GOP Attacks Davis on Wildfires

(snip)

Reporters at the press conference, held in the midst of Ground Zero: Scripps Ranch immediately asked where the helicopters were yesterday.

"All I can tell them is that these are acts of God," replied the governor. "You have no idea where the winds will blow ... you will have more trucks than you can imagine by tomorrow."

(snip)

Earlier today, Republican politicial leaders charged the Democratic Davis administration with failing to move quickly enough to send in military assets to help fight the numerous blazes raging in the area.

The allegation brought a sharp retort from the governor's press secretary, Steve Maviglio, who called the grousing "the worst kind of political maneuvering" and said the critics are "not helping put one fire out."

Republican Assemblyman Jay La Suer of La Mesa, County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon and several other East County Republicans gathered at La Suer's La Mesa office to call for the state to quickly approve a request to bring in a military firefighting unit from Colorado Springs.

more…
http://signonsandiego.com/news/fires/20031027-9999_7n27main.html

FEMA assistance on FRIDAY...

Blame the environmental whackos for the carnage in San Diego. If the trees had been thinned out, there would not have been near as much damage.

It was a dumb ass hunter who illegally set off a flare that started the San Diego fire which was fed by BRUSH..not trees. A great deal of property on which fires burned is FEDERAL property which is not the state's responsibility to manage.

The Devore fire was fueled by a bark beetle infestation which is DUE TO THINNING the trees and logging by industry.

Now I know where you get all of your talking points. Well, I knew that about you before, but this just adds more proof.

I do have to say that I love your brilliant thinking though. I think you should call up Pacific Lumber and get them to start harvesting brush. Old-growth brush, even. That'll get those enviro-whacko brush-sitters out of their brush-sitting platforms and you'll have killed two birds with one stone.

I've been meaning to tell you just how impressed I am with all of your in-depth thinking; I'm sorry it took me so long.

Where I live, we are encouraged to clear brush away from our house and cut the grass on the open space. They ask for more money to clear the brush, but there is not enough money. They sometimes try controlled burns, but it is very dangerous to do near houses because sometimes the fires get out of control. I have NEVER heard an environmentalist stop the thinning of the brush. Everyone knows this ecosystem thrives with small fires. The problem is the houses that prevents routine fires to clear the brush. Thus when the fires start, they burn too hot, and cannot be stopped.

I cannot respond to this ah...person in a civil fashion.

RC

...which might well translate to "environmental whacko" in your world, but at least I know what I'm talking about to some degree. The single biggest management problem with the lands that are presently burning is 100 years or so of attempted fire suppression, which has resulted in massive fuel accumulation and a transition to dense, brush dominated forests filled with combustable litter. Western forests, especially the mediteranean chapperal and pine forests of southern California, were historically fire maintained, with an average fire cycle on the order of about every ten years or so (with lots of regional variation). That suppressed the brush and cleaned out the fuels, as well as stimulating new growth, sending a pulse of nutrients into the soil, and so on.

Fire suppression has disrupted that natural fire cycle and created hideously dangerous conditions. The two primary justifications for fire suppression are 1) forest protection, and 2) human habitation protection. The first is based largely on protection of timber value, rather than habitat value, and is essentially bogus. As I said, it has resulted in conditions that are a ticking time bomb, and which virtually guarantee large scale forest destruction. The second justification is more difficult to deal with-- to some degree, building homes up in the canyons of the southern California coast range is just a dumb thing to do, sort of like building on land that you know floods every 25 years or so, especially if home-owners insist on letting the chapperal grow near their houses, putting plants in their yards, etc.

The only way to alleviate this situation is to let fires burn, and to set them intentionally whenever fuel loads begin to accumulate before they reach truely dangerous levels. This isn't popular with the owners of million dollar homes in the hills, or with their insurance companies, but nature isn't always accomodating.

As for your comments about bark beetles, you are partially correct that Dendroctonus beetle outbreaks in some southern California forests have exacerbated fire conditions, but only because those conditions were already dangerously bad. Beetle outbreaks-- like low-to-moderate intensity fires-- are part of normal forest ecology. They are intensified by poor logging sanitation, which provides virtually unlimited brood habitat for colonizing beetles, and by many conditions which stress otherwise healthy conifers. In particular, the current outbreaks were certainly worsened, if not triggered, by drought, severe competition between trees in stands that would normally be maintained at much lower densities by fire, and by damage caused by extensive human encroachment (e.g. forest fragmentation by roads and homes, tree damage during logging, poor logging sanitation, and so on).

