2 residents burned while protecting home had thought hot tub could protect them

Source: Los Angeles Times

he L.A. County Sheriff's Department today provided new details on the three people who were burned while protecting their homes Saturday in Big Tujunga Canyon.

Two of the people injured refused a mandatory evacuation order, said Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore. He said that the two didn’t realize how serious the threat of the fire was, and that they thought they could protect themselves by jumping into a Jacuzzi.

But when the 80-to-100-foot flames came barreling through their neighborhood, they were seriously burned, said Whitmore.

They managed to get themselves help, he said, and the county sent in a helicopter and airlifted them to a hospital.


Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/2-residents-burned-protecting-home-jumped-in-hot-tub-in-attempt-to-flee-fire.html

Just before you and your pets evacuate. The wedding china, and all those things that could survive water if packed in plastic bags.

Oops, forgot my fireproof snorkel.......

I don't understand how anyone living in a high risk area for whatever it is you Americans call bushfires could not be aware of the seriousness of the threat of a fire. I've gone through one bushfire a few years back, and that combined with the close to 200 deaths in Victoria early this year due to confusion, lack of early warnings, and staying too late before trying to flee, leaves me with little patience for people who ignore mandatory evacuation orders. There's no other way to describe them than complete fools....

... come from other parts of the country that don't get wildfires, and some of them don't know, won't listen, won't learn. Then there are a few jerks who have lived here for a long time but are in flat-out denial. Then there are some -- like a couple my son in law knows -- who didn't know the Tea Fire was coming because it moved so fast. When they opened their door they were overtaken immediately. Sometimes it just moves so fast there's no time for a warning to take effect.

We do have evacuation warning systems in place, and most people are very aware of them and pack up their cars when they hear there's an alert and when it becomes mandatory they get the hell out. In my County a lot has been done over the years to let people know where they can take their animals in a fire situation, be they horses or house cats.

The Western part of the US is a lot dryer than the Eastern part, and much of Central and Southern California, which looks like a coastal paradise, is actually desert underneath. We regularly have droughts, and we're in one now. The great Central Valley is immensely fertile for agriculture, but only because water is massively piped in -- otherwise it is as dry as a bone. The native plants in the chaparral of SoCal evolved to burn. That goes for Santa Barbara, where I live, too. Santa Barbara is a coastal desert with a Mediterranean climate, and all the lovely flowers and trees one sees here have mostly been imported in the past century. The Spaniards of course brought olive trees and citrus in the 1700s, so they're non-native as well.

The mountains, forests, canyons, chaparral -- all those places get as dry as tinder over time. Current theory is to periodically do controlled burns for some areas (we are well-notified if one is planned) and if a wildfire takes place in the backcountry (i.e. an unplanned fire in non-residential territory) a lot of effort goes into drawing a perimeter around it and containing it. If it's in inaccessible backcountry terrain, like the Zaca Fire was two years ago, they fight hard for containment but largely let it burn itself out. Anything close to dwellings, be they ranches or suburbs, gets fought intensively in order to save property and lives.

California has gotten very good at fire fighting, fire education, fire evacuation management. In places in the urban-wildland interface, the local county governments tell the residents that they must keep brush cleared away from their homes, and if they fail to do so the county will do it for them and send them a hefty bill. Newspapers and television programs periodically educate homeowners about defensible landscaping.

We love living in this beautiful and diverse state, but most of us learn at an early age to conserve water and respect fire. Like you, I don't understand those who fail to grasp this reality. It puts not only themselves but others at risk.

Hekate

PS: I gave a quick look for the meaning of chaparral because I don't think it's a common term outside California, and it turns out that Wiki has a good article on it that even references Santa Barbara County. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral

in the past decade? And it is not even October, yet, when the Santa Ana wind whisks through the canyons.

... and coupled with our own natural ecology of low rainfall and drought cycles, it's going to be devastating.

My daughter and her family moved into an area that had just burned off this year (the house was untouched, thanks to the firefighters). It used to be that you could pretty much count on fire sweeping through only every 30 years or so, but not any more. This year's fires actually had a partial overlap with last year's Gap Fire, which isn't normal. Anyway, I worry for them because of their narrow, winding access road.

Hekate

The wikipedia article on chaparral was mostly written by the person who runs this site.

http://www.californiachaparral.com/

Be sure to check out this page, too:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/chaparralmyths.html

Unless they were informed that those flames burn can burn as high as a thousand degrees F, suck the oxygen out of everywhere, singe your lungs if you try to breath, that water boils at just 212 F, while your skin begins to come off at about 140 . . .

Come to think of it, they were complete fools. How did these people even survive?

the only way water works is by lowering the temperature.

Sometime as those flames approached the temperature had gone up to about 140 degrees, and they knew they had a bad idea. Unfortunately by then, they couldn't get away until things were even hotter.

suck the oxygen right out of the air...the water will not help.

If you put your property ahead of your life, you might just lose both.

Not because we have people stupid enough to believe that you can hide from a forest fire in a 500-gallon bucket.

...but because people are stupid enough to believe that you can hide from a forest fire in a 500-gallon bucket survive...and breed.

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Those things are definately not for me. I'd find a shelter like that handy for throwing valuables into, but then I'd be gone long before the fire arrived...

on edit - Sorry for being nosy, but I just took a look at yr profile to see where you were from. Are you an Australian living in America? You talk like one of us, yet that Oregon NSW thing is really confusing...

You might have seen this guy on the 7:30 report last year.

AMAZING FOOTAGE of the Black Saturday bushfires:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agoiHbQNDZQ

See PM.

That's one reason why professional standards are urgently needed for these things.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/urgent-call-for-fire-bunker-standards-20090824-ewiw.html?skin=text-only

What do they do for oxygen in there?

It is NOT something I'd want to jump into with a fire roaring towards me.

Their acquired knowledge of fires was probably limited to Yogi Bear cartoons.

My brother who lives in SW MO had a close call in '03 and nearly lost his home. No basement. They went to the neighbors 100 YO farmhouse and when it was over the house was moved a few feet off the foundation and you could see the sky looking up the stairs to the 2nd floor. He admitted that if they hadn't had their granddaughter with them they probably would have stayed in their house.

He finally built a guest house on their property with a full basement so they have someplace to go. He lost his fences, horse trailer, his car and had tons of property damage and lost cattle so he now respects the power of tornados.

There is now a foam you can spray on your home for wildfires but it has to be done within a certain time to save your house. I'm seriously thinking of buying it to keep just in case.