Southern California Fires

[David]

Here we are, early May and already we in southern California are looking over our shoulders at new wildfires. More than 10,500 acres have already gone up in smoke with more than a dozen homes burned, and up to three dozen other structures destroyed. One person has already been arrested for setting at least one of the fires. What is the matter with these idiots ???

[Martin]

I saw some footage on breakfast TV today. It certainly looks like a frightening area to be in... What sort of sentence do they hand out to the arsonists?

[noel]

when I was in Kefalonia on holiday about 4 years ago the island was blighted with fires that ruined vine groves and destroyed livelehoods. While we were there the culprit was caught. A fire-man who was setting the fires to gain overtime. Unbelievable. I hadn't heard about the California fires, will keep a look out.

[anacortesdamp]

Our local news reported that the fires were started as a result of stupidity rather than arsonic intent. Apparently, someone was towing something behind a pick-up truck that was dragging a steel chain on the road. The resulting sparks set the grassland on fire.

He's being sought for reckless endangerment rather than arson.

Frank

[David]

The weather is helping out today. there is a forecast drop in temperature's to the mid eighties from the mid nineties, and an increase in the humidity. southern California has unusual low relative humidity which makes for a very dry atmosphere, so any increase is like a helping hand to our firefighters.
As a point of interest to our readers, here in the Los Angeles area, we live in what can be best described as a giant open ended basin, some eighty miles in diameter, surrounded by mountains on three sides with the western side, (Pacific Ocean side), open. Just nineteen miles to our north is Mt. San Antonio, rising to a tidy 10,000 feet in the San Gabriel chain, to our west is the San Jacinto range, with Mt San Gorgonio rising to over 11,000 feet, and to the south the Santa Ana range, not quite so high but still well over 5,000 feet. As you can imagine, this is all very rugged terrain and very tough for firefighters to gain access to.

[Guest 01]

How idiotic can people be! As in the incident during the match in Barcelona when a flare was dropped into a rubbish skip.Prompt action by firemen saved a potential catastrophe-remember Bradford where the whole stand went up in flames because of of a dropped cigarette butt.
Idiocy - what about the stupdity of the person running on to the track at the Spanish Grand Prix to protest against King Carlos opening a venue he objected to!
LG