To the fuckwads that started the fire

The BBQ Pit
101

For those that would like to see it, here’s a link to Yahoo! news with an AP story that talks about the prosecutor’s doubts.

Click Here for story

I do have to say that this makes a whole lot more sense than the “I was burning a letter from my ex and it got out of control” story. It just didn’t add up. But I must agree with bristlesage that any sympathy that I might have had for her for an amazingly stupid accidental act has gone out the window.

However…

I no longer find myself just hating her. While I feel that she is completely responsible and should be treated so leagally, I can’t help but view her more with pity than anger. She felt such a need for recognition that she would go to such stupid and dangerous lenghts to get it? That’s just sad.

Of course, if my brother-in-law and his wife have to evacuate, that anger and hate may make a stronger appearance again (not terribly likely, but possible as I understand it).

And again, much sympathy to those of you that are having to live through this.

102

I’d just like to say that my thoughts and prayers are with you all in Colorado. What an absolutely terrible thing to have happen. :frowning: Everyone else has already said what I’d like to post about this woman and her actions, so I won’t waste space saying it again. Suffice to say that I am very :mad: about what she did. Endangering people’s lives and such is not a good thing.

F_X

103

Hearing thunder tonight all…hope it’s raining on the Hayman Fire. They are setting up another command post (three total) for this fire which, according to the media is unprecidented. (Hope I spelled that correctly.)

Another fire started in CO today…hoping that one doesn’t get out of control.

The Missionary Fire is out of control, basically.

I hear that there is a fire where 4,000 had to be evacuated in AZ…I pray they don’t have to go through what we are dealing with. To those AZ Dopers near the fire, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

I am choppy because it was another hot day in C Springs, I am a big whiney person with heat and I can’t think straight. All the while typing this my accuweather.com just scared the shit out of me with it’s thunder sound to alert me of a severe thunderstorm warning that was just issued!

104

Ahh… and the city smells like smoke again! well it does outside my house, atleast.

I haven’t seen any rain, though, and that has me worried.

105

The Arizona fire is gonna be a contender. It’s already up to 48,000 acres, 4000 evacuees from three towns, and another 7000+ on stand-by.

Yuk, this fire season’s gonna suck.

106

Good Lord!

They are reporting that the AZ fire that I commented on last night has grown to 85,000 acres! It wasn’t near that big yesterday.

My thoughts and prayers are going that way even though we are dealing with our own shit here.

This fucking sucks, I have never seen a summer like this, this is fucking insane. I guess I am glad that I live in the city.

Oh and Pathros, they have put Ft. Carson army troops on the Hayman fire to help out. With the weather today (well Thurs.) and a 'sposed good weather day tomorrow, they should make some good progress assuming the winds would die down. The winds were making it difficult for the air attack today. 9 News out of Denver reported earlier tonight that they said the fire wont be out (or something to that nature) until winter. :frowning:

BTW, Tranquilis, this isn’t about who has the biggest fire but what is happening and why. The press was reporting that the AZ fire was also started by humans but they didn’t state how.

This is seriously fucked, seriously. I wish there was more I could do but there’s little I can do. I feel helpless.

107

Why yes… yes it is.

108

Saw some of it in the news tonight. It’s so bad, they pulled off the fire fighters for their safety. They can’t get anywhere near it. It’s even jumping over roads, including a pretty good sized highway - the gusting winds are terrible and not likely to get better. And if that’s not enough, the rainy season is still a few weeks away.

The reason that they didn’t state how, is that they don’t know how. They are saying that it must have been human caused because there was no lightning in the area to have caused it. Since you don’t tend to see too many elk rubbing their horns togeter to light fires, that pretty much narrows it down to people.

What will it take to pound the message into some people’s tiny little pea brains? They’re serious about this no burn thing. And if you smoke, don’t throw your damned butts out the window. I know there are many considerate smokers out there and this is not directed at you, but every time I see someone throw a lit cigarette out of the window (or an unlit one for that matter - but that’s another rant), I want to return it to them, shoved coal end into whatever oriface presents itself first!

Somewhere, Smokey the Bear is crying.

109

I hear the idiot homeowners’ associations are mostly to blame for this. Some of them have decided that their by-laws are more important than what the Government says. “Hey, your lawn’s turning brown! Brown lawns drive down property values and we can’t have that, can we? You’ll have to water it!”
:rolleyes:

110

I just saw on the news that if the two fires in AZ merge, it’ll cover 300,000 acres.

THe haymen fire is only 137,000 (only…pft) and now about 45 percent contained. I realized that since it threatens several military bases, probably will be given more attention than the one in AZ (for the time being.)

111

Lack of a lightning strike doesn’t mean that human activity must have been responsible. I have a very vivid memory of watching a field of dry alfalfa burst into flame one dry summer in Ft.Collins. Just standing there, we saw a small plume of smoke appear in the middle of a field, 200 yards from any structure (a fence, as it happens), and 300 yards from the nearest human (my friend and I). The plume grew into a stream, and then flames burst up where the plume had started. Within 10 minutes, over 15 acres of dry wild alfalfa was burning.

Poof!

techchick, poor phrasing on my part… I meant that the AZ fire is another one that bears watching for destructiveness and rapid expansion.

112

Hey Tranq, how does that work? What sets off a fire like that?

113

Tranquilis,

I was repeating what they said on the news about the cause of the fire. They may have other reasons for assuming that it was human caused, but the news reporters just stated that lack of lightning strikes was their reasoning.

particlewill, I don’t know for sure what he saw, but the fact that it was in a field of alfalfa gives me a good guess. Under certain conditions, organic materials can spontaneously combust. For example, wet hay, if not properly stored, has been known to heat to the point where it will burst into flame. Click here for more information from the National Ag Safety Database. The section on spontaneous combustion is on the bottom. I don’t know if any of the conditions can occur naturally, so it may be that they feel that it was human caused, directly or indirectly. This is only speculation on my part, of course.

