wind speed: 1 mph
wind speed: 1 mph
wind speed: 1 mph
Why we let the fire burning for 5 days
On August
29th 2009, northern Los Angeles met the “largest wildfire—Station Fire—in the
modern history of Los Angeles County” (Bloomekatz). The fire lasted for 5
days and destroyed 160,577 acres and 209 structures and even killed two
firefighters. It was originally started at west part of Los Angeles and
gradually enlarged to red perimeter till August 31th, 2009. After that, the
fire was under control and progressively diminished and eventually eliminated. This
passage associated with maps and a video is talking about the first three days
of the Station Fire.
It is rare to see a fire burning for days, especially
for a highly developed country, so I was really astonished that how government
could let the fire burning for 5 days. Therefore, I was trying to analyses the
whole case from the view of wind, local topography, fire stations, US Forest
Services and local eligible reinforcement.
According to the wind record in
wunderground.com, “the average wind speed from August 29th to 31th is 1 mph
with the direction to west and south”. However, the fire was rampantly spreading
towards west mostly. Therefore, I thought the wind is not a major cause for the
fire lasting for five days. On the other hand, wind direction may help to stop
fire from running too fast towards north.
From the 3D map and aspect map, we can
easily figure out that the fire was climbing mountains. It is not hard to
imagine that the smoke was rising to a higher position and made the vegetation
on that position become more vulnerable and flammable. Moreover, the vegetation
is much more flammable than urban city. Therefore, although the wind direction
is on another way, forest fire is more likely climbing mountains and burning vegetation.
According
to Los Angeles fire station distribution (2011), the density of fire stations
is becoming dilute and dilute from the center of Los Angeles. Therefore, the
ability to face a rampant fire is decreasing dramatically, especially in the
mountain area. However, the heavy density of urban fire stations contributed to
prevent fire from invading city. The density is another significant reason for
why the fire did not go with wind as I mentioned above.
Another thing is that fire fighters need
more training for forest fire and more equipment for diminishing the forest
fire. According to a video in YouTube, many heavy and efficient fire trucks
cannot climb mountains so the fire fighters had to use the most basic equipment
to fight with “the most serious wildfire in modern LA history”. If we could
provide more handle and powerful equipment, the fire would not last for five
days.
Also, a passage in Huff Post Los Angeles
stated that although at that time US Forest Service Department has owned some
helicopters and aircrafts for fire extinguishing purpose, the administration
could not fully use them and these high tech “fire extinguishers” could not
successfully cooperate with each other. Therefore, both fire fighters and
administrators should receive more training to improve their efficiency.
Last but not least, sometimes when the fire
becomes really serious like this “burning for five days”, we can call help from
military I think. In 1999, there was a huge wild fire in northeast China and
because the fire was enormously serious, the military gave hands to dig
trenches to prevent further destruction. As for some air bases near Los
Angeles, they could also send some helicopters to extinguish the wild fire.
Reference
Bloomekatz, Ari B.
(September 2, 2009). "Station
fire is largest in L.A. County's modern history". Retrieved from Los
Angeles Times http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-is-largest-in-la-county-history.html
Fire Stations distributions 2011 retrieved from GIS online database.
Michael. Blood (2011) 2009 Los Angeles Station Fire Report Reveals Foggy Policies in The Forest Service Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/2009-los-angeles-wildfire-_n_1153695.html
The average wind speed and directions from August 29th to August 31th, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.wunderground.com/history/
The video named Station Fire Compilation - August 28-30, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68uxWIDrnQ
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