Check in please!!

Alfi, you didn't check in after the last one!  Check in now!!

Hi Jen - - golly, and here I thought I'd checked in.  Oh well - -

Aren't there new fires raging?

50,000 people evacuated as deadly flames destroy hundreds of buildings

More than 50,000 people have been evacuated in Northern California bushfires that have killed six, including two children and their great-grandmother, as fire crews battled on to quell flames that have destroyed entire neighbourhoods.

Officials said a second firefighter, who died fighting a huge blaze near Yosemite National Park, was among the six confirmed deaths.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Lynne Tolmachoff said on Sunday (local time) that 12,000 firefighters were battling 17 significant fires in California.

She said the state had experienced considerably more fire activity this year than it did over the same period of time last year, with the worst part of the fire season still to come.

The Carr fire, the deadliest and most destructive of nearly 90 fires burning from Texas to Oregon, has charred 36,095 hectares of drought-parched vegetation since erupting last Monday.

Yes, there are.  And not only in California, but throughout the West.  Many of those fires are the result of arson.

Tragic situation all around!

From my front door, usually I can look to the west and see the eastern face of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range.  For the past two weeks and more, we haven't been able to see it at all, and it's only about 9 miles (about 14.5 Km) away.  Not even a hint through the dull brownish-gray haze.  And our eyes are beginning to be irritated.

We don't deny weather and climate change, just debate humanity's contribution to it.

Hi, here in France we saw this on the news, tragedy of course, all these people flying their homes, and these poor ones dead this way, the global warming has got its incidence and arsonists play with the fact it's not been raining for too long a time in these places.... where I live in southwest France we have hot weather during July and August mostly, sometimes it begins in June already, predictions for next Saturday are 100.5 F, 38 C in Bordeaux, there are people in the Landes forest who make surveys of the fire condition on towers, I wonder if such could be done in California but as I visited in 2012 from Vegas to San Diego throught Death Valley, Yosemite, San Francisco and then all the way down on 101, I don't really think so, the topography wouldn't allow it .... I think of all the people having to undergo these conditions, my heart goes to you all

Predicted temperature for next Saturday here in my corner of the Mojave Desert is around 110 F (43.3 C,) which for us isn't bad unless the humidity climbs above around 10%, at which time we're simply miserable.  We prefer relative humidity to be well below 5%, but then we chose to live in a desert.  Most people want to stay far away from the heat and the arid conditions.  Makes life relatively peaceful for those of us who love the place for its peace and quiet.

Death Valley is an hours' drive away across a mountain range.  Two weeks ago we were warmer than the valley floor there.  Had our humidity been low, it would have been quite pleasant, but we had a "monsoon" wind bringing awful humidity, so everyone was miserable.  In late August or so, temperatures here can get up to around 120 F (49 C) or above, and when the relative humidity is at 2% or less it's not bad at all.  But of course we're crazy, or at least "normal" folks down by the seashore think so.

While hot, dry summers are wonderful for us in the desert, most of California and the other Western coastal states and the northern tier are not desert, and they desperately need good snowfall and rains every year.  Oh well, historically it seems there have been truly bad periods of drought before, but that was before the white man came to the area.  Some of us will cope or even thrive, but I do feel sorry for those who have lost everything!

RRBud said:

We don't deny weather and climate change, just debate humanity's contribution to it.

HAH!!!

Didn't you say it was arson?!!

At least nine of California's fires are the work of ONE known arsonist who's just recently been arrested.

No, you don't want to know what I'd like to do to such a person!