Outside Topic Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County

Outside Topic Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - Printable Version

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Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - M T - 08-19-2020

(Apologies for the outside topic, but I thought this might be of interest to those who are familiar with the coastal areas near Stanford.)

About 7:30PM Tuesday, evacuations were ordered for much of the area of southern San Mateo County and Santa Cruz County on the west side of Skyline. At 11PM, the evacuation area was enlarged further. And more at 1:30AM, totaling about 200 sq miles, including Boulder Creek to near Pescadero. News conference scheduled for 6AM (!!)

CalFire calls this the CZU August Lightning Complex (@CALFIRECZU). CalFire reports 7500 acres burned (11.7 sq miles) as of 11PM. 0% contained.

At 11PM, the satellite sensing showed 5 separate large burn areas in that region, totaling about 8 to 9 sq miles.
At 2AM, the satellite sensing (MODIS/Terra) shows a very much larger area (about 80 sq mi) but I believe(hope) this was sensing the hot smoke from the fires. UPDATE: 4:30AM: A second satellite sensor is now showing about an 80 sq mi area as fire, consistent with the latest evacuation orders.

I see tweets at Calfire around midnight saying that Big Basin is already burning and Russian Ridge Open State Park is going to burn.

You can dig down to various maps from this USDA Forest Service page.

At my house (near El Camino Hospital, about 11mi NE of the nearest fire), we had a fair amount of smoke in the late evening hours. About 4AM, the smoke smell isn't too bad, but I can see that there is smoke in the light of the street lights.

@CALFIRECZU
Time lapse Tuesday night of explosive development of the fire

For those that don't know, California, which had a relatively cool July, has had a very hot August. We've had rolling blackouts since Friday due to too much demand for electricity. Then early on Sunday morning (3AM), a big electrical storm started coming ashore between Santa Cruz and Napa, heading NE. I'm in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale area and went outside at that time and was surprised by near continuous flashes of lightning to the SW, while the storm was some 35 miles from me (still offshore). I've been through really bad electrical storms in Texas, and this was getting close to them in terms of lightning strikes per minute. I believe I saw one estimate of 2500 ground strikes of lightning, but my lightning detector app showed far greater numbers, but must be measuring cloud-to-cloud strikes.

To see the strikes for this storm, visit LightningMaps.Org and set the clock to 2020-08-16 0:00 UTC and apply. To see the storm continue, advance the clock to 2020-08-17 0:00 UTC.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - OutsiderFan - 08-19-2020

This is really close to home for me. My parents' house in Cupertino is close to the evacuation area. Our rapidly changing climate (Arctic ice melt, Siberia record heat wave exposing permafrost, the earliest named hurricanes, the Australian fires, the derecho in Iowa last week, record heat in Death Valley in August, and on and on) is going to make our lives really difficult.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/NBCian/status/1296002387086151680[/tweet]

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - Snorlax94 - 08-19-2020

This is the double nightmare scenario I had feared, happening even earlier in the year than I had expected.

The heat waves were already making it difficult to conduct activities more safely outdoors. People without air conditioning who need to go to cooling centers lose the option of isolating and avoiding indoor spaces with other households. It’s so hot, I feared more people will socialize (and do things like get haircuts) indoors.

The fires and smoke make things so much worse. You can’t shelter in place if you have to evacuate. You can’t take neighborhood walks and eat outside if you can’t breathe the outside air (purple air shows particulate concentrations of 200+ and even 300+ in much of the Bay Area where 100+ is considered unhealthy). The smoke blew in like a quick-moving fog last night; I’ve never seen anything like it here. I happened to be awake during the lightning storm a few nights ago and it was so ominous and bizarre, with thick, low clouds obscuring the sky and lit up by the flashes of lightning.

Someone in my area asked on Nextdoor, if it’s 100 degrees by day and they don’t have AC and the air outside is hazardous, how can they cool off at night? What alternative do they have to opening the windows?

Even in non-pandemic years, cases of heart and lung problems increase during the fire season, and the smoke can’t be a good for Covid at-risk groups.

