Jose Chavez-Final Research Blog
The Cedar Fire
Introduction:
I’ve lived here in Southern California my whole life. California is known for natural disasters such as earthquakes and wildfires. Growing up I was always hearing about wildfires happening in cities near me all over the news. Wildfires seem to be a recurring theme here in California since I am still hearing about them on the news all the time, especially in the past couple of years. I always wondered if there were ways to minimize or reduce them or how they were even started. Year after year so many homes and wildlife are being destroyed by these wildfires. There are thousands of wildfires that occur in California every single year. Since we started talking about different environmental issues during our class, I knew that I wanted my topic to be about wildfires. However, that topic was a little too broad so I decided to go with a specific historical fire that occurred here in Southern California. This fire is known as The Cedar Fire and it started in San Diego in the year 2003. This fire is still considered one of the biggest wildfires in California’s history even though it occurred almost two decades ago.
Research Process:
To start off my research I knew I wanted to figure out all of the different aspects of the Cedar Fire. First thing I wanted to research was how or why the wildfire started. The sources I found for this aspect were newspaper articles. The second was why the Cedar Fire was taking longer than anticipated to put out. I wanted to know all of the factors, whether it was because of the fire department or natural factors. I found a couple of articles about this. The last thing I wanted to know was what all the effects were. I wanted to know how much damage was caused, any casualties, and environmental issues. When looking for sources, I found it a bit difficult at first. I started on Google scholar and could not really find much, so I went to Jstor. I had the same result, but I ended up figuring it out. I had to put in keywords to specifically find articles about the Cedar Fire. Most of my sources are articles from Jstor and Google Scholar. However, I noticed that the Google scholar’s sources included a few primary sources as well, such as a message from the San Diego Chief of the fire department.
Historical Analysis:
I decided to break up my research into three different paragraphs as suggested. The first paragraph will be explaining before the wildfire, the second will be explaining what happened during the wildfire, and the third will be explaining the aftermath of the wildfire.
Leading Up to the Fire:
Helicopter dropping water on hotspot, oct. 29.
Climate and weather always play a role in wildfires. Starting off, California was going through a drought since before the Cedar Fire. Even though there was drought, this didn’t account for all of the trees that existed. The fact that there were so many trees in Southern California makes containing the wildfires that much more difficult. Since the gold rush, there were now about eight times more trees per every acre in California. As a result of the drought, this meant that California’s forests and wildlife were extremely dry and more susceptible to spark fires at any time. Towards the end of October in 2003, there were wildfires popping up in different cities in Southern California. There were fires in Los Angeles county, Riverside county and even San Bernardino county. As these fires were being contained, this meant that most of the fire departments were completely busy. There were firefighters sent out to all of these different wildfires in order for them to contain them and save homes and whatnot. On October 25, 2003 a wildfire seemed to have sparked in the Cleveland National Forest, which is located in San Diego County. The events leading to the wildfire were unknown to the public at first. It seemed that a fire that had been started was growing at a rapid rate. The cause of this wildfire came to light when a man named Sergio Martinez was rescued from the Cleveland National Forest at around 5:30 in the evening. Martinez was hunting in the forest with a friend of his, but they ended up losing each other and getting completely lost. Martinez had called for help to get rescued earlier that day, but there was no sign until he heard a helicopter. In order for the helicopter to see him, Martinez felt that it was a great idea to spark a small signal fire with sticks and brush that he piled up. He was right because it worked, and he ended up getting rescued. However, this was only the beginning to the start of a devastating wildfire.
