Thirty-Seven Percent Containment at Lake Tahoe's Caldor Fire (VIDEO)

Extreme weather. All over the country. 

It's really biblical, and, frankly, all you can do sometimes is pray. It's all in His hands.

At the San Jose Mercury News, "Caldor Fire containment jumps to 37% as weather calms":

Friday a ‘monumental day’ for more than 4,500 crews battling blaze.

One week after the Caldor Fire made a terrifying push into the Lake Tahoe basin, a promising shift in weather conditions allowed crews to start gaining sizable containment of the Northern California wildfire that has threatened thousands of homes and forced mass evacuations in two states.

Thanks to cooler, more humid weather conditions, an influx of 1,000 more firefighters and the strengthening of lines on both western and eastern flanks of the fire, crews had contained about 37% of the blaze as of Saturday, more than doubling progress in the past week and evoking a cautious sense of optimism for the first time since the fire broke out in mid-August.

“It’s starting to come together,” said Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Keith Wade. “It seems like big containment jumps, but it’s days and days of work.”

Terror surrounding the blaze’s spread skyrocketed on the evening of Aug. 29, when it roared across the face of Echo Summit, flung embers that set spot fires across Highway 89 and crept down toward the beloved Tahoe Basin, home to more than 40,000 people and the iconic lake. Some 22,000 residents of South Lake Tahoe were ordered to evacuate, creating a massive traffic jam that lasted for hours.

But just two days later — as crews staved off flames from the communities of Christmas Valley and Meyers — a favorable shift in winds arrived before the fire could explode farther northeast, giving more than 4,500 firefighters the chance to clear new firebreaks with dozens of bulldozers, strike down dry trees, lay hoses near homes and drop 500-gallon buckets of water on hotspots.

By Saturday, with 13 large wildfires burning across California, nearly a third of personnel, engines, helicopters and even bulldozers battling the blazes were committed to the Caldor Fire — a massive effort that fire officials say is beginning to pay off. Overnight Friday, the wildfire grew just a few thousand acres to reach 214,017 acres total. High winds that gripped the region last weekend receded Wednesday and remained calmer through the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service, bringing relief to hand crews charged with stopping spot fires that soared out a mile ahead of the fire and letting helicopters make more water drops. Temperatures meanwhile cooled slightly and humidity rose.

A thick layer of smoke bearing down over the fire also helped to block out the sun and quiet its spread, though it brought air quality to hazardous levels around South Lake Tahoe and blew smoke toward the Bay Area, where the Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued a Spare the Air alert for Sunday...

Still more.

 

Wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico, and Even Florida

At LAT:

More than 4,000 personnel are working to contain the stubborn Dixie fire, Carhart said Friday, including firefighters from Arizona, New Mexico and even Florida https://t.co/EwwHZVfs8f pic.twitter.com/fILXd1NA3i

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 24, 2021

Satellite Images of Western Wildfires (VIDEO)

The "Bootleg fire" in Oregon's at the video, but hundreds of fires are blazing across the American west. 

At the New York Times, "How Bad Is the Bootleg Fire? It’s Generating Its Own Weather":

A towering cloud of hot air, smoke and moisture that reached airliner heights and spawned lightning. Wind-driven fronts of flame that have stampeded across the landscape, often leapfrogging firebreaks. Even, possibly, a rare fire tornado.

The Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon, spurred by months of drought and last month’s blistering heat wave, is the largest wildfire so far this year in the United States, having already burned more than 340,000 acres, or 530 square miles, of forest and grasslands.

And at a time when climate change is causing wildfires to be larger and more intense, it’s also one of the most extreme, so big and hot that it’s affecting winds and otherwise disrupting the atmosphere.

The Bootleg Fire has been burning for two weeks, and for most of that time it’s exhibited one or more forms of extreme fire behavior, leading to rapid changes in winds and other conditions that have caused flames to spread rapidly in the forest canopy, ignited whole stands of trees at once, and blown embers long distances, rapidly igniting spot fires elsewhere.

“It’s kind of an extreme, dangerous situation,” said Chuck Redman, a forecaster with the National Weather Service who has been at the fire command headquarters providing forecasts.

Fires so extreme that they generate their own weather confound firefighting efforts. The intensity and extreme heat can force wind to go around them, create clouds and sometimes even generate so-called fire tornadoes — swirling vortexes of heat, smoke and high wind.

