California folks, CRAP air quality from these fires affecting you?
- Thread starter looney2nz
- Start date
Stay safe and stay vaped brother!
Somehow the air quality hasn't affected me as much as the fires last year but I know tons are suffering from this!
Somehow the air quality hasn't affected me as much as the fires last year but I know tons are suffering from this!
Hackerman
User
And, I am just getting ready to move to California. I hope it's still there when I arrive.
Is there any place in Cali that is never affected by the annual smoke and fires? I suppose LA is safe but last time I was there, the air was worse than smoke. LOL
I was thinking of landing in Santa Barbara and rent a place for a year or so while I look around Cali and decide where I want to live. San Diego looks like one of the more affordable places (on the coast).
Been wanting to move to Cali all my life. I sure hope the reality is as wonderful as the dreams.
Is there any place in Cali that is never affected by the annual smoke and fires? I suppose LA is safe but last time I was there, the air was worse than smoke. LOL
I was thinking of landing in Santa Barbara and rent a place for a year or so while I look around Cali and decide where I want to live. San Diego looks like one of the more affordable places (on the coast).
Been wanting to move to Cali all my life. I sure hope the reality is as wonderful as the dreams.
looney2nz
Research Geek, Mad Scientist
And, I am just getting ready to move to California. I hope it's still there when I arrive.
Is there any place in Cali that is never affected by the annual smoke and fires? I suppose LA is safe but last time I was there, the air was worse than smoke. LOL
I was thinking of landing in Santa Barbara and rent a place for a year or so while I look around Cali and decide where I want to live. San Diego looks like one of the more affordable places (on the coast).
Been wanting to move to Cali all my life. I sure hope the reality is as wonderful as the dreams.
wow... Santa Barbara is lovely, but it's also mecca for fires (look up 'sundowner' winds), and the traffic in and around there SUCKS (there will almost ALWAYS be a slowdown around that area on the 101).
LA/OC/IE Basin - Santa Ana Winds, Traffic, variable air quality.
I like further up the coast around Cambria, Pismo Beach, Morrow Bay, etc.
But in some areas like San Luis Obispo there are restrictions on water use that can be a pain (restricts development). Monterey Bay area is nice, but I haven't been back up there since Salinas Valley grew to include Silicon Valley suburbs!
Where I lived in Marin was awesome (north end, just before you go to NAPA/Sonoma), but definitely not immune to fire. Bay Area is just ridiculous EXPENSIVE, period.
San Diego is nice too, but gets exposed to smoke/fires from adjacent mountains.
As for there being ANY place in California that is immune to fires/smoke... prolly not.
That goes for the flooding and mudslides that follow too
I'd look up retirement cities in California, plenty of those 'guides'/reviews online.
Yes it's beautiful up there in the 5 Cities area! Had a family member who lived there for a while and it was awesome, love Pismo!
It's a yearly issue down here.
looney2nz
Research Geek, Mad Scientist
yeah!
Cambria is awesome 'cause it's an art colony filled with all kids of great stuff. good restaurants, etc.
I HIGHLY recommend the 2 story art-glass gallery, incredible. If these folks made WT!!!
Hackerman
User
Thanks gang. The wife loved the Pismo Beach / Monterey area. She also like SLO but I want to be in view of the beach if I can.
I wasn't aware San Diego had fire/smoke issues. Bummer. Looks like you get more for your money there than most other places. Maybe I should scoot a tiny bit further South and just live in Mexico. LOL
I would live in San Fransisco in a second but, even for me, it's pretty darn expensive there. And, the main reason I am moving is for the good weather and the palm trees really don't start until you get South of Pismo.
I am hoping to get out there next year so it is getting closer.
Thanks for the input. When I arrive....... beer is on me.
I wasn't aware San Diego had fire/smoke issues. Bummer. Looks like you get more for your money there than most other places. Maybe I should scoot a tiny bit further South and just live in Mexico. LOL
I would live in San Fransisco in a second but, even for me, it's pretty darn expensive there. And, the main reason I am moving is for the good weather and the palm trees really don't start until you get South of Pismo.
I am hoping to get out there next year so it is getting closer.
Thanks for the input. When I arrive....... beer is on me.
That's the way to do it, got a buddy who did exactly that. You get like 10x the value for your money in Cabo than San Diego. I've been down there a lot and Baja California is just like living in SoCal but better. The water is so much nicer than San Diego. I mean the vape scene is not nearly as good but I heard they are bringing recreational down there so that could change everything.
Madri-Gal
Child Of The Revolution
Novato?wow... Santa Barbara is lovely, but it's also mecca for fires (look up 'sundowner' winds), and the traffic in and around there SUCKS (there will almost ALWAYS be a slowdown around that area on the 101).
LA/OC/IE Basin - Santa Ana Winds, Traffic, variable air quality.
