Flames in the Santa Paula area of Los Angeles
From azfamily.com
Copyright © 2017
by Ralph F. Couey
Written content only
People who live in Southern California rave about all that is wonderful in the lifestyle that exists here. The usually mild Mediterranean climate, proximity to the heart-stopping beauty of the Pacific Ocean and the coastal mountains. It is an area that fairly boils with things to do, being the entertainment capital of the world. On the same day, you could hike precipitous trails in the mountains, spend the afternoon swimming in the ocean or tanning on the beach, then in the evening attend a world premier of some kind, then party on into the wee hours at any one of the world-class nightspots. I have written before here about the natural beauty of the region, the gentle pastels of sea, sky, and mountains. In that context, there's no place like it anywhere.
But this is not Eden. There are the drawbacks, prices to be paid for the privilege of living here.
It is enormously expensive. Homes that in other places might fetch $70,000 on a good day are selling -- and selling quickly -- for upwards of $650,000. The costs of living are high as well. Gas is almost always more expensive here than anywhere else in the U.S. And you need gas, because a good portion of your daily life is going to be spent oozing along a freeway at less than 10 miles per hour. Most people have a commute that approaches 90 minutes. Each way. And its not the miles, but the pace of the traffic. Crime is a problem, fed mostly by the nexus of drug use and the gangs who retail them.
It is also one of those places where the wide gulf between rich and poor is stark and obvious. Driving around the area, one can see that most of the Los Angeles area consists of neighborhoods of dilapidated houses sporting the silent exclamation of steel bars covering every point of access. In these areas, people are hanging on by their economic fingernails. Contrasting that are those other areas where palaces decorate the hillsides and canyons, places where people who have succeeded in the contest of life live serene elitist lives, untroubled by the day-to-day travails suffered by the rest of us.
Earthquakes happen here frequently. It's a rare week when somewhere in the area people don't feel the disquieting motion of the earth beneath their feet. The number of fault lines here are easily into the high hundreds, and researchers are discovering new aspects of the system all the time. And it's rarely good news. Everybody knows about the San Andreas fault, and the pending disaster for most of the Golden State when that monster will stir. This year, two lesser-known fault systems, the Newport-Inglewood and the Rose Canyon, were found to actually be one enormous mega-fault, which is (of course) overdue for a major quake. When we lived here in the '80's, we experienced many of these shakers, the most significant being the Whittier Narrows quake in 1987. It is a unique kind of fear to find yourself in the midst of one of these temblors.
It is very dry here, which opens up a whole 'nother problem. Fire.
This year, the Los Angeles area has received, through December 5th, a grand total of 0.1 inches of rain. One-tenth of an inch. That's it. The hillsides and canyons above the basin are bone dry, covered by vegetation drier than kindling. Several times a year, the combination of a low pressure system off the coast and a high pressure system over the inland desert results in what are called Santa Ana conditions. The air dries to humidity levels in the single digits, the temperatures go up, and the winds, blowing east to west, are funneled through the canyons and valleys, increasing their strength. It is not unusual for these winds to blow at 70 miles per hour. Under those conditions, literally, all it takes is a tiny spark to turn the placid countryside into an inferno.
The terrible fires that burned a goodly portion of the areas around Napa, California earlier this year have not been far from anyone's mind. And bear in mind that Napa gets a lot more moisture than Los Angeles.
This is what has happened here this week. At least three major fires are burning, and spreading wildly in front of gale to hurricane force winds. The fires are spreading at a breath-taking pace, and the areas involved are now above 90,000 acres, over 140 square miles. Major freeways have been closed, creating a traffic problem of biblical proportions, combining those trying to get to their jobs, people evacuating the affected areas, and emergency personnel and their equipment trying to get into position to fight those fires. Homes have been consumed, lives have been destroyed. And the very wealthy who probably have felt insulated from such things, are now literally feeling the heat. Early this morning, flames began eating away at the homes in the uber-rich Bel-Air neighborhood.
To make matters worse, there is no rain in the forecast for at least two weeks.
The fight against the flames has been nothing short of valiant. Helicopters and small to medium sized aircraft have been conducting water drops. Helicopters, dipping from reservoirs and lakes, drop 500- to 800-gallon loads along the fire lines. The larger aircraft, the DC-10 carrying 12,000 gallons per drop, and the 747, hauling almost 20,000 gallons can't fly up those small canyons in these high wind conditions. Once the winds die down, they too will join the fight. But despite those drops, as in the case of all wildfires, the battle will be won or lost on the ground.
Firefighters, loaded down with equipment, are ascending into the steep hills and canyons using axes, rakes, and shovels beating back the flames and trying to construct fire lines by removing by hand burnable materials from the path of the fire. This is an effective tactic, but when the winds are blowing hard, burning embers can easily jump those barriers, and risk surrounding and cutting off the firefighters themselves. This is hard, very physical work, carried out under terrible and hazardous conditions. We really don't take enough time and effort to honor the kind of courage it takes to do this job. They are heroes all.
In a way, this was inevitable. People who have the money have been steadily pushing into those canyon areas building homes in places where they could be one with nature. In those places, being with nature means dealing with not only fire, but the aftermath. Those hillsides, once stripped of soil-anchoring vegetation, will become dangerously vulnerable to flash floods and mudslides once the rains do return. But despite those hazards, people still flock there, and vow to rebuild when nature consumes their homes and possessions, ignoring the not-so-subtle message from nature, "You really shouldn't be here."
The genesis of these fires varies, but according to the U.S. Forest Service, 95% of them are caused by humans. Sparks from powerlines downed by the ferocious winds, sparks from leaf blowers and weed cutters, sparks from chains dragged behind cars, cigarettes, cooking fires started by transients and hikers, kids engaging in dangerous stunts like lighting trash can fires, and in one well-known case, the passive heat from a catalytic converter on the underside of a parked jeep igniting a pile of leaves along a roadside. True, there are natural causes -- lightning and the like -- but the overwhelming majority of these fires are caused by us.
In the two months we have lived here, I have made numerous hiking forays into the heights of the San Gabriel Mountains. There is no way to overestimate how dry the landscape is. I enjoy hiking in the wilderness, but in these areas, there is a palpable sense of looming disaster in the arid silence. I once stood in a magazine full of tens of thousands of pounds of high explosives. The contemplation of what could happen if they all went up at once feels a lot like hiking in the San Gabriels these days.
These weather conditions are expected to ease by week's end, at least in terms of the winds. The air flow will shift and the cooler moisture-laden oceanic flow will begin to blow inland. The fires will diminish, and finally be extinguished. The exhausted soot-covered firefighters will descend from the hills and emerge from the canyons and pass, unthanked and unrecognized, into obscurity. People will stubbornly move back and rebuild in the burned over areas until the next disaster forces them out again. Then, one day, all too soon, smoke will once again rise from the hills as flames greedily gulp acre after acre, and home after home, leaving behind a charred and devastated landscape.
And people will once again refuse to heed the dangerous and expensive lessons nature is trying to teach.
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