As I'm sure you're all aware.
I was comfortable (ish) with the risk of earthquake in NorCal before moving here around a year ago, but a significant impact on my life from wildfire was not on my radar.
We are very fortunate to be well out of danger, but the air quality trapping us inside with a 2 year old and a 3 week old for a week has me considering getting out of Dodge, at least until this blows over (literally).
How do you deal with the smoke?
That sucks man. Not to bash, and i’m Sure there are wonderful aspects to living in California, but between mud slides, earthquakes, wildfires, and an exorbitant cost of living......i’ll stay in Kentucky.
In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :
you know I have the same opinion Right up until I step off a plane there Then I remember why it’s so crowded
Fueled by Caffeine said:In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :
you know I have the same opinion Right up until I step off a plane there Then I remember why it’s so crowded
If I could get the salary to maintain my same standard of living, I'd be typing this response from a plane on my way to California.
We had thick smoke blanketing the area around us for a good 3-4 weeks in August. It sucked. I mowed the lawn wearing a respirator and could barely see across the river from down by the bank. I've got 2 young kids and the indoor pools were all closed for the summer.
Somebody tell those dang Illuminati scientists to stop making California so hot and dry these days! 
I wonder if the mansion wearymicrobe recently sold survived?
I grew up in SoCal. I wouldn't live there for anything. I mean, if it was a choice between the shiny happy person of the world (Persian Gulf) and California, I'd have to think really, really hard and probably pick the shiny happy person of the world. At least they are upfront about hating your guts there.
KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:That sucks man. Not to bash, and i’m Sure there are wonderful aspects to living in California, but between mud slides, earthquakes, wildfires, and an exorbitant cost of living......i’ll stay in Kentucky.
One you get north of Sacramento and into the mountains, it's not much different than Kentucky to be honest. Hillbillies, moonshiners, lifted trucks that actually get used for truck stuff, hippies hiding in the woods, it was almost like visiting Moorehead. I still want to see the state fall into the ocean, but that's because of my hatred for all things plastic and Hollywood. Even cost of living wise, Hell, Sacramento was cheaper than Pittsburgh in a lot of areas including rent, and the farther north and "wild" you go the cheaper it gets.
When I was still in the East Bay, mount Diablo caught fire for a few weeks. It made some absolutely beautiful sunrises, but we were far enough away that we weren't affected by the smoke or anything like that.
I think its terribly hypocritical that the State of California, which pushes CARB so hard, is smoking.
pinchvalve said:I think its terribly hypocritical that the State of California, which pushes CARB so hard, is smoking.
Ooooh, good point. Can we get an emissions average for the entire state combining cars and fires? 
Like everything it matters where you are , In Los Angeles if you are out in the San Fernando valley it's very smokey from the Malibu fires ,
But if you are on the other side of the hill , say LAX airport South to Orange county , very little to no smoke.
But looking at photos of snow already in the east , I guess you pick your poison !
It's just damn expensive to live here , 1 bedroom apartment $1500 , and much more in the SF Bay area
I am sure there are better places to live all over the country , I just happened to be born here !
,
It would be nice if this does not turn into a "Why I Hate California" thread. There are almost certainly hundreds dead from the northern fires, and it seems a bit inappropriate.
Some of my notes:
The particle masks that you see most wear of course will do little unless you are getting ash. I respirator is likely the only effective means to kill the smoke and smell. If you have central air/heat, make sure the filter is good and turn it on (to fan if it's not hot or cold).
Once the smoke is gone, you will need to deal with that ash (if you are getting that), it gets EVERYWHERE. I am still finding it years after the fire that ran through the hill north of Simi Valley ashed us a few years ago. Lots of vacuuming and cleaning are obviously what will be needed.
The more insidious problem is the smell. One of the southern fires literally went through where I work. No building damage, but it sat in the smoke for days. They cleaned all the carpets, all the fabric, changed the filters, and have been supplementary filters in the building for days... it still smells... not horrible, but I am suspicious some plant that burned make for a rather pungent smell (I could smell it strong in an area I walk by). Perhaps a counter smell (incense etc) might be in order.
A note on the fire behavior. You would think total devastation in LA based on the pictures (they always show the worst of course), but you would be surprised how much survived in some of the fire areas. The norther fire was of a bit different sort of course. That was basically a wall of fire running through a wooded area.
In developed areas, the fire essential burns the open fields and can be kept away from housing developments. The exception of course are the houses downwind that get unlucky with the flying embers. The houses in the canyons and the hills are a different story of course, those are more subjected to the wall of flames. Malibu got nailed (in my guess) mostly because it's basically at the deadly end of a bunch of "fire shotgun" canyons and trying to defend those houses would have taken a LOT more effort than defending many more homes in the developments. The difficulty of getting to some of those homes also adds to that.
It's not a great shot of what I am talking about, but below is a picture of where Woolsey crossed the 101. As you can see, the commercial buildings (generally not that flammable) are essentially untouched. This is because, as noted, the fire mostly travels by way of embers blown downwind. It gets into the fields, and the firefighter create fire lines to keep it from the homes bordering them (there are a bunch of houses, including Justin Beabers above that hill to the center left)
It's not like this is anything new. Doesn't it burn every year?
Maybe they should try prescribed burns to keep the underbrush under control. The Francis Marion, lights off 10-20% of the forest every year to keep the wild fires under control.
RevRico said:KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:That sucks man. Not to bash, and i’m Sure there are wonderful aspects to living in California, but between mud slides, earthquakes, wildfires, and an exorbitant cost of living......i’ll stay in Kentucky.
One you get north of Sacramento and into the mountains, it's not much different than Kentucky to be honest. Hillbillies, moonshiners, lifted trucks that actually get used for truck stuff, hippies hiding in the woods, it was almost like visiting Moorehead. I still want to see the state fall into the ocean, but that's because of my hatred for all things plastic and Hollywood. Even cost of living wise, Hell, Sacramento was cheaper than Pittsburgh in a lot of areas including rent, and the farther north and "wild" you go the cheaper it gets.
When I was still in the East Bay, mount Diablo caught fire for a few weeks. It made some absolutely beautiful sunrises, but we were far enough away that we weren't affected by the smoke or anything like that.
I always smile when the News talks about "Northern" California, everyone seems to forget the part of the state that is north of Sacramento. I graduated from HS in a little town called Herlong CA, the closet city was Reno and you are spot on about the trucks and such. It is like a completely different state.
Toyman01 said:It's not like this is anything new. Doesn't it burn every year?
Not this badly, at least not on average.
Maybe they should try prescribed burns to keep the underbrush under control. The Francis Marion, lights off 10-20% of the forest every year to keep the wild fires under control.
They're doing that already, but the forests are tinder dry and have a fair number of dead trees in them. It hasn't rained for quite a while, too (like, in months). Combine that with strong winds and you have a recipe for disaster, underbrush or no underbrush.
The big difference with the air quality issues right now is that the smoke is going towards the Bay Area. Normally it tends to go over the Sierra and blanket our area here. It's been pretty bad in the last few years as the size of the fires seemed to have been growing and the late winter rains resulted in lost of very flammable grass etc.
There are a number of factors that seem to add to the recent fires: It was a VERY wet (for here) winter two winters ago, which built up a lot of growth, to burn. It's been very dry in the past few days (which is not terribly unusual). The Santa Ana winds (SoCal) seemed to last a bit longer then normal. There was a rather large bark beetle issue (mostly NorCal) which killed a lot of trees, creating great fire tinder.
The cause of the two big fires this time, and the big one in Sanoma (that got a lot of homes) BTW where caused by power line issues. That seems like something that could be mitigated, at least somewhat.
Stay safe out there all you CA peeps.
pinchvalve said:I think its terribly hypocritical that the State of California, which pushes CARB so hard, is smoking.
My family was evacuated last Friday at 3:00 AM and they spent Saturday night at a GRM’ers house (thank you) and I stayed home to do what I could to protect our property. I cycled our sprinkler system every ½ hour and I remember thinking “we’re in a perpetual drought, this is wasteful” followed by “what the berk are you talking about inner voice, the environmental impact of a house burning to the ground is massive”.
Good luck to anyone dealing with this.
As much as I deplore winter and the foot of snow I need to clear, I’m happy to not deal with home destroying weather and natural disasters being an accepted part of life, be it wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, what not. Or that is what I try to tell myself.
Hell, had I hit one of those mega ball jackpots I would be on Catalina Island now.
Brian said:Hell, had I hit one of those mega ball jackpots I would be on Catalina Island now.
Keep in mind that Catalina Island is the deepest pit of gearhead hell:
https://traveltips.usatoday.com/cars-allowed-catalina-island-109661.html
To some extent it happens every year, but this year and last year have seen two of the most destructive and deadly fires in history. We got a lot of ash from the wine country fires last year, but we're quite a bit further than the camp fire.
It's hard to imagine what it's like until you're here. I was obviously aware of the risk of fire before moving here but I really didn't have a good idea of the reality of what a few months without rain does to the landscape.
There are a lot of great things about living here. I hope that everyone affected by the fires on here comes out of it ok.
BoxheadTim said:Toyman01 said:It's not like this is anything new. Doesn't it burn every year?
Not this badly, at least not on average.
Maybe they should try prescribed burns to keep the underbrush under control. The Francis Marion, lights off 10-20% of the forest every year to keep the wild fires under control.
They're doing that already, but the forests are tinder dry and have a fair number of dead trees in them. It hasn't rained for quite a while, too (like, in months). Combine that with strong winds and you have a recipe for disaster, underbrush or no underbrush.
I guess drought out west is a little different than it is here. Our droughts are 10" of rain for the month, instead of 15". I guess out there is could just not rain at all.
In regards to my comment on the AC/Heater filter. They do make (somewhat expensive) pretty fine filters. They may not be in stock at you local hardware store anymore, but you might consider an online order. There are the HEPA filters, which may not help with smoke, but they also make more extreme ones.
In reply to aircooled :
Thanks. I'll see what I can find. We have had a hard time finding replacement filters for the one air purifier that we do have, bought a second one on Amazon but of course, shipping was delayed.
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