Cedar Valley Fires

[yosemitewriter]

About midnight on Sat. night, I was standing in my yard in Cedar Valley talking to my neighbors when we all noticed the smell of smoke. I hoped in the car and drove around, finding the fires crews up Cedar Springs Road. Apparently, the fire is up on Lewis Creek and not very accessible except by foot. So I drove up Highway 41 and you can look down on the valley and the creek area and see a couple of small fires going. When I returned to where the fire engines were stationed, there were several more of them. I spoke to one of the fire guys and he didn't know too much until they got back there to assess the situation. But he thought they were only a couple of acres each. But we all know how that can change quickly.
If anybody knows more than that, please post the information. After the last fires a couple of weeks ago, we are all very much on edge and cautious.

[yosemitewriter]

If that moron in the White House would stop wasting money in Iraq, and spend it in this country where it is needed, such as giving some to the Forest Service to do brush clearance in certain endangered areas for fires, then maybe we would not worry so much about burning to death in the middle of the night.

[monkey]

I drove up 41 earlier today and didn't see any fire people.

[Sewmaui]

If that moron in the White House would stop wasting money in Iraq, and spend it in this country where it is needed, such as giving some to the Forest Service to do brush clearance in certain endangered areas for fires, then maybe we would not worry so much about burning to death in the middle of the night.

This situation seems like a local responsibility. When you live in this type of environment, precautions should be excersized. Brush clearance is required in our area in case nature, criminal or accidental situations cause a fire. I do not have sleepless nights because we have a local reponsibility and my neighbors and I comply. Is it that your local community does not hold its residents to follow certain practices to help prevent fire from spreading?

I have read many of your comments in this forum and you state how the government should mind their own business and then then you blame the President for something that anyone with any degree of intelligence could see that the President is not responsible for every local incident.

How can people expect the government to mind their own business and at the same time, the same people, want to be taken care of? Society as a whole has to be responsible and in this country we have our local, county, and state infrastrutures to handle local occurances.

Why would you want to take a national item and try to relate it to a "brush clearance" situation that should be handled by your community? Are you going to start blaming our President because your car breaks down, or tooth decay or because there are going to be less Starbucks around...... you need to look closer to yourself when things happen around you instead of blaming others. Maybe you should be more proactive in your community to get those important things handled that pertain to your local area.

[MtnBreeze]

It is easy to point fingers...however you are both right in a way. We cannot go into the national forest and clear brush...we would be arrested. Thus the danger lurks from years of fire suppression without putting in place a method of clearing areas periodically to lesson the density but also to encourage new growth (which wild fires accomplish). They now do this in Yosemite to protect it from fire storms, create food for foraging animals, help new Sequoia's sprout and so on. And yes it IS up to each of us to do our part in taking care of ourselves in all ways we can and NOT rely on others to do it for us. But we are only able to accomplish what our government allows. This does not at this time include clearing underbrush from national forest areas. Dense brush adds fuel and creates fast burning fires when ignited by human or natural causes. WE almost always have lightning in June which often causes fires.....they often will burn themselves out in areas where there is not thick underbrush. Or at least not become so intense they fuel themselves for disaster.

[Dodgergirl]

oh, and be nice....

[yosemitewriter]

I am going to response to this knee-jerk reaction because I think it's laughable. I am very proactive. My yard is all clear and I had my trees trimmed. I go to a lot of the community meetings pertaining to fires in the area. And I used to be on the Fire dept. before my back started causing me problems. So I am very pro-active about fire prevention.
And as somebody else mentioned in a post, the area surrounding Cedar Valley is U.S. Forest Service and is financed by the FEDERAL government. While it is our responsibility to protect our own homes, it should be the Forest Service clearing around residential communities. The District Ranger told me they were going to do a lot of that in the Fall, but that still leaves us with several months of summer and fire season. And everybody I talk to in the Forest Service says these things don't get done quicker because they don't have the money in the budget. And that is a FEDERAL problem that needs to be dealt with. Think of all the problems in this country such as fire suppresion, new bridges, roads, levees for all those thousands of people getting flooded out of their homes if our tax money went to these projects in our own country instead of being wasted in Iraq.



Why would you want to take a national item and try to relate it to a "brush clearance" situation that should be handled by your community? Are you going to start blaming our President because your car breaks down, or tooth decay or because there are going to be less Starbucks around...... you need to look closer to yourself when things happen around you instead of blaming others. Maybe you should be more proactive in your community to get those important things handled that pertain to your local area.

[only1alphafemale]

Well, we just came from Cedar Valley, and no smoke, or fires or fire crews at either end. Just some kind of outdoor paid hiking company that parked one of their vans with a big trailer in the road, instead of the larger parking area... :p Other than that? It looked good :)

[mountainmissy]

Yosemite Writer, we soooo agree with you. We, too, border USFS land. It's a disaster waiting to happen--tons of dead and dying stuff and ladder fuel up the ying-yang. We have cleared/weedwacked nearly 13 acres of our land (all around our house and substantially beyond) but if a fire starts on USFS land down below us, we're probably "toast" because if a fire gets in the crowns, there's not a lot we can do. The USFS property has signs that threaten you with arrest if you touch anything--even if it's just to help. When we talk with employees, the answer is that they don't have the funds.

