Talk:Cedar Fire

message: It's true that we will never know if the Cedar Fire could have been stopped by earlier, more massive, intervention. However, it's better to say "We did all we could." than "We didn't bother because it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference." Rsduhamel 01:11, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Found a satellite picture of the smoke plumes instead. Rsduhamel 08:43, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Because you (or another editor) hasn't yet fixed it! Be bold! Rewrite it.  Cheers, -Willmcw 23:59, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
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Modified narration of fire to follow chronological order (i.e. Julian area and firefighter burned after fire turned east, put approximate time ("noon") of Scripps Ranch fires. "Noon" is approximate but definitely many house were burning (or burnt) by that time. The first houses in Scripps Ranch area were likely burning as early as 8:00 or 9:00 AM. Removed mention of "merger with Grand Prix fire" as no citation is provided and the statement is incorrect (http://www.geog.utah.edu/~cova/kim-etal-nhr-2006.pdf).(The Grand Prix and Old Fires, which were also burning at that time merged but were well to the north of the Cedar Fire. Removed mention of where firefighter was from as while efforts are greatly appreciated, did not seem of first order relevance.
146.244.227.73 18:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I've moved this section here. It's not encyclopedic, completely unsourced, and reads like an essay. It needs a complete rewrite:
Would the results have been different if alleged mistakes had not been made in fighting the fire? We will never know, but there is good reason to believe that the Cedar Fire would have been cataclysmic anyway. Once the Santa Ana wind-driven flames took off, there was little that could have been done to stop them.
Some have suggested that fire suppression leads to conditions that caused the Cedar fire to be so large. However, extensive research by Jon E. Keeley and C.J. Fotheringham has shown that burn patterns have not changed significantly in southern California since 1878. The California Statewide Fire History Database indicates that since 1910, the mean size of fires in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties has remained constant. The timing of fires is equally consistent, with most igniting June through November with September representing the most flammable period. In a study by S.A. Mensing and others, seabed charcoal deposits off the coast of Santa Barbara County have shown that the frequency of large, Santa Ana driven fires has not changed over the past 500 years. Similar results are produced even when comparing years before and after 1950 when advanced fire suppression technology was developed and utilized on a massive scale.
The only important change revealed by these studies has been an increase in fire frequency during modern times, not a decrease. Fire in chaparral is a natural, unpreventable event. Despite efforts to control them, large chaparral fires have continued unabated since our arrival in California. The assumption that old stands with an "unnatural accumulation of old brush" encourage fires to spread and become more dangerous is inaccurate. Studies by Max Moritz have shown that fuel age does not significantly affect the probability of burning.
Why did the Cedar Fire happen when it did? All fires require a fire triangle whose three vertices are fuel, heat, and oxygen. In San Diego County in October of 2003 fuel was in abundance, and strong Santa Ana conditions had driven daytime temperatures above 90 °F + (32 °C) in the days leading up to the fire. In addition, on the night of October 26 the Santa Ana winds meant humidity was down to single-digits, and 40 miles-per-hour (64 km/h) easterlies were blowing from the desert toward the coast. The result was mass ignition, a rapidly-moving fire, and extreme fire behavior, including large fire whirls. With all elements of the fire triangle present and at high levels, the Cedar Fire rapidly became a record firestorm.
BuddingJournalist 07:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Causes of fire severity moved to talk page 

message: This is being moved here due to lack of citations and the statement of uncertainty in the last sentence:
:Although firefighters were almost universally praised, some citizens reported firefighters making no effort to prevent houses from catching fire. Many houses were saved by citizens who refused to evacuate as the fire approached. A group of citizens is credited with saving hundreds of homes in the community of Eucalyptus Hills, near Lakeside, by cutting a firebreak and fighting flames with a privately owned water truck through the night. At one point a helicopter-borne Sheriff's Deputy threatened the group with citations and arrest if they did not cease their efforts and evacuate. They left only after firefighters arrived in the morning after the brunt of the fire had passed by. The validity of or the circumstances surrounding such reports were often unclear because emotions were running high during the crisis.
I can not site for the privately owned water truck but i can site for the Sheriff's Deputy threatening to write citations and possible arrests for residents not leaving the private road across from magnolia. The intensity of the fire in the eucalyptas hills area only lasted the short 15 minutes with the gust of winds raining embers from muth valley but snuffed its self out from lack of oxygen once the winds changed. The fire spread from embers to flames rapidly because of the large Eucalyptas trees on the hill (some of which we have been told were the largest in the hills)They acted like torches and fell quickly on to roof tops. I personally lost everything i owned including the shirt on my back from the embers raining down. In this 15 minutes of chaos not a single fireman/police officer was in the area because they had been dispatched to the much more dangerous area of wild cat canyon. An area which city officials have recently approved a massive development (muth valley) despite the efforts of residents to remind the officials of the devistation and lives lost from lack of escape routes from a high winds canyon. The morning after fire fighters were dispatched but quickly removed and placed into hotter areas to try and contain the fire. Like i stated before the flames only lasted about 15 minutes and then quickly snuffed themself out as the santa anna winds forced the smoke down and into the hills.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.7.238.104 (talk) 21:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Speculation section moved

