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Money for Firefighting & Prevention; Not for War

by repost Friday, Oct. 26, 2007 at 2:09 AM

The World Socialist Website has 2 excllent articles providing the details of the Southern California fire crisis and their relation to the neglect of our domestic needs in favor of war profiteering.

The World Socialist Website has 2 excllent articles providing the details of the Southern California fire crisis and their relation to the neglect of our domestic needs in favor of war profiteering.

1." Wildfires engulf Southern California:" by Kevin Mitchell and Andrea Peters, 10/24/07 at
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/fire-o24.shtml
2. "The California wildfires and the American social crisis" by Patrick Martin, 10/25/07
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/fire-o25.shtml
Quotes from these articles are below.

It is not possible to have guns and butter and that, among many other reasons, is why everyone who can should attend the peace marches of October 27, and make the connections with the crisis at home with the trillion dollar waste of our tax dollars on blood for oil wars. In Los Angeles, the peace march is Saturday, October 27, 12 noon; Gather at Olympic & Broadway, Los Angeles; March to downtown Federal Building for Rally
For more information, see http://www.answerla.org/

ARTICLE 1 quoted in pertinent part:
"As with other natural disasters, the California fires are exposing the inadequate and strained character of social infrastructure in the US."

"According to an article published on Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times, since 2003, when the region was devastated by wildfires, only one new fire station has been built, and many of the county’s fire departments are chronically under-funded and understaffed. Aside from more air support, an automated call system, and a better communications system, little progress has been made in improving the fire-fighting infrastructure and equipment over the past four years."

"Some firefighters have been diverted to deal with the social crisis the fires have caused. The Ventura County Star reported on Tuesday that an engine company from San Diego, including five fire trucks and firefighters, was recalled en route to fight a fire last Sunday in order to help with massive evacuations in the area. “Rarely do we have this much going on,” Bill Nash, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman, told the newspaper. “Virtually the entire Southern California area is all out of firefighters,” he said."

"Evacuation centers have been set up in locales across the region, although there has been no preparation to handle a “refugee” crisis, as one newspaper referred to it, of this scale. “It’s basically a mass migration here in San Diego County”, said Luis Monteagudo, a spokesman for the county’s emergency effort."

"Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego has been converted into an emergency relief center, taking in 10,000 displaced people. Officials there were completely unprepared for the more than 500 elderly and sick persons transported to the evacuation center. Nursing home patients and evacuees from hospitals in the northern part of San Diego are some of the most vulnerable people arriving at the various refugee locations."

"The Del Mar Fairgrounds, north of San Diego, has also turned into an evacuation center, along with many high schools and senior centers. At the Del Mar racetrack, located on the Fairgrounds, at least 2,000 people and 2,500 animals were taken in by Monday evening. Kina Paegert, public information officer for Del Mar Fairgrounds, told the Los Angeles Times, “When we started this morning we had five mattresses. We were prepared for animals. We weren’t prepared for this.”"

"According to the newspaper report, last night the facility scrounged up only 100 mattresses for the 2,000 people staying there, leaving many elderly and ill to sleep on the floor. The Los Angeles Times further noted, “Some frail patients had bits of white masking tape on their foreheads, listing various medical conditions like ‘Depression’ and ‘Diabetes.’”"

"These conditions certainly recall the images of thousands of people holed up in the New Orleans Superdome in the wake of Hurricane Katrina."

"As of Monday, the Red Cross opened five shelters and federal and military authorities have opened another 10. Only 1,500 cots were available at the Red Cross shelters, which Mayor of San Diego Jerry Sanders said are “maxed out.”"

"Nearly every hotel in San Diego County and other affected areas is booked and many hotels slated to serve as emergency shelters had to be evacuated because of approaching flames."

"The region’s air quality has vastly deteriorated since the fires began, prompting health officials to issue a warning throughout Southern California urging the young, the elderly, and those with breathing difficulties to remain indoors. The wildfires have produced dust and particulates that are unhealthy to breathe in general and particularly dangerous for those with pre-existing medical conditions like emphysema, asthma, heart disease, and lung disease."

