So Cal fires

Two large fires a couple years ago were simply due to someone legally target shooting, and the .22 shell accidentally ricocheted off some rock and generated a spark. People pulling off the road and parking in dry grass can do it. One case this year was deliberate arson. And kids with fireworks started that terrible fire in the Columbia River Gorge. I've personally seen fires due to both firecrackers and cigarette butts tossed out car windows that spread faster than you could drive. In one of those instances I encountered a Forest Service office about 15 miles ahead (in a slightly different direction than the fire was moving). I ran in and tried to speak to them; but they told me to leave because they were busy on the radio communicating with a fire crew on the other side of the pass. So I yelled at them, If you don't get off your butts and listen, twenty minutes from now neither this office nor town will still exist! That got their attention, and they stopped it outside of town. Lucky it was just a grass fire that time.

Sirius Glass said:

Brian, you were wrong and I was right. It started in a homeless encampment. When fires start in carefully tended and watched areas, they are almost always set. When fires start in very empty areas they are usually from power lines followed by hunters, campers or smokers. Those usually do not start from embers. There is not a lot of spontaneous combustion.

Click to expand...

I think that was the Skirball Fire, not the big Thomas fire, that was attributed to the homeless encampment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/california-fire-homeless.html

nmp said:

I think that was the Skirball Fire, not the big Thomas fire, that was attributed to the homeless encampment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/california-fire-homeless.html

Click to expand...

Yes, I only commented on the Skirball fire. It started in an area where the brush was kept actively cut back and always watched. If there had been several fire starts with a fire nearby it could have been from embers. But the Skirball fire came from one source where there where not potential sources other than a purposeful start.

Sirius Glass said:

Brian, you were wrong and I was right. It started in a homeless encampment. When fires start in carefully tended and watched areas, they are almost always set. When fires start in very empty areas they are usually from power lines followed by hunters, campers or smokers. Those usually do not start from embers. There is not a lot of spontaneous combustion.

Click to expand...

If that makes you feel good... enjoy your good feeling.

Yes, I saw the news too... not an "accidental cause" or "natural cause" or "spontaneous combustion". But when one says "so-and-so SET the fire" that generally means arson as the intent. Yes, a hobo lit a fire to cook and it resulted in a disastrous wildfire. I'm not convinced that the hobo's intent was arson. “Human caused” is the term that should be used here. Especially since they haven’t found or interrogated the hobo yet to determine accidental causality or something more nefarious.

But thanks for your self-aggrandizing clarification... and thanks to whoever quoted it because otherwise I never would have seen it.