Cooler weather helped firefighters make strong gains on many of the wildfires burning across Southern California on Saturday, but officials remained guarded about what the rest of the weekend might bring.
Tropical moisture flowing from the south replaced the hot, skin-cracking Santa Ana winds that roared in a week earlier and spread fires over more than a half-million acres, destroying more than 2,300 structures, including more than 1,790 homes.
By late Saturday more than a dozen blazes were surrounded and containment of nine other blazes ranged from 40 to 97 percent. Fire officials in San Bernardino County said they expected a fire there to be fully contained on Sunday.
Sunday's weather forecast, however, predicted another shift.
"We're due for a change and the weather forecast is going to become warmer and drier," said Chris Caswell with the Orange County Fire Authority. "We're still cautiously optimistic."
The number of deaths directly attributed to the fires officially rose to seven. Officials confirmed that the flames killed four suspected illegal immigrants whose charred bodies were found near the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, said Jose Alvarez, a public information officer for San Diego County emergency services. Identification of the victims was continuing.
The Mexican government said that 11 Mexicans were being treated at a San Diego hospital for burns suffered in Southern California's wildfires after crossing the border illegally, and four were in critical condition.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday visited a command post near Orange County's Santiago Canyon fire to announce assistance for people with losses, warn of contracting scams and pledge to find whoever set the nearby blaze that continued to threaten homes after destroying 14.
Addressing controversy over state rules that caused delay in getting military aircraft into use against the fires, Schwarzenegger said it sometimes takes disaster "to really wake everyone up."
"There are things that we could improve on and I think this is what we are going to do because a disaster like this ... in the end is a good vehicle, a motivator for everyone to come together," he said.
Active fires burned in the Lake Arrowhead resort region of the towering San Bernardino Mountains 100 miles east of Los Angeles and in rugged wilderness above isolated canyon communities of Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles. A big blaze 60 miles northeast of San Diego stopped its advance toward the mountain town of Julian.
About 4,400 people remained in 28 shelter sites in Southern California, but others waited out the fires in makeshift encampments. In Highland, at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, about 20 people were in their sixth day of living in a Wal-Mart parking lot, getting daily visits from sheriff's officials who reported their 17 homes were still intact.
"What are the chances of that? The hundreds of people staying at the shelters, I still don't think they have the comfort of knowing that kind of information," said Robert Newbourgh, 44.
Hundreds of evacuees flooded back into Crestline, Valley of Enchantment and Lake Gregory, small mountain communities tucked in canyons and alongside lakes in the San Bernardino mountains.
Light rain fell on the Rancho Bernardo section of San Diego, where more than 360 homes were lost. National Guard troops patrolled and postal trucks delivered mail to homes that were still standing.
"Everybody is really happy for me and I'm sad for them," said Helena Hyman, a retired school administrator whose cul-de-sac home survived with five ruined homes on each side. She credited her good fortune to replacing wood shingles with a fiberglass roof and chopping down a eucalyptus tree within the last five years.
Bruce Heinemann, 48, spoke with an insurance adjuster as friends sifted through his ruined home, looking for his wife's wedding ring, photos and other mementos.
Meanwhile, his daughter was at a newly rented home making lists of what they lost, and his wife was visiting department stores to get prices for the insurers.
"The kind of mode you're in is, what do you do today? What do you do tomorrow? Just make a list and get it done," he said.
The Heinemanns had about 10 minutes to evacuate Monday morning, just enough time to escape with some clothes and three of their four cars.
Heinemann, a self-employed loan officer, said it makes financial sense to rebuild, but they may never return to live on the street where the fire left hopscotch destruction — some of the Spanish-style, tile-roofed homes left standing, while others were turned to ash, leaving burned-out cars, chimneys and remnants of refrigerators and washing machines.
"It sounds terrible, but I'm glad it's gone. How would you like to sit in your house when one third of your neighbors are gone?" he said.
Elsewhere in the community, mortgage broker Mike Bartholemew, 37, removed rotten food from his refrigerator as he waited for cleaners to vacuum soot from inside his home, which survived the flames.
Bartholemew said returning home stirred memories of the frightening experience as flames advanced toward his home at 4 a.m. Monday. He said he opened his front door to "a bellowing furnace, smoke and embers" as a palm tree across the street burned and neighbors screamed.