"On Monday, White House press secretary Dana Perino ruled out a presidential stop in the region, calling it “very premature.” The President has since reversed course, no doubt in part due to the memories of the public relations debacle created by government indifference to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He is expected to visit the area on Thursday.

"Whatever platitudes Bush is sure to issue, it can be predicted from the outset that no genuine aid or long-term relief will be offered to the tens of thousands of people whose homes will be lost and lives irrevocably affected as a result of this event, and nothing will be done to address the underlying decay of social infrastructure in the US."

"The tragedy unfolding in Southern California is not simply the result of natural conditions. It is the product also of a lack of preparation for an entirely foreseeable, if extraordinary, set of events. The extreme fire dangers caused by supremely dry conditions in California, which has been in the grip of a severe drought, have been known for months."

"The Santa Ana winds are a yearly and entirely predictable meteorological phenomenon, which contribute to the very existence of a “fire season” in Southern California."

"In April of this year, San Diego County emergency services had planned optimistically to have 670 shelters established for 70,000 people in anticipation of the fire season. The paucity of this level of preparedness in the face of the current crisis is staggering. But it is not unexplainable. It is the product of a socio-economic system in which the public infrastructure—through years of budget cuts, the shedding of services, and the erosion of emergency equipment—has been abandoned in the interests of tax cuts for the wealthy and big business."

"The severity of the current conditions is unusual, but even that is not something that can be considered independent of social relations. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, bringing together the views of scientists across the world, has warned of increased fire risks due to global warming. Parts of the southern US are in the midst of the severest drought on record, compounded by a decade of record temperatures."

"Despite growing indications of the enormous impact of global warming, no serious measures have been implemented to halt or reverse the phenomenon—another consequence of the subordination of all social and ecological concerns to the pursuit of profit."

"The massive boom in housing in Southern California that has occurred over the past ten years has happened in many of those locations now being destroyed by fires. While it is too early to say for certain, the obvious question emerges as to whether these areas are environmentally safe for human habitation at all."

"The provision of housing for the state’s growing population is not decided by teams of developers taking into a consideration a wide array of environmental factors—in particular, the region’s high fire danger—but rather by multi-million dollar home-building corporations whose aim is to build, sell, and turn a profit."

ARTICLE 2, quoted in pertinent part:
"Once again, the world watches as a natural disaster in the United States threatens to become a social catastrophe. Once again, a million Americans are forced from their homes by a long-forecast calamity, with little planning or preparation by the local, state and federal governments. Once again, tens of thousands of refugees seek shelter at a football stadium in a major American city—this time, San Diego."

"There are, of course, many differences between the experience of New Orleans two years ago and San Diego today. The urban core of San Diego and Los Angeles and their infrastructure remain intact. Utilities and other essential services are still in place, and the death toll is far lower. Property losses are estimated at several billion dollars, mainly from destroyed homes as well as crop damage in San Diego County; the damage from Hurricane Katrina was at least 50 times as great."

"By all accounts, the response of emergency services, particularly the fire and rescue units, has been far more effective than during Hurricane Katrina, reflecting both the lesser scale of the disaster, the more developed social infrastructure of California (Louisiana being one of the poorest US states) and the lessons learned from the dismal response to the inundation of New Orleans. Perhaps the greatest difference in the response, however, is that the rich as well as the poor suffered in southern California, and they can call on society’s resources far more easily."

"As in Hurricane Katrina, the wildfires in southern California have laid bare the social crisis of a country riven by class inequality and imprisoned in an economic system dominated by the profit interests of a tiny minority of millionaires and billionaires. The richest country in the world, able to wage two wars simultaneously on the other side of the world, is incapable of providing adequate resources for so elementary a public service as firefighting."

"Both the response of the Bush administration and the media coverage of the wildfires reflect the impact of Katrina. The White House seeks to avoid another public exposure of its indifference to the suffering of ordinary Americans, and the media is more sensitive to the calamities of southern California, along with New York City one of the two media capitals of the United States."