message: This sentence: "In the aftermath of the fire the curfew for firefighting aircraft was extended from 1/2 hour before sunset to 1/2 hour after sunset and pilots have been given more discretion in deciding whether to attack a fire or not." has been removed because it is not cited, and the Standards for Fire and Aviation Operations still lists the operational times as was at the time of the fire. AKRadeckiSpeaketh 17:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would explain why I couldn't find a reference for it. ;-) Blood Red Sandman (Talk)  (Contribs) 17:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Curfew section moved

message: . 
I am in the process of cleaning up this article in hopes of getting it to WP:GA status. One of the last main things that needs to be addressed is the list of fatalities. Now lets get one thing clear, no one is suggesting the loss of life is not tragic. The question here is does a LIST of those killed warrant placement in this article? If so, how and in what format. I took a look at WP:USEPROSE (thanks  for pointing me there!) and it states Prose is preferred in articles as prose allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context, in a way that a simple list may not. Now I would like to point out the last 2 words may not. It is possible that a list is still the right format here. I am having a hard time seeing what would be gained by having a bunch of sequential sentences that give the name, age and location of death for each of the 15 people killed. I took a look at a couple of other articles that contain large lists of individuals killed: Yarnell Hill Fire, Charles Whitman and Virginia Tech shooting. Each of these use a box on the right side of the page to list the names (not sure what the technical name for this box is... Not an infobox and not a navbox...). I am very much leaning in this direction. 
My proposal is to rewrite the fatalities section to have a paragraph or so about the causes of death, how the fire spread faster than predicted, how people thought they had time they didn't really have, etc. (All well referenced of course). Then to have a side box that contains a list of the killed to include Name, age and both date and location of death. Perhaps broken up by date. I welcome any and all feedback! --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 02:37, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: as members of WP:WILDFIRE I'd love to hear your input! --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 02:39, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: A list of each individual fatality is completely unnecessary. Look at articles for large-scale disasters like plane accidents and there's a nice summary of fatalities and a table of nationalities, at most. I think the proposal would work well, with only names, ages, and locations in that small box. SounderBruce 02:49, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  that is an excellent point. However, I would counter by pointing out that in large-scale disasters such as a plane accident, all fatalities occur at the same exact moment, in the same location and the cause is obvious. With a fire that lasted multiple weeks and covered some 280,000+ acres I think that it is more important to include the info. That being said, perhaps that is a strong argument for putting it in a better written paragraph. For example, the list in its current form mentions James Shohara, Solange Shohara and Randy Shohara who all died while trying to escape near San Vicente Reservoir, Lakeside. I think that could be written as "Three family members, James Shohara, Solange Shohara and Randy Shohara, died while trying to escape the fire near San Vicente Reservoir on October 26." (referenced of course) That includes the pertinent information but puts it in prose and not just in a list. --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 03:06, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm inclined to agree with Zackmann08 and SounderBruce — it doesn't feel like a list of fatalities is necessary on the article to me. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 21:32, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: List of fatalities

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Cedar Fire (2003). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160623225606/http://www.lakesidehistory.org/CedarFire/cedar_fire_memorial.htm to http://www.lakesidehistory.org/CedarFire/cedar_fire_memorial.htm
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/fire/information/story/part_1.pdf
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/10/27/california.wildfire/
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/fires/weekoffire/20031026-sosdmainbar.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/10/07/news/top_stories/22_24_2910_6_04.txt
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/11/18/news/top_stories/20_24_4711_17_05.txt
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/cleveland/documents/documents/sandiegocountyfinal.pdf
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/03/04/news/top_stories/3_3_0414_21_16.txt
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nifc.gov/red_book/2007/Chapter17.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
*Oppose – I think because the 2016 fire was more recent, this should not be considered the primary topic. How much it spread or how many page views this article gets does not matter, having this as a primary topic is not the best option at this time. 2601:8C:4001:DCB9:9994:4438:446F:641D (talk) 02:03, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: Please justify using that memorial service source when nearly all reliable sources covering the Thomas Fire have quoted the Cedar Fire as being ~273k acres, and CalFIRE officially has that figure as well.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:01, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size