Bartholemew said his wife and two children fled in an SUV and he left in another car, but fell unconscious for unknown reasons and crashed into a utility box. He said a police officer rescued him.
"I have never in my life been that scared. I kept repeating to myself, 'Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic.' The fact that no one died in this neighborhood is a miracle," he said.
Bartholemew said it was eerie to be surrounded by ruined homes but he was anxious to come back home as soon as electricity was restored.
"I don't know where I would move in San Diego with these dry Santa Ana conditions we get," he said. "I could move to Indiana, but they have tornados and floods. Everywhere you go in the country you get something. Here we have earthquakes and fires."
Trailblazing
There’s a low-tech solution to California’s wildfires
EVEN the colour of the usually pristine blue of Santa Monica Bay has appeared an ugly yellowish-brown—as the sun, filtered through a vast plume of smoke spilling out of the Los Angeles basin, has cast a jaundiced hue across the ocean. Coming on the heels of the region’s driest summer on record, the dozen or more wildfires raging on the hillsides of southern California this past week were all too predictable.
In fact, the weather forecasters had it right almost to the hour. As the high-pressure system normally at higher latitudes swung south and inland, the humidity dropped early Sunday morning to below 10% when hot, dry Santa Ana winds roared predictably out of the high desert to the north-east of Los Angeles and barrelled down the mountain sides towards the coast—blowing down power lines and anything else in their path as they gathered momentum while funnelling through the canyons at tornado speeds.
Set-alight seen from satellite
The hillsides, with their undergrowth of waxy chaparral and uncleared thickets of dead trees felled by the drought’s plague of pine beetles, were powder kegs waiting to explode. Sparks from fallen electricity cables lit the fuse. The hot, dry winds worked as bellows to fan the flames.
All perfectly normal. Or so it used to be until housing developers started carving up the hillsides. Now the aim is to prevent wildfires at all cost. But the measures half-heartedly taken are often counter-productive. Few home-owners clear the brush around their homes. Fewer still vote for bond issues needed to buy more fire-fighting aircraft, such as Bombardier’s miraculous “Superscooper” amphibian.
But worst of all is an attitude of mind that seeks to deny the very existence of fire—and is then mortified when it happens.
In reality, fire is an integral part of nature, the mechanism by which much of vegetation regenerates itself. The prickly chaparral is a typical example of a tinderbox in search of a flint. Inedible to all but hardiest of creatures such as goats, the only way it can propagate itself is through providing enough oily fuel to catch alight. The shrub’s hardier seeds then get carried aloft by the smoke and dispersed by the wind.
It was ever thus. In 1542, when the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first sailed up the coast of California to where Los Angeles is situated today, one of the key observations he recorded was the plumes of smoke from fires burning in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Native Americans had learned to torch the hillsides to replenish the vegetation and provide better hunting. Subsequent Spanish, and later Mexican, ranchers in the area continued the practice.
Cabrillo also noted, incidentally, that an inversion layer of hot air blowing out of the desert overlaying colder air blowing in from the ocean had trapped the pollution from the fires to below a few hundred feet. Four centuries later this inversion layer was fingered as the main cause of Los Angeles’ infamous smog—and the reason why, today, the world has vastly cleaner cars.
But their basin’s unique geography and inversion layer have done little to alter Angelinos’ thinking about fire. Instead of encouraging controlled burns, the current practice of total fire suppression has only increased the fuel load of the area’s forested hillsides and canyons. So locals turn instead to technology to counter a problem they’ve helped create.
From his home overlooking Santa Monica Bay from halfway up the hillside, and a mere hop and a skip from where a fire ripped through Malibu canyon earlier this week, your correspondent has been keeping a weary eye on his mid-century enclave. With his high-pressure electric hose at the ready, he’s been poised all week to douse any glowing embers the instant flames start licking his way.
With stuccoed walls and double glazing throughout, he’s felt no need to break out the aluminium foil and paste it to the inside of the windows. Reflecting the heat of a passing firestorm this way helps reduce the chances of an unprotected wooden structure bursting spontaneously into flames.