Mechanically thinning the forest is not the answer-- doing so economically almost always increases fuel loads, at least in the short term, and leads to denser, more dangerous stands in the longer term. Timber sales always take out the most merchantable wood, not the low volume brushy stuff that's the problem. The only real answer is regular fire. And the insurance companies be damned.

Thank you for the bracing tonic of scientific and professional reason which provides a much needed antidote to the willful ignorance of those who would cut down trees to "save them" and then brand it a "healthy forests initiative." Sort of like euthanizing the poor and the elderly to maximize health care corporation profits and calling it a "healthy patients initiative."

We have a similar situation in my state. No one is talking about what the Bushco definition of "forest thinning" is, which I believe means take out as many profitable trees as you can while ignoring the real problem, the understory growth and a century of fire suppression in the West.

And, it just goes to show you...that we all (can) learn something new every single day. And, your post was very enlightening...and, interesting, too!

Thank you!

:dunce:

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It's not worth busting a vein over!

step back, Loyal, from that expression. you don't want it...

There is a film that is shown at the Museum of Natural History at Exhibition Park in Los Angeles, that explains the process of seasonal fires in the canyons of California. You should go there and see it before you blame environmentalists for this.

It’s a natural process by nature to clear out the dead debris to make way for new growth on the old growth trees that survive the process just fine. The fires burn away all the old and diseased parts of the trees to encourage new growth much like pruning old and decaying parts of your shrubs encourages new growth.

Fire also purges the diseases and pests that destroy the forests. Taking the good trees only makes the forests more vulnerable. Have you ever seen what happens when a logging company goes in and clear cuts a stand of trees? Well, I have. The first thing they do strip off all the parts off of the logs that they don’t want. They leave in piles to dry out and this debris increases the fire vulnerability of the area. They also leave behind the diseased logs, which are of no use to them. People who live in the canyons know the danger.

Eventually, they might go in and plant seedlings, but instead of planting the variety that nature does, they plant only the species they want to encourage and usually they are genetically similar. If a pest attacks a tree that is susceptible to it, another genetically different tree that has evolved a defense against that pest will survive and the damaged trees will be only a few. Not only that, varieties of the species often protect each other from diseases and pests.

This makes Bush’s healthy forest initiative nothing but a crock of shit and a big boon to the destructive practices of the logging companies. Sorry but Bush and the crooks in Washington have lied to you again and are now scape goating the very organizations who are trying to stop these practices.

BTW - How 'bout them Yankees?

lol

with this attitude? un-freaking-believable!~

since first arriving.

Time and enough posts always tells the truth in the end. :)

there's no trees, there you moran. It's brush. It's a biome known as "chapparal" and it burns every few years.

God, people like you just make me want to puke. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about but you talk nonetheless.

You're a fool.

Most of the hilly parts are chapparal. It's a natural process set off by the Santa Ana winds. Careless us of fire, like a lit cigarette, often starts a small fire that often doesn't do much damage, but at this time of year after a couple of years of drought and months without rain, the wind fan up any fires into these conflagarations. Add all of the problems mentioned above from poor wilderness management to overdevelopment and you have a tragedy.

All the developers in Southern California were, and are still against building homes with block instead of stick construction. The only thing that has changed over the years is that they have used tile and concrete tile roofs from the past years fires. They build as tightly as they can, leveling off hills or in the valleys and do not even take a token notice to the effect this house packing has fire spread.

Now see the cry for building with block instead of stick and see what happens when the developer lobby stops it dead in it's tracks.

Especially when humans light them! Was it one of those Republican humter?

:shrug: How is your stay at rehab going? I know the media has been unkind to you but you should never have used your housemaid as your pusher.

lmao

but then again you send me PM's telling me Arnold is really a democrat so what do you know.

(in crayon, in big, bright, block letters).

Of course, it's hard to find him when he's flying from fundraiser to fundraiser.

would it NOT stand to reason that they would have someone on stand-by, as emgencies happen on weekends as well as during the week?

crisis on weekends if they want to. You can't possibly believe that FEMA has no ability to manage crisis on weekends, can you?

