I feel sick thinking of the people in California having to deal with the fires.

The camp fire....why is it called that? Did it start from someone's camp fire?

Beautiful picture in a very scary way. Stay safe! I am so sorry for everybody affected. I am really admiring all the fire fighters.

I didn't know so had to look it up. "The Camp Fire in Butte County followed the same trend, having started on Camp Creek Road. "

How wildfires get their names. Here is an article explaining that.

caflowerluvr, I'm anything BUT a tree spotter, but are those eukes (eucalyptus)?

marilyn, if fire is in one's own neighborhood, the experience is terrifying, tragic, and even potentially life threatening, of course. But it's a small number of people who are affected.

Eucalyptus is such an oily tree that when it burns it's like someone poured gasoline on it. Lovely tree, terrible with fires.

That is an amazing photo, caflowerluver. It's a shame it's taken under such tragic circumstances.

I feel for you regarding the smoke. We choked on smoke all this summer and the summer before that and the summer before that. It's getting to where I can't recall a summer/fall that hasn't been tainted by smoke.

These are photos I took last year - we call it the summer that wasn't.

This is ash that landed on our deck from several miles away. Flying embers are one of the ways these fires get so big and out of control. They can travel 1/4 mile to a mile in the wind and start new fires ahead of the original. Makes it really hard for fire fighters to get the upper hand.

These are from this summer:

caflowerluver, my apologies for so many photos. I'm not trying to hijack your thread; it's just that I always have a hard time deciding which photos to post and usually end up posting too many.

I hope your air quality improves soon. This isn't something we expect to deal with this time of year. If it would only rain...

marilyn, if fire is in one's own neighborhood, the experience is
terrifying, tragic, and even potentially life threatening, of course.
But it's a small number of people who are affected.

Elmer, I have to disagree with your last sentence above.

38,000 people evacuated during the early days of the Carr fire, eight people died and 1000+ homes were destroyed.

The Camp fire has killed 23 people as of the latest update a few minutes ago, forced 52,000 to evacuate and destroyed 6500 homes and 200 businesses.

This is just in N. Cal. There are also thousands affected in S. Cal and two dead last I heard.

I'd hardly call these small numbers of people.

dawn, you know the population of California is nearly 40 million people. Of the counties north of San Luis Obispo to the Oregon border, 15 million. Every person injured or killed that you mention in your numbers is a terrible human tragedy but these are small numbers compared to the total.

Hurricane Katrina - almost 2000 people killed or missing, tens of thousands of homes destroyed.

When Minnesota, or Illinois or Missouri or Ohio or many other places have a major snow or ice storm , millions of people are inconvenienced and threatened. Every time a hurricane is forecast to come ashore somewhere along the Gulf coast, hundreds of thousands and millions of people are at risk and dozens die. These fire numbers, by comparison and even more so as a percentage, are small. If you don't think so, fine.

I'm not saying these aren't terrible events. What I'm saying is for a kindly person from another state who's concerned for people in California, my response was, it's a small number who are affected.

But when you add in the smoke been blown into areas not directly affected by the fires, you do wind up with millions affected. Being affected by smoke from wildfires as we were this summer and last year for weeks on end, not seeing the sky, smelling the smoke, living with irritated eyes, for many not able to go outside because they have compromised immune systems, for me not being able to run everyday - yes millions are affected healthwise.

I side with Elmer on this one. He's just being a realist. More people are killed on the nation's highways on any given day than from any natural disaster. Over a dozen people have been killed locally in the last two weeks in vehicle related incidents.

The air quality is pretty bad down here and we are several hours away from the fire. A friend of mine who lives farther north than me and who struggles with chronic illnesses drove over 3 hours each way with her horse trailer today to offer assistance with rescue and bring feed to those horses rescued in the area. Her small caravan was diverted to the fairgrounds but the food was welcome. People in the area are really pulling together. She posted one pic of a young cowboy up there who was working alongside everyone pulling his own weight and lending a hand where needed among the adults. He looks to be around 9, wearing a tin star and packing a pistol. LOL I'm sure he's affected too but he is working, not complaining about missing out on activities he might rather be doing.

Yes the trees are Eucalyptus. They are my neighbor's trees. We cut all of ours down because they are such a fire hazard. And they fall down during winter storms, shallow roots.

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts.

Those fires sound awful. The sun/moon is pretty, but that must be so much smoke and so many fires happening to result in that color. Praying for everyone effected by the fires.

blfenton, by the time the smoke passes, it will have been just a few smoky days in the Bay Area, not a week and not weeks on end. Between here and where the fire is is not heavily populated (except for Sacramento). In SoCal, the Malibu fire and its inland predecessor spread quickly in a southerly direction PRECISELY because of very strong southerly winds (typical of this time of year) which blew the smoke out to sea. If that condition changes, the area will get smoky.

In the south, the burned areas are brush and chapparal shrub, not tree forests as you know in BC and other parts of the Pac NW. It burns out pretty quickly. Same is true to a lesser extent with the Camp fire, there are areas of trees but nothing I'd consider to be true forest. Also burns through pretty quickly, especially with the wind.

I don't want to diminish the gravity of these situations nor the tragedies they've caused but neither should they be blown out of proportion. Millions are not adversely affected health-wise.

The haze from this fire is expected to reach here on the East coast on Thursday.

23 dead. Such a tragedy.

What a terrible, terrible thing going on. I am so sorry and can't imagine trying

to deal with this. Sorry, but I can't believe that anyone thinks it is a small

tragedy. The lack of empathy stuns me. If it isn't your own loss...does that

make it meaningless?

I realize it is a "small" number of people affected over all. That is why I said "the people having to deal with".

"Sorry, but I can't believe that anyone thinks it is a small tragedy. The lack of empathy stuns me. If it isn't your own loss...does thatmake it meaningless?"

Whether you did or didn't understand what I said and why is up to you and doesn't matter to me. But by expressing your misunderstanding, you're spreading a different sense and meaning to my words and my views that I didn't intend or say myself.

The loss of any human life in a catastrophic situation is devastating. Somehow our shock increases relative to the number of deaths as well as the horror of the tragedy. Maybe that's just the way we work, who knows. The loss of lives during Hurricane Kristina was almost incomprehensible.

My son nearly lost his home in the Thomas Fire in Ventura. Fires are like monsters approaching. I feel so sorry for anyone caught up in them.

The photos are very moving. My CA friends have been told to wear masks outdoors.

I'm about 200 miles south of the Camp fire and as I type this I can see a peek of a blue sky for the first time in a few days because of a wind shift, but that will change in a couple of hours. There is ash covering everything.

My prayers go out to those affected and to the tireless efforts of our firefighters and responders.

This is what Alberta summers have looked like the past several years from all the forest fires from British Columbia.

We live less than 90 miles from the fire area, and the air around here is horrible. Yesterday the air quality rating was "hazardous." Today it's a little better.

One of my husband's brothers owned and lived in a home in Paradise on Country Club Drive. Thankfully for my brother-in-law, his wife, and our nephews, they sold and moved away several years ago. The house is now a pile of ashes.

The fire around Paradise is starting to get under control with the help of decreased winds. Very sadly, the death count is climbing and probably will continue to as some percentage of the many dozens of people now listed as "missing" may have lost their lives to the fire but have simply not been located yet. I think I read it's the deadliest fire in California history, a sad record to hold.

The haze was thinner today at my location, nearly 200 miles farther away than lindsey, and it's expected to be better yet tomorrow.

Maybe we live further apart than I thought, Elmer, because I heard on the news last night that this will last through the week. When I'm tempted to complain, I remind myself of the people who lost their lives, relatives and/or homes.

I based it on this. Maybe the summary is a bit too optimistic, because I too saw they said the dissipation would be over the coming few days.

My whole trigger on this particular issue was the people who spoke emotionally about months worth of smoky weather, millions of people adversely affected, yada yada yada. What's expected is that it will come and go within less than one week, with the major population area hazy with smoke in the air. but not that significantly affected. Bay Area hospitals have not been overrun by smoke victims, much as some would suggest was the case.

National Weather Service SJ Airport

There's nothing emotional about it; smoky conditions that last for weeks and months really do happen. Where I live, we have suffered from weeks and months of smoke in the past.

This year it was the entire month of August and into September.

The smoke photos I posted above are from last summer - I don't recall how long that went on, but it was awful.

