I actually wrote a pointless letter to that fucker pointing out that the areas worst hit by the fire are strongly Republican areas. For all the attention that San Francisco and Los Angeles get, it's easy to forget that San Diego is a right leaning Navy town with a Marine base just to the north; a Marine base that is currently on fire, mind you.

...and I informed him that those people were being taken care of as well as any liberal.

For what it's worth

Nah, he's just an idiot.

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

From your link, the 2003 fire destoryed 2820 buildings, and this fire is already over 1000, so it will be at least comparable in size.  Since firefighters concentrate on defending buildings, the number of buildings lost in fires is normally very small, and and only climbs like this when firefighters are overwhelmed.

Both the current fires and the Cedar fire are in San Diego County, which has seen huge growth in far suburbs in recent years.  This area has always burned regularly, but what is new is the number of homes there now.   Also, as new homes are placed higher on the mountains, they are placed in heavier and heavier vegetation.

It would seem that in areas which regularly burn like this it would make sense to plan out exactly where you're going to put in your firebreaks, and then keep those areas clear of large vegetation so that you can defend them when you have a fire.

In areas like this where the vegetation is light, I'm always struck by the anecdotal success of homeowners defending their homes with a garden hose while watching neighbors' undefended houses burn, as mentioned in the writeup.  The houses normally have an area of watered grass as a firebreak.  Homeowners need only put out occasional sparks falling onto the roofs to save the houses.  Obviously this changes depending on the specific vegetation near the house, but I would think they would be better off taking the 100,000 people they're evaucating and using them as a firefighting force instead.

Funny, my friend runs that site, I helped him set up the streaming server a few years ago :)

I'm in central San Diego, and things seem to be stabilizing, but it's hard to be certain that the situation won't change in the next few days. The Santa Ana winds are calming, but the changing winds and weather patterns bring a great deal of volatility into the situation. Most of the burning today occurred outside of city limits. With any luck, tomorrow will bring more of the same.

Such crappy timing for a fire. This really isn't going to help the drought situation here.

I've read some bitter online comments comparing backrubs-and-buffets at the Q to Downfall-of-Civilization at the Superdome, but the comparisons are not valid.  In Hurricane Katrina, the entire region was hunkered down, and there was really no place you could drive to what wasn't doing for itself.  More importantly, the communications infrastructure didn't get hit here like it did in New Orleans--evacuees knew where to go, and FEMA knew where they were going.  Finally, we're now in a situation where some people can leave Qualcomm Stadium and go home as other evacuees now arrive.

I have read the same things. I agree that the comparisons are not valid. The types of disasters are different, there is less trouble traveling and communications remain, as you said. Unfortunately, for the next 20-30 years we will have every single disaster in the lower 48 compared to Katrina whether such is valid or not.