We Are Witnessing The Most Destructive Fire In The History Of California, And “Devil Winds” Threaten To Make Things Even Worse


California has been absolutely devastated by horrific wildfires in recent years, but the state has never seen anything quite like this. At this moment, three major wildfires are raging, and the Camp Fire in Butte County is already officially the most destructive wildfire in California history. Thousands of firefighters are desperately trying to contain this fire, but they haven’t had much success. More than 6,700 structures have already been destroyed, and that shatters the all-time record that was set just last year. In fact, five of the ten most destructive wildfires in California history have happened within the last two years. The Camp Fire and the two mammoth fires in southern California have forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate from their homes, and authorities are warning that “devil winds” of up to 40 miles per hour could accelerate this crisis in the early morning hours of Monday.

The death toll from these fires continues to rise, and the numbers are being continuously updated. At this point, the latest official number of deaths is up to 31…

Firefighters battled heavy winds and parched conditions throughout the day in their herculean struggle against the Camp Fire and two blazes in Southern California that have killed at least 31 people, destroyed thousands of homes and forced 250,000 to flee.

But that number is expected to increase, because there are at least 228 people that are unaccounted for right now.

Many of the headlines have been about homes of celebrities that have been destroyed, but that is only a very small part of the story.

The Camp Fire was so wildly out of control that it actually destroyed an entire town. Once the fire got to the town of Paradise, California it was burning so hot that it peeled the paint off of firetrucks…

The fire has laid waste to the town of Paradise, a community of 30,000 people 90 miles north of Sacramento. The fire burned so hot it peeled the paint off firetrucks, melted tires and blew out windows.

“It’s surreal,” said Deputy Brian Evans, 42, whose house burned down. “The fire was moving very, very, very, very, very rapidly.”

Many residents of Paradise were completely taken by surprise by the fire, and quite a few of them literally had to leave town through a “tunnel of fire”…

“We were surrounded by fire, we were driving through fire on each side of the road,” said police officer Mark Bass, who lives in Paradise and works in neighboring Chico.

Bass evacuated his family and then returned to the fire to help rescue several disabled residents, including a man trying to carry his bedridden wife to safety. “It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us.”

Sadly, some people didn’t make it. Most of the dead are from the town of Paradise, and it will be some time before we know the full number of casualties.

Meanwhile in southern California, the Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire have been causing a tremendous amount of destruction as well…

In Southern California, the Woolsey fire has spread to 83,275 acres and was 10% contained, up from 5% the night before. The smaller Hill Fire covered 4,531 acres and was 75% contained. Together, responsible for the destruction of 179 structures, but another 57,000 are threatened, according to fire officials.

One of the homes that has been destroyed in southern California belongs to my friend L.A. Marzulli. This is what he had to say about his devastating loss…

It’s me, LA Marzulli, and I’m no longer able to come to you from our undisclosed location, deep in the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Our home, the guest house, the studio, the garden, all our belongings except those things that we put in the fireproof root cellar have been taken by the Woolsey Fire.

Saturday evening, while we were at the Operation Classified Conference in Dallas Texas, Los Angles officials informed us that our home was amongst the many lost in this record breaking fire.

Words can’t describe how we feel. We are of course very very thankful as the things we value most in life (the lives of our daughters, pets and our own lives) were not taken by the fire. Never the less we are in shock at the loss of our home of many many years.

He interviewed me from that studio, and I can’t believe that it is now gone.

Please keep him and everyone affected by these fires in your prayers.

Unfortunately, this crisis is far from over.

Conditions are still extremely dry and the winds are still howling. Our brave firefighters are doing the best that they can, but these kinds of conditions are perfect for wildfires.

According to Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy, the high winds could create “explosive fire behavior” on Monday…

Firefighters battling the blaze with shovels and bulldozers, flame retardants and hoses expected wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph) overnight Sunday. Officials said they expect the wind to die down by midday Monday, but there was still no rain in sight.

Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy warned that gusty winds predicted into Monday morning could spark “explosive fire behavior.”

This was already one of the worst years for wildfires in all of U.S. history, and these latest fires are the most destructive that we have seen all year.

Our planet is changing, and natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more intense.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we are still very much at the mercy of these natural disasters, and this is yet another reminder of how precious life really is.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...winds-threaten-to-make-things-even-worse

Well, thats what happens when you don't perform wildland management, allowing prescribed burns and properly staffing wildland fire stations...

But they've got a train that has cost (so far) $11-billion, that will go nowhere anyone wants.

