Fire scorches 600 acres in Santa Cruz Mountains

High winds whipped through the Santa Cruz Mountains on Sunday morning, fueling a 600-acre wildfire that broke out about 3 a.m. in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains in an area drenched by rain less than two weeks ago.

[Good job]

Many thanks to the fire fighters and all public safety personnel involved in this. Nice work.

[come on already]

Is a map to much to ask for?

[realitybytes]

Can we use a wood chipper and mulch this stuff?

[Carl Bendix]

Hard to get good help these days.
Who's supervising these inmate workers?

[disabuser]

Battalion Chief Ken McGeever of Santa Clara Fire confirmed the activity, saying, "Yes, they were up in this area doing some pile burning."

Who is authorized to make the decision to do such burning?

[protect yourself]

Who's the nutcase that keeps appearing on the tv news blaming Calfire for starting all of this? I hipe the police are taking a real close look at him.

[Aptos Resident]

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incident...

Apparently, there is 1 injury.

I'm having a flash back of 1989, is anyone else? I grew up on Loma Prieta.

[Aptos Resident]

Why Would Cal Fire be there at 3am doing pile burning? And if they DID start the fire, don't you think they'd be equipped to put the fire out quickly?

[kate]

Now CDF/CalFire is in the business of starting fires?
Nice work.

Support your local volunteer fire departments, they live where you do.

[Carl Bendix]

Aptos Resident wrote:

Why Would Cal Fire be there at 3am doing pile burning? And if they DID start the fire, don't you think they'd be equipped to put the fire out quickly?

They finished for the day and left the piles smoldering or failed to completely extinguish them before they left.

[Aptos Resident]

Carl Bendix wrote:

<quoted text>They finished for the day and left the piles smoldering or failed to completely extinguish them before they left.

I assume they work a regular work day, normal hours? If so, they would get off say at 5, how could the fire "start" almost 12 hours later? It wouldn't take that long.

[dosido]

Aptos Resident wrote:

<quoted text>I assume they work a regular work day, normal hours? If so, they would get off say at 5, how could the fire "start" almost 12 hours later? It wouldn't take that long.

A fire can burn/smolder for DAYS, even traveling under the top surfaces to erupt farther away.
That's how the Oakland fire started--and burned 3,500 residences (firefighters left a hillside fire too soon that they thought was out).
That's how the Point Reyes Vision fire started--days later after an illegal campfire was supposedly out--and burned over 13,000 acres.

[Coulrophobia]

come on already wrote:

Is a map to much to ask for?

Yeah, that's been bothering me, too.

[Coulrophobia]

protect yourself wrote:

Who's the nutcase that keeps appearing on the tv news blaming Calfire for starting all of this? I hipe the police are taking a real close look at him.

There are two people who have appeared on the news and been quoted in the papers making that accusation. One of them is claiming (in the SF Chronicle) that he lost a $70k solar system, but he is reportedly living in a trailer because his house burned down last year. He had his stuff in sheds, which burned down, so he is twice cursed, and I feel very sad for him. But that valuation of a solar system makes me suspicious. Planning to sue CalFire, perhaps?

[dosido]

More on the Oakland fire--how professional firefighters left a 5-acre fire they thought was out....:
The fire started on Saturday, October 19, 1991, from an incompletely extinguished grass fire in the Berkeley Hills northeast of the intersection of California State Routes 24 and 13 (0.5 mi (0.8 km) north of the Caldecott Tunnel east portal).
Firefighters fought the 5-acre (20,000 m2) fire on a steep hillside above 7151 Buckingham Blvd., and by Saturday night they thought everything was under control.
The fire re-ignited shortly before 11:00 am on Sunday, October 20. It re-started as a brush fire and rapidly spread southwest driven by wind gusts up to 65 mi (100 km) per hour. It quickly overwhelmed local and eventually regional firefighting resources.
By 11:30 a.m., the fire had spread to the nearby Parkwoods Apartments located next to the Caldecott Tunnel. Shortly before noon the fire had been blown up to the top of Hiller Highlands to the west from where it began its sweep down into the Hiller Highlands development and the southern hills of Berkeley. The fire tossed embers from the burning houses and vegetation into the air as it went. These embers were swept away by the torrid winds only to float back to earth to start the blaze in new locations.
Half an hour later, these embers enabled the fire to jump across both Highway 24, an eight-lane freeway, and Highway 13, a four-lane freeway, eventually igniting hundreds of houses in the Forest Park neighborhood on the northwest edge of the Montclair district and in the upper Rockridge Neighborhood.

[dosido]

More on the Point Reyes Vision Fire:

On October 1, 1995, four boys went camping at a secret campground on the slopes of Mount Vision. Before they left the camp site, they threw water on their camp fire and then covered it with sand. They thought they had been responsible campers. THREE DAYS LATER, hot dry winds fanned the still- smoldering ashes, which burst into flames.

What do these three fires have in common? OCTOBER--DRY CONDITIONS--A FIRE THAT IS SUPPOSEDLY OUT--HIGH WINDS.

[Santa Cruz Native]

kate wrote:

Now CDF/CalFire is in the business of starting fires?
Nice work.
Support your local volunteer fire departments, they live where you do.

Quite an accusation. I feel that we need to wait for more facts before we jump all over Calfire. At this point in time, I think of every firefighter on the lines as heroes. Yes, a controlled burn can, and they have in the past, gotten away from firefighters. As others have said, smoldering embers can last for days which is why firefighters are so concerned with completely putting out fires and turning over hot spots.

Let's just support these men and woman in their current battle and wait until we get all the information before we try and hang blame on anyone.

[Carl Bendix]

Aptos Resident wrote:

<quoted text>I assume they work a regular work day, normal hours? If so, they would get off say at 5, how could the fire "start" almost 12 hours later? It wouldn't take that long.

That's when the wind kicked up enough to make it happen, presumably.

[Guest-2 -not in Napa]

Calfire incident page sez: acreage reduced to 485 (due to better mapping they say):
Updated at 3:00 pm

Loma Fire
Location: Area of Maymens Flat - Highland Road, Eureka Canyon and Ormsby
Administrative Unit: CAL FIRE Santa Cruz Unit
Status/Notes: 485 acres - 20% containment
Reduction in acreage due to better mapping.

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incident...
Road Updates: Highland Way, Maymen Flats, Ormsby Cutoff and Summit Road at Soquel/San Jose Rd, Loma Prieta, Mt. Madonna, Spanish Ranch Road open to residents only with proper identification.
North to northwest winds expected tonight through Wednesday.

TV says that evacuations are lifted.(I dont' know if that's 100% of evacuations lifted.)