[yosemitewriter]

Sometime back, somebody made a quick reference to Thermo-Gel. I did some internet research and talked to some people on the fire crews, and this stuff sounds like something everybody should get. They say you can spray it on your house with a garden hose before the fire hits and it makes your house almost fire proof. In one study in a forest area, they sprayed something like 27 homes with Thermo-Gel and they ALL survived except two, and of those two, one of them had left his garage door opened and the fire got in that way, and in the second case the fire was already burning the house. The stuff costs about $300 and is good for at least 5 years. So for $60 a year, that sounds like GREAT fire insurance. I think that with keeping the brush cleared and using thermo-gel, you would be protected. Some of the fire crews already carry it. Others will hopefully get it in the future. Our fire department in Cedar Valley doesn't have it yet.
I have heard that after you spray it on, it is good anywhere from 6 hours to a couple of days. Then if you need to re-activate it, all you do is spray water on it. Do an internet search and read some of the interesting articles about it.

[Ironhorse]

I am going to response to this knee-jerk reaction because I think it's laughable.

As DG said earlier, be nice!

[yosemitewriter]

As a follow-up to my previous posting about thermo-gel, I'm trying to get True Value to carry it. So we should get a lot of people calling up Alan Bryant and asking if they carry thermo-gel. I gave Alan some information on thermo-gel, but it may take a few phone calls to get him interested enough to start stocking it. I'm sure we could get it off the internet, but I like the Bryants and would rather see the business stay in Oakhurst.

[cak]

There was some thunder here in Cedar Valley a few hours back, but no rain. We can still smell a little smoke - the fire crews were up at the end of Cedar Springs Road at least until 5pm.

[mountainmissy]

There's also a product called Flame Guard Gel (supposed to be good for up to 30 days) and another product called Barricade Gel. One of the best things I found was that in San Diego, the Fire Safe Council down there got a grant and was able to offer a fire retardant gel to rural homeowners at a discount--for $90 instead of $300+. They also offered a training session for homeowners on how to use the stuff. Wish our Fire Safe Council could do something like that...

[ZipperMan]

About midnight on Sat. night, I was standing in my yard in Cedar Valley talking to my neighbors when we all noticed the smell of smoke. I hoped in the car and drove around, finding the fires crews up Cedar Springs Road. Apparently, the fire is up on Lewis Creek and not very accessible except by foot. So I drove up Highway 41 and you can look down on the valley and the creek area and see a couple of small fires going. When I returned to where the fire engines were stationed, there were several more of them. I spoke to one of the fire guys and he didn't know too much until they got back there to assess the situation. But he thought they were only a couple of acres each. But we all know how that can change quickly.
If anybody knows more than that, please post the information. After the last fires a couple of weeks ago, we are all very much on edge and cautious.

You say you are a former firefighter. Then you should know that you should not be driving around and blocking the roads and talking with firefighters when they are trying to do their jobs. When you know you are in an area where there is a fire give the firefighters the space to do their jobs. I take it that you are not the press and not doing interviews of firefighters. If you fear that you may need to evacuate, then prepare to evacuate, don't mess with the firefigthers.

[only1alphafemale]

As a follow-up to my previous posting about thermo-gel, I'm trying to get True Value to carry it. So we should get a lot of people calling up Alan Bryant and asking if they carry thermo-gel. I gave Alan some information on thermo-gel, but it may take a few phone calls to get him interested enough to start stocking it. I'm sure we could get it off the internet, but I like the Bryants and would rather see the business stay in Oakhurst.


Jerry Bryant, and not his son Alan would have the final say so on the stocking of this product. You need to speak to Jerry ~

[yosemitewriter]

The first time I drove up Cedar Springs Road, I stayed several hundred feet away from the fire trucks. I just wanted to see where they were. When I drove up Highway 41, there were NO fire trucks nor anybody else up there. And when I came back, I briefly spoke to one of the fire crew who was standing by his truck...and only for a few seconds. I did not impede anything he was doing...and my car was way out of the way of the firetrucks. My neighbors were curious as to what was going on...and so was I.
Stop making these outrageous, un-informed assumptions. They really annoy me.


You say you are a former firefighter. Then you should know that you should not be driving around and blocking the roads and talking with firefighters when they are trying to do their jobs. When you know you are in an area where there is a fire give the firefighters the space to do their jobs. I take it that you are not the press and not doing interviews of firefighters. If you fear that you may need to evacuate, then prepare to evacuate, don't mess with the firefigthers.

[Ironhorse]

The first time I drove up Cedar Springs Road, I stayed several hundred feet away from the fire trucks. I just wanted to see where they were. When I drove up Highway 41, there were NO fire trucks nor anybody else up there. And when I came back, I briefly spoke to one of the fire crew who was standing by his truck...and only for a few seconds. I did not impede anything he was doing...and my car was way out of the way of the firetrucks. My neighbors were curious as to what was going on...and so was I.
Stop making these outrageous, un-informed assumptions. They really annoy me.

Last warning, NO name-calling (i.e. your "Response to Zipperhead").

[yosemitewriter]

Just talked to one of the fire crew who worked on the Cedar Valley fire last weekend. There were 5 sepearate fires set about 200 feet apart by an arsonist. They got them all out in a couple of hours, but never found out who set them.

[yosemitewriter]

Does anybody know anything about the small fire that started on Cedar Valley Drive, right near Deer Run? I just noticed it tonight, so it must have burned today. It was a small area that burned and was entirely out. I'm just curious HOW it started.