...
It did burn 61K acres in 17 hours. The maps lag behind by a minimum of one shift. I know agency types. I know bureaucratese. I know I saw the figure 40K acres before I went to bed Saturday night and it had only been burning about eight hours at that time. That's why I like listening to the Cal Fire situation report, but even that is already fuzzing out. Still, the guy doing those takes care to say the available maps are not accurate, that the fire perimeter is much bigger than they show.
And, even if I didn't know all this, I would still disbelieve the maps. I know that area too well, and I've never been there that I wasn't overcome with the dread of wildfire... EVEN decades before this drought. And it's bad even when I'm just driving through, but it's enough to make me start screaming and hopping when I'm out in it walking around.
The whole county.
Even when it's raining!
Like I said before, this ebbs in early spring... only.
If somebody asked me the worst fire hazard in California, I'd've said Lake County. Since I can remember, I've thought that, EVEN though I know the foothills of the Sierra get as hot and as dry.
I know the general pattern of "forest" and "grassland" in that whole area. I've been through every inch of it many times. It isn't going to help that much with the wind died down. There's too much fuel. I actually think the wind, if it could have held, might've made this turn out better... for the trees....
Whatever. The hillsides there that have no trees are covered with what I call "creosote bushes". They're like the worst acne you ever saw, and they're full of volatile oils, just like the pine that are exploding all over the place, and like the fucking eucalyptus planted around ranches because it grows fast and serves as a wind break. There's a fuck ton of sick scrub oak there, mingled in with the conifer. It's been a parched and dusty fuels bowl for a very long time.
People are whining about the loss of Harbin. Good riddance. They're assholes. But I'm sure they'll be back. The ranch where I used to take my crusty old neighbor to visit his asshole friend is pau and, even though I haven't been there in twenty years, I can still see the bone dry oak duff and wisps of sickly pine starts, everything prickly and covered in a crusty blend of pollen and driveway dust... one little less than a foot square patch of slightly darker dirt in the creek bed indicating there was still a trickle underground... but the "forest" was at LEAST half full of DEAD stuff and what was alive looked too near death to suit even the most desperate nature lover.
I never even went inside with Warren because I couldn't stand his friend. I'd just take him because he was old and couldn't drive himself. I can sit just about anywhere for a few hours without needing any entertainment or attention, just fine, and so I did... but never without a bulletproof ashtray out of my certainty the whole place would blow up from one dumb stray cigarette spark.
Everywhere in Lake County, but particularly where this fire is right now. You can almost ignore it from any other road in or out, but not the one that goes up from Calistoga and brings you up to Clearlake and that's the one that takes you through the middle of this fire.
It might be that burning the entire county down would be the best thing for it, that's how hateful it's become there. The few solvent people who live there are mostly heedless and the many poor people who live there are mostly criminals. Still, they're human and I didn't want this to ever happen to them. But now I'm here madder'n a wet hen because I've been dreading this for SO long. Can't be there for the dread and loathing of it, and NOT for myself. For living things. For all sentient beings.
I'm not fit for human society or something. I don't want to keep moaning about how sorry I am, which I am, but, no, I want to drive down there and start screaming at everyone I can find.
Anyway, maybe the lightning or arsonists or nitwits can get the rest of it burned before much longer... put me out of my misery.
always and any time....
