![]() The normal weather pattern near the coast of California is for moist sea breezes to come off the Pacific Ocean and travel inland. The spread area of the fire increased due to high winds with speeds up to 90 mph, known as Diablo winds, recorded Sunday () morning. Structures consumed during the Kincade Fire: A ranch house along State Highway 128 (left, Los Angeles Times, 2019b), Soda Rock Winery (right, ABC7 News, 2019)Ībout 180,000 people have been ordered to evacuate over a large area (New York Times, 2019). Origin of the Kincade Fire (left, Cal Fire, 2019a) and burned areas (right, Los Angeles Times, 2019a)įigure 2. The fire destroyed 124 structures and damaged 23, including residential structures and wineries and other commercial construction (Figure 2).įigure 1. How the fire initiated is still unknown and is under investigation. At the time of the writing of this report, it is still ongoing with 74,000 acres burned (Figure 1, Los Angeles Times, 2019a) and has not been contained. The starting location is reported as the intersection of John Kincade Road and Burned Mountain Road, northeast of Geyserville with coordinates of 38.792°N, 122.78°W (Figure 1, Cal Fire, 2019a). The Kincade Fire started on at 9:27 PM in Sonoma County. ![]() ![]() Information provided here is based on various websites, news channels and CalFire, therefore does not include detailed field investigations. Objectives of this briefing are 1) to provide details of the October 2019 California wildfires, wind events and power outages, 2) to describe damage to buildings and other infrastructure and disruption to the community in terms of downtime and economic losses, 3) to list key lessons learned in relation to earthquake and other hazards. PG&E shut down power for an estimated 2.35 million people across 38 counties at the same time increasing the severity of the situation. California Governor Gavin Newsom declared statewide emergency due to fires and extreme weather conditions (CA Gov, 2019). OverviewĪt the end of October, three significant fires took place in California, namely the Kincade Fire in Northern California and the Tick and Getty fires in Southern California, fueled by high speed winds with heated air blowing from inland to the ocean. Considering the consequences of fires damaging and destroying many residential and commercial structures, it is required to develop not only fire-resistant techniques for buildings with valuable contents, but also economical solutions for residential and commercial buildings. The failures and damage during the Kincade, Tick and Getty Fires once again highlight the vulnerability of structures against fire and the need to improve fire performance, especially when subjected to multi-hazards. ❏ Similar fires are likely to occur after earthquakes and other natural hazards, which present even a worse condition for structures because of the additional demands due to these extreme events. ❏ The power outages also highlight and demonstrate the interdependencies of infrastructure networks and provide a learning opportunity for the maintenance and coordination of infrastructure networks operated over cities and counties. ![]() Documenting the consequences of these power outages in terms of economic losses and other metrics can provide very useful regional data related to natural hazard extreme event resiliency. ❏ The planned PG&E power outages are similar to what could happen after an earthquake. ![]() ❏ At the end of October, three significant fires took place in California, namely the Kincade Fire in Northern California and the Tick and Getty fires in Southern California, fueled by high speed winds with heated air blowing from inland to the ocean. ![]()
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