"Even here there is a social dimension: far more so than in New Orleans, where the devastation hit with particular force on the most impoverished layers, those without cars or otherwise unable to evacuate, the southern California wildfires have affected the rich as well as lower-income working people in equal measure. The homes destroyed include both those of multimillionaires and celebrities, seeking isolation and privacy, and those of working class families forced out to the fringes of the metropolitan areas in their search for affordable housing."

"The media coverage, as with Katrina, covers up all essential political questions. There has been little or no reference to the impact of military deployment in Iraq on the disaster-response capabilities of the California National Guard, although National Guard officials warned of the problem less than six months ago."

"According to a report in the May 11 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, “the California National Guard says equipment shortages could hinder the guard’s response to a large-scale disaster. A dearth of equipment such as trucks and radios—caused in part by the war in Iraq—has state military officials worried they would be slow in providing help in the event of a major fire, earthquake or terrorist attack.”"

"This report was published only days after a tornado destroyed a west Kansas town, and Governor Kathleen Sibelius complained that so much Kansas National Guard equipment was in Iraq that the disaster response efforts were being undermined. Lt. Col. John Siepmann of the California National Guard told the Chronicle that similar issues would arise in a major disaster there. “Our concern is a catastrophic event,” he said. “You would see a less effective response.”"

"Among the equipment shortages were diesel generators (zero instead of 39 required), GPS devices (zero instead of 1,410), and 209 vehicles of all types, including 110 humvees and 63 military trucks. All this equipment was in either Iraq or Afghanistan, and thus unavailable for use in California."

"The draw-down of National Guard equipment exacerbates the already depleted state of emergency response and firefighting services in the southern California area, long one of the most rapidly growing urban areas in the world."

"In San Diego, for instance, the epicenter of the fires with an estimated 1,300 homes and 150 other buildings destroyed, $1 billion in property damage and five people dead, there are only 975 firefighters. They must cover 330 square miles and protect 1.3 million residents, while in San Francisco, 1,600 firefighters protect 850,000 residents living in only 60 square miles." [Actually, SF has 750,000 residents in 49 square miles.]

"University of California San Diego professor Steve Erie told the Los Angeles Times that the anti-tax, pro-business policy of local governments in the area had contributed to the disaster. “Developers own most of the city councils,” he said. “In Poway, in Escondido, what they do is put homeowners in harm’s way. They’re able to control zoning processes, and they’re frequently behind initiatives that say no new taxes, no new fire services. It’s insanity.”"

"The federal government has also failed to meet its responsibilities, despite the lessons of the 2003 wildfires that devastated much of San Diego County. Congress authorized up to $760 million a year for efforts at “fuel reduction”—clearing and removing dead trees and underbrush that in drought conditions catch fire explosively. The Bush administration has chosen to seek appropriations for only about two thirds of that, $500 million a year."

"One major factor contributing to the fire disaster is global warming, which underlies the cycle of drought and high temperatures that have made the latest round of wildfires so much more challenging to the firefighters. According to federal statistics, seven of the ten busiest fire seasons in US history have been in the eight years since 1999. Even before the current outbreak, the total number of acres burned by US forest fires in 2007 stood at 8 million, compared to a ten-year average of 5.8 million acres. The 2007 total now seems likely to surpass the record 9 million acres burned last year."

"One chilling media report, on CBS television, included an interview with a forest fire expert who cited the growing number of “mega-fires,” those of 100,000 acres or more, which used to be relatively rare, but are now commonplace. The current fire has already burned over 500,000 acres. This official estimated that more than half the forest land in the western United States could be burned out within a few decades because of the growing intensity and frequency of big fires."

"The ecological Know-Nothings in the Bush administration, of course, suppressed any discussion of global warming at the federal level for years, and continue to reject any organized international effort to deal with or diminish the impact of the crisis."

"What underlies all these factors, however, and is the fundamental cause of the social crisis, is the anarchic and unplanned character of the capitalist system. Housing tracts are built throughout southern California on the basis of the profit considerations of home builders, property developers and Wall Street speculators, not the needs of people for homes or the suitability of the development given the constraints of the natural environment."