Camp Fire Rages On: More Than 125,000 Acres And 42 Deaths In 6 Days

Mac Slavo
November 13th, 2018
SHTFplan.com



In the mere 6 days of the Camp Fire scorching across Northern California, 125,000 acres have been burned and 42 human lives have been lost. Sadly, the Camp Fire has also already been given the unfortunate title of California’s deadliest fire.

Last year, the Carr Fire was California’s deadliest fire with eight deaths attributed to the fire. According to NASA, the Camp Fire is also the most destructive in California history as well with over 7,000 structures destroyed by the blaze. The fire began on November 8, 2018, and has grown to a staggering 250,000 acres in just under a week. The cause of this blaze is still under investigation. California state regulators are investigating two utility companies that reported incidents close in time and location to the start of the Camp fire. Over 52,000 people have been evacuated due to the Camp Fire in over 1,300 shelters. To date, the blaze is only 30% contained.

The death toll is expected to continue to rise as the fire burns its way through more homes, especially considering there are 200 people still missing, according to a report from The New York Times. Adding to the 13 coroner teams from across the state who were already working to locate the dead in and around Paradise, the Butte County sheriff announced a sharp increase in experts who specialize in finding human remains. Some of those experts include 150 extra search-and-rescue personnel, cadaver dogs, and two portable temporary morgue units from the military. The sheriff is also seeking a machine to “expedite the analysis of DNA” to speed up the identification of any remains found.

“My sincere hope is that I don’t have to come here each night and report a higher and higher number,” the Butte County sheriff, Kory L. Honea, said at a news conference on Monday night.

President Donald Trump said on Twitter Monday evening that he had approved a request to declare the fires in California a major disaster, making people affected by the fires eligible for various types of federal government financial support.



I just approved an expedited request for a Major Disaster Declaration for the State of California. Wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on. I am with you all the way. God Bless all of the victims and families affected.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2018

Extremely dry fuels from on-going drought conditions in California, coupled with rugged terrain are presenting firefighters with challenging conditions. The excruciatingly dry conditions with high winds help contribute to the massive and speedy growth of the Camp Fire. Presently, the high winds have abated and fire growth has slowed. Responders from across the country have joined the effort from Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska.

The man who battled the flames to save his corner of Paradise

Paradise (United States) (AFP) - By all accounts, retired carpenter Brad Weldon should have evacuated his home in Paradise as the flames approached.

Surrounded by pine trees and other greenery, with a pile of dry logs at the ready for the winter months, it was a tinderbox.

But Weldon, egged on by his 90-year-old mother who refused to budge, fought back, with only his mother's 26-year-old health care aide to help him.

And against all odds, he won -- while his hometown was largely destroyed by the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive in state history, his house remains.

"We had a choice, we could have left," Weldon, 63, told AFP in front of his home, its trees nearly intact -- but surrounded by the smoldering ashes of his neighbors' homes on all sides.

"We were prepared when we heard the fire was coming, but I couldn't leave my mom," said Weldon, his goatee gray and an American flag bandana on his head.

"She's blind and 90 years old, and pretty much invalid, and she didn't want to go anywhere... So we stayed and fought the fire -- thank God we did."

Weldon and his housemate battled the flames all day Thursday and into the night -- with garden hoses, and then buckets of water they filled from the above-ground swimming pool.

"Scoop and run! We fought with garden hoses for six or seven hours before we had to turn the buckets -- maybe eight hours, I don't know," he explained. "Not bad for two boys!"

- 'Angels everywhere' -

This was not Weldon's first wildfire. He said the family lost their homes more than once to similar infernos during his childhood.

But the Camp Fire ravaging northern California is more intense than most.

So far, at least 48 people have died in the blaze, most of them in Paradise -- population 26,000 -- in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Two more have been killed in a wildfire burning outside Los Angeles.

This time, "we were prepared, but not for this," Weldon said.

"The fire was just coming down as fast as it could. All of these houses caught on fire at one time -- it was just a wall of fire all the way around," he explained.

"God helped us -- we had angels everywhere."

Firefighter Norm Kent, who came through the neighborhood to check that all fires were doused, could hardly believe what he was seeing on Weldon's property.

"It's amazing -- it's very brave in a way but at the same time, I'm sure he went through a high level of risk, trying to save" his house, Kent said.

"I'm glad to see they made it -- everyone's ok."

Even the trees on Weldon's property and the wood pile survived the fire.

- 'We should be good' -

Now that the worst seemed to have passed, what will Weldon, his elderly mother and the young man who takes care of her do?

