Those on planet Taiwan may not have heard. We are having horrible fires in Napa / Sonoma area. And entire neighborhoods have burnt to the ground, a number of high end hotels as well as some wineries. Latest 21 dead and over 500 people are missing and possibly dead.
I am 35 miles away and we are having to keep doors/windows shut tight because of the smoke.
You can see a youtube video of them just letting the HIlton burn for hours without a single firefighter fighting that flame because there is just so much fire going on.
IUpdate
Some good news of 560 missing most are found safe
Still 280 plus missing
Town of Calistoga with 5000 people ordered to evacuate now
Towns of Sonoma and Healdsburg residents are asked to leave
And prepare for mandatory evacuation
The fires are zero pct contained
We have smoke and some ash from the fires in Concord
My relatives in downtown napa are right in the thick of it but napa town still safe
Safari West animals are safe but fires are not far
Man air quality in concord 215 extremely unhealthy
So sorry to hear that. I saw some pictures in the international news and in my country’s papers, but I am not sure I have seen anything in the local Taiwan’s papers. I did see it was mentioned as the worst wildfires in history.
Stay safe and prepare Kuchit’s evacuation pet carrier, so he can get used to it in case of having to escape.
Reminds me of the Oakland hills fire of the early 90s that destroyed thousands of homes. California has always been wildfire-prone, but this has really been a crazy year. Stay safe, Tommy!
Worldwide, this has been a horrid year for wildfires due to -drum roll- higher temperatures. I think they are still battling one in Portugal that has been on and off since June!
insane ! Look at those vids. And some people couldn’t get out in time and some are even defying mandatory evacuation! The govt has warned that if you stay … no one will come to help you! And yet some people are staying , some to “turn on sprinklers and then leave”. Thing is when that happens your way to safety may be blocked ! Look at the vid where someone is driving through his burning neighborhood.
The air has just been so bad. I went out to buy air cleaner machine. Something few buy as our air is so good usually. And everyone was clean out of them !
I bought a small humidifier because it at least has a filter of some sort. I figure humidifying the air in the house will trap the smoke particles which the AC can then remove? Just plugged it in and it actually seems to work.
My cat was in a super jittery mood today. Wouldn’t let anyone near him and kept trying to hide and constantly meowing. A concerned meow. I took him downstairs in the afternoon. And he kept sniffing the air.
Animals smell fire and their instinct is to RUN for their lives.
But he was consoled when he met up with some dogs he knows out for a walk and a few cats and then realized that nobody is running from our complex and relaxed.
Hopefully all the wild animals out there in the forest had the sense to escape. Most people brought their pets out.
The fairgrounds have set up huge areas for people to bring their horses and even cattle.
Some people were trapped and had to be rescued by helicopter. Including six dogs and one cat.
ONe cat ran out with his whiskers singed but made it out of the fire area.
Haven’t heard anymore about Safari West, hope no fires going that way. it would be hard to move WILD ANIMALS like rhinos and tigers and the such.
I have a 200 dollar voucher for the place (gift) that I am hoping to use this year.
Good thing is that there may be some rain coming next week. That will put out all the fires. Which are currently only a few percentage points contained.
WE have 8000 firefighters here now from several states, some from Australia came to help.
Water tankers are flying nonstop.
We are going on a vaca trip to Hawaii all next week (planned months ago) first time for me in eons and first for the missus and leaving our cat in the hands of one of my best buds who will house sit. We are nowhere near the line of fire but if we had to evacuate, my bud will take the cat and our two cars will just be left to burn, like those hundreds or thousands of cars burnt already as they didnt have people who could drive them away to safety.
The wine country is a rich area and cars often outnumber people. A family of two may have 3 or 4 cars. Some were left to burn.
This poor lady only had time to escape. But her dogs all died.
Think this may have happened the first night when so many were taken by surprise. If it happened because someone refused to evacuate then it would be their fault. But i read about many on the first night of the fire who were taken completely by surprise and some were asleep when friends and relatives called and woke them and they just had time to RUN , minutes to spare if that.