"The insurance companies, as always in an American disaster, operate in the most ruthless and socially destructive way. After Katrina, they frequently refused to pay for storm damage unless threatened with lawsuits or actually taken to court. There are already reports that the current fires will be used as a pretext for canceling policies or dramatically raising premiums."

"The response of a rationally organized, i.e., socialist society to such a disaster would be a serious, well-financed, carefully planned reconstruction, that would take into account the common need for decent housing, as well as natural circumstances and the burden on social infrastructure such as water, sewage and electrical systems. Under the capitalist system, nothing more can be expected than a repetition of the profit-gouging and reckless plundering of nature and human labor that produced the disaster in the first place."
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Honest talk of fire isn't popular

by truth can be a bitter medicine Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007 at 9:14 AM

Certain editors at sfimc have taken their populist ideals to a new level when censoring any comments that don't come across as people pleasers and defend the people who recently lost their homes in the SoCal wildfires..

To state as the wsws that there should be more firefighters here in CA (instead of Iraq) to save the mansions of SoCal's canyon residents isn't really accurate. No, wasting money on an oil war in Iraq is certainly NOT good for anyone (besides GW bush, Cheney, ExxonMobil CEOS, etc..), though sending people off in firefighter uniform to get their lungs full of searing hot smoke just so that someone's mansion is saved isn't good for anyone either (except real estate, insurance and developer tycoons) who seek to escape responsibility for building homes in a region known for a regular fire ecosystem pattern..

CLASS and RACE do make a difference

by $$$$SoCal is NOT New Orleans

Friday Oct 26th, 2007 11:50 AM

There are several factors that indicate the people who lost their homes in SoCal's canyon fires are treated better than the people who lost their homes in NOLA's Katrina flooding. Two primary factors are CLASS and RACE, with economic status most likely the greatest common denominator that seperates the SoCal fire victims from the NOLA flooding victims..

The people in the SoCal foothills most effected by the fires were NOT from lower income backgrounds as were the people in NOLA flooding. The evacuation procedures in SoCal were also more effective because of the economic status of the residents. There was also resistance by certain SoCal residents who refused evacuation to remain home and spray their house with water. This creates additional problem for the firefighters who place their lives and health at risk to save property and economic status of SoCal canyon homeowners..

This is not to be resentful of the wealthy middle to upper class homeowners who are now without housing followig the fire, though again there are common sense factors that developers and home construction corporations ignored when choosing to build thousands of homes in the fire prone SoCal canyon ecosystem..

This is not Republicans, anarchists or libertarians celebrating tragedy, though after many people with ecological awareness have repeatedly warned about building housing in regions where fire is nearly as regular an occurence as sunshine, we don't get off saying "told you so", though it is frustrating to watch as developers set the same traps and people continue to fall for them..

Since i am not an avowed populist, occasionally i will say things that do not appeal to the "masses" of the region (including some imc editors, who see fit to censor anything that may not be said "nice" enough). In this situation both the capitalist ruling class and the socialist urbanites (imc editors) have dropped the ball when it comes to providing coverage. The spin from the right is that the evacuation was successful simply because of having a Republican governor in CA as oppossed to a Democrat in Lousiana without an examination of how fire evacuations are handled different from flooding, and that the economic status of the fire victims is higher, many possess their own vehicles and are thus less likely to become stranded as the lower income people in NOLA who lacked any transport options..

The spin from the left is that global warming bears sole responsibilty for SoCal fires without looking into fire ecology systems of chapparel canyons where a great many of the effected houses were located. In their attempts to remain populist people pleasers, the socialist contingent has ignored that fact that prior to sprawl of suburbanization and resulting fire suppression, fires of lower intensity swept the canyons on a regular basis.

Global warming is a contributing (NOT contradictory) factor in the severeness of the fires, though by itself is not solely responsible. Fires have been a regular part of the SoCal ecosystem before Cristobal Colon (Columbus) sailed over here in 1492 and the internal combustion engine was invented..

background on SoCal fire ecology;

"Firebugs: Build it in California's foothills, and it will burn."

