Firefighters are now cautiously optimistic that they have the upper hand on the wildfires in Southern California. Qualcomm Stadium is the San Diego Chargers home again - it is no longer a temporary home for evacuees. The L.A. Times has a fire damage database to help people find homes damaged or destroyed in the fires. There were over
2,000 homes destroyed because of the wildfires. SignonSanDiego.com says the death tolls from the wildfires is now 14. Even after these terrible fires Californians will have to keep their guard up because Santa Ana winds don't peak until December. Here are some more California fire highlights from the blogosphere.
FEMA faked a news conference about the wildfires with FEMA employees posing in journalists. They tried to claim it was because no journalists came to the conference but they only gave them 15 minutes warning that the news conference was going to happen. FEMA also gave journalists a phone number so they could call and ask questions but it was a listen-only line. They've been slamed for the fake press conference in blogs (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) as well as in the mainstream press.
Zzzzzzzz: Vice President Dick Cheney took a snooze during a briefing on the fires.
A Close Call. Part of the lawn at this house was burned but the house survived.
The Firefighter blog has a post about a DC-10 Supertanker making a drop on the Arrowhead Fire. The post points to a video of the DC-10 Supertanker in action.
NFL, Charges donations: "The National Football League is donating $250,000 to the Chargers Fire Relief Fund, and the Spanos family, owners of the San Diego Chargers, is donating $1 million."
Neatorama has a post about how some expensive homes have private firefighter protection.
Some rare trees, butterflies and other wildlife may be snuffed out because of the fires.
Green Sahm wants California homeowners to think about what they plant: "One of my hopes is that more homeowners will think about what they plant after this. In a place like this, drought resistant plants are a must. If it's not too easily burned, so much the better. There are plenty of plants that do grow pretty well out here without constant watering. Some are quite pretty."
Twitter can be a useful tool. The Fast Company explains: "If you've ever been tempted to call Twitter useless, reconsider; the service is allowing thousands of Southern California residents to stay safe by receiving up-to-the-minute geographical information about the spreading fires."
Michael Roston at the Huffington Post writes that President Bush cut the fire preparedness budgets. "During Bush's first year in office, the Forest Service's State Fire Assistance program for wildland fire management was funded at approximately $56 million per year. But the President's budget proposal for 2008 only requests $35 million from Congress, an 18% cut from what it spent in the current year, already well below the earlier levels."
3,000 prison inmates helped battle the flames. They were paid $1 an hour.
Some stunning photos from a Reuters photo blog in a post called Notes from a Wildfire.
The number of YouTube videos returned with a California wildfires search is nearly 4,000.
This video shows the Santiago Canyon fire.
A photograph of the wildfires from the International Space Station. (via The Marble).
With fires still burning serious air quality concerns remain. San Diego has an air quality website than can be found here. AIRNow provides national maps. A more personal account of the bad air can be found here in a post by Queen of Spain - via Social Mom who has a post about the response to the fires.
A hippopotumus got loose and wound up in swimming pool that belongs to Steve Crosby, the San Diego Chargers special teams coach. Both the hippo and the coach were unharmed.
