<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>I'm forwarding an update on the fires in northern California from Maria Gilardin.</div><div><br></div><div>Maria's one-woman TUC radio project (TUCradio.org) has been an outstanding source of information on environmental and peace issues for years. She has also carried controversial material by some of the great dissidents of our times. TUC was one of the only sources to carry extensive coverage of the March, 2004 International Inquiry into 9/11 in San Francisco - the first major <i>public</i> inquiry into the event.</div><div><br></div><div>When not working on TUC radio, Maria has put much of her energy in recent years into moving off the grid and into a bale house in California.</div><div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.tucradio.org/Bale_House/">http://www.tucradio.org/Bale_House/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Now there are over 130 forest fires raging in the Mendocino area. As Maria writes below, three of them are close enough to be a danger where she lives. True to her journalistic nature, she's reporting on the broader aspects of the story as much as her personal narrative.</div><div><br></div><div>Hal</div><div><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" color="#000000" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">Maria Gilardin <<a href="mailto:tuc@tucradio.org">tuc@tucradio.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" color="#000000" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">July 1, 2008 2:24:23 PM CDT</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" color="#000000" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica"><a href="mailto:tuc@tucradio.org">tuc@tucradio.org</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" color="#000000" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica"><b>fire update from Maria Gilardin/TUC Radio</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> Written on June 30 by me, Maria. My straw bale house is on 5 acres in the center of the 5,400 acre community Greenfield Ranch. We are near three of the Mendocino County Solstice fires. An earlier letter - and maybe future updates - are on my web site: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tucradio.org/new.html">http://www.tucradio.org/new.html</a><br> <br> Straw bale houses are fire resistant - but can be destroyed by firefighters blasting the walls with water and setting in motion a composting process that will burn the house later. I have been here for nine days to do, in cooperation with CalFire and my amazing neighbors, as much as possible to prevent the fire from coming further into the ranch and eventually reaching my house. We have been fighting fires directly and creating fire breaks by felling and limbing trees and removing flammables from around all our homes. There are about 300 structures on Greenfield. <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.roseylarson.com/Firefighting/"><http://www.roseylarson.com/Firefighting/></a><br> Today we are exhausted but confident. <br> Maria<br> <br> <small><font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">June 30, 2008<br> Hi All<br> Yesterday was better. We had three helicopters making drops almost all day. Finally, after 8 days! It made a huge difference and we were so happy. Today the helicopters were pulled out and sent to the Orr Springs fire just west from us because that flared up. So our fires flared up again as well and are putting out a lot of smoke. Look at the amazing links below.<br> <br> These, unlike the Santa Ana fanned flames in SoCal, are slow moving fires. The winds are not that strong in this region at this time of year (10 to 15 mph) , and there is still some moisture at the bottom of the ridges. Traditionally these fires would have been beneficial but the sheer number and size is dangerous for all creatures and of course most of us humans right here are living in places where no structures should be. That includes me.<br> <br> Yesterday (Sunday) we drove towards the Jack Smith fire at the north end of Greenfield and looked across the valley at the burned areas and it is really interesting. This fire next to us has now covered over 1500 acres. On our side it has to go downhill which slows it down and it mostly proceeded through grass and under storey. Whenever it came to a clump of dead firs - and we have quite a few of those - it flared up and created a rust colored patch on the mountain side. Then it proceeded on the ground. Unfortunately it is persistent and continues to spawn new extensions. The fire had come up to two structures and stopped, just 100 feet away. CalFire made a commitment to protect homes and also made several fire breaks deep inside Greenfield by running dozers up and down hillsides according to topography in a wonderful disdain of property lines and fences.<br> <br> The dozer operator who made the fire break at Redwood Creek and around the old ranch house right below me avoided patches of native grasses and Pacific Salamander habitat that he was shown. In all this sped up emergency and midnight work under headlights there is still room for such care.<br> <br> This really is a state wide emergency and - again - the overall response from the federal level down has been appalling. There are firefighters on the ground here who risk their lives but all they have is a fire engine, some hand tools and a few bull dozers. The air drops from helicopters would have been so helpful early on but no - and definitely not enough - aircraft was allocated until it was too late to fly due to the smoke. The local town airport had become mostly unusable too because the Ukiah valley became blanketed with a thick inversion layer.<br> <br> A friend and I began making inquiries into renting our own helicopter for Greenfield and putting it under the command of CalFire. It would have been very expensive but we thought of creating a coalition with large landowners and a famous vineyard next to us. We asked the local CalFire commander and - amazingly - they would have made use of it! But on that day a promise had been made by the overall command to allocate aircraft to us. The helicopters that came were somewhat what we might have rented ourselves from the yellow pages in this brave new world of privatization: no military or national guard of any kind! What came, in addition to one small CalFire chopper, a logging helicopter in the shape of a wasp, carrying water where there is space for large redwood logs, a larger one that we called the flying school bus with Nevada markings and rows of windows, and a chopper with a built in tank that hovered way low over the pond and sucked the water up with a 6 inch hose.<br> <br> These pilots were all amazing. From water pick-up to drop and return only 3 minutes or less passed, they showed impressive skill at dipping bucket on long cables into various small private ponds on the ranch, avoiding clusters of trees, twirling around while gaining altitude and reeling in the cables to the water bucket, rushing toward the smoke plumes and very diligently hovering to put the chopper into just the right position above the flames and releasing a gorgeous waterfall. I was happy too that they were only able to use water and not chemical fire retardant which would not have reached the bottom of the forest through the canopy.<br> <br> I took time writing this because finally, the constant smoke has gotten to me and I'm indoors using a poor person's air cleaner: a regular square fan with a furnace filter taped to the back that sucks the dusty air that got in to the house into the formerly white filter. I can run it for a couple of hours without overtaxing the solar system.<br> <br> Now a neighbor's truck has jut gone off the road and I need to check on it.<br> Maria<br> <br> <br> These are amazing sites.<br> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.firefighterblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/california-fires-map-satellite-image_28.html">http://www.firefighterblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/california-fires-map-satellite-image_28.html</a><br> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18071">http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18071</a></font></small> </blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>