ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

And news here about the person(s) alleged to have caused the Day and Piru fires: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/aug/08/transient-arrested-in-two-major-wildfires-santa/

The people in charge of fighting fires have only a couple of responsibilities under the current rules, both of them wise and admirable: to protect the lives of the humans, and to protect private or public "real" property such as houses, facilities, power lines, etc. However, they are no longer charged with extinguishing forest fires or protecting wild habitat save for in certain exceptional cases.

It will not likely make it into the news, but the Zaca fire, and many other fires are being (and have been) intentionally directed into unburned areas in order to clear those areas out and reduce the fire risk for years to come. The general attitude is "Let's get this over with while we have the personnel and the money". When there are few fuel sources left, many fire agencies will all but disappear, saving the government billions of dollars. This will not be an accidental byproduct of the disappearance of the fuel load -- this is part of the plan.

Another part of the plan is to further weaken the Endangered Species Act. When you finally kill off the last of a species, its name can be taken off the list. When there is no more habitat to protect, there is no reason to not build roads, mines, oilfields, reservoirs, prisons, military installations, and even housing.

The assault on the wild lands of California did not die when Richard Pombo lost in the 2006 election, nor will it ever stop. There is still a plan afoot to privatize as much public land as possible, and now the plan is being spread by fire. The public will see no benefit to saving as public land certain areas which have been burned clear, and they will, in many cases, gladly vote to have these lands turned into cities or annexed to local cities.

Call it a crackpot conspiracy theory, but by 2010 the editorials championing the use of public lands for commercial purposes will have appeared, if not sooner. (Actually, they already have, but this has been more of a phenomenon in states where the Sagebrush Rebellion is alive and well, like Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and parts of Oregon.)

We have already witnessed the beginning of the well-financed anti-environmental movement, where environmentalists are being blamed for everything that is wrong with the environment and the economy. One of the most used memes is "You care about fish/butterflies/lizards/mice/birds, etc. more than you care about people!", and to this day no one who truly cares about the environment and the future has managed to come up with an intelligent retort that renders that meme useless. Time to rectify that, I think.

As long as there is money to be made or stolen, there is not a square inch of land in the world that will be safe from destruction, and not a single creature that will be safe from slaughter.

The comments made by "phalarope" are serious. He or she states
"the Zaca fire, and many other fires are being (and have been) intentionally directed into unburned areas in order to clear those areas out and reduce the fire risk for years to come. The general attitude is "Let's get this over with while we have the personnel and the money". When there are few fuel sources left, many fire agencies will all but disappear, saving the government billions of dollars. This will not be an accidental byproduct of the disappearance of the fuel load -- this is part of the plan.

Another part of the plan is to further weaken the Endangered Species Act. When you finally kill off the last of a species, its name can be taken off the list. When there is no more habitat to protect, there is no reason to not build roads, mines, oilfields, reservoirs, prisons, military installations, and even housing."

This is so serious that I think readers deserve to know the authors real name and his or her background and sources.

I second that, I would also like to know the sources and/or author behind the thoughts.

As long as anonymity is available, I'm going to keep it.

Well can you at least give your sources? If any of this is correct then it's important for people to be able to educate themselves on these facts.

Giving my sources would be the same thing as identifying myself, in the long run.

If you want to educate yourself on the facts, pay more attention to what's going on around you. The facts are all there -- they just need to be observed and collated.

I'm not trying to be snarky, and I'm not implying that the firefighters are anything other than who and what they seem to be. This is just part a much bigger game, just like the war in Iraq. It's about money and power. A fire is just a single move on a chessboard.

thanks for sharing your observations phalarope. i've reached similar conclusions. when do you think martial law will be declared? i suspect before 2010... Hillary will keep the war train on track, no doubt about that.

I don't know when, if ever, martial law would ever be declared. Certainly not until the people who might do such a thing were ready to complete the kind of hostile takeover of our country that would certainly destroy it -- as we know it -- forever.

I just don't buy that train of thought. Is it possible what Phalarope suggest? Yes. But if the truth is out there, I don't see it. I see the increase in these fires as a result of an ever expanding population that continues to encroach upon wilderness or undeveloped lands. Our population is ever growing.

When yours truly was born, the population of the United States was 171,187,000. The population increased by 3,099,000 over the year before.
California's population was 14,177,000 at that time. California's population had increased by 596,000 that year from the year before.

By 2001, the U.S. Pop. was at 284,799,000, an increase over the previous year by 2,672,000.
California's in 2001 was 34,758,000, an increase over the previous year by 670,000.

I recently read somewhere that the population of the entire Ojai Valley was approximately 32,000. accepting that number as reasonably accurate, the increase in population of California in 2001 represented 20.93 Ojai centers of population.

Today, California's population nears 38,000,000. Our largest city stands at over 4,000,000. A little aside here: The population of Mexico City is over 20,000,000, yes, one city, 20 million people.

These fires, in my not so humble opinion are the result of increased demands upon surrounding habitat to support an ever increasing number of individuals.