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FEMA not open on weekends?

Well, that'll just surprise the living shit out of a friend of mine who's the head of FEMA in Washington state. He's never home during fire and flood season.

Sorry, dumbass, but FEMA is 24/7/365. They are ALWAYS open.

:hug:

...on Saturday, in favor of a Vegas body-building contest, wherein he was heard to say, "Finally I feel at home again."

http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Abroad/0,,2-1225-1243_1435953,00.html

I thought I'd heard about everything possible from the stupid republicans, but this beats all when they try to pin the blame on Davis. The damn creeps.:puke: :dunce: :thumbsdown:

When things cool down a bit.

Davis requested the federal aid and declaration.

They are playing politics, SICK

I am going to e-mail you the questions, OK

If they did not come out like this early, they would have been more susceptible to attacks to people in the Burbs wondering what was going on.

Got to have talking points, even when peoples houses are burning down (Not too bad yet, only 1,100 homes and 400,000 acres so far)

Cut essential government service and privatize, do that chant!

I'm just shocked they're not blaming Bill & Hillary. The Party of Personal Responsibility... bullshit.

AL FRANKEN HAS EVERY RIGHT TO WRITE HIS NEXT BOOK AS I FUCKING HATE THOSE RIGHT WING MOTHER FUCKERS!!! How dare they politicize this event. HOW DARE THEY!!! Why don't they get off their whining tooshies and pick up a hose and start blowing away. Perhaps the reason why there is no national guard is BECAUSE THEY ARE IN IRAQ FIGHTING SOME ILLEGITAMATE WAR!!! This is the worst political game EVER that the GOP has ever succumbed to.

I would bet money on it!!!

What a bunch of whining swine....some one throw them the bacon!!!

Eviscerated environmental laws, etc. etc. etc. Yeah, you could say they started it.

Now that's what I call prescription disaster. Isn't this the kind of thing the "bleeding hearts" talk about when they protest the Right Wing agenda? So, instead of paying up front for prevention, we'll be paying exponentially for cure.

doubt there would soon be Republicans on Fox news calling it a "Democratic" asteroid, and demanding to know why they didn't do something about it. The, given five more minutes, they would find a way to blame Clinton too.

REPUBLICAN'S SAY, "CLINTON'S COCK RESPONSIBLE FOR GIANT ASTEROID ABOUT TO HIT EARTH! CLINTON LIED ABOUT NOT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT THE ASTEROID."

........DETAILS AT 11

:grr:

Democrat asteroid

:-)

The asteroid would be an immediate threat because clinton gutted nasa, if called to duty 2 divisions of Astonomers would be have to say unable to report to the lab, sir, lol

and this is one of them. What a bunch of ridiculous fuckin' losers the repukes are by politicizing this thing. Hopefully, the people of California will turn on the bastards and throw 'em out.

economy was the 2+ years that the Gropeinator wasn't the governor-elect?

when the little chicken shit got lost in the woods..panicked and shot off a flare.

WHOA..WHOA..LOOK AT THAT BIG BRAVE HUNTER!!! WHOA...HE HAS THEBIGGEST BALLS ON THE BLOCK WHEN HE's SHOOTING a POOR DEFENSELESS ANIMAL..but let him lose his bearings in the woods and he burns the whole town down to find his way out...

13 people died so he could hunt!

The ultimate Small Penis Mobile.

There have been numerous acts of arson responsible for the majority of the fires now burning, so I don't see what him being a hunter has to do with this. Placing all the blame on one man for the deaths of those 13 people is not warranted, no matter how dumb he was in firing off a flare.

Manslaughter. They say most of them people died because they didn't do as instructed and evacuate, that would make it for mitigating circumstances. So should we toss a coin or just keep blaming the Clenis?

Which was a signal fire, I'm told, not a flare. Poor lost lamb.

Are you saying that somehow all of these were due to one hunter? I do not understand what you are trying to say. All I said was that we can't put ALL the blame on one man. He deserves some of the blame, yes, but he is not the only one.

in 2000 IIRC, but now that a republican pres is in the WH it's a Dem governor's fault for the same natural disaster. :shrug:

It was Clinton's penis.

