[Grovenet] ynews' favorite photos on Flickr

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

I was raised  in Redlands, at the foot of the San Bernardino mountains.
Those mountains range from sage-covered desert at their foot to over 11,000
feet with permanent glaciers capping some of the peaks such as Mt. San
Gorgonio. 
 
As a child it was not particularly  unusual  to fall asleep in the late
summer to the red glow in the sky from wild fires on two sides of us burning
the sage mesquite and grass on the foothills. Occasionally they'd move into
the timberland producing fantastic spires of flame reaching high into the
sky. 
 
The mountains were crisscrossed with wide fire breaks visible as huge lines
through the grass and forest land from 50 miles away. Sometimes they worked,
sometime hundreds of feet of open dirt wasn't enough. 
 
As a child I heard many stories of men being conscripted at roadblocks in
the years before and after WWII: "You wanna save your hide and your family
buddy, grab a shovel and follow us 'cuz your car ain't movin' until this
thing's out!" 
 
Drought and wildfires are two natural occurrences there, especially when the
Santa Ana winds blow at over 50 mph. The Santa Ana brings steady, sustained
winds blasting from the dry high desert nonstop for days at a time. With
hundreds of dry lightning igniting the tinder-dry countryside in a single
busy day, runaway blazes are inevitable all over Southern California from
the Angeles forest in the north, Malibu in the west and south through the
San Bernardino mountains all the way down to the arid grasslands and rolling
hills surrounding San Diego.  
 
The difference today is that hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of
people now live on the slopes where the fires burn most fiercely and where
the wind moves them most quickly...
 
Ron D'Eau Claire 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Bob Browning
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 3:04 PM
To: Grovenet
Subject: [Grovenet] ynews' favorite photos on Flickr


Unbelievable, and what happens when mankind overwhelms nature!!

bob

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ynews/favorites/