Lockheed Fire Update
The fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains has now burned over 6,800 acres and is 30% contained. So far only 2 outbuildings have been damaged by the fire. More than 250 residences are threatened and there mandatory evacuations for Bonny Doon and Swanton effecting more than 2,200 people.
The primary fuels are redwood and pine trees. The area is mountainous with few roads for access.
Currently there are 234 engines, 17 crews, 22 dozers, 17 water tenders, 6 helicopters, 6 air tankers, and 1,548 personnel assigned to the fire. To date cost $2.6 million.
Links: Cal Fire Lockheed Fire page, the Enplan Wildfire Viewer, the Santa Cruz Sentinel local news page, and their map of the Lockheed Fire.
[For more information go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Fires” for all of the posts related to wildfires on this site.]
Update: I’ve seen a number of queries wondering why this is called the “Lockheed Fire”. Lockheed Martin Space Systems has a facility just North of the fire and the command post is set up there. They could have set up at the University of California Santa Cruz campus, but no one wanted to call it the Banana Slug Fire. [Yes, the sports teams are called Banana Slugs. What part of California don’t you understand? It was founded in the 1960s.]
2 comments
The Banana Slugs have a nice history. Seems the student body did not want sports teams, thought it was a waste of student fee money. All they wanted was intramural sports, not organized Division XXX sports. The administration insisted, because what kind of college doesn’t have sports teams? But the administration threw out the sop that the students could name the team mascot.
The students, in protest, named the lowly banana slug as the team mascot.
The administration protested. How undignified! And what would this banana slug mascot look like? How could anybody dress like a banana slug and appear at games to cheer on the team! So they called a *NEW* election, and specifically eliminated the banana slug as a choice. The students wrote in “banana slug” though.
Finally, the administration just chose a mascot, something humdrum. But they couldn’t get anybody to volunteer to don the costume of the mascot they’d chosen. The first game arrived and… someone dressed as a banana slug appeared on the field to cheer on the team and lead the student body in chants of, “Go, Banana Slugs!” and so forth.
Finally the administration admitted defeat, and the Banana Slugs they have been ever since.
Note: Some of the above story may be true. No banana slugs were smoked in the creation of this post, and it is utterly not true that ingesting a banana slug will cause peyote-like hallucinations. I mean, ick!
Expecting geeks to appreciate the “virtues” of college sports is beyond the edge of reason. All that are interested go to Stanford. The school was created to train people for the “space race”, not the Olympics, which is why Lockheed Martin is so close.
My fußball team, Alemannia Aachen are the Kartoffelkäfer, potato bugs [the uniform color], so banana slug is not really out of place.