Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

[PufPuf93]

That tree is an incense cedar in California.

Wait, is that why the smoke smells so good? During the last round of fires the smoke smelled like... well, incense.

The incense cedar does provide a sweeter smoke but the species seldom dominate the various mixed conifer forests. As a wild ass guess, I would estimate that no more than 5% of the trees burned each year in California forest fires are incense cedar. So if you smell good smelling fire smoke it could be incense cedar but is probably not. Incense cedar is a premium kindling wood for wood stoves, fire places, or barbeque.

[stickdog99]

So we are all agreed that this was probably arson, but just not any really "wild" kind of arson?

Yup, or at least possibly arson. It could just have been the weather, although I doubt it. As they said: 95% of fires are started by humans. How good are the owners of the power lines at clearing trees around the lines? If they've been sloppy with that it's possible that branches and trees fell on the lines because of poor maintenance, but that's a lot of falling branches at the exact same time.

Here's another crazy theory about all those exploding transformers:
What if someone hacked the power grid and overloaded it on purpose? Would be interesting to compare the locations of busted transformers/lines with locations of fires.

I agree. Again, I called the DEW theory wild in the thread title. But arson and/or transformer overload all fit the facts better than mother nature or dumb campers randomly started 17 different fires in a 24 hour period.

[stickdog99]

Sorry stickdog, and thanks for taking my comment in a spirit of good humor and bonhomie. I appreciate that, and probably didn't deserve it.

However, my POINT still stands. And to be honest, I don't know if it's arson or what. This is a case where I am actually quite comfortable leaving it with the experts to determine.

But I AM pretty sure it's not directed energy weapons!

Jerky

How could 17 fires start in a 24 hour period all by unplanned, random accidents with zero lightning?

[Freitag]

That tree is an incense cedar in California.

Wait, is that why the smoke smells so good? During the last round of fires the smoke smelled like... well, incense.

The incense cedar does provide a sweeter smoke but the species seldom dominate the various mixed conifer forests. As a wild ass guess, I would estimate that no more than 5% of the trees burned each year in California forest fires are incense cedar. So if you smell good smelling fire smoke it could be incense cedar but is probably not. Incense cedar is a premium kindling wood for wood stoves, fire places, or barbeque.

Gotcha, thanks for the solid info. All I know is the smoke smelled good. Who knows, maybe there was a pot farm in the forest that was burning too.

[Cordelia]

Gotcha, thanks for the solid info. All I know is the smoke smelled good. Who knows, maybe there was a pot farm in the forest that was burning too.

Up in smoke: Wildfires scorch California pot crop at harvest

Paul Elias | The Associated Press
Published on Oct. 18, 2017

GLEN ELLEN, Calif. — Desperate to see if wildfires had damaged his farm, Marcos Morales gunned his four-wheel-drive station wagon along the hidden dirt roads that crisscross Sonoma County vineyards.

After evading police roadblocks and passing vintners’ well-tended pools and houses, he finally arrived to a disheartening sight: Scores of his marijuana plants had been destroyed, and a barn that held 1,600 pounds of ready-for-market pot was a smoldering ruin.

The same fires that destroyed Northern California wineries and threatened to taint grapes still on the vine also took a toll on the region’s marijuana farms, which were about to begin an important harvest less than three months before the nation’s largest recreational pot market opens for business in January.

Morales and the workers who made it around the roadblocks Sunday worked to cut down 2,500 smoke-damaged plants, which will be worth far less than the top dollar he had hoped to get for premium bud.

“It’s not good,” he said Sunday. “But we’ll be OK.”

His operation in Glenn Ellen and other pot farms nearby were still in a fire zone that was off limits to all but emergency personnel a week after flames tore through the area.

At least 31 marijuana farms were destroyed and many more damaged, according to the pot industry’s California Growers Association. That number is expected to rise significantly once evacuation orders are lifted and farmers are allowed back to their property.

Unlike neighboring wineries, marijuana farmers do not have crop insurance because the plant is still listed as an illegal drug under federal law. That keeps financial institutions out of the industry.

The estimated losses do not count indoor grows, backyard greenhouses and converted garages lost to the fire in hard-hit Santa Rosa, the center of Sonoma County’s blossoming marijuana industry.

