The fires ravaging Southern California have created images that many would describe as “apocalyptic.” So far, these fires have destroyed 96,000 acres in Ventura County and causes 100,000 people to be evacuated. During this time of overwhelming adversity, Benicia has sent firefighters to help the region in their hour of need.
Five firefighters from Benicia are currently down in Los Angles. A fire captain was sent south Tuesday afternoon to lead a strike team. On Wednesday, the Benicia Fire Department received a call to send four more firefighters and a fire engine. This group of five are fighting two separate fires. The engine company is doing structure defense at the Skirball Fire, which is affecting areas near L.A.’s Bel Air neighborhood. The strike team leader is in charge of five fire engines and aiding in the battle against the Creek Fire, which is currently impacting areas near Kagel Canyon in unincorporated L.A. County.
These firefighters can only be in Los Angles for 14 days, but if the fires are contained before that they can come home early, Interim Fire Chief Josh Chadwick said. He ensures that Benicia will be reimbursed for the firefighters’ time in L.A.
Chadwick said missing the five fighters takes its toll on the crew, but they are managing. Every year, usually around the summertime, the Benicia Fire Department sends an engine to help other communities experiencing fires. The department does this because they are a part mutual aid system in California. Most recently, Benicia assisted other fire departments in the Wine Country fires in October.
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In 1995, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sherwood Rowland asked,
“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true.”
“With climate change enhanced wildfires raging across California during December, now is exactly the time to redouble our resolve to fight against the causes of such widespread destruction. To enact policies aimed at reducing the force of a rising crisis that continues to impact so many of our people with increasing intensity.”
–Assemblyman Phil Ting, ( D- S.F.)
“…talking about western wildfires without mentioning climate change is like talking about lung cancer without mentioning cigarettes.”
–Amanda Staudt (scientist) of the National Wildlife Federation.
More information and news regarding California wild- fires ( that our brave firefighters,fight ) for our citizenry and our appointed and elected officials to seriously consider…
A few clips from the article(s) listed below:
“Due to human-forced climate change and a related warming of the U.S. Southwest, the fire season for California now never really ends. Global temperatures have increased by 1.1 to 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, and climate zones are moving north. Both warmer temperatures and more extreme ranges of precipitation due to climate change aid wildfires in the west — first by allowing for rapid growth of vegetation during more intense wet periods and second by drying out these growths more swiftly as the climate regime switches to dry.”
“Since the 1980s, the number of large wildfires out west has quadrupled. But if fossil fuel burning continues, warming will also continue and the already difficult conditions we see will further worsen.”
“We are entering a time when a region of the west from California all the way north to Alaska and Alberta are starting to see wildfires capable of threatening cities with increasing frequency. If we are to dampen this trend, we need a change to less harmful energy sources and fast.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/12/05/deadly-california-wildfire-erupts-in-december-forcing-thousands-to-flee/
And;
“According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, an astonishing total of 8,756 fires have burned 1,156,914 acres in rain-starved California this year.”
“Like the wildfires that charred 20,000 acres, destroyed 3.500 structures, and killed at least 44 people in northern California last October, the southern California infernos are the outcome of excessive heat and drought resulting from the climate disruption caused by humanity’s excessive, capital-driven and United States-led extraction and burning of fossil fuels.”
“And, for what it’s worth – which may not be much in the homeland and headquarters of petro-capitalist climate denial – there is no bigger story in the world today than anthropogenic (really capitalogenic) global warming. It’s the biggest issue of our or any time. Nothing in the news today comes close – not the pedophilia and (yet) forthcoming election (to the “upper chamber” of the U.S. Congress) of the Alabama super-freak Roy Moore, not the petulant creepiness of ex-Senator Stuart Smalley, not the twists and turns of Russiagate and the Mueller inquiry, not the arch-plutocratic Trump-GOP tax bill, not the imminent reversal of net neutrality, not even the terrible plights of the Rohingya, Yemen, the Congolese, the South Sudanese (among countless victims of horrific violence and oppression) or the insane game of thermonuclear chicken being played by the ICP in Washington and the Dear Leader in Pyongyang. This is for the simple reason that life itself is slated to become unsustainable on the planet in no short historical order if we do not act quickly and massively to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources and to fundamentally change our relationship with Earth’s natural systems and change our position in the global web of life.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/08/the-burning-earth-bears-witness-in-california/