During the Fire:
Santa Ana Winds Satellite View, pg. 3
It is said that eastern states of the United States of America get more wildfires per year, but California actually gets much bigger wildfires that burn much more acreage and create extreme destruction. As mentioned before climate and weather are huge factors in wildfires. Whether they will be big or small, easy to contain or not. On this particular day, very strong winds were starting to gush in much stronger in a short amount of time after the Cedar Fire began. These strong winds are known as the Santa Ana winds. The Santa Ana winds are usually dry, gusty winds that occur usually during fall to spring. These winds are sometimes compared to or looked at as windstorms based on their speed. The Santa Ana winds were actually already predicted for the month of October in a previous weather forecast. Of course nobody could have ever imagined that there would be wildfires to accompany them. According to an article, “CRYING "FIRE!" IN A CROWDED LANDSCAPE” written by Kim Sorving, the Santa Ana winds reached a speed of seventy miles per hour in certain locations where the wildfire was taking over. This meant that the wind was causing the Cedar Fire to spread out extremely rapidly. Every hour that passed by, the Cedar Fire was taking over three miles of terrain. Along with the Santa Ana Winds, another reason why the wildfire could not be contained when it started was because the firefighters could not get to that exact area with their fire trucks and were thinking of walking towards it by foot, and at this point would have to be taking a good guess where the fire was even located. They could not drive there because there was terrain/ land filled with overgrown vegetation. They decided not to walk because it would be dangerous, and good thing they did not walk because the Santa Ana winds moved the fire to the exact path that they were going to walk on.
The Aftermath:
Destroyed Buildings and Burnt Trees
The Cedar Fire ended up finally getting contained on November 4, 2003. That was nine whole days that the wildfire kept growing and the firefighters could not contain it. In reality, the Cedar Fire did not stop burning until around December because there were bits of small hot spots burning here and there. The Cedar Fire passed and burnt 273,246 acres. There were over two thousand homes destroyed throughout San Diego county. Fifteen people, including one firefighter, passed away because of the Cedar Fire. Not only did the Cedar Fire destroy a vast number of houses, buildings and trees, it also sent out immense pollution into the air. The Cedar Fire released an estimated amount of 300,150 pollutants into our atmosphere. This was serious because the main pollutant that was released was the PM pollutant. This is actually a dangerous pollutant that can cause mortality. This ended up causing medical issues to some residents that were in the area at the time. The chief of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, Javier Mainar, made a statement ten years after the Cedar Fire. Within this statement were changes that were put into effect after this devastating fire. These changes were much better protocols that were implemented in the fire department. Some of these protocols were things like having a big amount of trained volunteers. They created a “Firestorm Augmented Suppression Team” box which would serve as an emergency carry on kit. They now have better water tank hoses and even train the helicopter pilots even more. They train them harder, in order for them to be able to drop water on any fires happening. The Chief also said that San Diego will not stop helping other neighboring cities if they have an emergency. All of these new protocols are great because they will now be better prepared.
Image Analysis:
I decided to change the images I had posted on my previous blog(s). I found that most of the images I found from Getty Images are much higher quality and go much better with the layout of my final blog. I also included a few from other sources. The first image I included was of fleeing vehicles from a Walmart and there is the fire in the background. I found this image to be powerful, because I see it as people going to get last minute emergency items before the fire may or may not destroy their own homes. The second image I included was of a helicopter dropping water on a hotspot. I included this because it reminded me of the helicopter that rescued the man that started the fire. The third image I chose is a satellite image that shows the gusting winds and where the Cedar Fire was. The fourth image I included was of a fire arising on dry trees. The fifth picture I included was of destroyed buildings and burnt trees. I found this image useful because it shows how most of the places that the Cedar Fire passed through ended up looking like.
Conclusion:
I believe the significance of this event is a major lesson/ message to people all over our state, country, even the world. This message is to not start signal fires, especially in a wildly tree filled forest. A key takeaway is an eye opener to everyone because just a simple small brush fire in the forest could cause so much damage and destruction. With destruction comes harmful pollutants that can cause us to become ill and further kill our planet or us. Another significance is to have a better plan in case something like this were to happen again, to have a better back up plan in case all of the firefighters are out putting out other fires again. I believe this certain historical wildfire is important, especially to us who live in Southern California because we have been through an immense amount of wildfires throughout our lives. Just last year, we had a big number of wildfires occurring all across the state! Thankfully San Diego’s fire Department did start implementing back up plans just in case they are stuck how they were in 2003. With these back up plans, comes many homes, buildings and even lives saved.
Bibliography
An Analysis of Effects of San Diego Wildfire on Ambient Air Quality” PDF File.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10473289.2006.10464439
Broder, John. “California Firefighters Gain Control, With Weather's Aid,” The New York Times
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Congressional Research Service, Wildfire Statistics, January 4, 2021. PDF File.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf
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