Mike Davis


"Following last autumn's disastrous wildfires in Southern California, Governor Pete Wilson warned of "an army of arsonists lurking in our foothills." The governor was right. The arsonists are the developers and homeowners who built in a tinderbox, and the policymakers who allowed them to do so.

Southern California is a fire ecology in exactly the same sense that it is a land of sunshine. Its natural ecosystems — coastal sage, oak savanna, and chaparral — have coevolved with wildfire. Periodic burning is necessary to recycle nutrients and germinate seeds.

The indigenous Californians were skilled fire-farmers. They used the firestick to hunt rabbits, cultivate edible grasses, increase browse for deer, thin mistletoe from oaks, and produce better stalks for basketry. Their careful annual burnings usually prevented fire catastrophe by limiting the accumulation of fuel.

But aboriginal ecologists also understood that some areas are spectacularly prone to regular conflagration. What is now Los Angeles, for example, they called "Valley of the Smokes." Malibu Canyon is a huge bellows that seasonally fans hot, dry Santa Ana winds to near-hurricane velocities. Major fires here are frequent (five since 1930) and, as the board of inquiry into the disastrous 1970 Malibu blaze acknowledged, "impossible to control."

Modern Southern California, however, built on the belief that even the most elemental forces can be mastered, refuses to concede anything to the laws of nature. Yet as Stephen Pyne emphasizes in his magisterial pyrohistory, Fire in America (1982), Southern California's deadly foothill firestorms of the 20th century are, in fact, the ironic consequence of massive expenditure on fire suppression."


The honest truth, and why i will continue to be the most hated writer on imc, is that all those houses in the SoCal canyons should not have been built in the first place, developers are responsible for the damages by tricking people into beleiving that it was ever safe to live in these fire prone canyons..

Here's a question to the left and the right; What is the cost benefit analysis of fire fighters whose lungs suffer from smoke inhalation and other job related health risks so that a yuppie's multi-million dollar mansion is saved from a naturally occurring fire (that will no doubt occurr again?)??

Please reconsider any efforts at censoring this comment. There is nothing here inherently racist other than the possible cold-heartedness of "blaming the victim" and expressing a non-populist viewpoint..

There are no accolades to Schwarzenegger, so don't try to call this writer a Republican or rightwinger. Just because calling out large numbers of people for making mistakes, that doesn't make me a Republican. Remember, censorship is the last resort of cowards..


Racist lies about New Orleans still being repeated.

by Aaron Aarons

Friday Oct 26th, 2007 11:51 AM

"Roger" repeats the lie that people shot at rescue helicopters in New Orleans. Not a single case of a helicopter being hit by gunfire has been documented. Some people did fire guns into the air in a vain attempt to make their whereabouts known to potential rescuers. You can be sure that, if this had been done in the fire area, the meaning would not have been distorted by the media and racist Internet trolls.

As for "looting" (by Black people) or "obtaining supplies" (by white people) in New Orleans, none of that has been necessary for the fire evacuees because their needs have been more than met by the government, charitable organizations, businesses and their class brothers and sisters. In New Orleans, FEMA turned away people that came to rescue people and/or bring water and food. (Even a WalMart truck carrying water was turned away!)

Thanks to Richard Mellor for his summary of the situation.


radical urban theory questions

by development in fire prone canyons

Friday Oct 26th, 2007 11:54 AM

Since i was censored last time, i will take the liberty of double posting this time; here's the continued version of the article by mike Davis;

article found @;
http://www.radicalurbantheory.com/mdavis/firebugs.html

"Despite a season of horrifying firestorms, dozens of new hillside tracts remain under construction. In the foothills above Monrovia, for example, several hundred venerable oak trees have been cut down for the sake of overscaled (and combustible) faux chateaux. In Altadena a favorite glen is being transformed into a "total-security" gated suburb complete with its own private school.

Instead of protecting "significant ecological areas" as required by law, county planning commissions in Southern California have historically been the malleable tools of hillside developers. Furthermore, studies have shown that property taxes on remote foothill homes are seldom sufficient to pay for the ordinary public services they require. Society as a whole is conscripted to carry the enormous costs of defending hillside developments from inevitable natural hazards. Over the last half-century, several billion dollars of general revenue have been expended on flood- control and fire fighting efforts focused specifically on elite foothill society.