Continued.........
http://www.medina-gazette.com/Nation-Wo ... rvest.html

Edit to acknowledge; Stickdog99 posted https://ascendingstarseed.wordpress.com ... wildfires/ about pot industry upthread.........

[Blue]

How could 17 fires start in a 24 hour period all by unplanned, random accidents with zero lightning?

Santa Ana winds were blowing up to 60 mph.
This caused downed power lines which started some fires.
Extremely high air temps.
Extremely low humidity.
Too many fucking people in the woods.

That is not to say there were zero arsons.

Bad news for firefighters: Santa Ana winds, high temperatures forecast for this weekend

By CITY NEWS SERVICE |
PUBLISHED: October 13, 2017 at 9:30 am | UPDATED: October 14, 2017 at 12:04 am
High temperatures and low humidity are forecast to return to Riverside County on Friday, while Santa Ana winds are set to buffet the region west of the mountains over the weekend and increase the potential for wildfires.

The warmest weather is expected Sunday, when forecasts call for highs of 91 to 97 in Riverside and Lake Elsinore, 86 to 94 in the Santa Ana Mountains and foothills, 88 to 93 near the San Gorgonio Pass near Banning, 93 in San Bernardino, and 91 to 96 in the Coachella Valley.

Related: Santa Ana wind index benefiting public safety
The weather west of the mountains should remain relatively pleasant with clear, sunny skies. High temperatures forecast for Friday will be 82 to 87 in Riverside and Lake Elsinore, 73 to 79 in the mountains, 88 to 93 near the San Gorgonio Pass, 86 in San Bernardino and 90 to 95 in the Coachella Valley.

The fire danger will increase beginning Saturday morning and continuing until Sunday, according to forecasts from the National Weather Service and U.S. Forest Service.

“Temperatures will heat up and humidity will plummet west of the mountains this weekend as Santa Ana winds develop over parts of the Inland Empire and adjacent mountains,” the weather service said.

A red flag warning will go into effect at 10 a.m. Saturday and last until noon Sunday for the Inland Empire, Riverside County valleys and the Santa Ana Mountains — which includes the Trabuco Ranger District of the Cleveland National Forest.

According to the Forest Service’s Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index — which lists the threat level in the Inland region as marginal — any wildfires that erupt Saturday or Sunday “may grow rapidly” due to the Santa Ana winds.

The increased fire danger comes as firefighters battle the Canyon Fire 2 in the northeastern portion of Orange County — just west of Corona.

Though the blaze was expected to be fully contained by Tuesday, Mike Lyster, spokesman for the city of Anaheim, said it is important that residents keep up with developments this weekend in case the blaze takes off again.

Winds are expected to gust up to 30 or 40 mph beginning Sunday in parts of the Inland Empire, while humidity levels will drop to between 5 percent and 10 percent, according to the weather service.

“The locally gusty winds combined with heat, low humidity and very dry fuels will create critical fire weather conditions,” the weather service said.

Also, federal officials are mobilizing a federal incident management team to Southern California in advance of the predicted weekend Santa Ana winds.

http://www.pe.com/2017/10/13/bad-news-f ... s-weekend/

The Deadliest Fires in California History Aren’t Over Yet
Bob Henson · October 13, 2017, 5:18 PM EDT

The forecast is grim: Another round of dry, windy, fire-stoking weather is set to sweep across California from late Friday into the weekend. As of 10 am PDT Friday, fire weather conditions are predicted by the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center to be in the “critical” range (the second highest alert level) from Friday through Saturday across two areas: the hard-hit North San Francisco Bay region and the coastal mountain ranges and foothills north of the Los Angeles Basin. In SPC’s Day 2 outlook issued Friday afternoon, a new area of critical conditions was predicted for Saturday in the Colorado River valley near Las Vegas.

This weekend’s pattern appears nearly as dangerous as the one that pushed gale-force winds and parched air into California’s wine country late Sunday night, triggering a deadly swarm of fires—many of which were still less than 25% contained on Friday. As was the case on Sunday night, an upper-level trough sweeping through the western U.S. will push a strong surface high into the Great Basin. The flow around that high will force arid air westward, into and over the coastal ranges of California. As this already-dry air descends, it heats up through compression, and the relative humidity drops.