It is a bad, bad situation.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - thatboy - 08-19-2020

Cold shower and then a fan could help cool off.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - here4WBB - 08-19-2020

for those following from afar : you can search a specific address on community.zonehaven.com
Air quality has improved in Los Altos/ Palo Alto/ Portola Valley/ Woodside in the last two hours, winds from NW/ NNW are in our local favor.
Fire is spreading to SE/ SSE, UC Santa Cruz is in the path.

there will be a Cal Fire brief on the August Lightning Complex at 6:00 pm Pacfic time on this facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CALFIRECZUSanMateoSantaCruz/videos/

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - 82 Card - 08-19-2020

Does anyone know which adjustment setting in Purple Air is the best one to use? Right now LRAPA is giving us green and the other two settings are giving yellow. I really need to open the windows once the temperature drops another 11 degrees. I figure the AQI will drop until sundown and then start creeping back up when the winds die down. Earlier in the day, we were in the purple range above 200 AQI.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - here4WBB - 08-19-2020

Just listened to Cal Fire. Estimate as of 6pm PDT 25,000 acres. They are stretched thin across the state. They cannot use fixed wing or helicopters to survey the SC/SM fire or assist firefighters at this time. No containment. There is heavy smoke and it isn't safe to fly. At this point the northern end of the fire is holding at Pescadero and south of La Honda, it is continuing to spread south. Advisory evacuation warning has now been extended to just north of UCSC, northeast tip of Wilder Ranch and outside of Scotts Valley.

They anticipate the current weather holding for 24-72 hours We have no moisture or fog and record high temps. This fire has a lot of fuel to eat - 50 year timber growth on 3 feet of duff. Steep slopes.

Prayers and gratitude to our firefighters and civic leaders -- there will be lots of good people working 24 hours around the clock for us.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - BostonCard - 08-19-2020

Also, a lot of "volunteer" firefighters are state prisoners. Unfortunately, because COVID-19 has spread like (pardon the pun) wildfire in the prisons, a lot of the firefighting manpower is simply not available.

BC

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - M T - 08-20-2020

(08-19-2020, 07:19 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Also, a lot of "volunteer" firefighters are state prisoners. Unfortunately, because COVID-19 has spread like (pardon the pun) wildfire in the prisons, a lot of the firefighting manpower is simply not available.

I might have had the same thought that the firefighters come straight out of big prisons to join the fire lines. That isn't the case, so the impact of COVID-19 on California inmate firefighters is more complex.

Prisoners volunteer to join the Conservation Camp program, run by the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), and the Los Angeles Fire Department "An inmate must volunteer for the fire camp program; no one is involuntarily assigned to work in a fire camp. Volunteers must have “minimum custody” status, or the lowest classification for inmates based on their sustained good behavior in prison, their conforming to rules within the prison and participation in rehabilitative programming. Some conviction offenses automatically make an inmate ineligible..."

Last year, 2150 inmates to 2600 inmates were authorized to fight fires. This year, California indicates 2200 inmates (includes male & females) are authorized to fight fires. These individuals are spread out over 43 Conservation Camps (involving a total of 3100 inmates). So the average inmate population of each camp is 72 inmates.

Overall, the California prison population is roughly 96,000, a decrease of 18,000 (-15.8%) since mid-March. I imagine that the first to have been given early release were low-security prisoners with records of good behavior, that would have qualified for the Conservation Camp programs.

California indicates that 329 inmates were released with active COVID-19 infections. Of the 96,000 in prisons, 1282 have active COVID-19 cases, 8060 are "resolved" (released from isolation), and 55 died. Roughly, an equal number of staff have active cases as inmates.

Per cumulative patients tested, 6,654 patients have been tested in the last 14 days. Per institution numbers, 24,129 have been tested in the last 14 days. The only explanation for the different numbers I can come up with is that inmates are tested multiple times in 2 weeks.

Getting back to the firefighters, California says "Currently, there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state’s Conservation Camp Program and there are no conservation camps on quarantine." [This information is apparently as of Aug 12 or before. I don't know if it has changed in the last week].

I believe this to mean that there is full availability of the prisoners who can help CalFire at this time. I believe that the number of such firefighters is approximately what it was before Covid.

Two centers provide the training for prisoners. "The California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville serves as the primary hub for providing training and placement of inmates in Northern California conservation camps. Sierra Conservation Center (SCC) in Jamestown serves as the primary hub for Southern California conservation camps."