The catastrophic Carr Fire near Redding, Calif., in July 2018 was one of those fires, burning through 230,000 acres, destroying more than 1,600 structures and leading to the deaths of at least eight people, some of which were attributed to a fire tornado with winds as high as 140 miles per hour that was captured on video...

Also, cool map here: "Tracking Western Wildfires."

California is Toast

At WaPo, "Warmer. Burning. Epidemic-challenged. Expensive. The California Dream has become the California Compromise":

SAN FRANCISCO — The cityscape resembles the surface of a distant planet, populated by a masked alien culture. The air, choked with blown ash, is difficult to breathe.

There is the Golden Gate Bridge, looming in the distance through a drift-smoke haze, and the Salesforce Tower, which against the blood-orange sky appears as a colossal spaceship in a doomsday film.

San Francisco, and much of California, has never been like this.

California has become a warming, burning, epidemic-challenged and expensive state, with many who live in sophisticated cities, idyllic oceanfront towns and windblown mountain communities thinking hard about the viability of a place they have called home forever. For the first time in a decade, more people left California last year for other states than arrived.

Monica Gupta Mehta and her husband, an entrepreneur, have been through tech busts and booms, earthquakes, wildfire seasons and power outages. But it was not until the skies darkened and cast an unsettling orange light on their Palo Alto home earlier this week that they ever considered moving their family of five somewhere else.

“For the first time in 20-something years, the thought crossed our minds: Do we really want to live here?” said Mehta, who is starting an education tech company.

It would be difficult to leave. They love the area’s abundant nature and are tied to Silicon Valley by work and a network of extended family members, who followed them west from Pittsburgh. But Mehta says it is something she would consider if her family is in regular danger.

“Yesterday felt so apocalyptic,” Mehta said. “People are really starting to reconsider whether California has enough to offer them.”

This is the latest iteration of the California Dream, a Gold Rush-era slogan meant to capture the hopeful migration of an old nation to a new, rich West. For generations, the tacit agreement for California residents resembled a kind of too-good-to-be-true deal. Live in the lovely if often drought-plagued Sierra, or beneath the beachfront Pacific Coast cliffs, and work in an economy constantly reinventing itself, from Hollywood to the farms of the San Joaquin to Silicon Valley.

But for many of the state’s 40 million residents, the California Dream has become the California Compromise, one increasingly challenging to justify, with a rapidly changing climate, a thumb-on-the-scales economy, high taxes and a pandemic that has led to more cases of the novel coronavirus than any other state.

During the course of his term, President Trump has singled out California, a state he lost by 30 percentage points, as an example of Democrat-caused urban unrest, irresponsible immigration policy and poor forest management, even though nearly 60 percent of the state’s forests are managed by the federal government. Several are burning today, with millions of acres already scorched.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has responded specifically in some cases, but in others, he has invoked the California Dream, an aspirational noun attached to no other state. In his January 2019 inaugural address, Newsom warned that “there is nothing inevitable about” that dream.

“And now more than ever, it is up to us to defend it,” he said.

As the state’s climate has shifted to one of extremes, soaking wet seasons followed suddenly by sharp, dry heat and wind, no region has been safe from fire. This year — even before peak fire season has gotten underway — widespread fires have forced evacuations, from San Jose in Silicon Valley to the distant hamlet of Big Creek along the western slopes of the Sierra.

More than two dozen major fires are burning around the state and have consumed a record 3.1 million acres of land, more than 3,000 homes and at least 22 lives. Los Angeles has reported the worst air quality in three decades as a result of fires surrounding that city, already notorious for orange air and seasonal dry cough.

Wine Country has burned four straight years, with a number of vineyards lost. Homes have been destroyed far to the south in San Diego County, and more than 200 campers had to be airlifted to safety amid the Creek Fire, still burning hot and fast between Fresno and Mammoth Lakes...

Keep reading.

Sierra Nevada Creek Fire

At the L.A. Times, "Sierra fire’s unstoppable path of destruction devastates town, sends residents fleeing":

As the sun set in the Sierra Nevada Friday, about 50 residents of the mountain hamlet of Big Creek gathered on an overlook at the edge of town. The Creek fire, as it would be called, had just started burning in the canyon below.