Winds could gust as high as 50-60 mph on higher terrain from late Friday into early Saturday across the North Bay Mountains, East Bay Hills, and the Diablo Range, and relative humidities as low as 10% are possible. The highest threat areas noted by NWS/San Francisco included the Napa County hills, the Mount Saint Helena area, the hills of eastern Sonoma County, and the hills of Marin County around Mount Tamalpais. Across the south slopes of the L.A. and Ventura County mountains, wind gusts are expected to peak in the 30-45-mph range from Saturday into early Sunday, with relative humidities dropping as low as 5%. Conditions should begin to improve in the North Bay late Saturday and over the L.A. region on Sunday.

Human-driven climate change and development patterns are making destructive firestorms more likely

The preconditions for fast-spreading wildland fire are the same as they’ve always been: strong winds and hot, dry air moving through parched vegetation. However, much like floods, wildfires are shaped not just by the natural environment but also by how and where people live and work. Increasing numbers of Americans are living in or near regions known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). These are typically scenic places where subdivisions have been built in or near forests, taking advantage of the natural beauty but putting people close to fire-prone areas that are difficult to keep safe. High wind can carry burning embers far ahead of a wildfire, quickly lighting up neighborhoods well away from a fire front (which was apparently the case in the hard-hit community of Santa Rosa in the predawn hours on Monday). The increased population in the wildland-urban interface also makes it more likely that human activity will lead to fire, either intentionally or inadvertently. At least some of the fires on Sunday night may have started because of power lines brought down in high wind.

Every U.S. state has at least some land that qualifies as WUI, based on criteria put forth by the National Fire Protection Association that include:

amount, type, and distribution of vegetation
flammability of the structures (homes, businesses, outbuildings, decks, fences)
proximity to fire-prone vegetation and to other combustible structures
weather patterns and general climate conditions
topography
hydrology
average lot size
road construction
A stairwell smolders as a home burns during the Tubbs Fire on October 12, 2017 near Calistoga, California.
Figure 5. A stairwell smolders as a home burns during the Tubbs Fire on October 12, 2017 near Calistoga, California. Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
Another factor raising the odds of destructive wildfire is human-produced greenhouse gases. As our climate warms, temperatures are rising especially quickly during droughts, where most of the sun’s heat can go into warming the land and air as opposed to evaporating moisture. California is a classic example of this phenomenon. Temperatures smashed countless records during the state’s vicious five-year drought that began in 2011. Droughts are not always unusually warm, but that's more and more becoming the case in our warming climate. In a 2015 study, Noah Diffenbaugh (Stanford University) and colleagues found that human-produced climate change had raised the odds that a drought year in California would also be an exceptionally warm year. The authors added: “A large ensemble of climate model realizations reveals that additional global warming over the next few decades is very likely to create ∼100% probability that any annual-scale dry period is also extremely warm.”

California’s drought ended in spectacular fashion in late 2016 and early 2017, when the state experienced its second-wettest winter on record. The moisture led to a mammoth burst of vegetation that promptly dried out in the summer. This is a normal happening in California’s Mediterranean climate (wet, mild winter and dry, hot summer), but in this case a very wet winter segued into the hottest summer on record. The first two weeks of September were also extremely hot. As NOAA’s Rebecca Lindsey put it in a climate.gov analysis this week: “Baked to tinder in the extreme heat, the abundant vegetation of spring became the kindling for these autumn fires.”

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/deadl ... t-over-yet

[barracuda]

How could 17 fires start in a 24 hour period all by unplanned, random accidents with zero lightning?

California has had 7700 wildfires this year. Last year we had something like 6500. Divide these numbers by 365 days per year. to get the average number of wildfires per day in California.

As it turns out, 17 such fires in any given 24 hour period is actually a slow day around here.

PG&E has as much as admitted liability as the source of at least some of the fires. The question, then, is: who are they covering for?

Follow the money...

Who stands to profit from the devastation in Santa Rosa the most? Obviously, the charred and flattened neighborhoods will be purchased for pennies on the dollar by some group who will eventually turn around and re-sell at enormous markup and reap a massive fortune.

