Army Corps of Engineers, Regional Water Quality Control Board and the local mosquito abatement district, and probably others, Hill said. Waiting it out was no longer an option, and flooding was the last resort, Hill said.įire officials said last week they were working on the approval for the flooding option, a bureaucratic battle that involved the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts. The fire at one point threatened overhead PG&E power lines and neared decommissioned industrial plants, including a former power plant that is owned by GenOn. “That serves to show the challenge we face.” “On Monday and Tuesday, we dumped about 400,000 gallons of water - one 660-gallon bucket at a time - on the fire, and it had little to no effect,” Hill said. While the fire had been burning for weeks, heat and winds kicked up the flames and spread just over a week ago pushing more smoke into neighboring communities and forcing fire officials to launch an attack from the air. Dropping water from the air - or waiting it out - were the only options available. It’s not unusual for wetlands fires to burn for weeks or months. The fire has burned through more than 500 acres of decomposing peat and brush in an area with unstable soil, where fire trucks could sink or fall into holes where the fire is burning beneath the grass. “We had tried all the more conventional methods of extinguishing that fire,” Hill said. Officials acknowledged that the flooding option raised environmental concerns, especially given the drought, and required approvals from multiple agencies, but it appeared to be the only option left. 1.2 million gallons, the amount poured on the fire per hour, is equivalent to two Olympic-sized swimming pools, or the amount of water 25,000 Californians would use in a day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |