This Is Not Good....

[Lord Jim]

Yosemite fire is 'highest priority' in nation

SAN FRANCISCO — A massive fire burning near Yosemite National Park continued its spread Sunday. More campgrounds were evacuated and firefighters worked to protect ancient giant sequoia groves. The fire was within a mile of the reservoir that supplies water to more than 2.6 million people in the San Francisco Bay area.

The Rim Fire reached almost 143,980 acres Sunday and was "very active on its eastern side," said Johnny Miller, an information officer with the unified fire command directed by Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service.

STORY: Region is choking on air worse than Beijing

The towns of Tuolumne and Mi-Wuk Village and smaller communities between them were under voluntary evacuation Sunday, said Dick Fleishman with the U.S. Forest Service. Evacuation advisories were lifted for Pine Mountain Lake and Buck Meadows. "We still have homes that are risk," he said. An evacuation center was set up in the Sonora, Calif. for those who left their homes.

Local ham radio operators were providing community information in Sonora, Calif., where evacuees were being fed and housed. Carol Logue, with the Tuolumne County Amateur Radio Electronics Society, volunteered Sunday. She said the the smell of the fire was all around. "There's so much smoke it's really hard on people's lungs," she said. "You can get on the hilltops around here and see the fires."

Nearly 3,414 firefighters are battling the blaze, some from as far away as Florida, and more are being drafted to help, Miller said. As of 7 p.m. local time Sunday, the fire was 7% contained.

"It's the highest priority fire in the country right now because of its location, because Yosemite National Park is at risk. It's not just a national treasure, it's a world treasure," Fleishman said.

There were dozens of smaller fires burning across the West, officials said. The largest was the Beaver Creek Fire in Idaho, which has scorched 111,387 acres. It is now over 90% contained, according to the federal fire tracking site InciWeb.

California Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for San Francisco because the fire also threatens the city's water and electrical infrastructure.

"It's within a mile of Hetch Hetchy if not less," Miller said. Much of the San Francisco Bay area gets its water from the reservoir behind O'Shaughnessy dam. The famously pure water travels 160 miles entirely through gravity-fed pipes.

Officials don't have a clear idea of how Hetch Hetchy is faring, Medema said. An incident commander flew near the area Sunday morning but the smoke was so thick that the crew was unable to see the reservoir or surrounding area.

As of Sunday evening there had been no damage to the reservoir and the water was still clear and clean, despite fears that ash could fall into the reservoir and contaminate the water. "The turbidity levels are fine," said Fleishman, referring to a measurement of particles in the water.

If the reservoir were to be compromised the area would be able to get water from other nearby reservoirs owned by other counties with which it has emergency agreements, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission said in a statement Sunday.

A secondary concern is the power generated by the dam, which creates the reservoir. It generates hydroelectric power used for some municipal buildings in the city, including San Francisco International Airport and San Francisco General Hospital.

The system has three powerhouses, two of which were taken offline Saturday because of possible fire damage. Repair crews begin making preliminary repairs to Kirkwood Hydroelectric Powerhouse on Sunday and are conducting additional damage inspections, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission The third, Moccasin powerhouse, was still generating power Sunday, according to the Utilities Commission website.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... o/2696681/

[Big RR]

This is starting to look pretty scary; hopefully, things will turn around.

[rubato]

At least its not due to the global warming which is not happening. Just ask Boehner and Ryan. So we'll never have a fire year like this again.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

~sigh~

Into each thread a little pointless idiocy must fall....

Or in other words, "rubato happens"....

[oldr_n_wsr]

I hope they get it under control soon and that all those involved in fighting the fire are safe and suffer no injuries or worse.

[Gob]

Me too O-n-W.

[kristina]

The International Space station flew over the fire a few hours ago...

photo here: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... re/279068/

the weatherman was hinting this morning that there might be chance of showers later in the week...keep your fingers crossed!

[Lord Jim]

Well, 15% is better than 7...

So far there's been no loss of life....

Rim Fire update: Huge wildfire raging near Yosemite is 15 percent contained

By Brian Skoloff and Tracie Cone, Associated Press

TUOLUMNE CITY, Calif. (AP) -- Crews working to contain one of California's largest-ever wildfires gained some ground Monday against the flames threatening San Francisco's water supply, several towns near Yosemite National Park and historic giant sequoias.

Containment of the Rim Fire more than doubled to 15 percent, although it was within a mile of the park's Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, the source of San Francisco's famously pure drinking water, officials said Monday.

"Obviously, it's the water supply of the city of San Francisco, so we're paying a lot of attention to that," said Glen Stratton, an operations section chief on the fire.

San Francisco water authorities were scrambling to fill area reservoirs with water from Hetch Hetchy before ash taints supplies, said Harlan Kelly Jr., general manager of the city's Public Utilities Commission. The city is able to move water more quickly out of Hetch Hetchy because of a recent multibillion-dollar improvement to the piping system.

