Оглавление
Ryland Williams. Stop The Burn
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Hanly FireFrom the Eyes of a Teenage Firefighter
Chapter 2. The Years Before the Firestorms
Chapter 3. October 2017, the Firestorms Begin
Chapter 4. The Destructive and Deadly Firestorms of 2018The Wildfire Epidemic
Chapter 5. The (?) Experts' Solutions
Chapter 6. 2019, PG&E’s Turbulent RideThe Utility Fights to Survive
Chapter 7. There Will Be No Miracles
Chapter 8. The Solution
Chapter 9. The Funding
Chapter 10. The Workers
Chapter 11. Fire Prevention and Much More
Conclusion
Отрывок из книги
The year was 1964. As an odorous and toxic smoke clouded Santa Rosa’s airspace, a wildfire, propelled by warm, dry, and unrelenting 70 mile per hour “Diablo Winds”, raced into Knights Valley, down Franz Valley, and into Mark West Canyon. A few miles away, the City of Santa Rosa stood directly in its path.
It was a warm and windy early Tuesday morning on September 22. I should have been preparing for class at Santa Rosa Junior College, but along with friends, twins Jon and Clive Endress and Allan Miller, I had decided to help fight the fire that was threatening our city. We had not actually seen the flames as yet, and certainly had no idea of the fires magnitude, but I have to admit that I was more than a little frightened. I don’t know how my friends felt, but none of us showed fear, and we knew absolutely nothing about fighting fires. We threw shovels in the bed of Jon and Clive’s rusty old 37 Chevy pickup and headed to Carter’s Rincon Valley Feeds for burlap sacks. Off we went down Middle Rincon and onto Brush Creek Road. As we approached Wallace Road, we saw the first of the flames, and wildlife, mostly deer and rabbits, frantically running in all directions to escape the flames. We joined a group of volunteer firefighters that had kept the burn to the west side of Wallace Road. Backpack sprayers, shovels, and burlap sacks were the tools of choice, or I should say, probably the only tools available. Being young and fresh, we rushed to put our tools to work, but the freshness soon wore off as we worked our way down Wallace Road with a feeling of little accomplishment. The fire continued to burn, but the vegetation along the road was not high and the flames were six feet at best. With a powerful northeast wind, there seemed little danger of the fire jumping the road, but the fire was growing and accelerating rapidly up the hill to the west. We threw our tools in the truck and prepared to vacate the area just shy of Riebli Road.
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Communication was poor in 1964. We had a transistor radio tuned to KSRO for updates on the fire. The situation had become extremely ugly. Fueled by rugged vegetation and tall timber, and propelled by relentless winds, the fire had raced up the hill to become an unpredictable and uncontrollable raging inferno. At unbelievable speed, the fire was headed directly towards the County Hospital and Lomitas Heights, a new upscale residential subdivision at the north end of town, and of particular interest to Jon and Clive. Their older brother had purchased a home there and was presently out of town. We headed directly to his home. Al took the truck to Thrifty’s to get batteries for the radio, but I, along with Jon and Clive, grabbed every hose and sprinkler available. We soaked everything from the landscaping to the ridge of the roof. From the roof we could see everything. A massive one hundred foot wall of flames, capable of taking out our city, was rapidly approaching. The hospital was ready to evacuate, and most of the residents of the subdivision had left. Behind the hospital and subdivision of homes, the professionals, several hundred strong, and from all available agencies, prepared for battle. The fire engines and water trucks were strategically placed, while the bulldozers and scrapers cleared the vegetation from behind the structures. It was damn frightening!
It was dusk and the day was ending, but there would be no sleep. The fire had now made contact with the line of defense. The battle was on! The fight did not seem fair, and the fact is that it wasn’t. The flames were relentless and could be detained no longer. The heat was unbearable, and in less than an hour our heroes had been forced to retreat. To stay longer would have been suicide. We remained on the roof for minutes longer to watch the first of the departure, but we could no longer tolerate the heat, and we too were forced to retreat. It appeared the massive flames would soon burn our beautiful city to the ground.
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