It seemed minor, and those assembled looked on hopefully as planes and a helicopter dropped water on it.

“It was a Friday night, something to watch, something to do. We are a bunch of hillbillies,” joked Toby Wait, the superintendent, principal and gym teacher for the town’s 55-student school. “Fire is part of our lives, but this was small.”

It didn’t stay small.

In the hours and days that followed, the Creek fire has exploded into a monster inferno that has consumed nearly 100,000 acres, enlisted nearly 1,000 firefighters, isolated small foothill communities and threatened to burn until mid-October.

California’s fire season got an early start this year with the massive lightning fires in the coastal mountains and wine country. Even without the fall Santa Ana winds, more than 2 million acres have burned so far in 2020, more than in any previously recorded year. Now the Creek fire promises to be one of the worst of the season.

For the mountain communities lying east of Fresno, the assessment as of Monday afternoon looked especially grave.

Fueled by millions of dead trees, the Creek fire has raced through mountain communities like Big Creek and vacation getaways like Huntington and Shaver Lake, confounding firefighters with unpredictable and terrifying behavior. Its smoke plumed nearly 50,000 feet high. There were lightning strikes. Forests seemed to explode.

The drama seemed to peak Saturday night when a CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter rescued some 200 campers trapped by flames at Mammoth Pool.

But among the thousands fighting the fire or evacuating from its path, there have been no reports of deaths.

Damage to property and homes is more difficult to assess. The fire is burning so dangerously and intensely that crews who normally count destroyed houses and buildings have been told to stand down for their own safety...

RTWT.

Can California Save Itself?

I hope we see lots more articles like this in national publications.

The news is getting out that the Dems' one-party dictatorship is destroying the once-Golden State.

At the Atlantic, "California Is Becoming Unlivable":

"California’s housing crisis has exacerbated its wildfire crisis, and its wildfire crisis has exacerbated its housing crisis," writes @AnnieLowrey. "And that vicious cycle is nowhere near ending." https://t.co/L3lhzZHocm

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 30, 2019

Right now, wildfires are scorching tens of thousands of acres in California, choking the air with smoke, spurring widespread prophylactic blackouts, and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. Right now, roughly 130,000 Californians are homeless, and millions more are shelling out far more in rent than they can afford, commuting into expensive cities from faraway suburbs and towns, or doubling up in houses and apartments.

Wildfires and lack of affordable housing—these are two of the most visible and urgent crises facing California, raising the question of whether the country’s dreamiest, most optimistic state is fast becoming unlivable. Climate change is turning it into a tinderbox; the soaring cost of living is forcing even wealthy families into financial precarity. And, in some ways, the two crises are one: The housing crunch in urban centers has pushed construction to cheaper, more peripheral areas, where wildfire risk is greater.

California’s housing crisis and its fire crisis often collide in what’s known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, where trailer parks and exurban culs-de-sac and cabins have sprung up amid the state’s scrublands and pine forests and grassy ridges. Roughly half of the housing units built in California between 1990 and 2010 are in the WUI, which has expanded by roughly 1,000 square miles. As a result, 2 million homes, or one in seven in the state, are at high or extreme risk for wildfire, according to one estimate from the Center for Insurance Policy and Research. That’s three times as many as in any other state.

The bulk of wildfire destruction in California happens in the WUI. The Kincade Fire has burned more than 75,000 acres—roughly five times the size of Manhattan—in rural areas and the WUI north of Santa Rosa. Last year’s Camp Fire killed 85 people and eliminated more than 10,000 homes in Paradise, a town situated in the WUI. The year before that, the Tubbs Fire killed 22 people and destroyed more than 5,000 structures, some in Santa Rosa proper and some in the WUI around it.

Although much of the WUI is naturally vulnerable to fire, human behavior is primarily to blame for the destruction. People start more than nine in 10 fires, according to reliable estimates. Dry trees and dry brush in the WUI might act as natural kindling, but built structures—houses, cars, hospitals, utility poles, barns—act as the most potent fuel, researchers have found. A house burns a lot hotter than a bush does; a propane tank is far more combustible than a patch of grass.