When those centers have COVID-19 cases, the workers trained there can't move to the Conservation Camps until things are under control.
CCC (2990 inmates) has been closed since June, and has 57 cases in the last 2 weeks.
SCC had 3 cases on August 12 (only previous case was May 23). It has an inmate population of about 3400. I suspect it has just recently been closed. Prior to that, it was training 120 firefighters a month.

So, the training pipeline is currently shut down. Potentially, SCC may open in 2 weeks if no more cases arise.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - BostonCard - 08-20-2020

[tweet]https://twitter.com/williamsonkev/status/1296489539440119811?s=20[/tweet]

I don't have the original source for this, but it seems at odds with the statement from California. Without the origional source, I'm not sure I can resolve the discrepancy.

BC

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - here4WBB - 08-20-2020

(08-20-2020, 11:26 AM)BostonCard Wrote: [tweet]https://twitter.com/williamsonkev/status/1296489539440119811?s=20[/tweet]

I don't have the original source for this, but it seems at odds with the statement from California. Without the origional source, I'm not sure I can resolve the discrepancy.

BC

Cal Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox said in last night's briefing that COVID-19 had reduced the number of inmate firefighters at the CZU Lighting Complex fire. No numbers given.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - M T - 08-20-2020

San Mateo County is not accepting donations itself, but says:
"Please consider making $$ donation to @PuentePescadero & @RedCrossNorCal to help residents affected by #CZUAugustLightningComplex fire."

(As always, when money is involved, check the source (@sanmateoco) yourself to make sure it isn't bogus (perhaps a look-alike misspelling).)

(08-20-2020, 11:26 AM)BostonCard Wrote: I don't have the original source for this, but it seems at odds with the statement from California. Without the original source, I'm not sure I can resolve the discrepancy.

Did I ever mention that I hate tweets? They are such a good way to mangle information.
Here, we have a posting of a tweet of an August 19th tweet that references a July 4 Sac Bee newspaper article.

On July 4th, there were 12 camps in a 14-day quarantine. All but one of those came out of quarantine in mid-July. If we go back in time for the California Dept of Correction & Rehabilitation site, we find that 12 camps were closed from late June to mid July.

The more recent tweet threw me by saying "Source: Democracy Now". That "source" has a 8/20 3-paragraph article that makes the same out-of-date claim. It doesn't quote any source (other than its own 2018 article), but if they used the CDCR source, they had to have used a version from before July 29th.

I will add to what I said above that none of the Conservation Camps appeared in the list of CDCR sites with COVID cases. That is consistent with no cases, but could have been consistent with the camps not being considered in the same group of facilities listed. That's why I was pleased to find the affirmative statement that none had infections or quarantined. Unfortunately, the only date on that document was the current date (8/18) and I found some information in it that indicated its validity dates from before 8/12 or perhaps 8/15 or so (as the SCC info has recently changed).

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - here4WBB - 08-20-2020

Evacuation area as of 8:45 pm PDT -- southeast boundary is HW 17, east/ NE boundary is Skyline Boulevard (HW 35)
City of Scotts Valley under evacuation, also UCSC students ordered off campus, not to return for two weeks

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - BostonCard - 08-20-2020

(08-20-2020, 03:05 PM)M T Wrote: Did I ever mention that I hate tweets? They are such a good way to mangle information.

Here, we have a posting of a tweet of an August 19th tweet that references a July 4 Sac Bee newspaper article.

On July 4th, there were 12 camps in a 14-day quarantine. All but one of those came out of quarantine in mid-July. If we go back in time for the California Dept of Correction & Rehabilitation site, we find that 12 camps were closed from late June to mid July.

The more recent tweet threw me by saying "Source: Democracy Now". That "source" has a 8/20 3-paragraph article that makes the same out-of-date claim. It doesn't quote any source (other than its own 2018 article), but if they used the CDCR source, they had to have used a version from before July 29th.

I will add to what I said above that none of the Conservation Camps appeared in the list of CDCR sites with COVID cases. That is consistent with no cases, but could have been consistent with the camps not being considered in the same group of facilities listed. That's why I was pleased to find the affirmative statement that none had infections or quarantined. Unfortunately, the only date on that document was the current date (8/18) and I found some information in it that indicated its validity dates from before 8/12 or perhaps 8/15 or so (as the SCC info has recently changed).

