Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms California Fires...

My partner is a fanatic knitter buying, collecting and using specialist yarn from all over the world.

When a shipment from California failed to turn up she made inquiries of her usually reliable supplier.

In short, they lost everything - here is an extract from a reply email:

The worst fire in California history started as a spark, supposedly from a PG & E transformer by the little community of Paluga. Amazingly, in less than 90 minutes, it raced seven miles across rugged terrain towards the still sleeping town of Paradise.

It was consuming the equivalent of 80 football fields a minute. The flames were being driven by 50 mph winds gusting to 70 mph through the Feather River Canyon. Then like an army of fire ants the flames erupted out of the gorge as they spread into thick forests.

At 8:00 A.M., I was Patient 0 at Feather River Hospital, meaning I was in pre-op, the 1st patient going in for surgery that morning. Then the fire climbed out of the Feather River Canyon on a broad raging front behind the hospital. Glowing embers were riding a hot gusting wind that shot into our towering pine trees like bursts of red tracer fire.

A nurse quickly disconnected my IV and I ran. The staff was surging into the hallways and racing into rooms to evacuate patients. They would save all 60 patients, some in ICU, in less than 30 minutes—amazing!

Chase, my son, was waiting for me as a I ran out of the hospital and climbed into his car. Across the parking lot fire was already into the trees which began crowning with flames.

As Chase accelerated out of the parking lot, fires were beginning to erupt on both sides of the road. Chase raced with dense smoke blowing across the road, there were flying embers glowing in the dark swirling smoke. Behind us a tempest was beginning to rage. Soon people would have to abandon their cars and run for their lives—some didn't make it. So far 48 bodies have been recovered. Tragically they expect to recover many more. One of the victims was a long-time friend of my mother-in-law.

There were barrages of explosions from burning propane tanks as we turned onto our street. We live on the edge of the Feather River Canyon just a mile down from the hospital. A huge billowing cloud of black smoke covered the northern horizon; the morning sun was blood red.

We only had time to grab a few things and throw them into the car. Then the big propane tanks at the hospital, exploded! Chase yelled, “It’s time to go.”

Cheyenne my daughter pleaded for one more box and ran back into the house. Later, I would learn that she had grabbed Cindy’s and my wedding pictures and our favourite baby pictures.

Our five cars surged out of our neighbourhood into a traffic jam. There were already accidents. Smoke and embers filled the sky, but we made it to Chico over 2 hours later.

The picture is of me at our church two days later and happy to be alive.

To date, over 7,700 homes were completely destroyed along with 200+ businesses. So much tragedy for a small community to endure, the whole town wiped out in a single day.

Yet, in our church, there was so much gratitude even though half of us or more had lost our homes, but we had survived. Our LORD is very good to us indeed…

That is shocking. The speed of the fire is something I hadn't really considered - dreadful for all involved.

What we are seeing is very similar to what has happened in Portugal several times in the last few years but on an even vaster scale.

Despite the fact that I was born in England and now live in Italy from the age of 2 years I grew up in the Northern outskirts of Sydney. At that time the conventional wisdom was that if you lived in a bushland area you did not have trees around your house, the brush was periodically burned, in the case of a fire, if you had the water, you stopped up the gutter downpipes with tennis balls and filled the gutters with water, if possible covered the windows to stop flying burning debris breaking the glass or radiant heat setting fire to the curtains.

If you were in a bushfire prone area you constructed in fire resistant materials and took measures to make sure burning debris could not be blown into areas that could take fire.

In my late teens and early 20s I was both part of a Civil Defence Rescue Squad and a volunteer bushfire fighter and twice I have narrowly escaped severe burns and had to run for my life losing only a little singed hair (that I had in those days) I firetruck driver, on one occasion, opted to stay in the truck, and had radiant heat burns on one side of his face. The paint on one side of the truck was all blistered and when we returned to the truck the fuel in the tank for the petrol driven pump was boiling!

Since those days the city has expanded even more into the surrounding bushland areas, controlled burnoffs of scrub have been banned, and people not only have retained as much bushland as possible near their houses but they have also planted trees right next to the houses. All very beautiful, wonderfully ecological, but ignores the fact that houses are not part of the natural ecosystem. These houses surrounded or deep in bushland and forests are very desirable and people love to be surrounded by the wildlife and tranquillity of these locations but unfortunately they do not often understand the risks involved.

In my brief career as a fire-fighter we only lost one house, that had been abandoned after the owners had passed on, and that was a decision that I made to avoid the risk to my squad. It left me deeply saddened even though I knew it was abandoned and uninhabited. My heart really goes out to all those who have lost everything.

That really brings it home quite dramatically. It must be quite horrifying especially as these fires seem to be an annual event.

What a graphic personal description of a catastrophic event !!!


My heart goes out to all involved.

When I started seeing this unfold my first reaction was why don't people get out.

What I hadn't realised was the speed with which this inferno was moving.

These personal accounts really are scary and to be waiting for news of loved ones missing cannot be imagined.

I saw Trumps little mental burp this morning, blaming California state for poor management of the woodlands. They are mostly federally managed ?

Ready-fire-aim.

From December 2011 to March 2017, the state of California experienced one of the worst droughts to occur in the region on record. The period between late 2011 and 2014 was the driest in California history since record-keeping began.

California's Forest "Mismanagement"

What a devastating scene Tcherek - thanks for sharing the images harrowing as they are.

Wow those are harrowing photos T. It’s like something out of an apocalypse. Which for those involved it is.