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California burning
Twenty-one wildfires are raging throughout California today. Fifteen of those started in a 24-hour period. More than 1,500 homes and buildings have burned to the ground.
In the Napa area, fire destroyed two wineries and vineyards. In northern Santa Rosa, fire destroyed a school, a Kmart, a McDonald's, a mobile home park, strip malls, two luxury hotels and hundreds of homes and apartments. In the Anaheim Hills, fire destroyed a dozen million-dollar homes.
California has major fires every October, almost as though they're on a regular schedule. In October 2003, huge fires burned 472,000 acres near Ventura, San Bernardino and San Diego. The acreage burned in this year's fires may top that number.
Why do we pay our firefighters (and police officers and school teachers) so little while we pay actors and athletes so much? Somethin' ain't right!
13 dead, 150 missing as Northern California fires continue to rage
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/13-...=ansmsnnewds11
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The death toll has just been updated. There are now 15 dead and 200 missing. More than 20,000 homes, plus hospitals in Napa and Santa Rosa, have been evacuated.
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The New York Times has posted several before-and-after photos showing the destruction in Napa and Santa Rosa. The picture below shows what is left of the Signorello Estate winery.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ps-photos.html
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The latest numbers from California: 17 fires still raging, 17 dead, and 3,500 homes and businesses destroyed. Yikes!
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The death toll in the Northern California fires is now 23. The biggest fire has burned 46,000 acres and is only 10% contained. Fires are approaching Calistoga and Geyserville and both towns are being evacuated. With the heat, the droughts and now the fires, the so-called "Golden State" is turning into the "Grey & Brown State."
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The two largest fires in Northern California will likely merge soon. More than 170,000 acres have burned. There are 23 dead, 180 injured and hundreds missing -- although many are not really "missing" but they remain in areas which now have no electricity and no cell phone service. Green Valley, Calistoga, Geyserville and portions of Sonoma and Fairfield have been evacuated. The causes of all these fires is still unknown.
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The news continues to gets worse. More than 191,000 acres have burned and the death toll is now 27. This is from the Washington Post:
"While authorities go from house to house, looking for hundreds of people who remain unaccounted for, cadaver dogs are also sniffing through the scorched rubble. Twenty-six people have died, more than half of them in Sonoma County alone. Collectively, the infernos that have erupted across the region since Sunday are the state’s deadliest wildfires since World War II, surpassing the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire that left 25 dead. 'We’ve found bodies that were almost completely intact; we’ve found bodies that are nothing more than ashes and bones,' Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said at a news conference Thursday."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.36624f1c8662
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The death toll in the Northern California fires is now 29. Four hundred are missing. Eight thousand firefighters are battling the blazes. Fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanos, droughts, famines, rising temperatures, riots, nuclear threats, terrorist attacks -- I'm afraid this old earth may not last much longer.
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The death toll is now 31. One of the many Santa Rosa homes destroyed by fire was a hillside home built in 1975 for Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and his wife. Charles died there in 2000. Jean, his widow, escaped the fire unharmed. The home of Craig Schulz, a son, was also destroyed. Good grief!
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The news gets worserer and worserer. The death toll in the Northern California fires is now 38. Several hundred are still missing. A hundred thousand people have been forced to evacuate. The fires have burned 214,000 acres, the equivalent of 334 square miles.
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Ten fires are still burning and 5,000 firefighters remain on scene. The death toll is now 42 and 8,400 homes and buildings have been destroyed. Yikes!
Fire loss total surges to 8,400 structures in northern California
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fir...D=ansmsnnews11
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Insurance claims relating to the northern California wildfires have already topped $3.3 billion. Yikes!
http://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/new...ing/vi-AAui1OP
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A 14-year-old girl burned in the fires has died, bringing the death toll to 43.
Governor Brown asks for $7.4 billion in federal funding to help Northern California fire recovery
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/75...-74?artslide=0
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A quickly-spreading brush fire started around 6:20 pm December 4 near Santa Paula in southern California. By 11 pm, it had burned 10,000 acres and is spreading west toward Ventura. Five thousand homes have been evacuated. Another fire in nearby Ojai has burned 200 acres. Five hundred firefighters are on scene but winds of 50 miles an hour are really hampering their efforts.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...461964643.html
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As of 9 AM December 5, the Ventura County fire has burned 45,000 acres. Around 150 homes have been damaged or destroyed and 27,000 homes have been evacuated.
Another fire started at 3:42 AM in the hills north of Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley. More than 2,000 acres have burned and several homes have been destroyed. Both fires are at 0% containment.
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Update: The Ventura County fire, called the Thomas Fire, has burned 45,500 acres so far. It is now only a quarter-mile away from Ventura City Hall. Among the buildings completely destroyed are a large apartment building and a psychiatric hospital. More than a thousand firefighters are on scene.
The Sylmar fire, known as the Creek Fire, is up to 4,000 acres.
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3 PM Update: The Thomas Fire has now burned more than 50,000 acres -- 50 square miles. The Creek Fire has burned more than 11,000 acres. A third fire, the Rye Fire in Santa Clarita, has burned 1,000 acres. A fourth fire is burning near Shandin Hills Golf Course in San Bernardino. And heavy winds are still blowing. Gusts have reached more than 70 miles per hour. Yikes!
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8 PM update: The fire in Ventura has burned 80 square miles and nearly 107,000 homes are without electricity. High winds have snapped power lines and toppled poles. At least 11 homes have been destroyed in the Creek Fire, which has moved southwest and jumped a freeway. The Rye Fire has burned 5,000 acres but is moving northward up hillsides and is no longer threatening any homes. The Little Mountain Fire in San Bernardino has burned 100 acres. Two people, believed to be homeless, suffered burns in that fire and are hospitalized in critical condition.
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I live just a few miles west of the Creek fire and there is a lot of thick white smoke. It's so windy the smoke doesn't go way up in the air. If these fires turn out to be caused by power lines blowing down, then why can't they find a better way to attach them to the poles so they can't come loose? Or maybe they could put the power lines underground.
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In parts of northern California where there were huge fires in October, there is talk of changing zoning laws so no more homes can be built in fire-prone mountainous areas. That is part of the problem in southern California. Homes are being built high up on mountainsides and when a fire starts near a mountain, guess which direction it usually goes -- up.