And who will gain from the destruction of our outdoor marijuana crop?

If we look at these data points dispassionately, there is only one conclusion to be reached - a cartel of underground hydroponic weed growers and Chinese real estate investors have formed an alliance and infiltrated the public utilities, utilizing their space-based energy weapon in an attempt to control the Republic of California.

[seemslikeadream]

it's all about the journey

[PufPuf93]

How could 17 fires start in a 24 hour period all by unplanned, random accidents with zero lightning?

California has had 7700 wildfires this year. Last year we had something like 6500. Divide these numbers by 365 days per year. to get the average number of wildfires per day in California.

As it turns out, 17 such fires in any given 24 hour period is actually a slow day around here.

PG&E has as much as admitted liability as the source of at least some of the fires. The question, then, is: who are they covering for?

Follow the money...

Who stands to profit from the devastation in Santa Rosa the most? Obviously, the charred and flattened neighborhoods will be purchased for pennies on the dollar by some group who will eventually turn around and re-sell at enormous markup and reap a massive fortune.

And who will gain from the destruction of our outdoor marijuana crop?

If we look at these data points dispassionately, there is only one conclusion to be reached - a cartel of underground hydroponic weed growers and Chinese real estate investors have formed an alliance and infiltrated the public utilities, utilizing their space-based energy weapon in an attempt to control the Republic of California.

Before I clinked the link you provided my thought was that the "space-based energy weapon" is Sun that grows the vegetation and drives the weather so conducive to fire however initiated.

Guess I was not that far off.

Some folks are going to make big bucks $$$ in the rebuild of the area devastated by the most recent fires.

[Iamwhomiam]

How could 17 fires start in a 24 hour period all by unplanned, random accidents with zero lightning?

California has had 7700 wildfires this year. Last year we had something like 6500. Divide these numbers by 365 days per year. to get the average number of wildfires per day in California.

As it turns out, 17 such fires in any given 24 hour period is actually a slow day around here.

PG&E has as much as admitted liability as the source of at least some of the fires. The question, then, is: who are they covering for?

Follow the money...

Who stands to profit from the devastation in Santa Rosa the most? Obviously, the charred and flattened neighborhoods will be purchased for pennies on the dollar by some group who will eventually turn around and re-sell at enormous markup and reap a massive fortune.

And who will gain from the destruction of our outdoor marijuana crop?

If we look at these data points dispassionately, there is only one conclusion to be reached - a cartel of underground hydroponic weed growers and Chinese real estate investors have formed an alliance and infiltrated the public utilities, utilizing their space-based energy weapon in an attempt to control the Republic of California.

However, the CNBC story was from Monday. Scroll down for Tuesday's article to read, "PG&E' shares spike (upward) after suspected wildfires arsonist is arrested in northern California."
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/pge-shares-spike-after-suspected-wildfires-arsonist-is-arrested-in-northern-california.html

Directed energy weapon, Stickdog? Do you have any photographic or video recorded evidence of damage done to any structure by an airborne or space-based directed energy weapon to compare to the damage done by these fires?

If you do believe these fires were caused by directed energy weapons, who do you imagine committed this gross crime and what do you believe their motive for doing it to be?

That was just a wild theory I was throwing around here for feedback. Hence the title of the thread. But the motive would be the same as the motive for arson.To profit off the others' disasters.

And nobody is ruling out arson at this point. Are they?

So you're now an expert on the psyche of arsonists, stickdog? Really, not that many crimes of arson involve profit as most arson crimes are committed by mentally ill people we call "pyromaniacs," to sate their own fantasy. https://tinyurl.com/ybfwgrll

This is why I have great difficulty engaging you in a discussion, stickdog, I ask you what the possible motive would be for starting the fires and you tell me it would be the same as any arsonist's, and that's no answer at all, but more of an evasion.

While I doubt the cartel mentioned by barracuda exists, I believe that scenario far more likely than DEW as causing the fires.

If we want to explore the politics of forestry in Northern California, we must be knowledgeable of recent developments concerning their long drought and a proposal put forth by foresters and the California State Water Resources Control Board to clear all forests of deadfall and undergrowth to greatly increase water runoff that normally deadfall and undergrowth would withhold. To the best of my knowledge, this proposal was wisely and soundly defeated.

