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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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