Bad News on the Fire Lines

The news from the Camp Fire near Paradise isn't good this morning. The news agencies are reporting that they've lost more homes. ABC reports that they've lost 40 homes near Paradise, but they're not saying for sure whether the homes lost were in Paradise, Magalia, Concow or somewhere else. KCRA3 is reporting 50 homes destroyed. On the Cal Fire page for this fire, with the 10pm update, they said the number of homes lost is 40 plus 10 outbuildings. From what I can gather from the different news sources the evacuation area has expanded even more. But, they're also saying that the winds were calmer last night. The weather isn't improving though. It's supposed to be even hotter today than it was yesterday. Yesterday it was 108 degrees and last night at 10:30pm when I got ready to go to bed, it was still 90 degrees outside. It didn't cool down enough overnight to really help things out. It's already 70 degrees and there is enough smoke in the air that you can look right at the sun, which is a bright orange.

The Cal Fire overall statistics are looking a bit better. The total number of fires active in the state right now have gone down from 330 to 323. That number includes fires being "managed" by both state and federal agencies. Here's the statistics for all the fires:

• Statewide Fire Statistics
• Total Fires at Peak: 1,781
• Total Fires Contained: 1,458
• Total Active Fires: 323
• Total Acres Burned: 667,863

These numbers are total fires and acres that have occurred from state, local and federal firefighting agencies beginning June 20, 2008.

• CAL FIRE Statistics
• Total Fires at Peak: 1,005
• Fires Contained: 814
• Active Fires: 59

These numbers are total fires and acres that have occurred ONLY in CAL FIRE jurisdiction since June 20, 2008.
The number of contained and active fires will not equal the total due to some fires merging together.

• Statewide Resources Committed
• Personnel Committed: 18,488
• Fire Engines: 1,481
• Hand Crews: 379
• Dozers: 251
• Water Tenders: 396
• Helicopters: 110

Highway closures: State highways, county and local roads are closed throughout California due to wildfire activities. Closures and delays remain in place for State Highways 1 (Big Sur Area), 32, 70 and 96. Travelers are advised to seek current information from local law enforcement.

Evacuations: Areas of Butte, Monterey, Santa Barbara and Shasta counties are under evacuation orders at this time. Precautionary evacuation orders currently exist in areas in Butte, Kern, Mendocino, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Shasta and Plumas counties. Residents are advised to monitor their local fire situation, check with local law enforcement agencies for information, and be prepared to evacuate when necessary.

Structures:
Threatened: 13,323 residences, 288 commercial, 2,025 outbuildings.
Destroyed: 81 residences, 1 commercial, 77 outbuildings.

The Modis Rapid Response System had a new satellite image from yesterday. Again, the red dots indicate active fires.

The California Fire News blog has a link today to a gallery of fire photos (mostly from the fire near Big Sur.) at Boston.com. I agree with the fellow at the blog. These are some very spectacular photos and are highly recommended for viewing.

Other Stuff
The InSessions and TruTV message boards are still down this morning. I've managed to find a few of the people who posted at InSessions over at the Help Find The Missing forums. The moderators there have graciously provided a thread where folks are discussing what happened to the InSessions forums. And most folks posting there are agreeing that the cause of the forums going down was a hacker. The big question now is whether or not TruTV will restore the InSessions forums or leave them closed. If you're reading this and you're an InSessions poster, leave a comment and tell us how you're handling the InSessions withdrawals... lol