If building in the WUI is so dangerous, why do it? In part because building new housing is so very difficult in many urban regions in California, due to opposition from existing homeowners and strict building codes. The number of people living on the streets in San Francisco and Los Angeles is related to the extreme cost of rent in those cities is related to the statewide housing shortage is related to the pressure to sprawl into the periphery.

So housing sprawls into the periphery...

More.

California Utilities Are Calling the Shots on Power Outages

This is a mind-blowing essay on the nature of infrastructure power in California. These energy utilities are basically unaccountable. Past legislation has transferred the authority to shut off power to the utilities, not the state government. Perhaps that's why Governor Newsom is threatening to seize the utilities rather than endure potentially endless power outages.

At LAT, "California utilities — not lawmakers — are calling the shots on power outages to prevent wildfires":

California power outages: Utilities call the shots, not lawmakers https://t.co/kHg9h1a8mR

— Sammy Roth (@Sammy_Roth) October 27, 2019

SACRAMENTO —  The money wouldn’t have gone far to help Californians who needed to replace spoiled food, those who fled to hotels or shopkeepers forced to buy generators and fuel during the power shut-off by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. earlier this month.
Still, Gov. Gavin Newsom urged PG&E to do something symbolic: Give a $100 rebate to each of its frustrated residential customers and $250 to every business with no electricity.

“Lives and commerce were interrupted,” Newsom wrote on Oct. 14 to William Johnson, the utility‘s president and chief executive. “Too much hardship was caused.”

But last week, PG&E refused. And in doing so, what could have been a goodwill gesture became a symbol of defiance and futility: California’s investor-owned utilities may be criticized for their efforts at wildfire prevention, but they’re also calling the shots.

For a variety of reasons — the limits of existing regulations, the off-season for lawmaking in Sacramento, challenges in finding political consensus on policy — the status quo isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Millions of Californians can do little more than watch as the lights go off, then on and maybe back off again during the blustery autumn of 2019.

“This is simply unacceptable,” a visibly angry Newsom told reporters in Los Angeles on Thursday. “It is infuriating beyond words to live in a state as innovative and extraordinarily entrepreneurial and capable as the state of California, to be living in an environment where we are seeing this kind of disruption and these kinds of blackouts.”

In some ways, the disruption is by design. State officials have long known that in the otherwise highly regulated world of utilities, they have little control over what is known as a “public safety power shut-off.”

Existing rules state that utility companies have broad discretion over when and where power outages will be imposed. Neither the California Public Utilities Commission nor local governments have a formal role in the decision-making process. CPUC officials can only weigh in after power is restored.

The events Wednesday in Sonoma County, where an energized PG&E transmission line failed near what’s believed to be the origin of the Kincade fire, offer a glimpse at how subjective the decision-making can be. Company officials said Thursday that PG&E’s own forecasters believed wind speeds in the area would require turning off only distribution systems, not transmission lines. Johnson, who became chairman of PG&E six months ago, told reporters only that the utility uses “a formula or an algorithm” to evaluate historical data on winds and fire danger, but did not offer further details.

State regulators have established guidelines for the types of anticipated weather conditions that should prompt utilities to turn off electricity service and the warnings that should be issued before an outage. But many actions are left to the discretion of the companies, an opaque process criticized by state Public Utilities Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma during an Oct. 18 meeting.

“I keep coming back to the Wizard of Oz, where smoke and mirrors and this and that,” Shiroma told PG&E officials.

California’s other large utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., have the same relative autonomy over when and where to turn off power. Within 10 business days of an outage, a company must submit a report to CPUC officials explaining its decision to shut off power, including information on weather conditions in the outage area.

The report must include details on the types of customers affected and the advance notice they were provided, the location and duration of the shut-offs and an accounting of any wind-related damage to company equipment.

Regulators are supposed to use the report to determine whether the outage was reasonable. But the documents often provide only summary information, making their value unclear. Though CPUC officials can penalize companies for how they carry out wildfire-prevention blackouts, they never have. Even then, an administrative law judge would decide such a case under a process that could take several months.

Only the California Legislature can strengthen the CPUC’s power over utilities. And reaching consensus on expanding the agency’s operations could be tough — it has struggled with oversight of a vast and varied portion of the state’s economy, including electricity, telephone service, ride-hailing and limousine companies.

