California is having many fires, and each time it seems they are becoming worse and threatening something more serious. Now according to AFP by way of Yahoo! News, the fires are threatening a historic observatory.
A major fire that has been raging outside Los Angeles for more than a week threatened to engulf a historic observatory and billion-dollar broadcast towers on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to contain the flames.
The so-called Bobcat fire was within 500 feet (150 meters) from the 116-year-old Mt. Wilson Observatory, fire officials said in a tweet, adding that crews were in place “ready to receive the fire.”
Officials at the observatory said all personnel had been evacuated as the fire was “knocking on our door.”
Firefighters battling the blaze had made slight headway in recent days in trying to control the flames that erupted September 6, but containment shrank from 6 percent to 3 percent Tuesday, according to the Angeles National Forest.
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“They are in a firefight right now, because it is so close,” LA County Fire Captain David Dantic told the Los Angeles Times, referring to crews positioned at Mt. Wilson.He said the fire, located about 16 miles (25 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los Angeles, had grown to 40,000 acres (16,200 hectares).
“It’s a bigger area now,” Dantic said. “Before, we had 6 percent containment when it was about 30,000 acres, but now the fire has gotten bigger. It’s a bigger footprint. That’s why the containment is down.”
KNX radio said the fire was also threatening broadcast towers in the area worth more than a billion dollars.
Many communities threatened by the flames have been ordered to stand ready to evacuate while some 80 historic cabins located within Los Angles Forest were feared destroyed, officials said.
The blaze is among 27 fires currently burning in the state that have killed more than 20 people since many of them erupted mid-August.
Other major blazes have also wreaked death and destruction in the neighboring state of Oregon and in Washington state, further to the north. (source)
There are a couple of points to this.
First, California is known for massive wildfires and always has been, going back throughout history. The state practically burns to the ground for natural reasons, and when artificial human means are brought in to “control” looks without dealing with natural issues (such as underbrush growth) due to political policy, it only make any fires that do happen a lot worse.
Second, is that we have seen this phenomenon before. Last year amid massive fires, the famed wealthy city of Malibu as well as Pepperdine University was almost engulfed by flames, and this was only prevented due massive logistical work in bringing in water and fire control means.
Third, the fact that the fires each year seem to keep getting bigger is not a joke or an exaggeration, but a growing trend that will seem to remain as such for the future. Having been in contact with somebody from Mendocino County and the massive fires taking place between Eureka and Ukiah, there are many people who are concerned about their ability to continue to live in California. Who wants to live in an area where each year one is afraid that one’s house may turn into a heap of ashes?
Fourth, is that man-made infrastructures are not safe anymore. The fact that California cannot stop these fires, they keep getting worse, and they are threatening major urban areas, how much longer until, unlike the “California falling into the ocean” that many predicted, that California instead might just self-immolate due to “natural ‘reasons?
Fifth, the situation in California reflects a warning that I have said at Shoebat.com, which is that America’s greatest weakness is her natural issues, since if a country was to directly attack the US, she would incinerate that nation in a nuclear fire, but rather “natural” incidents such as fires or other problems related to disasters, if the conditions can be set for them, would cause massive domestic harm and cannot be laid on the blame of any nation. This is something to watch for, as it is the most powerful tool that a foreign government would have in manipulating domestic policy and attacking the US without drawing her wrath.
Sixth, and perhaps the most notable point, is that migration from California is going to continue because of all these reasons. This is already happening with the “Californiazation” of states such as Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon, and now is spreading to Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and with rumors that Tennessee may be next on the list.
Seventh, in relation to the previous, with a California migration comes California politics, and most of the people leaving simply due to demographic reasons are not people of good intentions, but the same ones who created the situation that has caused California to burn to the ground and are now seeking more fertile pastures to take from another while refusing to deal with the self-created mess. In other words, expect that Texas may go “blue” and that Arizona, Idaho, and possiblly Tennessee may be on their way to it also.
The California exodus, depending on how sustained and intense it becomes, will have major political impacts. However, instead of leaving California, any exodus would likely not solve any problems because the core philosophies that brought them about are not being dealt with. Thus instead of keeping said fecal matter in its latrine, it would be to pick up the philosophical excreta and paint the nation with it.
One might forget about the conservative rhetoric of “migrants” from Central America threatening the US. The problem with migration and migrants is really a domestic thing, with “fellow Americans” being the real problematic migrants, for while there is no migrant group without problems, a lot of the Central American migrants are running away from geopolitical chaos created and stirred up by foreign nations, while the California issue is entirely self-inflicted by spoiled people who would rather try to use the law as a battering ram to force good people to do what they want and complain about the consequences of their self-inflicted behavior.