Aerial View Maps

Could the California fires have been prevented?

This question is somewhat rhetorical, but what is your opinion? CDF is saying that the fires were caused by lightning strikes. Well. After a lightning strike, how many hours or even DAYS does it take for a fire to get out of control, even with bad conditions? At any time, anyone can view SUPER accurate lightning strike maps all over the net, like this one... http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Severe/Lightning.aspx. SO, why the HECK don't they do aerial survey's as soon as the weather lets up at all locations where a strike took place to try and catch a smoldering fire before it grows into a monster? Seems COMPLETELY simple to me! Maybe however the incentive is to let the fire get out of hand so that they can make a killing on hazard pay. After all, their pay doubles, triples, or even quadruples depending on the disaster... That means that the longer they take to put out the 1100 fires, the more money there is to be made... Maybe the pay should go down the longer it takes to put out... Well, there are a lot of interesting answers to begin with, some question my knowledge of both California, and the fires... Maybe I should make it completely clear as to my credentials for asking such a question... I live in california, am an airline pilot, and when I'm not flying passengers from point a to point b, I fly part time for clear channel and chase everything from bank robbers and ambulances to yes, even fires. I fly one of the only civilian airplanes that actually is allowed within the restricted areas where these fires are fought, and DAILY I fly within about a mile of these DC-10s and C-130s dropping retardant. California is only in a drought because they let all the water out of the resevoirs in the winter. California is NOT all rolling hills with dry brush. They do NOT do aerial surveys post lightning strikes unless something is reporter, and 30 acres in two hours is NOTHING! A DC-10 could put that out with 10% of its load and be on-site in about 30 minutes... IF... Moral of the story? If they did an aerial survey an hour after the strikes and dispatched the CDF aircraft, these fires would be a non-issue... But they don't... And they get out of hand... And here we are with a bunch of people answering the question who think just like everyone else... THEY DON'T THINK... They DON'T PREPARE... THEY ONLY REACT, after its too late! The only good answer so far is pertaining to liberals... If the gosh darn environmental hippie liberals would allow the fire departments to CLEAR OUT the dry brush and destroy the habitat of the pink spotted nocturnal south african midget one legged spider, we wouldn't be having this issue... BUT, if someone did some preventative surveying, we wouldn't have this problem either! So far, the only decent answers is regarding the liberals... AND... For the fem who seems so insluted she is probably a firemens wife, I'M NOT INSULTING THE FIRE FIGHTERS, so get off it and use your brain rather than retreat into a pissed off defense mechanism... The firemen are the soldiers and they do a fine job... Its the fire chief's, the governor, etc., anyone else who establishes policy and decides how to target and fight fires... Its a reactive based policy, instead of proactive... And don't talk about roads either or hard to get places, your not listening to my obvious rant about using AIRPLANES! they have been around for more than a hundred years now! You people are all making excuses!!! One after the other! Have you seen the kind of insane technological advances our military has, from unmanned drones to advanced tactical stealth fighters, and God knows what else... Night vision thermo goggles which can detect body heat thousands of yards away... Are ALL OF YOU SERIOUSLY that naive to think this problem couldn't easily be solved if we just put some thought into it! Google has satellite images that are so crisp you can see people sunbathing nude in their backyard, add google streets, and now we're in 3d... If you seriously think for one second that we couldn't easily solve this problem then congratulations for being another moron in America. Seriously I feel like this country is piling up with stupid people by the minute. Where have all the smart people gone? One good answer and it gets my votes... If we did do controlled fires, this wouldn't be 1100 fires, maybe it would be half, or even a quarter. Either way, the best answer here!

Public Comments

1. u cant prevent lightning
2. Have you ever driven through California? The whole state is practically rolling hills covered with dry grass that if ignited may as well be kerosene. You get into the steep hills and cliffs of the coast, it's even worse.
3. Yes, the fires could've been prevented if liberals weren't against controlled burns.
4. are you really that dense? I think you need to spend a day at the fires to understand just how complicated putting them out are. Areal surveys ARE done, even DURING a fire - they are even battled from the air by specially equiped planes and helicopters - but did it ever occur to you that the fires can be in such a remote location, that getting fire retardant or water to them is sometimes impossible, or outright dangerous? I take it you don't live in California to be anywhere close to understandng the terrain that is here. It can take fire crews on foot HOURS just to hike to an area to try to clear brush to prevent the fire from spreading. There are areas burning right now that hadn't burned for 50 years, that is a lot of growth - and we are also in a state of drought...so that is 50 years of really DRY growth. Intentially letting fires get out of hand to make money - what a f'ing joke. Prisoners are brought out to help fight fires, volunteers are out there, homeowners, fire crews from surrounding states and the midwest have come out here to fight the fires. You, are a complete idiot. It's so easy? Come out here and hold a hose...
5. Please get real! Are you aware that some of the backwoods areas where some of these lightning bolts struck? The Foresthill fire started in an area about 15 miles from the nearest dirt track. Not only that, the fire trucks are stationed near population centers, so I'd estimate that it would have taken a minimum of 3 hours just to get to the site of the fire. They figure they will have it completely contained within 3 weeks. I live in the foothills and 1 month ago, the fire on the hill behind my house caught and covered 30 acres in less than 2 hours, and they were able to use helicopters and water from the lake that's only 3 miles away to fight the fire. It took two days to put out the fire, and it was only 5 minutes from a paved road, and 7 minutes from a fire station. Weather conditions aren't allowing the use of helicopters on all of these fires. Remember, you can't predict where lightning will strike, so you can't position units in advance. The dry lightning storm that started these fires hit an area about 500 miles long and 200 miles across - that's an area larger than New England.
6. I fully agree with most of the people who answered ahead of me. "Completely simple" doesn't remotely apply to wild fires. California is a very big place. Where exactly would one start the surveys if lightning strikes are reported over a hundred thousand square miles scattered over the northern 1/3 of the state and a couple very rough mountain ranges! If there's good weather radar coverage, one can narrow the search area to a few thousand(s) acres then let the pilot deal with visibility in the low clouds and between the high mountains occupying the same airspace (bad combo for an airplane). Also, initially fires can smolder for hours, days, and sometimes weeks before they'd even be visible from the air. In rough terrain as well, setting up a photo run can be hit and miss at times. I've done dozens of those for mapping. If the pilot can't see the target, he can't shoot it. In the 1980's I ended up on a hot-shot crew down in the Tehachapi's (Southern Calif). Grueling hikes into fire locations with that gear, hard and dangerous work putting out spot fires. In extremely rough terrain, you let it burn. It's too difficult and dangerous to get crews and materials on site. Some canyons are also too dangerous to fly into for the tankers and helicopters.