Santa Cruz Fires

9:00pm Pacific

Hotness: Medium

Related searches:
santa cruz sentinel, santa cruz ca, lockheed fire, santa cruz fire map, ksbw breaking news

Peak:
6 hours ago

Location:
7% - Santa Cruz, CA
7% - San Francisco, CA

(I figure I should start posting the Google Trend info just so you know I'm not blowing smoke.)

(Sorry about the smoke reference. Wasn't intended as a joke, just turned out that way.)

The fire started near Bonney Doon, CA around 7pm on Wednesday the 12th. The fire has consumed over 4000 acres in the area. For those familiar with the area, it is about 8 miles north of Santa Cruz and half-way between Hwy 1 and Hwy 9, two of the three major north-south routes into Santa Cruz. The area is sparsely developed. The fire is known as The Lockheed Fire because it is near the Lockheed Martin Santa Cruz campus.

A ranch owned by Cal Poly is also threatened by the fire. Cal Poly issued a press release that said in part: "An earlier report also indicated that the porch at the Staub House on the ranch burned. That incident was not related to the Lockheed Fire." (Someone was playing with matches while they watched the fire approach campus? The mind reels...)

A fire burned approximately 19,000 acres in the same area in the summer of 1948. No homes were destroyed in 1948, and no homes have been claimed yet by the current fire.

My Take: Having come of age in Silicon Valley I saw several fires in the Santa Cruz hills. Fires burn there just like the do anywhere else. What impresses me is the California presses overwhelming concern with issues related to the fire, but not the fire itself.

For example, in this report we find that Monterey County has issued an air quality advisory. Odd is that Monterey is south of Santa Cruz, which, itself is south of the fire. Odder is that the districts air quality control officer says, "We don't see any levels attributable to the fire." But oddest IS THAT THEY PRINTED THE STORY ANYWAY. Good heavens, is there no real news to report? Do they really have to report on the lack of news? It sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch.

And then there is the concern for the animals. Not the wild animals who, no doubt have been at best inconvenienced and at worst, uh, burned alive, but the abandoned pets (nice owners, that's all I can say: "We can't take Fido, he's gonna have to stay behind and be a real wiener dog"), and the FISH. Yes, the fish. I know there's nothing funny about thousands of acres being burned, but it strikes me as funny, and very California, that they should be writing stories about the safety of the fish.

Sometimes I really miss living in California.