A few years ago, a fire started in June and burned through October. When the kids started school in August, most of their recesses were held indoors due to smoke until it finally rained in October. That was on the orders of the Air Quality Board who FAX'd the school an notice of whether or not the students could be held outside.

We've had no smoke from the Camp Fire but others locations are experiencing it.

UC Davis has cancelled classes in both Davis and Sacramento today because of the air quality. How long that will last remains to be seen.

It's especially difficult for those with respiratory problems, the elderly and children and they truly do suffer because of the smoke

There's nothing emotional about it; it's what really happens. Some places get no smoke, some have smoke for a few days and others are literally socked in for weeks and months at a time. Just because the Bay area isn't affected, doesn't minimize how others are affected even though they are not in major population centers.

edits for clarity

The most important thing to say is that the Camp fire is a terrible thing of unprecedented damage and suffering.

You've paid no more attention to your own words than to mine. Wish as you might, your imagining what's going on in areas far from you is off the mark. There have been no news reports of spikes of elderly and children seeking medical care. Does it happen because you say so?

Your past comments suggest you live in a forested area in the far north of California or in mountain foothills, because you've said it's very hot in the summer and snowy in the winter. A lightly populated area, in any event. Anyone who lives in or near a Western US forest has to expect fires and poor air quality. As Governor Brown said last week, massive fires are the new normal. Personally, if I were living somewhere where the air was predictably unhealthy, as it can be near forests or even in much of the Central Valley, I'd move. If you stay, you accept the risk and the resulting problems. Regularly smoky conditions for anything more than the few days we've had here would cross the line for me.

The conversation continues to go sideways with misunderstandings and emoting. I hope the fires are soon out and that the human and animal sufferings can be limited and come to an end.

I've been complaining about all the cold and rain we've gotten all Summer and now Fall. Although, I hate the cold and am tired of the rain, I'm thankful for it too. So many missing, probably elderly or those who couldn't leave quickly enough. So sad.

I agree, it's an awful disaster. I didn't know about it before but Paradise apparently had a higher than normal number of retirees and older folks. Some of whom understandably were more vulnerable and less able to react to escape a quick moving fire fanned by very high winds.

At times the fire was moving at the rate of a football field (100 yards) per second. Difficult for folks of all ages and fitness levels to escape. And you have to realize that there are only four roads out of Paradise, none of which are equipped to handle massive traffic fleeing a disaster.

I think there's a bit of embellishment or math error there - 100 yards per second is 200 miles per hour. The wind was blowing 50-60 miles per hour as i recall hearing, so that's 75% slower than the figure you state. It's fast enough all the same.

Elmer, I don't make things up or embellish. I just repeated what was reported on several news stations, as well as by CalFire. Because you apparently don't already know this, please be advised that fires do not need wind to advance.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/09/us/california-wildfires-superlatives-wcx/index.html

I didn't say you were the source. News reports are notorious for taking off the cuff or unsupported BS comments and passing them along as if grounded in fact. I often dealt with reporters and they were much too quick to jump to conclusions even over the more mundane stuff they talked to me about but still misunderstood.

Glenda, give it a rest.

You've paid no more attention to your own words than to mine. Wish as
you might, your imagining what's going on in areas far from you is off
the mark.

I know exactly what I've said and I'm not imagining anything.

There have been no news reports of spikes of elderly and children seeking medical care.

Please don't take my words out of context. I never said there was a spike in the elderly or children seeking medical care. This is what I said: It's especially difficult for those with respiratory problems, the elderly and children and they truly do suffer because of the smoke. If you don't believe me, google it and see what NOAA, the CDC and the American Lung Association have to say about exposure to wildfire smoke.

The rest of your post doesn't even warrant a response.

The death toll of the Camp Fire now stands at 48, but I guess those deaths are a small number of people affected because they happened in a small town not a large population center.

There's no point in continuing this conversation (for lack of a better word), so I'm out. My apologies to caflowerluver for my part in her thread going south and to anyone else who has been made uncomfortable by this exchange.

What was not done that could have been done? Is there A PLAN, going forward?

Grand daughter's school district has made the call to close all schools tomorrow due to the bad air quality. They have been operating under "rainy day" standards keeping the children inside as much as possible all week. Unlike during past fires the Bay Area skies are showing no sign of clearing. This fire may be hundreds of miles away but this one is affecting many more than similar fires in the past.