We get a lot of fires in So Cal, but rarely do they make in into homes or neighborhoods. Not the case this time. The weather is hot and very dry and now that the Santa Ana winds are blowing, they may have a tough time putting this one out. The sky is turning black miles away.
Hope everybody in the area gets out of there safely.
In hindsight it probably wasn't that smart to build homes in such a fire prone area, but when there's money to be made by land developers, none of that seems to matter.
When they told me to evacuate, I grabbed some papers and a couple gibsons. Doesnt seem like My place got burnt up from what the reports say, but who knows. Maybe this time they will run off the hobos in the camps along the 91 where these fires keep mysteriously starting
I thought homes in that kind of setting had to have metal or tile roofs and a clearing around their house. 
Quoted from MustangPaul:I thought homes in that kind of setting had to have metal or tile roofs and a clearing around their house.
In strong winds, that might not matter.
LTG : )
There are no clearings around any of these newer homes. Just put them as close together as possible any where you can.
They should have stopped building around here a long time ago due to the droughts and water shortages, but every square inch of buildable land is somebody's profit to be made.
I always wondered why houses in these areas didn't have a simple hose sprinkler system on peak of the roof to keep it wet during a fire. Isn't that how they usually catch fire? An ember lands on the roof.
Maybe it would require too much water?
It's hard to say. They probably don't think there will ever be a fire, and usually they don't make it into housing tracts. Two weeks ago there was another fire in the exact same area but only burned brush.
It's just so dry this time of year as the winds shift and come off the desert instead of the ocean and after a hot summer it's just a disaster waiting to happen.
Hopefully the winds will die down after dark, but that might just be wishful thinking.
Quoted from MustangPaul:I thought homes in that kind of setting had to have metal or tile roofs and a clearing around their house.
Pretty much all of the homes here have the correct roofs, it's been that way for quite a while. The wood shake roofs are not allowed anymore. Also there actually was a clearing area right there where the homes burned. Probably not big enough but it was there. The problem is the high winds whip the burning embers up underneath the eaves. If you watched the houses catch fire and start to burn (there was constant coverage on every channel here) you can plainly see that the fires typically start inside the attic, under the roof not on top of it. There is no way I would leave, I would stay and keep soaking the eaves. In fact, I did this once, but that's another story...
Thanks. I'm a pretty safe distance in an older housing tract and I'm sure glad I wasn't going the other way on my ten minute drive home from work today, or it would have been at least an hour. People trying to get around the closed 91 Freeway, which is about the only way in and out of there.
No clearing of brush around the homes here in Ana hills cause environmental protection of certain animals. In this area I believe it's a mouse of some kind
And the reason they shut off the water supply from up north is the endangered delta smelt.
I'm all for saving small rodents and fish, just send all these millions of people back to wherever they came from. Problem solved.
Quoted from o-din:I'm all for saving small rodents and fish, just send all these millions of people back to wherever they came from. Problem solved.
Including yourself? 
I'm already right back where I started, whether I like it or not.
The population here has multiplied many times over. And I can certainly tell many of the people around came from way overseas somewhere else. And they like to set up their own little cities and tempels. Sometimes I think the only thing about American culture they embrace is how much money they can make and how much land they can grab.
The wind is calming down, and that's a good thing. Sometimes it will kick up hard around 3:00 AM and sound like a banshee screaming. But the weather dude said by late tomorrow there will be a shift to an on shore breeze.
The Mall of Orange has become a refugee center. Too bad that arcade with 10 pinball machines and a jukebox is long gone.
Quoted from hwyhed:Feel bad for all the people that this is affecting. S. Cal has been in a drought for years, and wildfires there are as common as earthquakes. I hope that the winds go away, and there's some rain that falls there soon
Rain falling soon? That's not gonna happen here!
Anyway, even though its pretty bad here, it is nothing like what is going on up north in wine country. Terrible carnage up there. Not sure if there are any Pinsiders up that way.
Quoted from Gryszzz:I feel for you Cali peoples. Hope everyone is ok. Why is CA always on fire? Is it arson again?
Whether it is arson or not, it doesn't really matter much. This is a perfectly natural and unavoidable consequence of this area. This place is a dry, dry desert by nature which we are trying to artificially convert into a suburban wonderland. When it does rain normally in the winter season (or, a lot like it did last year for El Nino), the beautiful sunshine and water create a blanket of green for a few months. The problem is, the rain stops and never comes back for 9 months. The sun beats down and all that plant growth turns to tinder. The slightest spark starts a fire, and from there it just grows and devours all that dry growth. It inevitably happens when a certain confluence of weather events creates what is called a "Santa Ana wind condition" where high speed winds come funneling down through SoCal, driving the humidity to near zero and making fighting the fires extremely difficult and dangerous. Now, build homes for a few million people right on top of that, and the end result is inevitable. It has been going on for many years, and will get worse as we continue to build.
I'm not seeing any more smoke this morning so it looks like the performed miracles throughout the night and put most of it out.
Lady I work with used to rent a home in Anaheim CA. Her husbands home where he grew up burned to the ground.
We can have similar conditions here in Colorado. We call our winds Chinook Winds. They come down from the mountains and air is compressed and heats up the whole front range. It drys everything out and can create volatile fire conditions. It can also create balmy conditions in the winter time. That's why we need all the moisture we can get here.