114

Sorry, Linus,…This appears to be a day for unclarity on my part. I wasn’t specifically talking aoubt any poster, I was actually addressing the general angle of ‘If there’s no lightning, it must have been caused by human activity’. I saw the same report, and immediately flashed back to that hot July day, and then saw it mentioned again here.

As for the field, it was pretty dry, it hadn’t rained for a week or more. The Alfalfa was still green, but was dying & drying pretty fast, and the temperature was around a 110, no clouds. I suspect that a piece of quartz or some other rock (of which there was a fair bit in the area) managed to concentrate a lot of heat on some dried plant matter. The field was never cultivated in any way, shape, or form (just a random empty plot), and there was a lot of last years dead alfalfa lying on the ground: Plenty o’ fuel.

The firefighters just hosed down the edges of the area where it ran up to roads, and let the rest burn out. They didn’t even bother to try and figure out why it lit, although I could’ve shown them, within 10 feet, where the fire started.

115

No prob, Tranq. it wasn’t really lack of clarity on your part. I just made the assumption that you were addressing my post since I had mentioned the lightning strike issue.

It’s just insane. Just listen to this quote from the Arizona Republic (If anyone cares, you can find out more by going to www.azcentral.com)

They are estimating that when it’s all done, as much as 300,000 acres will be gone. And according to another article, this is one of 19 major fires that have burned over 1.84 million acres this year. The ten year average is 888,000.

Words start to fail at this point.

116

What military bases is the Hayman fire threatening?

Other than the Air Force Academy, Ft. Carson, Pete Field, Cheyenne Mountain Complex and Shriver are far from the fires.

They are setting up the third command post today. This one will focus on El Paso County in the case that the fire does push east/south east. At that point (according to the local paper) the feds are not going to do much because it would not be on public lands, it would be city and county lands.

Scary as shit summer I say. UGH.

I can’t believe how much that AZ fire has grown, my God.

117

Classic description of a firestorm. One of the most destructive phenomina known to man.

Sweet Jesus Have Mercy. :frowning:

118

The two fires here in Arizona, the Rodeo fire, and the Chediski fire, have joined together and have burned approximately 300,000 acres. That’s nearly 475 sqaure miles, an area about the size of Los Angeles. The combined fire is 0% contained and the latest estimates are that it will have destroyed nearly a half a million acres before it’s done.

I’m very proud of the people of my state. Their response has been overwhelming. Donation bins have been filling up. A local grocery chain, Bashas, has set up donation bins and promised to match all donations. The local Red Cross and Salvation Army phones have been jammed with people looking to help.

Even the news media has been reasonably well behaved… until now. I picture the scene down at the local radio station:

Chief Media Whore(CMW):
OK, folks we need to talk about our coverage of the fires ravaging the northeast part of our state. There’s something missing.
Todying Media Whore Underling #1(TMWU1):
What’s missing? It’s got everthing! Human Drama! Heroic fire fighters! Nature unleashed! It’s great!.. Uh, I mean… (robotically)It’s a terrible tragedy that we, sadly, have to report.
Todying Media Whore Underling #2(TMWU2):
What’s missing boss? Can we add sex somehow?
CMW:
I’ll tell you what’s missing! Sure, hundreds of people have lost their homes and thousands more may do so soon. Sure, firefighters have already made a heroic effort to save the homes they did. Sure, the fire still rages out of control and is bound to give us any number of fantastic, uh, I mean “tragic” stories. But damn it, this story hasn’t been given a nickname yet!
(stunned silence)
TMWU1:
How about “firegate”?
CMW:
No, but remember that one. If we can dig up dirt on the Forrest Service, we’ll use it later.
TMWU2:
How about “Arizona Inferno”?
CMW:
Great! Trademark it and get some dramatic music to go with it!

Listen carefully, you semi-literate, microphone humping, bastard heirs to William Randolph Hearst: not every big, ongoing news story or tragedy needs a (supposedly) clever media nickname! Really. People will understand if you just talk about the “Rodeo Fire” (or the Rodeo-Chediski fire now that they’ve merged). No additional color is needed.

It’s small in the grand scheme of things, I know. But it’s a media tendancy that has bugged me for a while and I needed to vent about it.

119

Linus, My thoughts and prayer are on their way to AZ. That is some scary shit I tell you. We’ve burned well over 200,000 acres here this spring/summer so far in 800 fires since January. My thoughts are with those in AZ for sure.

BTW, for those that think that the western states are burning to the ground, don’t think that. Please come visit us.

I stated in Fathom that if anyone wants to visit Colorado, please email me directly. We have businesses that are losing business every day because of the fires but the western states aren’t completely burned to a crisp. There’s still a lot to do here despite the fires, so please, if you have a chance to visit here, email me and I will help you in any way I can to ensure you have a fun trip.

120

Apparently, the smoke from the Arizona fire is being seen as far away as Albuquerque. I have friends who live in Payson - about an hour from Phoenix. She sent pictures last week taken from her back yard. The plume she saw was incredible. And this was just the Rodeo fire. The Chediski fire hadn’t even started yet. It, BTW, was started by a young woman who was trying to signal a Channel 5 newschopper because she was stranded. Needless to say, they noticed her…

From what I understand, the smoke can be seen from the NE portions of Phoenix. The area that has burned is the size of the entire 480 area code - which encompasses Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler, and Tempe, and parts of Phoenix itself.

Very scary.

Mr Winnie and I were watching it on the news last night, realizing that we need to think about what we’d grab if we had to be evacuated quickly, and where those things are. Cats and dogs, a change of clothes or two, and photographs. Nothing else is important.