9:30 a.m.
Here we go again.
In addition to Montecito, there’s now what is being called the Sayre Fire in Sylmar that has forced 10,000 evacuations. (LAFD map here.)
LAFD’s Brian Humphries is Twittering about the Sayre fire as are many others, using the hashtag #LAFIRE…. Go here to follow the realtime updates.
Spot fires throughout Granada Hills and Porter Ranch, one month after the same area was flame-threatened by the Sesnon Fire.
The Olive View Medical Center evacuated some critical patients by flashlight, says the City News Service. Evidently backup power failed before the sun rose this morning. Two hundred patients stayed in the hospital, and hand-powered respirator units were used to keep some babies and sick people breathing.
The Golden State Freeway (5) is closed at the Newhall Pass , as is the 405 northbound at the 118.
9:36 a.m.: The shelter at Sylmar High School is FULL and cannot take any more evacuees
9:41 a.m: The tanker planes fighting the Sayre Fire have been grounded since 9 this morning, due to the 70 mph wind conditions. This is not good.
C-SUN has cancelled all Saturday class.
9:51: Approximately 600-800 mobile homes in Oakridge mobile home park, destroyed
10:02: Rolling blackouts reported in some areas of Sherman Oaks and Crenshaw.
10:40: LA DWP announces rolling blackouts 4 LACity effect now.
12:22: Rolling blackouts over.
12:23: Oakridge mobil home park declared a crime scene.
12:26: New fire in Corona, and also Rancho Palos Verdes, although the latter appears to be somewhat under control. Corona, however, now has the DC 10 dumping fire retardant.
No, as it turns out, make that seven tankers.
12:34: The Farmers Group has already parked a mobile claims center bus in front of Sylmar
High School, in on Borden Street in Sylmar, to answer customers’ questions.
1:12: Mayor AV says the Sylmar fire is now 10 percent contained and has burned about 6,500 acres, 500 homes (including the trailor park) That’s very, very bad, but not as bad as the original numbers.
1:15: Arson suspect with Sylmar….and we’re shocked (NOT)
The reason we canyon people all become jumpy during these fires, is not necessarily because we are directly threatened, but because this wind it brings out the crazies, so where there is one fire, soon there are two, and then four, and then…..
(For us in Topanga, thankfully it ain’t anywhere close, just near enough to make the air smell like a campground on 4th of July, but without the toasted marshmallows),
1:21: Zev Yaroslavsky says the Sylmar fire is the worst since the 1961 Bel-Air brush fire.
1:24: All six lanes of traffic on the westbound Riverside (91) freeway have come to acomplete halt due to the Corona brush fire west of the 241 interchange.
2:17: 3100 Residents of Anaheim Hills Asked 2 Evacuate Immediately. Cascade apartments in anaheim hills, with as many as 250 units, engulfed in flames.
3:11 – off to a meeting. Excellent updates here and here.
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photo by J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
9:41 a.m: The tanker planes fighting the Sayre Fire have been grounded since 9 this morning, due to the 70 mph wind conditions. This is not good.
Start thinking instead of feeling. That will also save money that could be put to better use or to help balance the budget.
And, next time, don’t build houses in areas susceptible to fires.
9:51: Approximately 600-800 mobile homes in Oakridge mobile home park, destroyed
How does a fire outrun a car pulling a mobile home?
I hope it stays out of Topanga, Celeste.
Woody, when I lived in California, I saw a demonstration of how fast a fire will move eating up dry grass. It was controlled, but the speed was astonishing. If I hadn’t seen it myself I wouldn’t have believed it.
Be safe, Celeste.
See the above photo, Woody. These aren’t trailers.
Thanks, Celeste. Being clueless about your specific geography, I’ve been thinking about you since yesterday.
You’re right, Randy. Grass fires out here are truly something to behold. The speed at which they move is phenomenal. Your analogy is apt; the fire just swallows whole anything in its path, races forward, and roars for more.
Totally off topic – and I hate feeding the beast – but certain of you will want to bookmark this website if you haven’t already.
http://www.mrs-o.org/
See your referenced comment, Celeste. Those were trailers.
Will the Obama orgy neve stop?
I saw Woody with Tom Cruise at Spago, they shared a grilled pizza. It’s no joke. This is the biggest thing since pizza was invented. I am an ex-scientologist. I’m scared, really scared. You can’t even imagine what they would do to me if they traced this back to me. Probably the same goons who are holding a ray-gun to Woody’s head would zap me in a second. I’m just a clerk, a delivery boy. There is a laser light diamond in my forehead – I am a target of baby-sacrificing masons. I AM TELLING YOU Woody is an evil Mason, and his scientology cronies are initiated into Lucifer’s Intention. Woody may not have the deep dirt on the Illuminati, but he is held by them. Woody couldn’t tell a trailer from a Tipi.
