Monday, May 06, 2013

California Wildfires 2013


Unseasonal wildfires that started last week ravaged California. At least four large uncontrollable fires burned acreage and threatened homes in Northern and Southern California.  Fires burned in Riverside County, Tehama County, Glenn County and Ventura County.   In Northern California, a fire has blackened 11 square miles of wilderness in Tehama County.

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, commonly known as Cal Fire, thousands of firefighters are fighting the fires using engines, bulldozers and aircraft worked to corral the blaze.

The Center is proposing to build woodchip-to-electricity plants (10 MW) in California that would use wood from wildfire areas pre-cut to prevent them from damaging valuable areas and destroying homes.  There is no reason that uncontrolled wildfires should be allowed to ravage California year after year.  Not only can the wildfires be contained, pre-cut wood can serve as a renewable resource for producing electricity.  The links below provide more information about our proposed program(s):

 
Green Electric California Biomass-To-Electricity Plant

Scoping Visit: Sacramento Outreach

 



Fire that moved through neighborhoods of Camarillo Springs and Thousand Oaks burned numerous homes and threatened thousands of homes.  The fire also swept through Point Mugu State Park, a hiking and camping area that sprawls between those communities and the ocean.  Fires burned in the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains.

A large blaze, the Panther Fire in Tehama County, burned nearly 7,000 acres by Sunday night and was concentrated in rugged terrain.  In Riverside County, the so-called Summit Fire was fully contained Saturday night after burning more than 3,000 acres, destroying a home and causing two injuries. The cause of it, too, remained under investigation.

The blazes are part of more than 680 wildfires in the state so far this year -- about 200 more than average. East of Los Angeles in Riverside County, a new fire that broke out Saturday afternoon burned 650 acres of wilderness south of Banning. (Fox News, 5/5/2013, NBC News, 5/6/2013, Cal Fire Current Fire Incident Information)

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