Even if lawmakers want to do something now, they can’t. The Legislature has adjourned for the year and isn’t scheduled to reconvene until January. The only way to engage more quickly is to convene a special legislative session.

History offers a lesson from California’s last energy crisis of almost two decades ago. In December 2000, then-Gov. Gray Davis promised to convene a special session to draft plans to help the state’s utilities. One key proposal — requiring the state to sign long-term energy purchase contracts with major utilities — went from introduction to law in just a month. Additional efforts to address the causes of the widespread blackouts were put in place that spring.

Laws passed in a special legislative session, even those requiring a simple majority vote, take effect 90 days after the end of the proceedings. Similar bills in a regular session don’t become law until the next calendar year. And unlike in 2000, when an election had just taken place and lawmakers had yet to take the oath of office, California legislators this year are in the middle of their terms and appear more inclined to act. Varying ideas have been floated, including incentives for clean energy that can be locally stored for broader outages and a broad investment in “microgrid” technology to better isolate power shut-offs to communities where fire danger is most extreme.

Action could be swift at the state Capitol, but only if Newsom convenes a special session...

Keep reading.

Mass Power Outages Planned as Wildfires Threaten (VIDEO)

California, our own Third World country.

At LAT, "Huge swaths of California could go dark with widest power outages yet expected this weekend."

Also, "As Kincade fire rages, Northern California faces biggest blackouts ever this weekend."

'Diablo' Winds Fuel Southland Fires (VIDEO)

It's the Santa Ana winds, which come every October, but now called the "Diablo" winds, for some reason.

At LAT, "Two destructive fires. Hundreds of miles apart. One culprit: Winds."



Also, "Tick fire explodes overnight: 14 Freeway closed, six homes destroyed as battle intensifies."

PG&E Prepares for Bankruptcy

This is big! At LAT, "PG&E may notify its employees this week of potential bankruptcy."

PG&E Corp., facing billions of dollars in wildfire liabilities, may notify employees as soon as Monday that it’s preparing a potential bankruptcy filing. https://t.co/jaJeXCBUX8

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 13, 2019

A Pet's Dogged Devotion

That's the title at the hard-copy paper yesterday, and that is some darned devotion, dang!

At LAT, "Despite the devastation all around him, Camp fire dog waited for his owners to return home":

As a wall of flames from the Camp fire moved toward their home, a Paradise couple had to flee with nothing. When they came back a month later, they discovered their dog Madison had been hard at work, guarding their home the entire time. https://t.co/JS3LqOpr7G

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 11, 2018

At first, Bill Gaylord didn’t think much of the black smoke that loomed across the horizon near his home on the morning of Nov. 8. As his neighbors prepared to flee, Gaylord hopped in his silver Chevy Blazer and drove to a nearby cafe to grab coffee.

After all, the stubborn 75-year-old Gaylord had lived his entire life in Paradise. Why would this fire be any different than so many others? he thought.

But by the time he got home about 7:15 a.m., all hell had broken loose.

Gaylord looked out his kitchen window and saw black embers sprinkling across the canyon. The dry brush instantly caught fire. He heard the flames roar as they raced toward his home.

Gaylord alerted his wife of 50 years, Andrea, who had just awakened, that they needed to leave. Fast.

Andrea, still in her pajamas, grabbed three pairs of underwear and some pants, hopped in her Nissan and left.

Bill didn’t grab anything.

As the flames approached, he parked his car on top of a hill, and focused on trying to save his two 8-year-old half-Anatolian shepherd, half-Pyrenees guard dogs, Madison and Miguel.

But the dogs were confused, and with black smoke surrounding them and the noise of first responders shouting in loudspeakers, the dogs refused to let Bill lift them into his car.

He was left with two choices: Stay and risk their lives or leave.

As Bill drove off that day, he felt a lump in his stomach. It wasn’t because he was worried that his house would burn down or that he wished he had grabbed his belongings.

It was because he had abandoned the dogs that had spent their lives protecting the Gaylords. When it came to Bill’s turn to protect his cherished canines, he felt as if he had failed.

Surely the dogs wouldn’t survive, he thought, as he saw a wall of flames in his rearview mirror.

In that moment, Gaylord felt like a captain who abandoned ship before his crew.