Along with this increase of people was the accumulation of forest debris from a mismanagement of our forests by State and Federal Dept.s of Forestry.

The inevitable result is more fires, fueled by tremendous stockpiles of excessive brush and timber accumulated over decades of artificial suppression by, albeit, well meaning, but ignorant, and now, willfully ignorant, agencies of state and federal govt.s.

Dana, I agree that what I've said sounds outrageous. However, if this blog had existed 10 years ago and someone had posted a comment describing in detail everything that was going to happen in America during the next decade, would you have believed what that person was saying? Would you have believed, in the middle of Bill Clinton's second term, that we would ever have a president who would -- in his first term -- lead or participate in the destruction of over 500 laws that were written to protect wildlife, water, air, and people? Would you have believed any of the other predictions that would have come true? If you look back, it's easy to see that the signs were there, but it was horrible stuff and everybody I knew wanted to believe that common sense would somehow prevail.

Every day, 200,000 acres of rain forest are burned worldwide. This land is being burned intentionally by people who plan to make money on the cleared land. They don't care about anything else, and in some countries -- like Brazil -- if you attempt to mount a challenge to the destruction of the rain forests, there are people who will try to kill you if you don't stop.

The wildlife of Africa is being slaughtered at at alarming rate. In some cases, this slaughter is taking place so that people can eat, but in other cases -- such as the killing of tens of thousands of hippos in the Congo by soldiers, these animals are being killed for no good apparent reason at all. The herds of African elephants continue to be poached for ivory, and you are probably away that four mountain gorillas were just killed, execution style, for no other reason than to make some kind of statement.

In America, there are still people in the South who set fire to the woods every single year. In Spain each year, people with designs on the land also set fires. This is taking place all over the world. It always has, and it always will -- at least until there is nothing left to burn.

If you think that there are no facts to support my assertions, cast a wider net. Listen to the hardcore wingnuts on radio. Read what they write online. Discover what the Pacific Legal Foundation is all about. Check out the so-called "Property Rights" movement. Read about the Sagebrush Rebellion, which grows a bit more each year. Learn that there are people in very high places -- both globally and in America -- who believe that there should be no such thing as public property; no such thing as national parks and forests that belong to the people. This is not paranoid fantasy, even if it sounds like it is. It's real, and it's happening everywhere.

There's plenty of paranoia to be found, but there are also facts. The people who are allowing burning forests to burn are not breaking any laws. The people who are directing the fires into unburned areas are not breaking any laws -- they may well be doing the right thing, even if it freaks us out and destroys, for the time being, a lot of our favorite places. However, the people who plan on making certain that these areas never fully recover or that these areas be permanently opened to heretofore prohibited uses, are another story entirely. The people do not get to vote on these plans under the current administration's modus operandi. We just read about the changes after they happened. (The Democrats are apparently unlikely to stand as one in order to protect us, either.)

I would love to be wrong about what I believe in this case, but I don't think I am.

Phalarope: I too would love for you to be wrong. I will be looking for such evidence as you describe.

Your point on what the future was, in our minds-during the Clinton era, to be in 10 years or so is interesting. I did see at that time, if republicans gained control, the environment would suffer. Having said that, I clearly did not see/appreciate how destructive they actually would be, to the environment and everything else they got their hands on. I also don't like the leadership of the Democratic Party in the house or the Senate. They have clearly let us down. But I rather have them than the Republicans, sad. My hope is in the next election.

Sometimes, I wish we had a Parliamentary govt. so we could more rapidly change our leadership when it becomes clear we have a nut in the white house.

I'd write more, but I have to pick up my daughter, it's raining

Raining? God, I wish I were wherever you are.

I think that we'll be off the page pretty soon, so we probably won't be able to continue this conversation. Thanks for writing back, though. Talk to you on another thread at another time, probably. I don't always agree with you, but you always offer serious food for thought.

OK - one more time. It's likely that no one will read this, but here's a quote from the Santa Barbara Indepndent online edition: (Bold letters are mine.)

But the flare-up came as no surprise to some in the firefighting ranks who felt the rope-a-dope approach — though largely dictated by very real financial restrictions — was a wrong and highly risky call from the beginning, especially considering the fire’s proximity to several communities. As one unnamed Forest Service official explained it, “In past years, they would have thrown money and personnel at that thing, gone down after it, and pounded the shit out of it. But, for whatever reason, they didn’t, and now we are all dealing with the results.”

For whatever reason.....

Here's the entire article, with the paragraph in context:

http://www.independent.com/news/2007/aug/09/evacuations-begin-zaca-fire-burns-ever-closer/

The Santa Barbara Independent has been putting out some of the best fire coverage so far, in my opinion -- far better than any of the other local newspapers.

I guess this is a dead thread, but here's some news to support my assertion about what's happening with the Zaca fire:

http://www.independent.com/news/2007/aug/10/fire-command-decides-burn-out-backcountry/

Phal, I thought about that when I was reading this last night http://www.santamariatimes.com/ . Did anybody go to the meeting last night? Was anything said about this and is there any recap of information? Sadly I couldn't attend it.