“Will the Obama orgy never stop?”
Not as long as it drives clowns like you crazy – sort of like the overwhelming feeling of fear and persecution never stops for folks who are clinically paranoid.
What if the Kennedy’s get offended by the Obama’s replacing them as America’s royal family?
On the fire, I wouldn’t let people rebuild in areas prone to fires–same with beach houses and hurricanes. It’s crazy that the taxpayers get stuck for people living in areas that are periodically destroyed by nature.
Honestly, Woody, it’s only going to get worse. And we’re not nearly as sorry as you want us to be. (Actually not sorry at all.)
Love the link, reg. (Should I be embarrassed about this? Turns out I’m not.) Great Annie L. photo for Paris Match (and Vogue, I guess).
Woody, I’m the first person to agree that people should not be able to build with a disregard for the dictates of nature, and that comes in to play in certain instances in California with regard to the wildfires, but for the most part, it’s simply that, until and unless we pave the whole atate, parts of California are prone to wildfires. As the population expands people tend to build where the developed areas border the wildlands. Because we have hot dry winds, and in California and much of the construction is wood, this is often a recipe for trouble. (Because CA is earthquake-prone, certain kinds of construction—like brick—is pretty much precluded.)
Certainly, this needs to be addressed more agressively, but it isn’t simple.
For one thing, I’d match the stringency of our building regulations to anything you’ve got in Georgia, I’d bet that ours are way, way, WAY stricter—particularly for any of us who live in a wildfire prone areas. If I told you the hoops I had to jump through in order to get building plans approved for a very, very modest-sized house, I am betting you’d be stunned.
I hate the fact that Annie Liebovitz is the most celebrated photographer of her era – rather than someone closer to the tradition of Cartier-Bresson, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, etc – but that shot of Michelle justified her existence for me.
“Will the Obama orgy never stop?”
Only when the memory of the thoroughly wretched Bush years are but the dimmest of memories.
Be safe, Celeste.
Celeste: our building regulations to anything you’ve got in Georgia, I’d bet that ours are way, way, WAY stricter
We don’t have to build houses stronger because we’re too smart to build houses in earthquake zones. We do what we need to from a practical standpoint, and that’s it.
Friday, when I was buying materials for a new deck, the guy at the lumber yard started telling me how to space things for code. I told him that we’re just doing things our way and don’t worry about code. At least I’m using 100% legal American labor.
My brother put in plans for a boat house. After six months, he had not heard anything back from the Corps of Engineers, so he built it anyway. Over six months after that, they wrote him wanting more information. He ignored the letter, and the boat house is fine.
We tend to like to get things done, and bureaucratic and slow goverment isn’t going to get in our way. But, if I lived where you do, then I would have adequate insurance, make my house fire reistant with fire suppresion systems, and I wouldn’t ask the taxpayers to spend millions to protect my bad decision to build there.
Woody, the east coast has plenty more hurricanes and other disasters all down the coast than we do, especially the Carolina islands, then the Gulf Coast of Florida to LA to TX, etc. And I guess no one should live in the flatlands of KS, either. (Frankly, I don’t see why they want to anyway, having driven through there.) Celeste is more than right about our tough building standards, which is why there’s so relatively little damage during earthquakes vs. those elsewhere, let alone abroad. Ditto with our auto emissions, so I’m pretty sick of your smugness, Woody. We’re paying through the nose for a lot of it, but of course you’re all for the Bush Admin. undermining our ability to regulate port and trucking emissions coming here on a regular basis, contributing to the known 3000/year smog-related deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses (recently estimated to cost $9 billion/ year just for hospital visits from affected children), huge increases in asthma, etc.
As for endless claims that the rednecks are subsidizing us because of our being a sanctuary for illegals and liberals (can’t say which is worse, in your playbook), while I don’t agree with Celeste’s bleeding-heart welcome-arms philosophy your Republicans have been not only useless but passive- aggressively encouraging the inflow of cheap labor for their big business free trade/ open borders friends. At least with the liberals, we know where they stand on this, but the Bushies making noises in one way then doing something else has been more insidious. Frankly, both parties have been utterly useless.
