Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/14/body-cam-footage-of-sonoma-cou.html
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That is scary stuff. A big thumbs up to those officers!
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I have extended family outside of Santa Rosa. Theirs was one of the houses that the fire took. Fortunately everyone got out in time including the pets, but he described it as like a war zone with barely any daylight and constant emergency lights. Driving out after they went around knocking on doors to tell neighbors the hill was on fire, he had to dodge flames leaping across the road under 70 mph winds. Absolutely insane.
They’re in a hotel now, but half of Santa Rosa is without power. Rentals were scarce before the fire, now there’s nothing. Fortunately insurance should cover most of the destroyed homes, but the community is going to take years to rebuild. And at this point the fires are only partially contained.
I know we have a lot of NoCal Boingers. Be Safe!
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This video of someone driving away from their home in Santa Rosa is terrifying:
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Out of curiosity, I wonder which concentration of people is higher, people who try to wait out hurricanes vs. people who try to wait out forest fires?
Having grown up in Tornado Alley, it’s the recommended solution to hunker down in the basement, and worry about relocating once the damage is done. I just have no concept of trying to mentally negotiate leaving at the outset of a catastrophe.
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We spend a big chunk of every year a few miles west of Santa Rosa. We’ve been following this with horror, watching neighborhoods we know well completely disappear.
According to the live fire map at the Press-Democrat, the fire is now just a few miles west of St. Helena. This would be the biggest news story in the country, if we weren’t so bogged down with rapist movie producers and dangerously moronic presidents.
I grew up in tornado country, now live in a hurricane/tsunami area. One big difference is that the latter tend to interfere with infrastructure over a far broader area, even if your own house is not flattened, so if you don’t stock up with Spam and toilet paper right when the hurricane is spotted you are unlikely to have any for a good long time.
I was pretty complacent about hurricanes until I learned that they threw off tornadoes just as a minor side-effect.
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I live in light-shower-sometimes land…
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When I moved to England in the 80s, everyone used to ask me “how do you like our weather, then?” expecting some grumbling about how terrible it was, as complaining about the weather was the major national pastime, right up there with footie, ale, and making fun of the French. My stock reply was something like “Great, the best thing about the UK!” and then I could usually leave them speechless by recounting true facts about the weather in places I’d lived (like the “how many seconds until frostbite” part of the nightly weather report in Duluth in winter).
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To serve and protect. I appreciate these people a lot.
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https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2017/october/12/cal-fire-calls-for-the-largest-tool
(turn it down after they cheer)
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Man, this is nuts. Here in S. OC, we had the “canyon II” fire a couple of weeks ago, and the air in my work building was a wee bit smoky when the sky was orange and raining ash, and we were ~5mi or so from the fire.
The stuff going on in NorCal is log scales bigger. It’s insane.
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