"I don't know where we are going to go from here -- we'll be here though," Weldon admits. "I've built hundreds of houses but I wouldn't have the heart to start over."

"It isn't called Paradise for no reason," he says. "I call it home."

Weldon says he will need more food and gasoline soon, adding that local authorities have advised the family to leave, and warned them that if they do, they might be not allowed back in.

"They can't prevent you from staying, but they can stop you from going back!" Weldon says.

For now, he figures they have a week's worth of supplies and can make it through the emergency.

But he is concerned about living in the burnt-out hellscape of Paradise, which is located about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of the state capital Sacramento, with no other living souls around.

"Scary, this is a ghost town," he said.

To fill the silent air, Weldon blasts rock music from a stereo system powered by the generator humming in front of his home.

"Around here, it's very desolate at the moment," he says. "Music is always uplifting to the spirit and it helps everyone through bad times."

PG&E Faces Historic Financial Liability From California Wildfire

Corporations have been held financially responsible for environmental disasters in the past, but nothing compares to California real estate.

By Alan Neuhauser, Staff Writer Nov. 16, 2018,
U.S. News & World Report



PG&E disclosed that it had experienced damage to a transmission tower near the origin of the Camp Fire. (Noah Berger/AP)

California's electric utility is facing historic financial liability if it's deemed responsible for a deadly wildfire ravaging Northern California, but a lifeline from the state Friday suggested that it just may be taxpayers who help foot the bill.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. this week disclosed that it had "experienced an outage" and damage to a transmission tower near the origin one of the largest of several fires burning in Northern and Southern California, the Camp Fire. The incident was apparently reported to the utility mere minutes before the blaze started.

PG&E's disclosure, contained in a regulatory filing, sent shockwaves through a state already reeling from the toll and magnitude of the blazes, which have blanketed much of it in acrid smoke. Under California law, if investigators determine that PG&E's equipment contributed to the fires, the utility could be on the hook for billions of dollars even if authorities conclude it wasn't negligent.

Damages could reach as much as $6.8 billion or even $15 billion, according to assessments by Moody's and Citigroup, respectively, amounts far beyond the utility's insurance coverage and the cash it has on hand.

"These numbers that we're seeing out of California – there's no other way to describe it – are orders of magnitude bigger than anything else that we've seen," says Noah Hall, law professor at Wayne State University. "The reality is that these wildfires are hitting private property, whereas a lot of the other disasters have wiped out water resources like the Gulf of Mexico or salmon fisheries. In terms of money, that doesn't compare to California real estate."

Comparisons with other environmental disasters, such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 or the spill from the Exxon Valdez in 1989, are difficult to draw. Certain laws, for example, apply only to environmental impacts on the ocean. BP, however, ended up paying more than $25 billion in civil damages claims related to the Deepwater Horizon debacle.

"When there's a large corporate actor, if they're seen as primarily responsible for widespread damage of all sorts arising from environmental impact, the BP case shows that you can end up being responsible for" significant damages, says Heidi Li Feldman, a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

In disclosing the outage at the transmission tower, she adds, PG&E might be seeking to avoid one area of liability incurred by BP, which was accused of not sharing material information with investors and hit with a civil penalty of $525 million.

The Camp Fire is the deadliest and most destructive in state history, with at least 63 people dead and 600 people missing as of Friday morning. The Woolsey Fire in the southern part of the state, meanwhile, has left at least three people dead. All told, the season's conflagrations in California have scorched close to 1.7 million acres – an area larger than Delaware.

PG&E holds an insurance policy providing coverage of just $1.4 billion through next July, and it has only another $3.6 billion in cash. With more than 10,000 homes destroyed, it faces claims from thousands of homeowners and home insurance companies, as well as wrongful death lawsuits. The utility could also face civil fines, although experts say such a penalty would be surprising.

"The Public Utilities Commission is extremely unlikely to assess the penalty, because what the PUC is concerned about is avoiding a utility bankruptcy," says Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Woods Institute at Stanford Law.

The head of the state's Public Utilities Commission signaled Friday that regulators wouldn't let the utility go bankrupt. The remarks caused shares of PG&E's parent company to bounce back after they'd tumbled to their lowest point in 15 years as investors reckoned with the prospect of bankruptcy.

"It's not good policy to have utilities unable to finance the services and infrastructure the state of California needs," commission President Michael Picker told Bloomberg. "They have to have stability and economic support to get the dollars they need right now."

