The Great Pittsburgh and San Diego 2007 Fires - Essay Example

THE GREAT PITTSBURGH AND SAN DIEGO 2007 FIRES Affiliation: The Great Fire of Pittsburgh took place on April 10th at 12 o’clock. It broke up in some frame buildings that were located to the Southeast of Ferry and Second Street in Pittsburgh. Two weeks prior to the fire break out, the weather was dry with high winds prevailing to a great extent. When the fire was discovered, the winds were blowing afresh from several points north of west. Within a short time, the fire flames had spread to the square.

The wind’s velocity increased leading to more buildings catching fire. In a very short period, a third of the city was engulfed and consumed by the fire (Hoffer, 2006). The fire further extended to the Ferry side of Third Street extending further to Kensington town and destroyed it too. The district that was burned comprised of many businesses and valuable factories. The loss amounted to approximately, $8,000,000. The growth and spread of the fire was caused by strong dry winds that were blowing in the town.

As such, the dry weather conditions coupled with strong raging winds subsequently led to the spread of the fire to other buildings. Additionally, Pittsburgh at that time had uncontrolled/haphazard development. This resulted in patchwork of homes and rich businesses. These wealthy people intermingled with other peasants who were adjacent, and who lived in wooden structures. Thus, the fire spread easily from the poor structures to the patchwork of rich homes and businesses. Additionally, the fire was spreading slowly, consuming all the structures in its wake (Cook, 1968).

The city was also highly populated resulting in congestion. This further complicated any efforts of controlling the fire. Moreover, the city’s outstripped infrastructure offered weak water pressure and lower volume than was required to extinguish the fire. The city had only two water mains. In addition, the fire department had insufficient hose to serve the centre of the city from the river. This hindered the efforts of extinguishing the fire. Ironically, the fire led to the development of the city.

Following the disaster, the city developed as a well-controlled urban area with better fire fighting equipment. The October 2007 California fire disaster involved a series of around 30 wild fires. 17 of these fires became major wild fires. The fires began igniting in the Southern California on 20th, October 2007. Around 1500 homes were destroyed with many more people displaced and left homeless. An estimated 970,977 acres of land were consumed from the Santa Barbara County. A total of 14 people were killed during the fire incident.

In fact, nine of these people died directly from the fire incident while the rest died in hospital while receiving treatment (Evan, 2007). Furthermore, 160 people were seriously injured and suffered severe burns. Out of these, 124 were fire fighters. As a result of this, the Governor of California declared the fire a national disaster within the seven counties that were affected. Over 6,000 fire fighters worked to extinguish the fire. This group was further assisted by the US armed forces, US National Guard, and 3000 prisoners convicted of petty crimes.

The fire caused around 100,000 people to be evacuated and became the largest evacuation in the history of California. The major factors that contributed to fire spread and severity were the hot weather conditions and drought. Additionally, there were strong winds that blew with high velocity and increased the spread of the fire. The California fire season was a tradition of fire spreads that ran from June to October. This became a yearlong threat due to a mixture of perennial drought and increased number of houses/homes that were built in canyons and hillsides surrounded by forest and bushes.

The fire had several sources that were triggered by power lines that were destroyed by high winds (Keeley et al, 2009). Also, the poor weather conditions made the fires difficult to control and extinguish. The drought and strong winds propelled the spread of the fire. However, there was a lot of coordination from various groups such as fire fighters, the US armed forces and volunteers (Hoffer, 2006). This helped in the evacuation process and prevented massive loss of lives within the city. References Cook, D. E. (1968).

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