Southern California Wildfires Fanned by Fierce Desert Winds
Monday, October 22, 2007 18:31 PDT

Wildfires fanned by fierce desert winds consumed huge swaths of bone-dry
Southern California on Monday, burning buildings and forcing evacuations
from Malibu to San Diego, including a jail, a hospital and nursing homes.

More than a dozen wildfires had engulfed the region, killing at least one
person, injuring dozens more and threatening scores of structures.
Overwhelmed firefighters said they lacked the resources to save many houses.

"We have more houses burning than we have people and engine companies to
fight them," San Diego Fire Captain Lisa Blake said, "A lot of people are
going to lose their homes today."

Nearly 250,000 people were forced to flee in San Diego County alone, where
hundreds of patients were being moved by school bus and ambulance from
hospitals and nursing homes.

About a dozen blazes erupted over the weekend, feeding on drought-parched
land from the high desert to the Pacific Ocean. One person was killed and
several injured in a fire near the Mexican border, and dozens of structures
have burned across the region.

It is terribly sad to see the news reports of the loss of life and property
on Southern California. My thoughts are with the firefighters and
communities. I hope not to seem insensitive in my comments. Please accept my
comments as a prompt to look at the community response to wildfire in a
different way.

Southern California, southern France and SE Australia (where I am) are the 3
worst areas in the world for wild fires. In recent years the most
significant fires I have been involved with have been:
Alpine fire - 3.5 million acres in 7 weeks, mainly forest, 1 death (LODD
drowning in flash flood after containment), 41 homes
Grampians - 290,000 acres in 1 week (200,000 in 1 day), forest and grass, 2
deaths, 41 homes lost.
Great Divide - 2.9 million acres in 2 months, mainly forest, 33 houses (all
on 1 day)

We have severe fires but no forced evacuations. Our legislation is different
as well as our philosophy. Through education programs we encourage people to
decide for themselves whether to stay and actively...