I like further up the coast around Cambria, Pismo Beach, Morrow Bay, etc.
But in some areas like San Luis Obispo there are restrictions on water use that can be a pain (restricts development). Monterey Bay area is nice, but I haven't been back up there since Salinas Valley grew to include Silicon Valley suburbs!
Where I lived in Marin was awesome (north end, just before you go to NAPA/Sonoma), but definitely not immune to fire. Bay Area is just ridiculous EXPENSIVE, period.
San Diego is nice too, but gets exposed to smoke/fires from adjacent mountains.
As for there being ANY place in California that is immune to fires/smoke... prolly not.
That goes for the flooding and mudslides that follow too
I'd look up retirement cities in California, plenty of those 'guides'/reviews online.
looney2nz
Research Geek, Mad Scientist
Novato indeed
Bel Marin Keys!I miss it, was incredibly clean and peaceful there. Quiet, incredibly clear night skies...
could get windy as hell. Right next to the largest wetlands reserve on the west coast
'course, I was working ridiculous hours when I was there last... when I quit my job,
I was ecstatic
It was a great place to hang and entertain.@Hackerman, yeah, the whole central coast is gorgeous.
You can't beat Monterey Bay Aquarium with a stick, it's incredible.
Not far from Big Sur (17 mile drive), Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley and the rest of the greater bay area
over highway 17 from Santa Cruz. I have friends who live in Paso Robles, that area is nice too, lots of wineries around ('course lots of them around Santa Cruz too).
Half Moon Bay, Pescadero, Pacifica and other locations further north are nice, but can get very soggy (and foggy!). Beaches become progressively rocky the further north you go.
Beaches... before I left for the Bay Area the first time in the 80's, the only place I would preferred to live then was Seal Beach (last small beach town OC community before Long Beach along the shore), but I'm a local and had ties here. I grew up body-surfing Huntington & Newport (had a hilarious experience trying to do that years later in Santa Cruz, there's a REASON they are all in bodysuits!!! brrrrrrrr), ocean views cost coin... pretty much wherever you go, although @invertedisdead struck a resonant note... one of my friends just sold his place in Gilroy and moved along the baja coast. Some very real differences living in Mexico tho!
as far as 'good weather' goes, I grew up in so cal, lived around 20 years in nor cal.
The so cal basin has crazy weather, lots of microclimates (so does the Bay Area!), but the Santa Ana Winds are a holy terror (that have become a year round issue, it used to just be around august-october)... that's pretty much from San Diego up through Santa Barbara? The palm trees are little g-dam roman candles in these fires, scary dangerous (same with eucalyptus which are also everywhere).
The smog, while vastly better than what it was through the 70's and early 80's (truly corrosive), still exists, although more of it is a fine particulate (soot from diesel largely) that represents an insidious danger.
The traffic is just a black hole. Some progress has been made with transit systems (light rail, bus), but it's still car central.
I actually PREFERRED the weather in the Bay Area, as it was cooler than so cal (mostly), had more humidity in the air and there was such a difference in the amount of living trees and plants everywhere, it was part of what changed the quality of the air (been a number of years, but I used to laugh @ the Valley folks who complained about smog or traffic back in the 80's).
If you enjoy mountain/winter stuff, you should check the maps for distance to those things too.
OF
Well-Known Member
Hey, how about Balinas, just North of San Francisco. Where Janis Joplin (among others) lived? Captain Jack Sparrow's 'island those who've never been there can't find'. In my youth the locals used to steal the signs off Highway 1 (runs up the coast from Mexico to Canada) so folks couldn't find it. GPS fixed that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolinas,_California
OF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolinas,_California
OF
OF
Well-Known Member
hey were still stealin' the signs there 15 years ago
and Marin County is some of the most expensive land in California... I think Tiburon has the priciest housing in the state.
I think you're right. But prior to WWII it was cow pastures. They put in shipyards for smaller limited production ships, complete with housing and stores and it took off from there. Like Disneyland being citrus groves and 'Silicon Valley' (also extremely expensive) was farm land south of San Francisco. Not long before that Berkeley (directly across the bay from SF, where the main bridge is) was rich people's 'country houses' the SF folks would retreat to by boat or ferry.
Henry Kaiser with his shipyards really dominated what happened here. He ran 'freedom trains' (really trucks and buses) through the south, midwest and east advertising jobs in sunny California. You'd turn up with your family and baggage (baggage on trucks, family in buses) and uprooted and migrated to the work. We ended up with 'colonies' of folks like Portuguese Shipwrights in San Leandro (south of Berkeley) where 'old country' conditions ruled and we got lots of blocks of smaller houses.....most of them with wells to grow the grapes and other stuff. Then a couple of dry cleaners storage tanks leaked into the ground water and they had to 'find and cap' all those wells. They went house to house.