Apart from installing garden sprinklers on his roof, your correspondent has been exploring the possibility of spraying his home each year before the fire-season gets underway with one of the latest hydrogel flame-retardants. One of the most popular retardants used by fire-fighters is Phos-Chek, made by ICL Performance Products in the Los Angeles area.
The formulation includes various ammonium phosphates and sulphates plus gums and clays. In the heat of the flames, the hydrates break down endothermically (ie, absorb heat from their surroundings) and help slow the combustion. Meanwhile, the sulphates and other additives create an insulation barrier between the burning and unburned timbers. The assorted gums and clays plus secret ingredients help thicken the mixture and prevent it from dispersing after being sprayed or dropped.
Though available in three colours, Phos-Chek usually comes as a red powder or liquid that gradually fades to an earthy brown. The red colouring helps aerial fire-fighters see where previous loads have been dropped.
Another neat thing about Phos-Chek is that, once things have cooled down, the phosphates and sulphates then act as fertilisers. A Russian product called OC-5, from the Leningrad Forest Research Institute in St Petersburg, is just as eco-friendly and even cheaper.
None of this, of course, would be necessary if Californians adopted the same low-tech solution used by their neighbours south of the border. Mexican authorities have sensibly introduced herds of goats into their hilly suburbs to keep the chaparral under strict control—and have suffered far fewer wildfires as a consequence. Your correspondent has been lobbying his neighbours and local officials to do the same. Unfortunately, everyone seems more concerned about their roses than their roofs.
New Menu Item on Space Station: Drinking Water Made from Recycled Urine
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WORKING UP A THIRST: NASA is developing a water recovery system for the International Space Station that will recycle astronauts' urine, among other things, to make drinking water. |
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NASA's plans to continue its exploration of the solar system do not include packing enough drinking water for astronauts during months-long missions. Instead, NASA will rely on a water-recovery system that recycles not only condensed water vapor and trace contaminants from crew perspiration and respiration but urine as well.
Such technology has been in development for decades. But the water-recovery system that will to become part of NASA's Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System, or ECLSS, for the International Space Station (ISS), still needs a number of improvements if it is to support the space agency's ambitions of returning to the moon and pushing onward toward Mars. Logistics aside, it costs about $5,000 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) to ship water in a space shuttle. The costs on longer missions are likely to be higher.
For the purposes of spaceflight or a space station, a water-recovery system collects urine from the astronauts and condensation from the cabin air and, through a series of chemical treatments and filters, turns that moisture into drinkable water. The first step involves filtering solid particles such as skin cells and hair out of the liquid. After that, contaminants are chemically dissolved and oxygen is added to the liquid to oxidize trace organics so that they, too, can be removed. Next, the liquid is "polished," meaning chemicals left over from the cleaning process are removed. Finally, iodine is added for microbial control, much the way municipal water authorities add chlorine to city drinking water. The resulting liquid is sent to a large storage tank, which can be tapped for drinking.
At this point, the water-recovery systems NASA is developing are capable of capturing up to 85 percent of the water in urine. Including the purified condensation, NASA scientists are able to retrieve 92 percent of waste moisture produced during a space mission.
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FROM WASTE TO WATER: A water recovery system collects urine from the astronauts (far left) and condensation from the cabin air and, through a series of chemical treatments and filters, turns that moisture into drinkable water (far right). |
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There are three water-recovery systems under development. In addition to the Marshall device, others are being tested at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and Johnson Space Center in Houston. The finished product, likely featuring the best parts taken from all three, will consolidate some of the processes that are done separately today. Instead of initially processing urine and condensation separately, the finished recovery system may collect urine and condensation together, plus any water remaining from laundry or showers. (Whereas there are currently no clothes washers or showers on the ISS, NASA does not rule them out for exploratory missions.) Diluting the urine up front makes the decontamination process more efficient.
Changes in the types of chemicals that astronauts use on board a spacecraft can help make water retrieval more efficient. "You'll have to use a soap that you won't have a hard time removing from the water," says Monsi Roman, a Marshall microbiologist and project manager for life support on exploration missions, such as those to the moon and Mars.
