{"id":1935,"date":"2008-05-22T08:51:31","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T16:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2008-06-06T09:25:13","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T17:25:13","slug":"major-fire-burning-near-mount-madonna-county-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/05\/22\/major-fire-burning-near-mount-madonna-county-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Santa Cruz Mountains fire near Mount Madonna County Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The latest: <\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/ci_9344864\">MercuryNews.com update <\/a>reports 20 buildings destroyed but no injuries in the fire burning near Summit Road south of San Jose. I have to go off to my real job pretty soon (this&#8217;ll lead Page 1 tomorrow &#8212; note the Mercury News is devoting <strong>four open pages of news<\/strong> to the fire. Get thee to a newstand tomorrow morning). The 2,000-acres-burned number is apt to be far surpassed before this one goes out. A few thoughts to chew on till the next update, most likely tomorrow morning:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Very dry spring:<\/strong> We had pretty good rains till February; since then it&#8217;s been one of the driest springs on record. This means lots of dry forest hungry for a spark.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Very high winds:<\/strong> Gusts topping 50 mph were reported this morning, and they&#8217;ll probably pick up in the afternoon. <\/li>\n<li><strike><strong>Very marginal population:<\/strong> Many squatters live in these hills, some of whom run meth labs. Wouldn&#8217;t be surprised to learn that one blew and triggered this whole blaze.  <\/strike> (Glad to report this didn&#8217;t appear to be the case). <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>About the only bright spot is that the Pacific marine layer settles over these hills and keeps them from getting super, super dry like other areas, so perhaps with a few wind shifts and a few breaks (cool weather being the main one), this fire won&#8217;t be a terrible as it could be. Right now, though, it doesn&#8217;t look good. <\/p>\n<p>(Nice pictures from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mercurynewsphoto.com\/2008\/05\/wildfire05222008\/\">this Mercury News slide show<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2007\/12\/10\/my-uvas-canyon-adventure\/\">My Uvas Canyon Adventure<\/a>, December 2007, started out near where the fire&#8217;s currently burning)<\/p>\n<p>(Nice link: <a href=\"http:\/\/firecenter.berkeley.edu\/\">Cal-Berkeley&#8217;s Center for Fire Outreach.<br \/>\n<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Blog links from this morning:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbc11.com\/videostream\/11441536\/detail.html\">NBC11 is covering it live.<\/a> So far 1,700 acres burned (expect this number to rise rapidly, there&#8217;s nothing down there but dry trees).  Raw video available <a href=\"http:\/\/cbs5.com\/video\/?id=34471@kpix.dayport.com\">at CBS5.com<\/a> (Brittney at Eye on Blogs <a href=\"http:\/\/cbslocalblogs.prospero.com\/n\/blogs\/blog.aspx?nav=main&#038;webtag=kpix_eyeonblogs&#038;entry=1813\">has many blog reactions<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cdfdata.fire.ca.gov\/incidents\/incidents_details_info?incident_id=263\">Here&#8217;s the CalFire incident page. <\/a> It&#8217;s been deemed the Summit fire. Current conditions: Temperature: 50-75 Wind Direction: E N\/E Wind Speed: 37 Relative Humidity: 20  &#8212; upside: at least it&#8217;s not scalding hot, though last week&#8217;s heat wave burned off a lot of moisture in the woods. High winds, though, are trouble.  <\/p>\n<p>No injuries reported so far, no word on how many homes lost. But some are gone, for certain.<\/p>\n<p>This just in: Shaky handheld YouTube video from the porch of somebody who lives in the hills:  Background sounds include fire alerts coming over the radio. <\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/l3qSyylYVDY&#038;hl=en\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/l3qSyylYVDY&#038;hl=en\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>The Merc posted this location map:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=102777535042488518720.00044dd25ae1b131a56cd&amp;s=AARTsJru8noM-W7XTfLlM6iwMeCBOognUg&amp;ll=37.000359,-121.896057&amp;spn=0.767725,1.373291&amp;z=9&amp;output=embed\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=102777535042488518720.00044dd25ae1b131a56cd&amp;ll=37.000359,-121.896057&amp;spn=0.767725,1.373291&amp;z=9&amp;source=embed\" style=\"color:#0000FF;text-align:left\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>They also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/ci_9344864\">posted this story this morning<\/a> just as the fire was warming up, and have been updating all morning: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>10:20 a.m.: Cal Fire officials report four to five houses have been destroyed and at least 50 more residences are threatened. Chris Morgan, a fire prevention specialist, said more than 200 firefighters are battling the blaze and more resources are being deployed &#8220;by the minute.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With strong winds and no rain to speak of since February, the area&#8217;s ripe for a burn. <\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tweetscan.com\/index.php?s=santa+cruz+mountains+fire&#038;u=&#038;d=\">More Twitter chatter via tweetscan<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Will update when more info comes in. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest: MercuryNews.com update reports 20 buildings destroyed but no injuries in the fire burning near Summit Road south of San Jose. I have to go off to my real job pretty soon (this&#8217;ll lead Page 1 tomorrow &#8212; note&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/05\/22\/major-fire-burning-near-mount-madonna-county-park\/\">Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[38,33,21],"tags":[279,278],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}