Fun place, no buildings over a 200 years old, almost none built on 'used' lots. 200 years ago we had a string of Catholic Missions (each a day's walk from the last) and lots and lots of teepees. Somebody made a pile of money converting from agriculture to housing in a short period of time compared to the rest of the world.
Too bad the bunny huggers have made it about impossible to cut down trees (even dead ones) so we can save up huge bunches of them to burn all at once when it's least convenient. Seriously, we were set up for fires like this one Statewide we have over 100,000 identified dead trees that can be harvested, burned or removed 'for the environment'........an environment that's screwing up tens of thousands who have lost their houses and making it tough on others. We're 200 miles from the fire and the sun is a dull red disk the size of the full moon (and in the same place in the sky) and we have no shadows at mid day since the light is so diffuse.
OF
looney2nz
Research Geek, Mad Scientist
lots of Italians found their way to the Bay Area, very familiar microclimates to them, vineyards to the north and all variety of fruits, nuts and vegetables growing in Silicon Valley!
Dry cleaners poisoning the aquifer
I don't understand why we don't have goat teams for our forests and urban transition areas
I've seen them used in other places and they work GREAT, chew up all that fuel!
And it's been awhile, but last I was on Big Bear Mountain, it had been DECIMATED by bark beetle infestation, and they were trying to harvest whatever salvageable lumber they could.
But the vast majority of forests in California are federally owned... aside from Zinke sharpening his knives over what National Parks he can start drilling and mining in, I don't see the feds doing much positive here.
They would clear-cut old growth trees in a heartbeat if the price was right.
Thin and manage the forest, for the health of the forest, not your pocketbook (if that happens as well, kismet).
Byproduct is we help protect ourselves from insane firestorms like we've been seeing in recent years.
But the big problem this time around has been 2-fold, the utilities and above ground powerlines, and ubiquitous amounts of tinder-dry fuel (help along by the hottest/driest years on record, preceded by years of drought).
I hope to hell they don't give PG&E and SCE a 'pass' again for liability (you'll remember they were found at fault in last years fires, no?), 'cause for the same damn thing to happen two years in a row... we should own both utilities. That's what they were worried about the last time, but 2x in a row? NAH, I don't think so.
Seems to be all the municipalities with their own utilities have a record of providing better and cheaper services, why not do that for the whole state?
Harvest trees selectively, grow hemp for damn near everything else.
Dry cleaners poisoning the aquifer
I don't understand why we don't have goat teams for our forests and urban transition areas
I've seen them used in other places and they work GREAT, chew up all that fuel!
And it's been awhile, but last I was on Big Bear Mountain, it had been DECIMATED by bark beetle infestation, and they were trying to harvest whatever salvageable lumber they could.
But the vast majority of forests in California are federally owned... aside from Zinke sharpening his knives over what National Parks he can start drilling and mining in, I don't see the feds doing much positive here.
They would clear-cut old growth trees in a heartbeat if the price was right.
Thin and manage the forest, for the health of the forest, not your pocketbook (if that happens as well, kismet).
Byproduct is we help protect ourselves from insane firestorms like we've been seeing in recent years.
But the big problem this time around has been 2-fold, the utilities and above ground powerlines, and ubiquitous amounts of tinder-dry fuel (help along by the hottest/driest years on record, preceded by years of drought).
I hope to hell they don't give PG&E and SCE a 'pass' again for liability (you'll remember they were found at fault in last years fires, no?), 'cause for the same damn thing to happen two years in a row... we should own both utilities. That's what they were worried about the last time, but 2x in a row? NAH, I don't think so.
Seems to be all the municipalities with their own utilities have a record of providing better and cheaper services, why not do that for the whole state?
Harvest trees selectively, grow hemp for damn near everything else.
OF
Well-Known Member
Dry cleaners poisoning the aquifer
I don't understand why we don't have goat teams for our forests and urban transition areas
And it's been awhile, but last I was on Big Bear Mountain, it had been DECIMATED by bark beetle infestation, and they were trying to harvest whatever salvageable lumber they could.
I hope to hell they don't give PG&E and SCE a 'pass' again for liability (you'll remember they were found at fault in last years fires, no?), 'cause for the same damn thing to happen two years in a row... we should own both utilities. That's what they were worried about the last time, but 2x in a row? NAH, I don't think so.
Yup, Dry Cleaners. I have relatives who lived there and had a well (they've since moved). The city came by, found and ordered the well capped. They said there were four cleaners, all closed. "More than one" had tank leaks but they wouldn't say which so you could sue them......
