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The death toll from Northern California's wildfires now stands at 15, officials say, with a total of nine confirmed fatalities in Sonoma County. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said on its Twitter page that the number of dead had increased from seven to nine. Three others are dead in Mendocino County, two more in Napa and one in Yuba, officials say. In Sonoma County, more than 200 people have been reported missing, and 45 of those have since been located, officials said.
The fires have burned 115,000 acres statewide and destroyed at least 2,000 homes and businesses, Cal Fire Ken Pimlott said Tuesday. More than 4,000 emergency workers have been deployed to help battle the fires, including a massive effort at McClellan Air Park, where a record 45 missions were flown Monday that dumped 266,000 acres of retardant on the blazes.
Vice President Mike Pence visited the state's emergency operations center at Mather Air Park Tuesday and announced that President Trump had approved the state's request for federal assistance in the counties of Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Sonoma, and Yuba.
Also at CNN, The Washington Post, KQED, LA Times, and NPR.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 10 2017, @10:34PM (4 children)
I live east of the mississippi so we have more water than we know what to do with rather than living in a desert tinderbox.
The point is we intentionally set wildfires to burn out the brush which helps grow trees because the grass doesn't shade the seedlings and with like 4 feet of rain per year we're not exactly in danger of fire, more like in danger of moss. Its actually kinda hard to have planned burns out east because everything is usually too wet.
But, I wonder if people with lots of guts do planned burns out west to clear out the flammable stuff before it turns into a firestorm. I would imagine a planned burn out west is just like one out east but much scarier.
And the relevance to your comment is burned stuff doesn't burn again or firestorm, and its super cheap, cheaper than even using a brush hog because of labor costs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @01:13AM
Yeah. After years of boneheadedness, that technique is becoming more common.
Prescribed burns in California [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:05PM (2 children)
They do prescribed burns in the West, but it's chancy. It's happened before that the things have gotten out of control and caused what they were trying to prevent, because the wind whipped up suddenly and exceeded the Forest Service's ability to tamp the burn down.
It may have changed now but growing up the Forest Service cited logging on Forest Service land in part as a fire prevention and control measure, because clearcuts limit the spread of wildfires (ground cover doesn't create the crowning effect trees do) while networks of logging roads the Forest Service can use to bring in bulldozers and other heavy equipment to blaze fire breaks.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:20PM (1 child)
[when I was] growing up[,] the Forest Service [sited] logging on Forest Service land in part as a fire prevention and control measure, because clearcuts limit the spread of wildfires
...for those who didn't grok the original.
...and thought that it was the Forest Service that was doing the growing up.
...and was led to believe that there was a website back then where you could log on and find a citation.
I've seen you do better.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 12 2017, @04:03AM
Loose construction happens when you're writing colloquially. "I" was an implied subject of the sentence. For example, "Never had you figured for a traitor." A literalist might ask, "What are you trying to say, that you refused to model for traitors? That you wouldn't do sums for traitors?" But as a spoken phrase a native audience would clearly understand the speaker meant "[I] never had you figured for a traitor."
I grant you it could have been phrased better. So let's eat grandma.
But cited [merriam-webster.com] was correctly used:
"4 :to bring forward or call to another's attention especially as an example, proof, or precedent
cited the weather as a reason for canceling the picnic
cited several studies that suppport his theory
"
Washington DC delenda est.