Quoted from o-din:I'm not seeing any more smoke this morning so it looks like the performed miracles throughout the night and put most of it out.
I think they have progress, but it is still going pretty good. Its a mess all the over here, there are ashes all over I'll have to clean up. Still can smell it too, and eyes are burning.
There was constant coverage on multiple channels yesterday. Not sure if anyone saw any of that, but I noticed something interesting. When the fire fighters got up to the houses that were on fire with their hoses, I watched one guy with a hose put out an attic that was almost fully engulfed in like, 10 seconds. There were leaping flames up there, he just fired in a stream and poof, it was out like that. Then, there was that other house with the red Chevy blazer in the driveway right in front of the garage. What the heck was going on with that place? They had TWO guys just blasting that garage forever, I swear they must have pumped in half of a lake. And it was like the fire just refused to quit, no matter how much they kept at it, it just burned and burned and the flames just refused to go down. That one burned right to the ground. Makes you wonder exactly what was stacked up in that garage. Very strange.
In reality the fire in Anaheim Hills was only minor compared to what's been going on up north. Hope they can get all that under control before anybody else get hurt and more damage gets done.
Well, much of Ca. has been on fire since I started this thread, with the Thomas fire being the largest in state history.
When Gov. Jerry Brown visited one of the fire sites he said this is the "new normal" and I think he mentioned something about being more careful where will build our neighborhoods from now on. lol.
Isn't it about 30 years ago they should have stopped building period?
Well, we do live year round in shorts and sandals, and at one time there were a lot of beautiful women here.
Quoted from EricHadley:Idk how y’all live in California. The income tax rate......the fires.....I yi yi
Idk how y’all don’t. It’s worth it.
Did all pinballs get away with their lives? None were harmed in this or any other fire in CA?
EM's are getting fewer and just scared me for a second. 
How about the cost of living? Just read that 84,000 a year income for a family of 4 is now considered low income for orange county. No wonder all we can afford to wear is shorts, t shirts, and of course, rainbow sandals.
Thanks to Proposition 13, property taxes are very reasonable for those who buy a home and stay put. Those who flip their primary homes get hosed.
Fortunately, employers realize the cost of living is higher and pay more in Southern California.
Quoted from MrBally:Thanks to Proposition 13, property taxes are very reasonable for those who buy a home and stay put. Those who flip their primary homes get hosed.
Fortunately, employers realize the cost of living is higher and pay more in Southern California.
All true. It is in fact possible to sell your home one time and buy another one and still keep your old property tax rate even if the one you are buying would have a higher rate. This however only applies to certain selected counties. They are trying to pass a new law that would make this work statewide which would be awesome. However, other forces are always battling to override Prop 13 itself. If that happens everything will collapse and hell will break loose.
Quoted from EricHadley:Idk how y’all live in California. The income tax rate......the fires.....I yi yi
The income tax rate... the fires.... ha, believe me, these are nothing. Nothing. There are a LOT of waaay bigger problems with this place than that. But, no point going there in this thread, it will devolve into a mess I am sure.
Quoted from xsvtoys:There are a LOT of waaay bigger problems with this place than that.
If you stay off the freeways, you can avoid quite a few of those problems.
Quoted from o-din:If you stay off the freeways, you can avoid quite a few of those problems.
True. I like the fact that there is so much diversity here, and people from all over the world call L.A. home. But seriously, left lane fast, right lane slow. So few people seem to know about this rule.
Quoted from vicjw66:But seriously, left lane fast, right lane slow. So few people seem to know about this rule.
Didn't you get them memo? Left lane is now the "Prius Lane".
Quoted from MrBally:Also; "Motorcycles OK". Especially John & Ponch.
You can watch those old Chips shows and see just how uncluttered the freeways were even in the early 80s.
But what really takes me back is watching old re-runs of Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford.
Quoted from vicjw66:True. I like the fact that there is so much diversity here, and people from all over the world call L.A. home. But seriously, left lane fast, right lane slow. So few people seem to know about this rule.
LA driving is civilised compared to Houston. That’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen! A complete free-for-all.
The one thing that “grinds my gears” about freeways (America wide...) is the way that when you enter a freeway, all the cars on the on-ramp behind you MASH THE PEDAL TO THE GROUND, tear into the first lane and rip along side you, cutting you off from entering the freeway!
Or when people pull across all 4 lanes all in one movement left-right to get to an exit, and cut off all the other drivers. There seems to be a level of major aggression/arrogance at play there. “Me first ... f**k everyone else!!”
rd
Quoted from rotordave:The one thing that “grinds my gears” about freeways (America wide...) is the way that when you enter a freeway, all the cars on the on-ramp behind you MASH THE PEDAL TO THE GROUND, tear into the first lane and rip along side you, cutting you off from entering the freeway!
Not if you drive one of these.
Quoted from rotordave:The one thing that “grinds my gears” about freeways (America wide...) is the way that when you enter a freeway, all the cars on the on-ramp behind you MASH THE PEDAL TO THE GROUND, tear into the first lane and rip along side you, cutting you off from entering the freeway!
That is how we are taught in driver's training class in high school. The lane is called an "Acceleration Lane".
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