I stand corrected for having momentarily forgotten about the pyrotechnic capability of the CLENIS.

he refused to use the Canadian Super Scoopers - so the GOP can please go f*ck themselves........

Has anyone mentioned that San Diego authorities explained that helicopters could not be used yesterday because of the high winds???

A good portion of our own firefighting personnel and equipment (including helicopters) also had been up north, helping fight fires in other parts of the state that started before our own.

I'm sitting here in San Diego, watching 24-hour coverage on several local channels, and wondering why nobody seems to have mentioned these facts. Davis didn't defend himself adequately, but I can almost see him thinking, "What's the point? They'll just twist anything I say, anyhow."

I am so very utterly sick and tired of everything Rethuglican!

Claim to fame is proximity to lush eucalyptus forests and greenbelts. (A rarity in arid Southern California!) Cheap bastards build wood-frame homes with shingle roofs rather than (more-costly) fire-resistant homes of stucco, tile and cement! Repuke blame-sayers scream "Communism" every time attempts are made to legislate against this supidity! FEMA will come in with Federal (taxpayer) dollars to bail-out GOP dumbshits who have no clue about chaparral fire-cycle and the California (Mediterranean) Ecosystem! (Oops, I said "ecosystem". Must be an enviro-whacko!) BTW - Duncan Hunter is scum! (Used to be my Rep!)

...absurdity of building million dollar houses in "lush eucalyptus forests" in the middle of chapperal in southern California begs a giggle or two. Eucalyptus is a torch waiting for a match. Its natural ecology is completely fire dependent. At the end of a long dry summer, with the Santa Anna's blowing, "lush eucalyptus forests" might as well be kerosene soaked. They're that flammable.

Well, their houses burned while the Guard were in Iraq. The rest were fighting the Escondido fire.

I'm hearing this CA news from my SD sister who is incredibly relieved that she didn't have to evacuate. It was a nervous 24 hours.

Also, it isn't in the gov.'s power to allocate the fire-fighting stuff. It's up to the Forest Service and they sat on it.

With its own fire crews. Unfortunately most seasonal crews are laid off in early September. Whats left are lifer 'maintenance' crews who barely staff the fire stations. Irregardless, nothing can halt a 'Santa Ana'-fanned fire until either the wind stops or it runs out of fuel. Wood homes are just so much kindling! PS - Nearly ALL the burn areas in SoCal are Repuke bastions! Costs mucho to live in a forest in the middle of the desert!

n/t

to write my Rep. He is pure inadultertated scum. He would sell his own mother for a nickle. Pure SHIT!

role in congress is to bash dems/liberals and to vote against any initiatives set forth by the them.

He and his buddy Randy "Duke" Cunningham may be the two biggest shitheads in the house.

GOD,HE MAKES ME SICK!!!

that our "military assets" are all in Iraq protecting Cheney's "ass-ets"!

So far, I've heard about the big brave hunter who's afraid of the dark, two men supposedly seen flipping cigarettes out of a van - and Pendletom's gunnery practice as causes. Can't see how any of that ties to Davis. (I'm also pretty sure Clinton's penis hasn't been in the state all week). These politcos are grandstanding. Despicably.

Not that it's some poor GI's fault, it's just who is going to take responibilty, rather than sit just sit around and point fingers. Things are being done and with no help from *, Rnold or bone heads that surround the beltway till just today.

Gee and just think they are going to give loans to Californians after stealing so much from from the state in the first place. They really are sweet, them RePukes

FUCK THEM. THE GOP WILL NEVER OPERATE IN A SPIRIT OF BIPARTISANSHIP UNLESS THEY CALL ALL THE SHOTS. THE SOONER THE DEMOCRATS FIGURE THIS OUT, THE BETTER FOR ALL OF US.

Bastard FReepers!


:mad:

will be blaming Clinton's penis for the fires.

There must be no criticism of the governor while there are firefighters out in the field. These partisan attacks do nothing more than undermine the morale of these men and give aid and comfort to the enemy (the fire). I say, thank God Gray Davis is governor.

I mean we all should get down on our knees and rejoice that Davis was chosen by the Almighty to lead us in the fight against evil rather than that Simon person. God Bless "G" and God Bless California.

Jimminy cricket, they got the guy forced from office and they STILL kick him in the nuts.

