..burning 38,000 at latest info in my area, 18 miles up Smith River, from me. Were out of electricity, just my phone for very occasional hotspot so I haven't been able to see much news etc. online, if I wanted to. We have a bad-ass fire 18 miles from here, 100s evacuated to our little town's Fairgrounds, Pacific Power was able to set up huge generators to get back the commercial areas mostly, but not all residents, I guess our building got lucky. 38,000 acres up our Smith River. Smoke and ash the worst today, but rumors of reduction in fire, so lots of prayers going out, especially our firefighters, and those who are homeless hunkering down here in Crescent City, CA. I'll put a link but I doubt it's updated yet. I have no info on casualties yet, or loss of homes. It appears to be spreading more north than towards the towns where the folks are from, but no idea how much is contained yet: This seems to be the latest I can find for now, be back with more if I can find it:
I really don't understand how our governor (village idiot) can sit there and not call a state of emergency and get more help to stop this fire!! It jumped from 50,000 acres to 66,505 acres within 2 days, one night, and some sites don't even have the 66,505 info yet It's well into Oregon now and I don't know who is governor up there, but it's only 36 miles from Grants Pass OR, so far. ZERO CONTAINMENT, our firefighter, only 1200 at last count, must be just overwhelmed, sick, and tired out This shows other fires that I hope to God don't come together like the Smith River one has https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/08...evacuations-for-smith-river-happy-camp-fires/
It seems like we are having terrible wildfires all over right now, @Denise Evans . This happened last year as well, and you will remember that one Oregon town was completely destroyed by fire. First they blame climate change, and eventually, they find arsonists who actually started the fires. This has recently happened with the devastating fires in Western Canada, and even though they caught some of the arsonists, it is still being blamed on climate change in the news. Most of the western USA is burning with wildfires right now, just not as large and severe as the one near you. Last week, I was reading about evacuations near Sandpoint, Idaho, and also near Spokane Washington. My son, who lives north of Spokane , sent me pictures of the sky/air where he lives, and it is full of smoke. They just evacuated a whole town in Louisiana because of the terrible wildfires there, too, and when you look at the wildfire maps, they are all over. The fires in Hawaii were probably the worst , for loss of human lives, since the police were ordered to block all of the roads that people needed to escape from the city, and the water was shut off, so that they could not even fight the fire. Children were sent home from school, and were alone in their house when the fire came through and killed them. There are still hundreds of Hawaiian children unaccounted for ! Some of the pictures look similar to the ones from the Oregon and California fires last year, where the whole house is incinerated to ashes, and nearby trees and bushes are not even burned. Some people are saying that this is how they intend to force people out of their own property and take it over for the government, and then implement those 15-minute cities that we have been hearing about everywhere. It is scary !
Thanks for this post, Denise. I don't know if I'm living in a news blackout or what but I wasn't aware the fires are that bad again. It's hard to believe you don't have state of emergency by now. I hope they can get a handle on it soon. Fire is more frightening that some other natural disasters to me. We has a couple of really bad ones here about a decade ago. Yvonne, I've head those stories about people setting fires for years and I don't know what to believe. So many are human caused and who knows what the intentions are behind that.
A few years back, California was having terrible fires, and so was Oregon, and when they caught the arsonists, they turned out to be Antifa protestors, the same ones who were setting fires to businesses in and around Portland and Seattle. I have read that the governor of Hawaii is already wanting to take over the land where all of the homes were burned, and rebuild it as apartments for worker from the tourist trades. (Like hotels, restaurants and resorts) can live close to their work. Several years ago, I went on a visit to Hawaii when my daughter was there for a week for her work, and she took me along. One of the tings that amazed me were the dilapidated older homes here and there, right in the middle of the new apartments, businesses and hotels. What has happened is that the price of buying a home in Hawaii is so expensive that the families who live in these old homes can’t afford to sell them and move anywhere else on the islands, so they live in the home and it is passed down to the children from the old folks. They only make enough money to live and not enough to fix their old house or to move, so they refuse to sell. It sounds like this might be what happened on Maui also, and now, all of these older homes have been wiped out and the owners are either dead or homeless. Biden only gave these families a $700 pittance payment for the loss of their homes and possessions, which would not help them to even rent a place to live, so they will be forced to let the government take their land and build apartments there, most likely.