The water-recovery system, set to be delivered to the ISS on a September 2008 shuttle mission, will be self-contained, which means the astronauts will not have to manually initiate the various steps required to make drinking water, Roman says. Still, the system has a lot of components and many of them will have to be replaced periodically. "For every 100 kilograms [(220 pounds)] of water that the system produces, you have to replace eight kilograms [(17.5 pounds)] worth of equipment," Bagdigian says. "We need to reduce this rate while increasing the water recovery rate."
As early as the late '60s and early '70s, "we knew that exploration away from the earth was going to require the recycling of water and oxygen," Bagdigian says. Russian cosmonauts have been collecting and recycling moisture out of cabin air systems since the Salyut 1 and Mir space stations, which launched in 1971 and 1986, respectively. The Russians also did some work developing electrolyzers that can convert water, via electrolysis, into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen. "They've incorporated these technologies into their side of the [International] Space Station," he says.
While none of this conjures up thirst-quenching images of cold, clear water flowing down a mountain stream, NASA did conduct some blind taste tests that compared the recycled drinking water with plain tap water as well as with tap water that had iodine added to it. On a scale of one to nine, none of the waters scored higher than five. The most typical reaction after drinking the recycled water was to notice the taste of the iodine. The version of the water-recovery system that will be installed on the ISS next year will feature an added step that scrubs the iodine out of the finished product.
In the end, the goal is to simulate the way nature recycles urine and other human by-products. "The difference is," Roman says, "in a station on the moon, you'll know whose urine you're drinking."
Internet Muscles In on Cell Phone Turf
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FUTURE CALLING? Mobile VoIP may not replace cell phones in the immediate future, but it will give callers the ability to bypass cellular networks wherever they have access to a Wi-Fi network. |
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Having emerged as a popular technology for making phone calls—often free of charge—via one's PC, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) is set to stake its claim on the mobile market. Mobile VoIP may not replace cell phones in the immediate future, but it will give callers the ability to bypass cellular networks wherever they have access to a Wi-Fi network.
Luxembourg-based Skype, Ltd., a division of online auctioneer eBay, has been pushing over the past year to deliver more of its VoIP services to mobile callers through a partnership with wireless network equipment maker NETGEAR, Inc. A year ago, the two companies teamed up to offer the Skype Wi-Fi mobile phone, which lets callers make free Internet calls to anyone who also has a Skype account and access to a Wi-Fi wireless Internet connection. The phone does not require a cellular network but it must be within range of a Wi-Fi access point to operate.
Skype is now reportedly planning to expand mobile VoIP technology through a partnership with Hutchison 3G UK, headquartered in London and more commonly known simply as 3. A Skype spokesperson confirmed that the company is "working with 3 to make Skype completely mobile," but refused to give details of the deal.
Mobile VoIP phones have thus far made sense in relatively stationary wireless environments, such as homes, offices or Internet cafés. The emergence of mobile VoIP phones changes the dynamic in the communications-provider market, taking away some of the cell phone carriers' power to charge by the minute. Still, mobile VoIP phones are not in a position to render cell phones obsolete, particularly because Wi-Fi signals cannot provide outdoor coverage as well as powerful cell towers do.
There are cordless phones that offer dual access to phone and Ethernet lines, but Skype's model poses the greatest threat to phone carriers such as Verizon and Sprint. This is because it takes customers completely away from using cell networks, which bring in a substantial chunk of carriers' profits. "Skype is the most disruptive model for the carriers," says Bill Kish, chief technical officer and co-founder of Ruckus Wireless, a Wi-Fi hardware and software maker in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The emergence of sophisticated mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone will further drive the demand for more comprehensive Wi-Fi coverage. "The iPhone has a proper browser, but you don't want to be surfing over a cellular network," Kish says. "Wi-Fi was designed from the start to handle data, whereas cellular networks were built for voice."
Some carriers have begun to recognize the disruptive nature of mobile VoIP. In late June, T-Mobile USA launched its HotSpot @Home service that works with new Samsung and Nokia mobile phones to let customers use a single phone for both Wi-Fi and cellular calls. This allows T-Mobile HotSpot @Home customers to switch to the company's cellular network when they leave the range of their home Wi-Fi hookup.
The price is right, says Michael Gartenberg, a wireless technology analyst for JupiterResearch, although he notes that ultimately it comes down to service and quality: "If you can't hear the other person," he says, "it doesn't matter how cheap it is."