A law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this year, he added, effectively limits how much in damages PG&E can be assessed: The Public Utilities Commission must factor how much the utility can pay without harming customers. The measure also allows PG&E and other utilities to issue bonds to help pay for damages – instruments that would be backed by surcharges on utilities' customers, but which utilities could spread over a period of decades to help minimize their impact.

The financial fallout will pose tough questions for lawmakers and regulators as they recover from the fires. California is the only state where utilities face a strict liability standard, where they're forced to pay up simply if their equipment causes property damage, regardless whether they acted negligently in maintaining or operating the equipment.

The bill Brown, a Democrat, signed introduced a "reasonableness" standard for wildfires, easing the financial burden for utilities that took steps such as thinning vegetation around power lines. The measure followed an ambitious lobbying campaign by PG&E, which put forward a novel argument that the impacts of climate change – from persistent drought that's turned forests into tinder boxes to fire seasons that have stretched ever longer – had made the state's unique approach impractical and unfair. The new standard, however, doesn't take effect until Dec. 31.

"This is going to become a progressively more serious problem because there will always be sparks," says Michael Gerrard, professor at Columbia Law School and director of the school's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. "As the forests and the wooded areas become ever more flammable – and as more and more population moves into the woodlands – we'll see more damages."

Legal scholars are watching whether PG&E also employs climate change as a defense in court. The approach would mark a reversal – typically it's been plaintiffs who have cited climate change, from crabbers on the West Coast seeking to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for rising ocean temperatures, to a group of young Americans accusing the U.S. government of creating an energy system that's contributing to global warming.

"I have not seen that raised as a defense, although I'm sure there are all sorts of cases raising 'natural' defenses – if I'm driving down the road and I slip because of the ice, how much of it is my fault and how much of it is the ice's fault?" Gerrard says. "It can be increasingly effective as the evidence of climate change's contribution to the fire hazard becomes clearer."

Such an approach – and particularly whether PG&E acted reasonably in the lead-up to the fires – is sure to attract sharp scrutiny from lawmakers, regulators and ratepayers. The utility in 2016 was convicted of six felonies for breaking federal safety laws in connection with the 2010 explosion of a gas pipeline that killed eight people in San Bruno, a suburb outside San Francisco. Among the accusations was that the utility had misled regulators, and it was hit with a $1.6 billion fine – the largest assessed against a U.S. utility – by the state's Public Utilities Commission.

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Utility Stocks Plummet as California…

"Droughts have always happened. Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not an organization has effective systems in place to mitigate the risk," says attorney Mark Farley, who leads the major accident practice at Katten Muchin Rosenman in Houston and who has represented companies in some of the largest industrial accidents in the U.S. "The challenge for PG&E, from a reputational standpoint, is this isn't their first incident. Whether it's wildfires caused by their equipment or the terrible accident at San Bruno, the question that a lot of people are asking is whether or not the organization can be trusted to operate safely."

Such a shift in liability has significant economic implications far removed from wildfires damages, and especially for the insurance sector. Unlike a private company such as BP or Exxon, if an electric utility such as PG&E is freed from paying damages, it's insurers – and perhaps taxpayers in the event of a state bailout – that will find themselves forced to cover the property damages not paid by the utility, with impacts for potential homeowners.

"That has the potential to significantly impact the insurance industry, with the prospect potentially of reduced affordability and availability of homeowners' insurance," says Sean Hecht, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law. "To a certain extent, it's a zero-sum question if we have a fire caused by the utility, if the utility pays or the insurers pay."

It's an area – and a debate – where climate change has fast created a new legal landscape, one that may take months if not years to sort out.

"We might be seeing that they didn't maintain their power lines as well as they should have, but is $6 billion and the lost lives – let's just start with the extent of destruction – was that foreseeable absent climate change? Branches hit electric wires – it doesn't normally burn down the state," Hall says. "If branches hitting electric wires causes that much damage, frankly, we need to rethink running wires everywhere. It can't be simple – if it is that simple, then welcome to the world of climate change."

Alan Neuhauser, Staff Writer

Sure. California will screw over PG&E, while denying them the permits to bury the lines....

Then, when PG&E goes bankrupt, and the state takes it over (screwing the shareholders) they will increase the rates (screwing the customers) to bury the lines...which will never get buried.

And in five or ten years when the NEXT fire happens, the State will NOT BE RESPONSIBLE...it's gluball wormining...

Gov. Jerry the jerk, Brown blasted Trump when he stated that mismanagement of forestry resources played a role in the fires.