But a series of unlikely events not only led the Gaylords to a reunion with their beloved dogs nearly one month after the deadly Camp fire raged through Paradise and the neighboring communities of Magalia and Concow, but also helped forge a new friendship.

It was 11 days after the fire, on Nov. 19, when Shayla Sullivan, a volunteer with the animal rescue group Cowboy 911, returned to Paradise to try to find Madison and Miguel.

She was assigned to help the Gaylords and several other homeowners who had left their pets behind.

She knew Camp fire victims had had little time to escape the flames and were forced to leave their pets. She wanted to help and try to reunite evacuees with their animals.

But it was nearly impossible to find the Gaylords’ property. The entire city was flattened by the fire, and without cellphone service, Sullivan had to rely on maps to navigate through the destruction.

She called Andrea to make sure she was looking in the right place. That was the first time they had talked.

Sullivan returned the next day. There was no sign that Madison and Miguel were alive. She left food and water anyway, hoping the small gesture would provide some comfort to the Gaylords.

On the third day, Sullivan had a breakthrough. As she peered down the canyon she spotted a small pond. Then she saw what appeared to be a white ball of fluff.

It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Sullivan knew the dog wouldn’t approach her. The breed is known to be protective.

Nevertheless, she called Andrea and Bill to tell them the good news.

The Gaylords were ecstatic. But what about their second dog? And which dog had Sullivan seen? Was it Madison or Miguel?

Andrea, 75, started searching online to see if she could spot a picture of any of her dogs and whether they had been rescued. On Nov. 24, several weeks after the fire, she came across a picture that looked like Miguel.

Andrea, who has difficulty walking, called Sullivan and asked for help.

Sullivan found out Miguel was being kept in Citrus Heights, more than 80 miles from Paradise.

With the help of a volunteer, Sullivan loaded the 150-pound dog into her truck and drove to Oroville, where Andrea and Bill were staying in a trailer house at the River Reflections RV park...

Still more.

As a Ring of Fire Closes In, a Mother Calls Her Daughters: 'This is How I Die'

This is the front-page story at today's Los Angeles Times.

Harrowing:

.⁦@MelissaTweets⁩ #CampFire #Paradise 🔥 https://t.co/WSynQAA6Ew

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 22, 2018

Rains Threaten Northern Californian Burn Areas

"Sorely needed" rain is expected in Northern California, but the precipitation could cause more harm and endanger the search for those lost in the wildfires.

At LAT, "Approaching storms raise threat of mudslides in California burn areas."

Also, "Rescuers fear rains will wash away victims’ remains; 870 still missing in California fire":

Sorely needed rain coming tomorrow to help firefighters but, it will be heavy at times & could lead to debris flows or flash flooding. Flash Flood Watch WED PM-FRI PM. Hope all in area remain safe! @CAL_FIRE #CampFire #CaliforniaFire #CaliforniaWildfire pic.twitter.com/v3fXwu1hLQ

— Sandhya Patel (@SandhyaABC7) November 21, 2018

The cadaver dog alerted to a corner of the charred metal frame, what probably was once the kitchen of a mobile home in Paradise, Calif. Searchers in white jumpsuits walked over, with shovels and gloves, to sift through the debris.

After about 10 minutes, they determined there were no bodies or bones in the rubble — just burned sausages.

For days, hundreds of searchers have been methodically working through the destruction left by the massive Camp fire, looking for clues that someone couldn’t escape, such as a wheelchair or a footprint. They scour places where people may have tried to protect themselves from flames: under a mattress, inside a bathtub.

So far they have discovered 81 bodies — people who died in cars and homes; people outside, probably trying to outrun the flames. But with 870 people still missing and more than 12,600 destroyed homes to comb through, their grim mission is far from over.

“We have so many souls unaccounted for, I believe that this search for remains is going to go on for a long time,” said state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), whose district includes Paradise. “Could be weeks.”

And now, a pair of incoming storms are threatening to hamper recovery efforts. In a worst-case scenario, the downpour could flood the ruins and wash away human remains, leaving authorities unable to find and identify every victim of California’s deadliest wildfire on record. Authorities fear bones could sink underwater, making them harder to spot and drowning any scent that cadaver dogs rely on to find them.

Paradise narrowed its main road by two lanes despite warnings of gridlock during a major wildfire »
Deborah Laughlin last heard from her son and his pregnant wife just after the couple evacuated their Magalia home. It’s been almost two weeks, and she has no idea whether they survived.