There has been no comparable investment in the fire, toxic, or earthquake safety of the inner city. Instead, we tolerate two systems of hazard prevention, separate and unequal. The Los Angeles Times recently exposed the scandal of unenforced fire laws in midtown MacArthur Park neighborhoods where dozens have died in tenement fires — many more, after all, than tragically lost their lives in this fall's firestorms.

But these underlying ecological and social-justice issues seldom surface in public debate about the wildfire problem. Following the lead of Governor Wilson, conservative politicians instead treat fire ecology as a criminal conspiracy of arsonists and environmentalists. Thus Representative David Dreier (R-Calif.) has introduced a bill that would impose the federal death penalty on arsonists, while his colleague Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) wants to radically amend the Endangered Species Act, which he blames for the incineration of several dozen homes in Riverside County.

According to Calvert and his supporters in the powerful Riverside Building Industry Association, federal regulations designed to protect the habitat of the Stephens kangaroo rat prevented homeowners from clearing tall brush. In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service encourages the mowing of grasses surrounding homes for fire safety; the problem is that homeowners find mowing too troublesome, preferring simply to roto-till their ecosystem under.

Similarly, the tiny California gnatcatcher has been indicted for the Laguna Hills firestorm (in which 15 percent of the total remaining gnatcatcher population perished), while environmentalists have been characterized as "arson's fifth column" on Orange County talk radio. Such "green-baiting" is a useful diversion from any consideration of the social costs of hillside development. It is also the opening salvo in a major political offensive to unleash further pyromanic suburbanization. Local governments are now under tremendous pressure from developers to "clear a firebreak through cumbersome environmental regulations." Taxpayers are being asked to finance expensive fleets of water-scooping aircraft — the latest in a long line of supposed "technological fixes" for California wildfire — to protect new and rebuilt hillside homes.

It won't work. Unless the rest of the state is paved (90 percent of California's coastal sage has already been lost try to suppress all fires, the worse the inevitable infernos will be. At a minimum, the latest fire season dramatically demonstrates the need for an immediate moratorium on further hillside development. "Fire zoning" should be established to ensure that foothill homeowners pay a fairer share of the costs of protecting their own homes. Land-use restrictions in defense of endangered ecosystems should be reinforced, not deregulated.

Finally, environmentalists need to forge a more explicit common cause with inner-city residents. We should lobby for equal enforcement of the fire code in every part of the community, with harsh sanctions against criminally negligent landlords. The loss of human life and property to natural disasters is tragic wherever it happens, but our sympathy for the victims should not extend to letting them play with fire."

My sincere apologies for all the people who lost their homes, sorry for not being kinder when critiquing your choices in home building locations..

http://www.radicalurbantheory.com/mdavis/firebugs.html
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One Week Later: Cutbacks, Racism & Class Struggle While Fires Burn

by repost Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007 at 10:13 PM

The smoke has cleared in some areas of Southern California as the Santa Ana winds have calmed and the cool, moist ocean breezes prevail in some areas, allowing for an assessment of the damage, exposure of the class relations and racism. The fascist Dept of Homeland Security clearly planned to terrorize and deport any immigrants they possibly could, and did so. Meanwhile, other fires continue to burn.

From: "Devastation from California wildfires comes into focus as some blazes are contained" by Rafael Azul, 10/27/07:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/fire-o27.shtml,
pertinent paragraphs are:
"Six days of massive wildfires have left a devastating human toll in Southern California. The blazes have charred close to 500,000 acres, or about three quarters the size of the state of Rhode Island. Wildfires also flared on the Mexican side of the border, as far south as the city of Ensenada."

"The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported on Friday that weather conditions were forecast to improve across the hardest hit areas, with 14 of 23 wildfires mostly contained. The biggest of the fires, including the Witch fire, east of San Diego, the Harris fire, along the Mexican border, and the Santiago Canyon fire, in Orange County, are only 30 percent contained and continue to expand their destruction. Arson is expected in two of the fires."

