California’s Burning

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last two days at concerts, and haven’t been home very much. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been driving that much and haven’t been listening to the radio. Or maybe it’s just because California seems to catch fire at least once a year. Either way, I haven’t been paying much attention to the fires in Southern California until this morning, when I started seeing pictures.

This is what Malibu looks like normally:

This is what Malibu looks like right now:

According to the LA Times, over 1 million people have been displaced by over 1 billion dollars worth of damage.

The LA Times reports:

By late Tuesday, the blazes had burned 420,424 acres — about 656 square miles — and destroyed 1,155 homes, making them nearly as large as the fires in October 2003 that are considered the biggest in California history. Although only one death has been directly attributed to the fires, five others have been linked to them.

“If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire,” said a frustrated Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather. “Instead we’ve been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where we hopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things.”

There is a lot of frustration on the part of Californians and the nation as a whole as to the ineffectiveness of the firefighting effort, and — more to the point — the unwillingness of the federal government to provide any military or other support for what is clearly an exhausted and over-burdened firefighting effort. To “assuage” these feelings, Bush is going to visit California. I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea, Mr. President — people hate you enough out there without listening to the inevitable platitudes about rebuilding and recovering that are sure to come out of your hillbilly mouth.

Ahem. Sorry. Got angry there for a moment.

The good news is, California’s weather service expects the following days to be cooler and more humid, which will help the firefighting effort quite a bit. Our thoughts on the East Coast are with those in Southern California who have been displaced and endgangered by this — we hope it’ll all be over soon. Good luck, stay safe.

–Sara Tenenbaum