Solution to Energy and Climate Crises? A Game of Leapfrog
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ENERGY REVOLUTION: An international panel of experts recommends carbon capture and storage from coal-fired power plants, in addition to more efficient coal burning, as key technology solutions to global warming. |
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Both Brazilian sugarcane farmers who turn excess to ethanol and Chinese city dwellers who enjoy hot tea thanks to solar water heaters don't realize it but they are at the forefront of what an international panel of scientists hopes the future will look like. The Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council—a group that represents 150 national scientific and engineering academies—released a report this week detailing how countries can shift from burning coal and other greenhouse-gas emitting fuels to cleaner energy while also introducing modern forms of energy to the billions worldwide who rely on charcoal, firewood or even dung as their fuel.
Some "1.6 billion people don't have access to electricity," notes physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and co-chair of the panel that wrote the report, commissioned by the governments of China and Brazil. "The energy problem means different things to different people."
In the developed world, "conservation and energy efficiency will remain for the next several decades the most important thing the world can do to get on a sustainable energy path," he adds. Developing countries, such as China and Brazil, need "to leapfrog well past what we did in the West, like in the U.S., where we have sprawling suburbia and long commutes."
The report—"Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future"—addresses the challenge of bringing modern energy to everyone, while reining in global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Currently, according to the International Energy Agency, the world is on a path to a 40 percent increase in oil-burning alone by 2030 that will lead to a concomitant rise in CO2 emissions of 55 percent.
As it stands, fossil fuels, primarily coal and oil, supply around 80 percent of the world's energy needs, and known reserves of coal alone could power the world at current consumption levels for several centuries. But burning such fuels accounts for more than eight billion metric tons of CO2 entering the atmosphere yearly.
The report calls for a massive investment—doubling the current worldwide energy research and development budget of roughly $9 billion—as well as implementation during the next decade of improved energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage technology, and deployment of renewable energy sources. "Energy conservation would be a first priority—through transportation, lifestyle and also building," says panel member Li Jinghai, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
But the "cornerstone" of any sustainable energy future, according to panel member Ged Davis, co-president of global energy assessment at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, will be carbon capture and storage. "We still are a long ways from any sense of commerciality," he says.
In order to get technologies, such as integrated gasification and combined cycle coal power plants with carbon capture and storage, into the economic mainstream, a carbon price is needed. The panel estimates the necessary price would be $100 to $150 per metric ton of carbon, or $27 to $41 per metric ton of CO2. "We are now doing a little bit [of carbon capture and storage], but it's mostly at the level of enhanced oil recovery, several million tons per year," Chu says. "If this is going to be a significant part of controlling carbon emissions, it would have to be on the scale of one [billion] to 10 billion tons per year."
In the meantime, the choices that developing nations make will largely determine whether energy use and carbon emissions continue to rise or begin to level off. The panel hopes that such countries can leapfrog the development path of industrialized nations by installing more efficient and cleaner infrastructure. "Developing countries don't have to follow the path of industrialized countries that led us into this nightmare," says José Goldemberg, co-chair of the panel and former secretary of state for the environment for the state of São Paulo in Brazil. "They can jump right ahead and use modern technology, like cell phones," which have largely stood in for fixed telephone lines in developing nations.
That has not been the case with the coal-fired power plants that China is building at a rate of one a week. Brazil, on the other hand, has managed to provide 40 percent of its transportation fuel from sugarcane-derived ethanol and helped develop the flex-fuel technology that now allows drivers in the U.S. to switch between gasoline and the biofuel. General Motors's division in China has developed more fuel-efficient cars that could be exported back to the company's headquarters nation. And advances in materials technology, such as hybrid ceramic / steel, can help boost the temperature—and therefore increase the efficiency and lower the amount of CO2 emissions—of new coal-fired power plants.
Plus, renewables such as wind and solar power can play an ever-increasing role, if not in traditional forms of power generation. "In many small cities they also use solar energy for their cooking, heating and also for bathing," Liu says. "Not mass solar power but mostly it is distributed solar energy that is more available and more cost-effective for households."
Such technology and management improvements—as well as a price on carbon—can help drive an energy transformation and deliver some hope of arresting the ever-increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, according to the panel. "The quicker we learn," Davis says, "the cheaper it will be."
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