"About 1,800 homes have been destroyed, mostly in San Diego and San Bernardino counties, and some 28,000 homes are still in danger. Conservative estimates place the number of evacuated over the last five days at more than 500,000, the largest mass evacuation in the history of this state."

"The official death toll is now stands at 17, including 7 who died in the evacuation. On Thursday, the charred bodies of 4 people believed to be undocumented immigrants were found in a canyon east of San Diego. Dozens more have been admitted to area burn centers. The number of injured rose to 85 on Friday, including at least 61 firefighters."

"In San Diego County, 500 homes were destroyed, together with 100 commercial businesses. The cost of homes destroyed in San Diego County alone is likely to top $1 billion. In Los Angeles County, two dozen homes have burnt plus two bridges and several commercial buildings. In Orange County, nine homes and 12 commercial buildings were destroyed. In Ventura County, three homes and 12 commercial properties were burnt. Three hundred and twenty homes were destroyed in San Bernardino County."

"The Santiago fire in Irvine, California, was expanding in a northwesterly direction into the Cleveland National Forest, possibly threatening the city of Colton, a working class community. That fire is only 50 percent contained, and 600 firefighters are battling the blaze. Another 600 firefighters are combating the Arrowhead Lake fire, where many vacation homes have been destroyed. The fire threatens the winter resort towns of Arrowhead, Big Bear and Crestline."

"In coastal San Diego County, which borders with Mexico, a crescent of four major fires surrounds the City of San Diego on the north and east. Major roads have been closed. Six thousand acres of avocado trees, one third of the California crop, have been destroyed."

"Authorities at Qualcomm Stadium, which sheltered 12,000 during the first two days of the fires, made it clear that the undocumented would not be welcome, asking evacuees to produce Social Security cards. An extended family of six undocumented immigrants and their US-born daughter were wrongly accused of stealing supplies set out for the evacuees. When it became evident that no such crime had taken place, Qualcomm authorities advised immigration officials, who entered the stadium and took custody of the immigrants, who were summarily deported."

"Many of the undocumented worked as servants in the homes of the wealthy. Others work in the tomato and avocado fields, often for less than the state minimum wage. In one case, reported in the Los Angeles Spanish language weekly Impacto USA, David and Guadalupe Martinez and their young children were forced to flee the burning home where they worked taking care of the horses, dogs and rabbits while the owners were on vacation. Some immigrants were abandoned by their bosses and left, with no transportation, to fend for themselves. Immigrant workers were reported to be using bicycles to flee from the rapidly advancing flames."

"The Los Angeles daily La Opinión quoted activist Enrique Morones, leader of the immigrant rights organization Los Angeles Sin Fronteras (LASF), who said that 1,500 workers were employed in agriculture, construction and gardening in the fire-affected regions of San Diego County. In many cases, these workers received no warning of the evacuation. In the inland immigrant shantytown near McGonicle Canyon, on the road that joins San Diego with Las Vegas, many workers took their chances with the fire, rather than evacuate to the shelters."

"Morones said: “In many cases the flames were less than half a mile away, but no one came to their aid. Smoke covered the cliffs in which they live in precarious homes, made of wood and plastic sheeting, but no one even gave them dust masks.” In some farms, supervisors insisted that workers remain on the job until the last possible minute, breathing ash-filled smoke."

"It was not until LASF volunteers showed up, on the third day of the blaze, that the immigrants, some of whom lived less than 15 miles from the Qualcomm Stadium, received aid. Volunteer doctors evacuated those who had developed severe respiratory problems."

"While many of those that lived in wealthy suburbs to the East and North of San Diego have enough insurance coverage and will be able to rebuild their homes, the non-immigrant inhabitants of the eastern part of the county, many of whom were apartment dwellers or working and middle class homeowners—many of them elderly—are either not entitled to insurance payments or government loans or are underinsured."