“Please don’t tell me he died,” said Laughlin, tears in her eyes, from the cafeteria of Bidwell Junior High School in Chico. “Please.”

She said she is clinging to hope that they’ll be reunited soon. The 63-year-old lost her home in Paradise. She’s afraid of the approaching storms because she knows there are still people who are missing, people who may have died in the fire.

“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m scared they’ll be washed away and people’s remains will never be found.”

Meteorologists say the Camp fire burn scar — which is larger than the city of San Jose — could see up to 6 inches of rain through Saturday, with the heaviest downpour expected overnight Thursday. The forecast has triggered a flash flood watch for possible rock slides and debris flows. Light rain was beginning to fall Wednesday morning in the Sacramento Valley, with stronger showers expected later in the day.

“That rain is going to get in that ash, it’s going to turn into it a paste-like substance,” said Monterey County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Joe Moses, who is helping in the recovery effort. “It’s going to stick to everything and slow things down.”

Officials are preparing for an long, wrenching cleanup...

Why Trump is Right on California Wildfires

At FrontPage Magazine, "How “Green Policies” Are Burning the Golden State to a Crisp."

"Governor Jerry Brown would like to shift blame from faulty looney left-wing forest management policies to blaming global warming."

Pray for #CampFire victims. 🙏🏼https://t.co/QaQF55kcNW pic.twitter.com/IseAFZpURO

— Linda Suhler, PhD (@LindaSuhler) November 14, 2018

The Paradise Fire Nightmare

A spark by spark account of the Paradise fire.

It's like the apocalypse, man.

At LAT, "California fire: What started as a tiny brush fire became the state’s deadliest wildfire. Here’s how."

This minute-by-minute account of how Paradise burned is so harrowing that I couldn’t read it in one sitting. https://t.co/dnbbcPS8Zn

— Laura J. Nelson 🦅 (@laura_nelson) November 18, 2018

California Wildfires

Huge coverage at the Los Angeles Times.

Also, "Woolsey fire explodes to 70,000 acres overnight; 2 deaths reported amid fight to save hillside communities."

And at Daily Mail, "A-list fire panic: Caitlyn Jenner's sprawling hilltop Malibu house and the 'Bachelor' mansion are burned, flames reach Kim and Kanye's home and smoke envelopes Lady Gaga's nearby pad as worried Will Smith shows how close he is to the danger zone."

A STATE OF EMERGENCIES: Fires threaten Californians in the north and south while one community deals with the anguish of two kinds of fire in the wake of a shooting followed by an evacuation. Early look @LATimes. pic.twitter.com/lfjR6iXx4P

— michael whitley (@michaelwhitley) November 10, 2018

Good lord this is my street 🙏🏻 https://t.co/IVmsw7pMp9

— Valerie Bertinelli (@Wolfiesmom) November 10, 2018

Pray for Malibu— and #TheBachelor Mansion... pic.twitter.com/D9t8VxFXeo

— Mike Fleiss (@fleissmeister) November 9, 2018

#CarrFire Mow Most Destructive in County History

This was at USA Today yesterday, "Amid 'apocalyptic' Carr Fire, local newspaper informs Redding community."

And at the Redding Record Searchlight today, "UPDATE: Carr Fire now most destructive in Shasta County history."

Newspapers are dying, so I'll highlight interesting legacy media stories when I see them. There's still little as enjoyable and worthwhile than sitting down to a cup of coffee and the newspaper in the morning. Just relax, wake up to some coffee and victuals, and learn about what happening in the world. (Those are the days, and they may be the days in the past. See Megan McArdle, "the Daily News tweetstorm you've all been waiting for. Safe to exhale now.")

Two Killed in #CarrFire in California (VIDEO)

At the San Francisco Chronicle, "Carr Fire kills two firefighters near Redding, destroys 500 structures":

REDDING — The ferocious Carr Fire that ripped into this city of 90,000 after winds blew it over the Sacramento River has taken the life of a second firefighter, destroyed 500 structures and prompted authorities to expand evacuations Friday.

The intensity of the heat created fire whirlwinds that uprooted trees and turned over cars as 37,000 residents fled for their lives after the fire entered the northwest side of the city late Thursday night.