Per NPR, which I consider a credible source, the number of prisoners available for working the fires is about 2/3 of what it was last year. I couldn't find that article, but I found this one on ABC (also credible):

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/northern-california-wildfires-threatening-thousands-homes-72488584

Quote:The unusually large size and number of simultaneous fires, other fires throughout the West and the loss of inmate firefighting crews because inmates were released from prisons to prevent the spread of coronavirus, have created the perfect storm for firefighting.

The effect is indirect, of course, unlike what was implied elsewhere, but still, does suggest that COVID-19 is throwing a curveball into the firefighting season.

BC

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - here4WBB - 08-22-2020

Here's further confirmation that firefighting crews were impacted by early release of prisoners

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-22/california-short-on-firefighters-amid-biggest-blazes

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - M T - 08-22-2020

(08-22-2020, 11:17 AM)here4WBB Wrote: Here's further confirmation that firefighting crews were impacted by early release of prisoners

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-22/california-short-on-firefighters-amid-biggest-blazes

Sigh. An unsubstantiated, third-person, 1-sentence description in a newspaper is not "confirmation".

So, let's look at this "confirmation". The text reads "California in recent weeks has also hired 830 seasonal firefighters meant to replace prison crews that are not available due to early releases prompted by the pandemic."

830 seasonal firefighters. Ok, where does that come from. One news source says "Newsom declared a state of emergency and upped the Cal Fire budget by more than $85 million dollars to hire additional staff." A different source gives a different source of the money, "This year, the Legislature approved an $85 million funding boost for Cal Fire to hire more full time wildland firefighters and an additional 830 seasonal firefighters."

Maybe someone knows where the budget documents are, but this IN JANUARY, reported about the budget sent to the legislature, "The state budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed Friday calls for hiring 677 new full-time staff members at Cal Fire, the state’s lead firefighting agency, over the next five years. That’s an increase of 10.7% from the current total of 6,280 full-time employees who work at the agency now. Another 2,385 Cal Fire positions are seasonal employees. ... Of those new full-time hires, 438 would be front-line firefighters, and the other 239 would work in other jobs"

The legislature pushed back on the Governor's budget and [url=https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4172]recommended additional seasonal workers rather than permanent workers. (I don't have the actual budget, so I don't know what was passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor.)

So, on July 9, the Governor announced the intent to hire of 858 seasonal workers AND 6 California Conservation Crews (CCC) (I believe these are typically 17-man crews). As already described, CCC is comprised of inmates. So, despite the nearly release of 16% of the prison population, he was proposing (I don't know that it got done) a larger number of prisoners being firefighters.

I've not seen how many, if any, of the seasonal workers are not available because of the flu. The latest information (8/20) from California Dept of Corrections & Rehabilitation is that none of the CCC camps is on quarantine nor are there confirmed cases among the crew. They appear to be well isolated (physically, and in procedure) from the general prison population. COVID-19 is not directly impacting them. Nor does it seem that the reduction in prison population has had any impact, since the Governor seemed to ask for more CCC crews.

Since my previous posting, I've seen that the latest round of regular tests (this week) at the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown (one of the two CCC training centers) found 5 staff where positive. The state shows 6 staff positives have not gone back to work yet (8/21), and that there are 4 inmates who have active cases. This will severly impact the training of additional & replacement CCC crews. As members of the crews are released, I'm not sure how they can be replaced (perhaps there are prisoners previously trained).

Just because something gets said/written doesn't make it a confirmation.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - 82 Card - 08-22-2020

Since prisoners eligible for firefighting crews are only the most trustworthy ones, it seems inevitable that they would also be the ones eligible for release when the prisons need to be thinned out because of the virus. What doesn't make sense to me is that, once they are out, there is no way for them to continue the work. There are probably many former prisoners having trouble making a living right now that worked fire crews while in prison and would be interested in using those skills to earn a paycheck. However, they are prohibited from doing so. I understand why people wouldn't want former convicts in their local municipal fire department. But I fail to see why they would not be suitable for forest fire crews if they were deemed suitable while in prison.

RE: Fire evacuations in San Mateo County & Santa Cruz County - dabigv13 - 08-22-2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/california-wildfires-prisoners.html

NYT has 1300 deployed firefighters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/22/california-wildfires-largest/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_califfires-11am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

WaPo has 1659 eligible (different from the deployed number from NYT), whereas normally 2200.

So it does seem like there is some impact.