"The residents of at least 11 nursing homes were evacuated in San Diego County. While some have returned to three of those institutions, 578 were still displaced on Thursday night. Another 8 to 10 nursing homes may yet have to be evacuated if the fires continue to spread. Four elderly people died in the evacuation itself, according to the Los Angeles Times. Two died being moved to medical facilities, the other two at or nearby hotels where they sought shelter."

"On the other side of the class divide are the very wealthy potential fire victims, who have ongoing contracts with private “fire departments” that, with only a few hours’ notice, show up to save the owners’ homes. One such company, Firebreak, claims to have saved a dozen homes in Malibu, Arrowhead, Orange County and San Diego. “We are saving homes that may average $3 to $5 million,” Firebreak Chief Executive Jim Aamodt told the Los Angeles Times."

"In San Diego County, where many of the wealthy are notorious for their opposition to funding public services, this is a way of buying one’s way around underfunded public services. At the same time as firefighters across Southern California spoke out about the lack of trucks, helicopters and planes to fight the fires, companies such as Firebreak have enough resources to protect their rich clients. Resources that should be available to society at large are thus hijacked for the super-rich."

"Combined with the destructive power of the windstorm and drought, the lack of an adequate firefighting system added to the destruction. In a cost-cutting move, San Diego eliminated its county fire department in the 1970s and replaced it with a system of 10 community-based volunteer departments. The move coincided with an increase in the development of suburban housing in fire-prone areas. The City of San Diego did retain its fire department, but it has never been adequately funded."

"Despite the attention supposedly given to so-called first-responders since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has cut funds from grant programs initially set up to buy fire trucks, protective clothing, breathing apparatus, water tanks and other equipment under the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program established by Congress in 2000 to help fire departments that lack money and manpower. The program was designed to assist those volunteer departments that primarily fight wildfires and that are not supported by an urban taxpayer base."

"In his first two budget proposals, Bush put no money into the program. Congress did appropriate $750 million for this purpose. Since September 11, 2001, urban fire departments have applied for and received some of this money, mostly to upgrade communications equipment, shifting resources away from the volunteer departments."

"The Bush administration let it be known that it considered wildfires a low priority when it proposed to cut the grants by one third in 2005, to $500 million. “What we are trying to do overall in the Homeland Security budget...is to focus resources a bit better on terrorism-preparedness programs,” said Chad Kolton, of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, in 2005."

"Among those feeling the shift in priorities most directly were the San Diego County fire departments. Dave Nissen, chief of the San Diego Rural Fire Protection District, which is charged with protecting a 720-square-mile area along the Mexican border, including Jamul, Descanso, and East Otay Mesa, areas very hard hit by fires in 2003, indicated in 2005 that his department’s equipment was rapidly aging with 20-year-old engines that are normally replaced after 10 or 12 years. “It is a matter of band-aiding them together when something breaks,” said Nissen."

"Conditions are even worse today. Many of the helicopters being used to fight the fires are Vietnam-era. Of 150 new fire trucks promised in 2004 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, only 19 had been ordered when the wildfires hit this time."

"President George Bush visited the area Thursday, accompanied by Governor Schwarzenegger, flying over part of the affected areas. In the course of his brief, four-hour visit, Bush praised the governor’s leadership and declared most of Southern California a major disaster area, making it eligible for loans to businesses and homeowners."

"Bush’s visit evoked images of Hurricane Katrina, when the president flew over the city and briefly spoke at the New Orleans airport, far from the victims. In an attempt to reverse that image, this time the visit included a stopover at Escondido, north of the city, and a conversation with one of the victims of the fire, to whom the president handed out the phone number for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

"In a comment eerily echoing what he once told the victims of Katrina, Bush commented, “We’re not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.” More than two years after the hurricane disaster, tens if not hundreds of thousands of residents remain displaced, and large sections of working class areas in New Orleans are still in shambles."
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duh

by Sheepdog Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007 at 3:32 AM

This should be a wake up call for building code changes in areas that these fire storms run as a consequence of wind and fuel cycles.
I would personally only build a structure underground with limited light and passage access to the surface. Even steel structure, above ground configurations can be fried in these fire storms. Humans are smarter than real estate consortiums which design and lay out for fast profit, these fire traps.
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