Ash from the 234-square-mile fire has been falling on the reservoir, but so far hasn't sunk far enough into the lake to reach intake pumps, Kelly said. Water quality remained good on Monday.

San Francisco gets 85 percent of its water from Hetch Hetchy as well as power for municipal buildings, the international airport and San Francisco General Hospital. The threat to the city's utilities prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency for San Francisco.

Kelly said the city has a six-month supply of water on hand. If ash eventually causes turbidity, it will have to filter supplies, although he was unsure how much that would cost.

The agency also was checking 12 miles of hydroelectric transmission lines that supply city facilities with power. An emergency declaration has allowed the city to spend $600,000 for power on the open market.

The fire also posed a threat to giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park. Crews were using sprinklers and lighting fires to clear brush, though the fire remained several miles from the massive trees, Stratton said.

Another part of the fire that is also burning into the park was not of major concern because it was running into rocks that are not heavily forested, Stratton said.

The governor planned to visit a fire base camp on Monday to meet with state and federal emergency officials. Brown spoke Sunday to President Barack Obama, who reiterated his commitment to providing needed federal resources, according to the White House.

While it has closed some backcountry hiking, the fire has not threatened Yosemite Valley, where such sights as the Half Dome and El Capitan rock formations and Bridalveil and Yosemite falls draw throngs of tourists. Most of the park remained open to visitors. Park spokesman Scott Gediman said Monday morning he was not aware of any additional threats to the park overnight.

The U.S. Forest Service said about 4,500 structures were threatened by the fire. At least 23 structures have been destroyed, though officials have not determined whether they were homes or rural outbuildings.

Additional personnel brought in to help raised the total number of firefighters to more than 3,600 on Monday, said state fire spokesman Daniel Berland.

"Our containment doubled overnight, but there's still a lot of work to be done," Berlant said.

That work included constructing contingency lines near communities north of the blaze, he said.

Firefighters were aided by movement of the blaze into less forested areas, higher humidity and cooler temperatures caused at least in part by the shadow cast by the large plume of smoke, national forest and fire officials said. But winds were expected to pick up again and reach as high as 25 mph, Berlant said.

The fire, which began Aug. 17, has moved up to 13th on the list of the state's largest wildfires since 1932, according the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The agency doesn't list earlier fires because those records are less reliable. The largest fire of the modern era burned 427 square miles of San Diego County in 2003.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-new ... r-yosemite

[dales]

~sigh~

Into each thread a little pointless idiocy must fall....

Or in other words, "rubato happens"....

Indeed, there's a lot of "rubato" left in the dog park.

[Guinevere]

I have to admit to having mixed feelings about this fire, and the efforts to contain it. Obviously, I don't want anyone to get hurt but, the Hetchy Hetchy should never have been dammed -- it was a lovely little canyon, originally part of Yosemite, and required special federal authorization to allow building the dam. The fight was one of the Sierra Club's first forays into advocacy and lobbying, and as a group still are advocating for the restoration of the valley.

Fires are natural occurrences, and part of natural forest life cycles. The National Parks Act has created a centuries old problem by not allowing fires to burn, because without regular smaller fires, the forests end up overloaded with old wood and debris, which turns smaller fires that could be successfully "managed" (to the extent man can ever truly manage a forest fire) into super fires. The Wilderness Act was originally intended to require minimal management of forest fires, but even those areas are heavily "managed" with respect to fires, and too many fires are suppressed, further exacerbating the problem.

Obviously, San Francisco is dependent on the water from the Hetchy Hetchy, but it is well past time for thinking about a different long-term solution to the problem.

[dales]

What is "Hetchy Hetchy"?

[Lord Jim]

it is well past time for thinking about a different long-term solution to the problem.

Well, I couldn't agree less..

It's one of the best things about the place; that High Sierra snow melt is the best drinking water I've ever had...as good or better than anything you can buy in a bottle...

It would be nice to have at least one thing in this city that didn't get screwed up by some hand-wringing do-gooder ninnies....

The hell with the "lovely little canyon"...It's not like there isn't plenty of nature there to enjoy without it.

Let them go turn the neighborhoods of the Sierra Club Lobbyists into lovely little canyons...

[Joe Guy]

We're dammed if we do and damned if we don't.

We like our water the way it is and it's a very good long term "solution" to whatever that nonexistant problem is for some people.

[Guinevere]

it is well past time for thinking about a different long-term solution to the problem.

Well, I couldn't agree less..

It's one of the best things about the place; that High Sierra snow melt is the best drinking water I've ever had...as good or better than anything you can buy in a bottle...

It would be nice to have at least one thing in this city that didn't get screwed up by some hand-wringing do-gooder ninnies....

The hell with the "lovely little canyon"...It's not like there isn't plenty of nature there to enjoy without it.

Let them go turn the neighborhoods of the Sierra Club Lobbyists into lovely little canyons...

Whoosh.

[Lord Jim]

I'm sorry Guin, I should have realized you were being sarcastic...

I'm sure you're far too sensible to actually take a lame brained idea like eliminating the Hetch Hetchy seriously.