few, narrow, contorted roads, included one property where dogs were bred. The people were forced to evacuate; the many dogs had to be left in their kennels. A fire crew took up station there and they all, dogs and humans, survived. The crew stationed at a lower property were overrun by firestorm and did not.
Wildfires confront people with awful choices. It’s a horrible thing to contemplate.
The worst — or most out of control – period of this fire appears to be over. There was only so much that fire fighters could do and they did have to let the steepest and least populated areas with the fewest road fire breaks go.
Wildfires are a fact of life out here. Few places are truly safe from them. Oakland Hills Firestorm 1991, Bel Air Fire 1961. Although homeowners could do a somewhat better in their choices of vegetation and fire suppression installations. The cabin I was renting a few years ago had sprinklers for all the wood decks that surrounded it. When I first smelled the smoke, I quickly checked to see where it was coming from, as it was close enough that I could see flames, I ran around and turned on all the sprinklers and was ready to evacuate when the CalFire people showed up and said I was to stay as they would be using the location as a staging area.