A couple of days ago Arnold the (moderate) Republican Governator was quoted in the LA Times complaining that California sends $40 BILLION/ year more to D. C. than we get back, despite the huge burdens of the poor/ illegals/ anchor babies etc., because we also have such disproportionate numbers of extremely wealthy people. (Who are screwed locally, statewide AND federally in terms of what they get back for their taxes — even the middle class feels that way here.) One big difference between our rich and yours, people are a lot more educated and well-traveled and less shallow, so there.
If we had our taxes to spend in the state, WITH a rational immigration policy and some sort of sane balance between the spendthrift liberals and city- punishing redneck Republicans (your soulmates) who control the right here (i.e., if we had let Arnold do his thing, which is to be fiscally conservative but socially “liberal” as in let people do what they want with their bodies and lives, as long as it doesn’t hurt others) we’d be well on our way to solving our crises in everything from education to healthcare to infrastructure AND the environment.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any more sanity achieving this balance nationally than we’ve seen in California so far. But we sure as hell don’t need your “help,” Woody — we’ve got plenty of crackpot Republicans right here. A lot of Calif. from Stockton to the north, anywhere inland, is as agricultural and redneck as anything you’d find in the south. In fact, if you drive just 4-5 hours north to Bishop, en route to skiing resort Mammoth, you’ll be in an old-fashioned cowboy center with a nationally renowned rodeo and year-round cowboy culture — you see their bow- legs everywhere, working on farms between shows ropin’ and ridin’ and puttin’ britches on pigs. Fact, when I was east in Georgia and around Nashville, where the “bolo” and cowboy hat culture rules, asking at Loretta Lynn’s western wear shop where I could catch a real rodeo, I was told — in California, places like Bishop. So, Woody, we got it all here more ‘n you do, we don’t need no more shovels-full.
One disaster you are right about (though we don’t need you to tell us that) is that homes are built in fire danger zones without sufficient regard for building materials, awareness of what to do in case of fire (e.g. close off all vents and windows, chimney chutes etc., since most fires start from an ember that blows into the house). The mobil homes were apparently not retrofitted to Calif. firezone dangers. Large developers build in these areas, which also tend to become fire wind tunnels, like Porter/ Stevenson Ranch, etc. This current spate of fires is being used by opponents of a monstrous 5000+ unit development at Las Lomas, near Sylmar, as a case in point.
It’s also become an argument against our Councilman Cardenas’ wacky scheme to build a mega-expensive elephant preserve in the area for one elephant he wants to releocate from the zoo, and his future companions — now, that, in the midst of our fiscal crises, would qualify as a genuine Democratic (Latino to boot) boondoggle devoid of common sense. As if his pressing us to build low-income housing for his largely immigrant population weren’t enough.
But remember, Woody, dumb as all this gets, YOU aren’t paying for it, we are. I don’t mind at all your trying to keep Celeste from advocating for still more programs to screw the taxpayers, but I DO mind your endlessly telling us how YOU people are subsidizing US and posing as an example.
WBC, it seems as if you made a good case for California to secede from the union. Go for it–and, take your left-wing electoral votes with you.
Hey, you have your Mexicans and we have poor blacks, plus we have had them in bigger numbers and longer, so don’t pretend that California is the only state supporting needy people. At least our poor are here legally.
WBC: One big difference between our rich and yours, people are a lot more educated and well-traveled and less shallow, so there. Why would we want to be like you–people who think that living in a torched, earthquake prone area filled with gays and illegals is paradise? Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure that the universities where I obtained my degrees have pretty much the same libraries as yours, but at least we spent time learning about our chosen professions than listening to left-wing professors telling us how socialism will save the world.
You make a good case for California having more rednecks, but we have more NASCAR tracks.
Are you really not being helped by other U.S. taxpayers? You might want to check Arnold’s bloated figures and consider the national security that benefits you along with your military bases–plus, all the wasteful welfare programs that your representatives helped thrust on the rest of us. You have to pay for your share of
Washington waste without expecting it to come back. No matter whose it is, money wasted on protecting homes built and rebuilt in disaster areas takes away from greater needs.
In closing, I don’t defend all Bush policies and I don’t like white trash any more than liberals.
P.S. I just met with two Mexicans who moved here from L.A. in the past four months to do cleaning and painting. They like it here better. Should I hire them?