"We warned you this could happen."

Hey, it's better than directed energy as a first guess.

[barracuda]

However, the CNBC story was from Monday. Scroll down for Tuesday's article to read, "PG&E' shares spike (upward) after suspected wildfires arsonist is arrested in northern California."

Screen Shot 2017-10-19 at 10.36.35 AM.png

PG&E stock is still down 17% or so from the day of the fire. Investors know they will will be paying out huge sums for what amounts to negligent upkeep of their infrastructure. Their SEC filing was essentially an acknowledgement of guilt.

[PufPuf93]

If we want to explore the politics of forestry in Northern California, we must be knowledgeable of recent developments concerning their long drought and a proposal put forth by foresters and the California State Water Resources Control Board to clear all forests of deadfall and undergrowth to greatly increase water runoff that normally deadfall and undergrowth would withhold. To the best of my knowledge, this proposal was wisely and soundly defeated.

Hey, it's better than directed energy as a first guess.

I don't know of nor can I find right now a specific hard proposal but something like what you describe has been proposed for many years.

In your statement you show that you misread what has been proposed. What has been proposed is that 2nd or later growth forests be thinning, fuel ladders removed,
followed by a light controlled under burn. The original native forests had a much greater fire frequency and more large trees that would develop thick bark that protected them from fires. The mixed conifer forests had several species that were more tolerant of shade and could establish seed in forest duff (white fir and red fir and western hemlock) whereas the species that dominated the original forests (Douglas fir, ponderosa and sugar pine) required more light and mineral soil (because of the dampening off fungi that effect these species) to establish seedlings. Fire suppression and logging and other human events has resulted in a forest that is often packed with many small stem trees and a shift in species composition to the more shade tolerant species.

This not proposed for "all" forests in California. There are legal restrictions for some forests or forest conditions. Other areas have poor access or feasibility. Some soils this would be inappropriate. The thinning would not include "old growth" stands nor individual "old growth" trees. Streams would be buffered, equipment limited. Some stands would not have the conditions where such action was warranted. Soil organic matter and "deadfall" would seldom be bothered except for the case where there was a large amount of downed timber or a stand of "snags" (standing dead trees).

The combination of thinning (favoring the species that once dominated the site if there had been a species shift) , removal of fuel ladders, and re-introducing fire is the means to get the forest back to the condition with the fire regimes of the original forests when Europeans arrived. The thinning and ground fire would also reduce the rampant root disease-insect-drought complex wrecking havoc on many forests. There would be a water effect but not what you describe, "to greatly increase water runoff that normally deadfall and undergrowth would withhold", which is false. When the forest is thinned like that, openings created, the snowpack is greater and lasts longer. Think of a ski area where in the Spring the snow lasts much longer in the runs than in the surrounding forest. The thinned forest holds more snow and holds the water longer, the snow does not disappear as fast in Spring runoff. There is thus more runoff that lasts at higher rates later into the hydrologic year One can make finer distinctions such as interception losses, transpiration losses, and the varying amount of foliage (a dip initially by thinning followed by a recovery of more robust foliage over several years) but this is the general idea.

I am not making excuses for "bad" "greedy" or "ill advised" forestry; this happens and happened in the past and will happen in future but probably to a lesser degree as California forests are some of the most regulated if not the most regulated on Planet Earth. Some of the commercial forests are extremely productive and have unique species. There are also millions of acres of Parks, Wildernesses, and National Forests "zoned" where the "thinning" would never occur.

We once started talking about biomass in the global warming thread but did not finish (and I am too low of energy to go there now). You said a 600 MW power plant in Klamath Falls was a wood burning plant but it is a natural gas plant, never has burned wood. The largest wood burning plants that I know of are 55 MW in Burlington VT and 55 MW in Anderson, CA.

I kind of cringe when you talk forestry because you do not have the level of knowledge to differentiate and label classes of activity "bad" without full understanding of the system.

[Rory]

How could 17 fires start in a 24 hour period all by unplanned, random accidents with zero lightning?

Santa Ana winds were blowing up to 60 mph.
This caused downed power lines which started some fires.
Extremely high air temps.
Extremely low humidity.
Too many fucking people in the woods.