So, where's their precious Gropenfuhrer??? shouldn't he be getting a little OTJ training about how the job's not all shaking down Bush Pioneers for campaign donations?

Too much like work. Media reports place him in Vegas at a bodybuilding competition.
http://www.tribnet.com/24hour/entertainment/story/1036966p-7283239c.html

Maybe we should ask Kenny Boy if he's seen him lately.

been in a war. We had them all the time in Oregon and I loathe them.
They take EVERYTHING away from you including hope. That they would try and politicize this is beyond the scope of human. I hate repugs. I will never, ever vote for one. Ever.

This just proves how out of touch some politicians are with the real world! The tax cuts and "trade agreement" induced DEPRESSION in this country as states are mandated to do additional security with no additional funding while hemorrhaging funds into BUSHCO's tax cuts for the wealthy kind of leaves California not secure in the disaster at home. The National Guard units are losing most of the ones coming back and it will be much harder to recruit now that its a "year in Iraq getting shot at in miserable weather" instead of weekends a month and benefits (which have been cut). I am sure there are as many firefighters as they can get doing the best job they can and any state that can send help will, and it just might not be as many as are needed, or fast enough. Already 13 people have died because they couldn't be evacuated soon enough. If these opportunists who care about NOONE would work together instead of making ads off the deaths of innocent people, maybe more lives can be saved. Then they could rethink the "plan" of world domination...it can be expensive and ties up resources and people who are needed HERE.

We were just hit with floods up here in Western Washington and if the guard down there is anything like the guard was up here you're better off having them in Iraq!!!

The GOP can shut its trap. Fire Dept. experts were on the scene immediately, and Davis isn't in the habit of preempting their expertise.

The GOP is so self-serving and ignorant. The mind boggles.

I can remember the filthy Republican nazis giving Jerry Brown the same crap when there were fires when he was governor. Get a clue you cretinous buck toothed bastards: governors do not control winds or fire dangers.

Davis made mistakes, but this isn't one of them.

Republicans believe government cannot work, get elected and prove it: when they aren't robbing us blind. They cast blame and make ridiculous accsations of treason without the slightest evidence. They can't get anything done except robbing the government.

...rolls up it's collective sleeves and calls a press conference denouncing and attacking their very own special lame duck Democrat governor for what? Not putting out the fires in a single day? Why, look how the fires seem to be striking mainly Republican voting areas! If I was a California GOP legislator, I'd rather spend my energy rolling up my sleeves and ordering my immigrant gardeners, valets, and housemaids to personally have them and their families take up the shovels and go out their and defend their livelihood!

It WOULD be an excellent distraction as the Chimpy's empire dissolves. I hadn't thought of it until I read these irrational accusations against Davis.

I am sure the firefighters, who have been working their ASSES off, will appreciate THAT! Does Davis control who goes up in the air and who does not? I highly doubt it. That would be a decision made by those in charge of fighting the fire. With winds as high as they were, they probably could not get as many helicopters up as they would have liked, but to say none were up is a lie and I can't believe in the midst of an emergency like this, that REPUBLICAN talking points take precedent. God the cynical Republican hatefulness of our media and the Republican operatives is incredible!!!

I thought it was an odd thing for the scrubbed fresh reporters to be parroting, as I watched helicopters and planes above me. These people are completely SICK.

How are things out there?

that San Diego doesn't even OWN its own emergency helicopter? We "borrow" one during the summer and returned it before the fires started. Blame the cheap San Diego Repugs that are running this City for this act of unmitigated stupidity!

As I type, the smoke is getting even thicker than it was. Visibility is now down one block! Unbelievably eerie!

that California used to rent the fire tankers from Canada?

the re-ran a legitimate election and got the groper in now they should SHUT THE FUCK UP! :grr: :mad: :nuke:

We know how much Bush loves California.

Just like Iraq, you wont see Bush coming to visit to see the destruction, or if he does, it will be a PR event and then he will leave and not grant any Federal funding to our state. Just like New York.

to be refuted. If the Democrats have responded I've heard nothing of it. They need to hit back and hit back HARD with the facts and put these puke assholes in their place. The lack of a response leads the uninformed to think this crap is the truth, I've had it with this repig tactic and the failure of the "opposition" to fight back.