A Red Flag Warning that began Thursday night continues at least until five this evening. Arid wind severely increases the risk of wildfire during this time. The strong wind can be hazardous, even without fire. Big trees become big problems.

1. Wind developed soon after sunrise yesterday. I tried to get a picture of foliar debris as it fell from the forest canopy, but took only this. Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood makes the background, with Quercus agrifolia, coast live oak in the lower left quadrant.

2. Turkeys should hide from such wind. This one was alone and in a hurry, likely to find a sheltered situation with others, and just as likely, after shredding the red berries of the firethorn, Pyracantha coccinea. I saw no others as the wind continued through the day.

3. Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood is remarkably stable but structurally deficient where exposed to wind, which is why it grows in dense and mutually sheltering colonies. These big fractured limbs are very heavy, and fell with deadly velocity from very high up.

4. Umbellularia californica, California bay is often destabilized by structural deficiency. In other words, although its trunks and limbs are generally not structurally deficient, rot often compromises the structural integrity of the roots, which then become destabilized.

5. Two California bay trunks that destabilized and blocked the road in the picture above are obscured on the ground by their own foliage here. The fractured trunk that is visible was not structurally deficient, but was pulled down by the other two as they destabilized.

6. Hedychium coccineum X coronarium ‘Peach Delight’ ginger is likely too late to finish blooming. I would like to see it bloom to confirm its identity, but may need to wait until next year. Although irrelevant to the wind, I thought I should feature at least one bloom.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

13 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: Red Flag Warning”

  1. That’s a great shot of the turkey. I read last night about a fire in the Oakland hills, and burn bans have gone up around here due to our extremely dry conditions. I’d far rather face a hurricane than a fire, that’s for sure. Both come with winds, but hurricanes do have the advantage of arriving with rain.

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    1. Fires are a natural component to the ecosystems here. However, areas that burn are now populated! Also, because of a lack of forest management after clear cut harvesting a century ago, the forests are now more combustible than they naturally are.

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    1. Well, they are rarely minimal when they happen. Also, lack of fire allows the forests to become even more combustible. That is why some fires are so much more destructive than they naturally were a long time ago. Turkeys are impressively stupid, although those who hunt them know how smart they can be. It makes no sense. Every so often, a Tom comes into the yard where the fleet of pickups parks, and fights with any chrome bumper he can find. There are not many chrome bumpers nowadays, but there are enough to keep him busy.

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  4. Our local turkeys are strutting their stuff in the wooded areas on the west side of Lake Mendota. Windy here too, but dry, so we are concerned for fire, but less for falling branches and trees, though there are still a few standing ash trees around my neighborhood dead from Emerald Ash Borer. I am surprised that people are not more concerned for potential damage/injury to keep dead trees so close to homes and sidewalks.

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    1. Well, we live with the tallest trees in the World. To remove all trees that could fall onto homes would involve clearing all trees within more than two hundred feet of the homes, and in town many homes are within two hundred feet of each other. Therefore, removal of hazardous trees would eliminate the forests. What is so infuriating though is that so many of the trees, regardless of how hazardous or combustible they are, are protected. Environmental laws in California seem to be designed to endanger people.

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    1. Well, the trees here are the tallest in the World. If one falls over, the top of it might land in Kansas. We are more concerned for the safety of those who live here (and between here and Kansas) than for the trees.

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