Tag: life

California winds are at it again only this year, with all that rain they received the vegetation took off resembling the wildfire that is now devouring the state.

Residents are forced to flee a fire that is burning out of control while Firefighters battle the blaze that won’t go out anytime soon. The fire has claimed several racehorses and over 4 thousand acres of land in a short amount of time. People are being told to “get out” leave before the blaze reaches their neighborhood. [1]

That’s a lot of acreage and a lot of displaced people. Where will they find shelter?

322 Schools had to cancel classes on Thursday and Friday. The fire continues to spread property loss quickly keeps mounting. Residents need to pack up essential water and food while remembering to take crucial documents. Undocumented and legal immigrants will be hardest hit by this fire since most will not have fire insurance for their homes. Moises Rodriquez is one of those immigrants living in a trailer park that is threatened by the blaze. He fears his home will be gone when he returns.[2]

Because Mr. Rodriquez is an undocumented immigrant, he does not qualify for any federal emergency assistance to rebuild or replace his mobile home even though his four children are American citizens. Even though they are staying at a local shelter, Mr. Rodriquez has returned to work at the Cement factory where he fills sacks with cement.[3]

 

Suzanne White, a resident of Ojai, was interviewed, and she said that she has grown used to the constant threat of fire. But this year has been worse than other years, and the winds are making matters worse than usual. Another resident reported that the entire town of 7,500 people slept with one eye open as the fires came closer to the community.[4]

One of the most significant obstacles the firefighters have is the 70 mile-per-hour winds being driven by the Santa Anna winds. The air quality due to the smoke and ash is the biggest threat to the residents. With a scale of 1 to 500 with 100 being poor quality, the air quality in Ventura County has been recorded to be as high as 330.[5]

What I think

Between the abundant rainfall that created all the new vegetation in California and the coming Santa Anna winds that has helped fuel the fire that is kindled by the dried-out growth of the past summer the fire is more devastating than in the past. So far this year, more than a million acres have burned. And someone says there is no such thing as climate change. Maybe they will change their mind when the entire state of California is nothing but ash because the rains will return and bring the mudslides with them since the trees and bushes are gone. It is a cycle that will continue until everyone is forced to move out of the state because it will become too expensive to rebuild.

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Notes

[1] (Medina, Jordan and Smith 2017)

[2] (Medina, Jordan and Pérez-Peña 2017)

[3] (Medina, Jordan and Pérez-Peña 2017)

[4]  (Medina, Jordan and Pérez-Peña 2017)

[5]  (Laffin 2017)

 

References

 

Laffin, Ben. “California’s Fires, by the Numbers.” The New York Times. Los Angeles: The New York Times, December 2017.

Medina, Jennifer, Miriam Jordan, and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA. Wildfire Threats in Ventura and San Diego Counties. December 7, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/us/california-fire-ventura-county.html (accessed December 9, 2017).

Medina, Jennifer, Miriam Jordan, and Mitch Smith. Southern California Fires Live Updates: ‘We’re Not Out of the Woods Yet’. December 9, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/us/california-fires-ventura-los-angeles.html (accessed December 9, 2017).

Medina, Jennifer, and Jack Healy. ‘It Burns and It Keeps Burning’: Scenes From Southern California’s Wildfires. December 7, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/us/southern-california-wildfires.html (accessed December 9, 2017).