Goats are great, we have a couple 'crews' running them on small plots isolated by temporary electric fences. Smelly, but effective, and fun to watch. But the real problem as I understand is the dead tree issue. It's the kindling, the undergrowth the tinder, that get the standing trees going. They're full of pitch (for evergreens) and throw off flaming bits that can ride the hot air up and go a mile or more before landing on some more undergrowth. But, you see, those dead trees are part of nature. We must not interfere. So the 'interface' between wild and developed gets increasingly vulnerable over time. Sad, but predictable.
We fixed the problem of evil people exploiting the beetle damaged trees. By blocking harvest. I worked for a guy who ran a campground near Yosemite. He made extra money selling firewood. Oak there. He had to get a specific permit for each tree. It took months to get the tree inspected and approved so he could remove it. He'd have to cut into it with his bulldozer to get the wood out. They would inspect afterwards and he'd get fined for 'scaring a tree' along the way. Many times he'd lose money on a tree with fees and fines. And this was years ago. We've been led by the bunny huggers down this nature path for a long time, it's just finally really biting us I think. And making millions of people eyes water if they dare go outside.
Hard to say what happens to PG&E. They have insurance (we demanded it long back), paid for by increasing rates, of course, but it's looking like they may overrun it this time so the rate payers will get another hit. It's easy to blame them, but power lines aren't the only way fires start. Campers, lightning, cars and trucks (worse now with catalytic converters, we just had another one of those started by the cops parking on the shoulder to write a guy a ticket) and other sources PG&E isn't to blame for. The real problem is the fuel situation.
It's easy to hate big companies.
Sad, but predictably it's going to happen again if we don't change our ways......and maybe even if we do.
Hopefully the forecast rain will get here next week. That should 'wash' the smoke out of the air and hopefully get us past the 30% or so contained level we're stuck at. BTW, I read that the 'worlds biggest tanker', a modified 747 that carries 17 times the normal retardant load is on duty (came from Colorado on loan), it's credited for getting us past 25%. The money usually goes into smaller planes that can use smaller airports, with a premium on the ones that can scoop up water from nearby lakes. They too are fun to watch.
Soon this too will pass....for a while?
OF
looney2nz
Research Geek, Mad Scientist
the DC-10's have been working hard too, they are more maneuverable than the 747, but nowhere near as much foscheck.
rain baby... bring it, just not too much too fast.
I hope they flock all the hills with seed right away.
as for the northern and southern utilities... there seems to be pretty damning evidence that both major fires were precipitated by equipment failures.
rain baby... bring it, just not too much too fast.
I hope they flock all the hills with seed right away.
as for the northern and southern utilities... there seems to be pretty damning evidence that both major fires were precipitated by equipment failures.
Hackerman
User
Geeze, it rains almost every day here... all year long. During June, July and August we get more inches of rainfall than the Amazon rain forest. It's NEVER dry around here.
Sure wish I could trade some of our rain for some of your sunshine.
In fact, I'll trade ALL our rain for some of your sunshine. LOL
I must admit, all this is scaring me. I sure hope I don't get out there and wish I hadn't. LOL I just want beautiful weather all year long without having to chase the sunshine. I suppose Hawaii would be my best choice but I didn't really have the desire for HI. I always thought Southern Cali was the cat's meow for nicest places to live in the US.
Sure wish I could trade some of our rain for some of your sunshine.
In fact, I'll trade ALL our rain for some of your sunshine. LOL
I must admit, all this is scaring me. I sure hope I don't get out there and wish I hadn't. LOL I just want beautiful weather all year long without having to chase the sunshine. I suppose Hawaii would be my best choice but I didn't really have the desire for HI. I always thought Southern Cali was the cat's meow for nicest places to live in the US.
Are you in the PNW 'cause so many people are leaving here to go there. Although I came to SD from Oregon so I used to do the daily rain thing too. I still think MEXICO is where it's at though! It's like San Diego without traffic.
OF
Well-Known Member
That's been bothering me, 'didn't seem right'. So it seems I lied/misrembered it and was only off by 3 decades...... There are currently 128 MILLION (not thousand) dead trees spread around waiting to burn next time. That's what a bit over 3 for every man, woman and child living in the state.....legal or not?
Sorry for the misquote.
I forgot to respond to this point. Yes, it's true the Feds own the woods for the most part, but the courts have allowed the State Air Quality Board to veto burns in the name of air pollution, which of course they do with practiced abandon. The default is 'you can't'. No more controlled burns allowed (for practical purposes). Likewise we block logging efforts 'at the State level'. Just like we do with auto emissions, firearms and other things the Fed does we don't approve of.
The irony is the air pollution (and release of CO2 and other 'greenhouse gasses' from this one fire alone have offset every other effort 'for the environment' like higher gas prices, not being able to use your fireplace when they say you can't, more expensive electricity and so on. All our sacrifices made in the name of ecology just literally 'went up in smoke'........
The sad part is many/most of these clowns think they're doing the right thing.
OF