Three people were missing — two young children and their great-grandmother, who were last known to be at a home that was leveled by the fire, a family friend said.

“This fire is a long way from being done,” Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott said at a news conference. “We’re seeing fire whirls — literally what can be described as a tornado. ... These are extreme conditions. This is how fires are burning in California. We need to take heed. Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate.”

By Friday night, 48,000 acres had burned and only 5 percent of the blaze was contained. Five hundred structures were destroyed and 75 damaged, Cal Fire Shasta-Trinity Unit officials said...

More.

Holiday Fire in Goleta (VIDEO)

Via KSBY News 6 San Luis Obispo:



Also, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Fast-Moving Brush Fire Rips Through 20-Plus Buildings In Goleta; Thousands Evacuated."

ADDED: At LAT, "'I had no idea the flames could go that fast': Goleta devastated by fire as record heat burns path of destruction."

Wildfires Aren't the Only Threat to the So-Called 'California Dream'

It's too expensive to live here.

This is a great piece, at NYT, "Quakes and Fires? It’s the Cost of Living That Californians Can’t Stomach":

https://t.co/8wqjvMvLoC

— Conor Dougherty (@ConorDougherty) December 13, 2017

OAKLAND, Calif. — Russel Lee and his wife spent the past few years going online to do the depressing math of how much less housing costs pretty much everywhere that isn’t California. They looked at Idaho, Arizona, North Carolina and Kentucky, but Mr. Lee, who was born in San Francisco and has lived in the Bay Area his entire life, could never quite make the move. Then the fires came.

In October, as the most destructive wildfire in state history swept through Northern California, Mr. Lee’s three-bedroom home in Santa Rosa was consumed by the flames. He lost everything: his tools, his guns, his childhood report cards. Forced to confront the decision of whether to stay and rebuild or pick up and go somewhere else, Mr. Lee finally decided it was time to go. He used the insurance payment to buy a $150,000 home outside Knoxville, Tenn., and will soon leave California for good.

“It was like ‘Welp, it’s time,’” Mr. Lee said. “It’s kind of like ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in reverse.”

For the half-century after World War II, California represented the epitome of middle-class America on the move. As people poured into the state in search of good weather and the lure of single-family homes with backyard orange trees, the state embarked on a vast natural engineering project that redirected northern water southward, creating the modern Southern California and making the state the most populous in the nation.

Those days are long gone. For more than three decades, California has seen a net outflow of residents to other states, as less expensive southern cities like Phoenix, Houston and Raleigh supplant those of the Golden State as beacons of opportunity. California still has a hold on the national imagination: It has lots of jobs and great weather, along with the glamour of Hollywood and the inventiveness of Silicon Valley.

Still, for many Californians, the question is always sitting there: Is this worth it? Natural disasters are a moment to take stock and rethink the dream. But in the end, the calculation almost always comes down to cost.

Last Friday was Saul Weinstein’s last day at work, and the start of his last weekend as a Californian. Mr. Weinstein, a 67-year-old commercial banker, retired and moved to Nevada. He has lived through several fires, and the 1994 earthquake that killed 57 people and shook him and millions of other Southern Californians out of bed at 4:30 in the morning.

But what finally sent him packing was money. Mr. Weinstein is selling his 2,000-square-foot house in Baldwin Park, east of Los Angeles, for $570,000. He paid less than half that for a similarly sized place in Pahrump, Nev., about an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas. He moved on Monday.

“When you retire you have to watch your money,” Mr. Weinstein said. “The San Andreas Fault is what they politely call ‘overdue,’ and I will be much more comfortable when I’m away from that. But if it wasn’t for the cost of living I probably would have stuck around and taken my chances.”

California was once a migration magnet, but since 2010 the state has lost more than two million residents 25 and older, including 220,000 who moved to Texas, according to census data. Arizona and Nevada have each welcomed about 180,000 California expatriates since the start of the decade. Next week, as people start decamping for the holidays, airports throughout the South and Southwest will fill up with people who are from California and are now traveling West to see the family they left behind...

In the end, it won't be the astronomical cost of living that drives me out of state. It'll be the soul-crushing radical left-wing politics. It's already intolerable. I'm just not ready for retirement yet.

Keep reading, in any case.