Wildfires are all over California right now, consuming many parts of the state and threatening the entire Los Angeles area:
The most destructive wildfire in California history leveled nearly the entire city of Paradise as firefighters battled massive fires on both sides of the state. At least 23 people were killed by the so-called Camp Fire in Butte County, authorities said. Most of the buildings in Paradise are in ruin and its business district is destroyed.
The Camp Fire, which began Thursday, has destroyed more than 6,700 structures, almost all of them homes. Authorities said they are searching for more than 100 people who are still missing.
“We are doing everything we possibly can to identify those remains and make contact with the next of kin so we can return the remains to the family,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Saturday evening.
The Camp Fire is just one of three major wildfires that firefighters are battling across the state. The 70,000-acre Woolsey Fire tore through Malibu mansions and working-class suburban homes in Southern California’s hills and canyons. In less than two days, the Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire, which is also burning in Southern California, prompted evacuation orders for more than 250,000 people.
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Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday.
Fire officials said the lull allowed firefighters to gain 10 percent control of the so-called Woolsey Fire, which has burned more than 80,000 acres in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County since Thursday.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said that means 90 percent of the fire lines are uncontained and there are numerous hotspots and plenty of fuel that has not burned.
Huge plumes of smoke are rising again in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast.
Governor requests federal disaster declaration
California Gov. Jerry Brown is requesting a “major disaster declaration” from the president for the wildfires burning at both ends of the state.His office said in a statement Sunday that the declaration would bolster ongoing emergency assistance and help residents recover from fires burning in Butte, Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
If granted, the declaration would make individuals eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid.
Dozens still missing as recovery efforts continue
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said his department has reports of 110 people still missing from the fire, but said he’s hopeful that more of those missing people will be located.The department initially had more than 500 calls about citizens who were unable to reach loved ones. But he said they’ve been able to help locate many. Next he said sheriff’s officials will be cross-checking their list with official shelters to search for the remaining missing.
Honea said Saturday that 23 people have died in the fire near Paradise, about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Officials stepping up efforts to recover bodies
Authorities plan to step efforts to recover and identify people who died in a Northern California wildfire that has killed 23 people.Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said he will add another coroner’s team to help find bodies in burned areas, and he ordered a DNA lab truck to assist in identifying human remains.Honea said in some cases, investigators have only found bones or bone fragments.
Officials are receiving expertise from anthropologists from nearby California State University, Chico.
Honea said 14 bodies were recovered Saturday, bringing the death toll to 23. The fire north of Sacramento has destroyed more 6,700 structures and driven more than 52,000 people from their homes.
Death toll jumps to 23
At least 23 people have been killed by the Camp Fire in Northern California, authorities said Saturday. There were still 110 people missing.“I know that the news of us recovering bodies has to be disconcerting,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference Saturday evening. “We are doing everything we possibly can to identify those remains and make contact with the next of kin so we can return the remains to the family.”
“My heart goes out to those people,” he said.
“The fire behavior is just so intense”
Malibu looks like a war zone, with homes and businesses burned to the ground. Charred earth as far as the eye can see. All this, as the Woolsey fire is still nowhere near contained, CBS News’ Jamie Yuccas reports.
“It really seems like we are chasing it, it moves so fast, so aggressive, and the fire behavior is just so intense,” said Mike Grosenbach, a Los Angeles County firefighter.
Firefighters are working to cut a perimeter around the fire. Students at Pepperdine University in Malibu were told to shelter in place as the flames crept neared campus. Nearby homeowners had minutes to get their horses to safety, turning the iconic Zuma Beach into a makeshift ranch.
“[The Pacific] felt like the safest place to be with the fresh air coming. At least you have fresh air coming off the ocean. The air was so thick last night, you could barely breathe,” said homeowner Robin Elmasian. (source, source)
A recent video taken by a woman showed the terrifying nature of the fires:
The woman who made this video, Rebecca Hacket, told local news that she thought she was going to die.
Wildfires and California are not something unique. They are a consistent problem that continually pose a threat to the existence of California itself, and were it not for the work of the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service, California and many of her major cities would be heaps of ash and rubble. Such a fate came dangerously close to be realized last year for the city of Los Angeles, when fires threatened to engulf the city:
The situation in California right now and throughout other parts of the USA, as there are fires also taking place in Arizona and Colorado, is a reminder that while the USA is very strong and can stop or mitigate many challenges, there are some that she would and does have a hard time controlling. One of these are the forces of nature, and given the heavy population of the USA, her resource consumption, the dependency of the people, and the attitudes of the people, one of the greatest threats to the US is not from without, but from internal destruction within, likely stemming from natural disasters gone out of control.
As we warned in July 2018, if America was to become involved in any major world conflict, then her natural weaknesses would be a natural target. For while America is the strongest country on Earth as far as her military, logistics, and economic power are concerned, the most effective way that any enemy with any serious, organized intentions of hurting her would be to find ways to “naturally” interrupt her supply lines and internal organization in addition to any military actions that they might take. This serves to both distract as well as to demoralize the nation. It was a tactic applied by the Viet Cong effectively against the US in Vietnam through the use of booby traps, tunnels, and deception that while the USA was stronger and more advanced, she was unable to stop the simple demoralization and disorganization tactics used against her by the Vietnamese and eventually succumbed to them by her withdrawal from the nation.
I emphasize that I do not say this because I want to see bad things happen to America. I do not want bad things to happen to anybody, and it is important to seek the objective good will of all for the sake of morality. That said, the saying goes that “all is fair in love in war,” and one must expect that in a conflict both the USA and her enemy- whoever that will be -both sides will do whatever they believe they must do to win regardless of the moral consequences.
The USA invaded Iraq based on false claims of Saddam Hussein buying “yellowcake uranium” from Nigeria for nuclear weapons.
During the Balkan conflict in Serbia, the USA used depleted uranium weapons, which has caused an outbreak of cancer and death.
During the Second World War, the USA knew fully about the experiments of Germany and Japan in their respective programs with Aktion T4 And Unit 731, and not only refused to stop them, but when the war was over saw that the scientists who administered these programs were brought to the USA and given jobs with the government and were paid h+igh salaries to pass their knowledge to the USA.
These are all examples of objective war crimes because of the deception in their implementation and the following death they caused to many people, and if the actions and weapons used were not “illegal,” many were immoral or ethically questionable.
It is unlikely that such weapons would be able to be used against the USA because of logistical reasons. It would be about as difficult to administer as it would be for North Korea to shoot a missile to reach the California coast, let alone it anything of value.
However, lots of things can cause a massive wildfire that would be hard to trace.
Weather interference using a HAARP-type protocol- which the USA already uses actively for her own people -could cause weather problems in the USA of massive proportions.
A small to medium-sized bomb dropped into or near one of the many fault lines or volcanic “hot” spots in the USA- such as California, Montana, or Missouri -could trigger a volcano or earthquake that would significantly disrupt the US on a domestic level to obstruct and potentially cripple foreign military excursions.
One cannot expect the government to help. One must get ready on his own and as much as one is able to, his neighbors, beginning with the soul and continuing from said point.
I cannot emphasize it enough, that whether a conflict begins in ten hours or in ten years, the time to start paying down debts, storing up supplies, learning skills, reducing expendatures and making more with less is now.
Because a conflict is coming. And in any kind of global war, which is what this is appearing to be shaping into, Americans are more dependent and less able than their ancestors of the recent past century to meet their daily needs, meaning there is a much higher potential for death and destruction on a domestic level than possibly there ever has been before.
Prepare yourselves accordingly.