That is not to say there were zero arsons.

Bad news for firefighters: Santa Ana winds, high temperatures forecast for this weekend

By CITY NEWS SERVICE |
PUBLISHED: October 13, 2017 at 9:30 am | UPDATED: October 14, 2017 at 12:04 am
High temperatures and low humidity are forecast to return to Riverside County on Friday, while Santa Ana winds are set to buffet the region west of the mountains over the weekend and increase the potential for wildfires.

The warmest weather is expected Sunday, when forecasts call for highs of 91 to 97 in Riverside and Lake Elsinore, 86 to 94 in the Santa Ana Mountains and foothills, 88 to 93 near the San Gorgonio Pass near Banning, 93 in San Bernardino, and 91 to 96 in the Coachella Valley.

Related: Santa Ana wind index benefiting public safety
The weather west of the mountains should remain relatively pleasant with clear, sunny skies. High temperatures forecast for Friday will be 82 to 87 in Riverside and Lake Elsinore, 73 to 79 in the mountains, 88 to 93 near the San Gorgonio Pass, 86 in San Bernardino and 90 to 95 in the Coachella Valley.

The fire danger will increase beginning Saturday morning and continuing until Sunday, according to forecasts from the National Weather Service and U.S. Forest Service.

“Temperatures will heat up and humidity will plummet west of the mountains this weekend as Santa Ana winds develop over parts of the Inland Empire and adjacent mountains,” the weather service said.

A red flag warning will go into effect at 10 a.m. Saturday and last until noon Sunday for the Inland Empire, Riverside County valleys and the Santa Ana Mountains — which includes the Trabuco Ranger District of the Cleveland National Forest.

According to the Forest Service’s Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index — which lists the threat level in the Inland region as marginal — any wildfires that erupt Saturday or Sunday “may grow rapidly” due to the Santa Ana winds.

The increased fire danger comes as firefighters battle the Canyon Fire 2 in the northeastern portion of Orange County — just west of Corona.

Though the blaze was expected to be fully contained by Tuesday, Mike Lyster, spokesman for the city of Anaheim, said it is important that residents keep up with developments this weekend in case the blaze takes off again.

Winds are expected to gust up to 30 or 40 mph beginning Sunday in parts of the Inland Empire, while humidity levels will drop to between 5 percent and 10 percent, according to the weather service.

“The locally gusty winds combined with heat, low humidity and very dry fuels will create critical fire weather conditions,” the weather service said.

Also, federal officials are mobilizing a federal incident management team to Southern California in advance of the predicted weekend Santa Ana winds.

http://www.pe.com/2017/10/13/bad-news-f ... s-weekend/

The Deadliest Fires in California History Aren’t Over Yet
Bob Henson · October 13, 2017, 5:18 PM EDT

The forecast is grim: Another round of dry, windy, fire-stoking weather is set to sweep across California from late Friday into the weekend. As of 10 am PDT Friday, fire weather conditions are predicted by the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center to be in the “critical” range (the second highest alert level) from Friday through Saturday across two areas: the hard-hit North San Francisco Bay region and the coastal mountain ranges and foothills north of the Los Angeles Basin. In SPC’s Day 2 outlook issued Friday afternoon, a new area of critical conditions was predicted for Saturday in the Colorado River valley near Las Vegas.

This weekend’s pattern appears nearly as dangerous as the one that pushed gale-force winds and parched air into California’s wine country late Sunday night, triggering a deadly swarm of fires—many of which were still less than 25% contained on Friday. As was the case on Sunday night, an upper-level trough sweeping through the western U.S. will push a strong surface high into the Great Basin. The flow around that high will force arid air westward, into and over the coastal ranges of California. As this already-dry air descends, it heats up through compression, and the relative humidity drops.

Winds could gust as high as 50-60 mph on higher terrain from late Friday into early Saturday across the North Bay Mountains, East Bay Hills, and the Diablo Range, and relative humidities as low as 10% are possible. The highest threat areas noted by NWS/San Francisco included the Napa County hills, the Mount Saint Helena area, the hills of eastern Sonoma County, and the hills of Marin County around Mount Tamalpais. Across the south slopes of the L.A. and Ventura County mountains, wind gusts are expected to peak in the 30-45-mph range from Saturday into early Sunday, with relative humidities dropping as low as 5%. Conditions should begin to improve in the North Bay late Saturday and over the L.A. region on Sunday.