Exclusive – Sec. Ryan Zinke Backs Trump: Years of Mismanagement Led to California Fires


19 Nov 2018Washington, DC

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke backed President Donald Trump on the years of forest mismanagement that led to the California fires as Zinke joined Breitbart News Sunday radio with host Amanda House.

He suggested that even photos of the devastation don’t do justice to what it was like to see it in person. Pointing to years of neglect and dead and dying timber, he observed, “It was like a flamethrower of embers shooting through the forests.”

Zinke said many people were unprepared for the fire. He described situations where firefighters were fighting back fire encroaching on commercial buildings with people still inside of them.

He said the area of Paradise may never return to the way it was before the inferno.

“The president is absolutely engaged,” said Zinke. He pointed also to the Sheriff and firefighters who fought the fire while their own homes were in jeopardy.

“Forests need active management,” he went on speaking of beetle kills and drought. “The amount of fuel in the forest is at historic highs.”

“The president is absolutely right. This is as much about mismanagement over time,” said Zinke who pointed to not only the previous administration but that the problem had been “going on for years.” He suggested going “back to prescribed burns late in the season,” removed dead and dying timber, and sustainable harvest. He pointed to Finland and Germany as examples.

He said “radical environmentalists” have filed lawsuits to let “nature take its course” and that these fires are the consequence of allowing nature to do so.

“I will lay this on the foot of those environmental radicals that have prevented us from managing the forests for years and, you know what, this is on them.”

Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News

Rain may hamper search for California wildfire victims

Jonathan Allen, Nick Carey


(Reuters) - Emergency services stepped up their efforts on Monday to find remains of victims of California’s deadliest ever wildfire as nearly 1,000 people remained unaccounted for, but rain expected this week could make that search harder and raise the risk of dangerous mudslides.

The remains of 77 people have been recovered, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office said late on Sunday, as it cut the number of missing to 993 from 1,276.

The number of missing has fluctuated dramatically over the last week as reports have come in from rescue teams in the field. The sheriff’s office said that the number will continue to move up and down as remains are found, more missing reports come in and people who have been reported missing turn up safe.

Some people appear to have been added to the list more than once under variant spellings of their names, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Camp Fire broke out in northern California on Nov. 8 and quickly all but obliterated Paradise, a mountain town of nearly 27,000 people around 90 miles (150 km) north of the state’s capital, Sacramento.

It has burned about 151,000 acres (61,107 hectares) and was 66 percent contained early on Monday, up from 65 percent late on Sunday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

Up to four inches (10 cm) of rain is expected to fall north of San Francisco between late Tuesday and Friday, said Patrick Burke, a forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.

MUDDY, MUSHY MESS

Heavy rain could aid with containing the fire this week, but may also make it harder for teams sifting through ash and dirt looking for bodies.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, founder of the California-based consulting company Identifinders International, said the expected rain will turn the site into a “muddy, mushy mess,” slick with wet ash.

“It’s going to coat things and stick to things and it’s going to make it a lot harder to find remains,” she said. “There’s really nothing that can be done about this. The workers looking for remains are going to be stuck with this.”

Pathologists from the University of Nevada, Reno, worked through the weekend as firefighters peeled back debris, collecting bits of burned bones and photographing everything that might help identify the victims.

The rain also could increase the risk of mudslides.

Heath Hockenberry, the National Weather Service’s fire program leader, said in “high-intensity” fires trees release gas that can form pockets and creates a “very volatile, waxy layer under the soil.”

Meanwhile, the vegetation above ground has been burnt and the root system weakened. Overall, this creates a top layer of soil that is “hydrophobic,” or extremely resistant to water, Hockenberry said.

“Throw a lot of water on that soil then gravity just takes over,” he said.

In a mudslide, the top layer of soil gives way, carrying boulders with it downhill at up to 35 miles per hour (56 kph), he said.

The storm, which is expected to carry moderate winds of about 15 to 20 mph (24-32 kph), could also cause problems for evacuees, hundreds of whom are sheltering in tents and cars.

The number of people in need of shelter is not clear, but as many as 52,000 people had been ordered to evacuate.

Four hundred miles (644 km) south of Sacramento near Malibu, at least two inches of rain are expected to fall on a second fire, the Woolsey. Known to have killed three people, it was 94 percent contained on Monday morning and full containment was expected by Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Malibu’s power supply was cut off on Monday to allow for repairs, the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office said.

The cause of both fires is under investigation, but electric utilities reported localized equipment problems around the time they broke out.

PG&E Corp (PCG.N) has said it could face liability that exceeds its insurance coverage if its equipment were found to have caused the Camp Fire.