Woody, your stating you have more NASCAR tracks than we do just helps me make my point. As for the rest, I won’t go there — except no, we’re not getting our fair share of homeland security, not by a long shot, considering we’re the second- biggest city and have among the most visible national likely targets from LAX to the ports, Disneyland and so on as well as the military bases and nuclear plants like San Onofre. Last year’s anti-terror funds were disproportionately given to Republican strongholds, not based on need — “spread around like manure,” according to Chief Bratton.
I’ve spent time with close family in the south while you’re clueless about California, and I’ve been appalled by how xenophobic even the wealthier professionals are there (where my family lives), how fearful about the world and “third world” and smugly superior they feel, how evangelical, how intent on telling other people how to live their lives and what to do with their bodies. You’ve got Cal liberals making national policy (not nearly as bad as the ones from NY, NJ and elsewhere — Feinstein and even Boxer are very sensible, actually, though I hate Pelosi) while we’ve got rightwing rednecks intent on shoving their religious, anti-scientific views on all of us regarding abortion, using tax money to teach creationism (suburbs of Atlanta being a case in point), in effect, to render kids scientifically-impaired and doing us national harm. All with a holier-than-thou attitude. Combined with some good things, like real neighborliness. Then again, neighborliness is next to nosiness.
You’ll probably be seeing more Mexicans moving there, as they have all over the country. Your comment that we have more of them due to a failure of national polity just ignores the point that the Republican policy of pandering to agribusiness and big business’ need for cheap labor, with their free trade/ open borders agenda, means the feds owe us above and beyond the difference from what we send them. (You recall Bush was on the verge of signing an open borders agreement with Mexico when 9/11 stopped him, and it was Californian pols who blocked his recent plan to exempt Mexican trucking companies from security checks — enabling anyone to infiltrate the country as a trucker. A terrorist’s dream.) Glad you’re starting to step upto the plate to take more of our Mexicans, and giving them the construction jobs that have become in short supply here.
It’s going to be a tough choice on the contractor, WBC. I have quotes from a white man, a black man, and a Mexican. At least none of them are Yankees or gay or women.
A couple of months ago, I paid the black guy to cut some trees for me. Then the other day he came back and sold my trees back to me in the form of firewood! Despite my age, I continue to learn.
Speaking of science, at least we’re not stupid like Californians who buy into and are willing to break the bank for Al Gore’s scam about global warming. Kids learning about creation doesn’t waste several trillion dollars, destroy jobs, and result in shortages like Gore’s phony plan to save the Earth.
Really, join the movement for California secession. Here’s your start: A Petition for California’s Secession from the Federal Government
Because of Celeste’s filter that allows only one link per comment, you’ll have to go to my next one for a link as to why we would prefer California to leave.
Why California Must Secede at Once
You sure can find ’em, Woody. Of course, one of his reasons for getting Calif. to secede is that our tax surplus to D.C. will mean fewer bombs to Iraq — that’s one I can agree with. He sure lacks an understanding of the value of our ports to national trade, though, and shares that one with you. Secession sure does have its good points, though.
To show my support of California, I put my name on the petition.
Thanks, and we’ll be expecting our check soon. Of course, in the interest of friendship, you should take your sparring partners reg and Don Q and their areas of domicile with you. If there’s any justice in this would, rural Georgia and ‘bama and Oakland and East L A/ Pacoima deserve each other.
I’ll take your crackpot source’s suggestion and add Oregon and Washington, with Seattle and Portland, though, and even San Fran with all its gays is still too beautiful to want to exclude. Besides, without the East Coast liberals to back them up, it’ll be just them, the wine/ microbrew/ latte set vs. the cowboys and Orange County Budweiser Reds, a much more even playing field that’d be fun to watch.
It would look like that scene in Blazing Saddles where the cowboy fight spills over into the stage with the gay dance rehersal.
Well things have change since the old days 70’s. Unfortunately, today’s fire agencies forgot how to fight fires. Everyone is so into the ‘protection of lives’. Put out the fire and there wouldn’t be a fire to worry about! Stick one foot in the burn and one foot in the unburn and cut a hand line or put down a lay hose around it! or backfire and create a buffer zone before the fire gets near the homes that are threaten. Its a shame to see all these homes and lives wasted, because the fire agencies think they’re playing video games! People are so quick to these agencies their ‘Heroes’ Look at the News footage and watch how they just stand and watch the fire grow closer to the homes. The fire agencies need to get back to basics and forget about all the new fancy gadgets. I could say so much more on their tactics of fire suppression, but I’m sure people want to hang me from the nearest tree. I worked 7 years USFS just a drone but us drones got the job done.
Thank you. You have helped someone more than you could know.