Human-driven climate change and development patterns are making destructive firestorms more likely

The preconditions for fast-spreading wildland fire are the same as they’ve always been: strong winds and hot, dry air moving through parched vegetation. However, much like floods, wildfires are shaped not just by the natural environment but also by how and where people live and work. Increasing numbers of Americans are living in or near regions known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). These are typically scenic places where subdivisions have been built in or near forests, taking advantage of the natural beauty but putting people close to fire-prone areas that are difficult to keep safe. High wind can carry burning embers far ahead of a wildfire, quickly lighting up neighborhoods well away from a fire front (which was apparently the case in the hard-hit community of Santa Rosa in the predawn hours on Monday). The increased population in the wildland-urban interface also makes it more likely that human activity will lead to fire, either intentionally or inadvertently. At least some of the fires on Sunday night may have started because of power lines brought down in high wind.

Every U.S. state has at least some land that qualifies as WUI, based on criteria put forth by the National Fire Protection Association that include:

amount, type, and distribution of vegetation
flammability of the structures (homes, businesses, outbuildings, decks, fences)
proximity to fire-prone vegetation and to other combustible structures
weather patterns and general climate conditions
topography
hydrology
average lot size
road construction
A stairwell smolders as a home burns during the Tubbs Fire on October 12, 2017 near Calistoga, California.
Figure 5. A stairwell smolders as a home burns during the Tubbs Fire on October 12, 2017 near Calistoga, California. Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
Another factor raising the odds of destructive wildfire is human-produced greenhouse gases. As our climate warms, temperatures are rising especially quickly during droughts, where most of the sun’s heat can go into warming the land and air as opposed to evaporating moisture. California is a classic example of this phenomenon. Temperatures smashed countless records during the state’s vicious five-year drought that began in 2011. Droughts are not always unusually warm, but that's more and more becoming the case in our warming climate. In a 2015 study, Noah Diffenbaugh (Stanford University) and colleagues found that human-produced climate change had raised the odds that a drought year in California would also be an exceptionally warm year. The authors added: “A large ensemble of climate model realizations reveals that additional global warming over the next few decades is very likely to create ∼100% probability that any annual-scale dry period is also extremely warm.”

California’s drought ended in spectacular fashion in late 2016 and early 2017, when the state experienced its second-wettest winter on record. The moisture led to a mammoth burst of vegetation that promptly dried out in the summer. This is a normal happening in California’s Mediterranean climate (wet, mild winter and dry, hot summer), but in this case a very wet winter segued into the hottest summer on record. The first two weeks of September were also extremely hot. As NOAA’s Rebecca Lindsey put it in a climate.gov analysis this week: “Baked to tinder in the extreme heat, the abundant vegetation of spring became the kindling for these autumn fires.”

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/deadl ... t-over-yet

Santa Ana (look at a map) is ~500 miles away from Napa/Sonoma County. Them's big winds you're describing

[Blue]

Santa Ana (look at a map) is ~500 miles away from Napa/Sonoma County. Them's big winds you're describing

Okay, I didn't mean to attribute Santa Ana winds to the northern counties. So the "Sonoma Winds" were actually gusting up to 79 mph.

1. Really strong winds
High-speed winds have played a role in the fires. The region saw powerful gusts of 50 mph, making it easier for the blazes to spread, with hurricane-force gusts of 79 mph reported in Sonoma County.
The winds also knocked down power lines in the areas where the fires started.
"The historic wind event that swept across PG&E's service area late Sunday and early Monday packed hurricane-strength winds in excess of 75 mph in some cases," Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said in a statement.
"These destructive winds, along with millions of trees weakened by years of drought and recent renewed vegetation growth from winter storms, all contributed to some trees, branches and debris impacting our electric lines across the North Bay. In some cases we have found instances of wires down, broken poles and impacted infrastructure."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/11/us/northern-california-fires-factors/index.html

[Rory]

Sure. They exist in completely different climates, caused by completely different mechanisms