News snips

Hesitation is a fatal mistake. Stories of those who managed to escape the San Diego fire... and those who didn't.

He won perilous fight to save family home. The story of John Lucas, former hotshot firefighter for forest service, who planned for fire, and stayed and fought it. He saved most of the buildings of his home in Cedar Glen (surrounding ones- gone). [via Daniel Weintraub's California Insider who's touching on the Sacramento/political aspects of the fire.]

Old Fire info New fire map as of 10/31. Weather report there states that santa ana winds are expected to return.

At the moment, RimoftheWorld.net is experiencing some bulletin board snafus (those dratted php parse errors gotta be chased down), prolly will be a bit before it's up again. In the meantime, for those in nearby un-burnt areas, the Wildlife Migration snippet is worth looking at for the way that fire affects "evacuating" lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.

Wildfires reduce the food sources available to wild animals. These animals are likely to migrate to unburned areas or areas with food supplies. After the Williams Fire in 2002, Mt. Baldy residents experienced a significant increase in their local Coyote, Bear, and Big Horn Sheep population.

Okay, make that Coyote, Bighorn and Bears, oh my.

A snippet from Joe Urbz's blog worth quoting

We just got back from the evacuation center at SB airport. A firefighter told us that One night this past week (I think he said Wed.) there were sixty fire trucks with seven firefighters on each truck that stood down the fire at Yosemite and park. We can’t find park on our map (does any one know where that is?) Any way, the story was amazing, this is the stuff legends are made of. He said you could walk down Yosemite on the tops of fire trucks. The way he described the commitment and determination of those firefighters gave me chills up my spine and brought tears to my eyes. It’s the same feeling as when I watch an extraordinarily courageous and selfless act of courage in a war movie. I don’t think any of us can ever appreciate these firefighters as much as they deserve. So, the big news is that they stopped the fire from crossing Yosemite. Any one in that area (like us, we live on Sequoia right at Yosemite) can rest easy tonight knowing that these firefighters saved our homes, at least for now. I thought you would like to know. [Ken & Heather

(I'll have more on Joe Urbz in a separate post - he's moving this weekend and his net connection needs will be changing.)