Talk:2014 California wildfires

Year

FYI- it's 2014 :)

FIxed, thanks --DarTar (talk) 04:42, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Move

This article, originally about the Colby Fire, was moved to "2014 California wildfire season" by someone who believes the Colby Fire is and will remain a minor fire. I object to that move and have requested them to move it back. The fire is only 24 hours old and only 30% contained; there exists a possibility of criminal charges in connection with it; it is WAY too soon to decide whether this fire is notable enough for a standalone article or not. IMO it should remain as an article titled Colby Fire. If it later appears to have been minor after all, it can then be merged into a catchall article via the usual discussion process. --MelanieN (talk) 18:40, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

There are thousands of wildfires in California every year, hundreds of which burn homes. Rather than creating dozens of short, news-article stubs, it makes much more sense to build a single article documenting all of the season's notable wildfires, with larger stand-alone pages for those wildfires that are significant enough to merit their own pages - such as the Rim Fire. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I have restored the Colby Fire article at the redirect site. When it's over, we can discuss here whether to re-convert it to a redirect. --MelanieN (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

May 2014 Bernardo Fire

Will someone please add an infobox for the bloody Bernardo Fire and expand upon the existing information? Everyone who ones a media device in San Diego knows about it, and this fire had a heavy impact on my school day. Also, it seems to be pretty major from the impacts displayed on the New Channels, yet no one has actually started an article, let alone a section for this fire. I have already added some basic info to begin with, but it needs to be expanded, as well as sourced for some of them. Thanks. LightandDark2000 (talk) 09:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news source. If a person wants minute-to-minute coverage of the status, they should go to the news. There is no rush on an encyclopedia. Bahooka (talk) 05:04, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I realize that. However, I was kind of rushing to get the section on that fire started, and you can't blame a person form making mistakes in such an event. Anyways, it seems that I've got other users helping me improve coverage on those fires now. LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:42, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

@Bahooka - FIRST of all, using article talk pages as your personal forum to belittle contributors is abuse. SECOND, Wikipedia is NOT an encyclopaedia. Jimmy Wales self-promoting blather notwithstanding, it is a pop culture aggregator decorated with pseudo-encyclopaedic articles created with little or no reference to historical sources not accessible via a Google search. I recommend you peek at a copy of the 11th edition EB to see what an actual encyclopaedia is about. Sheesh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 15:25, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, but it's something different. If there were no differences at all, this world would have nothing but conformity, and everything would be bland. LightandDark2000 (talk) 10:27, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

San Marcos fires

It's been a zoo trying to keep all this straight, but I think I have most of it right. But I have had trouble figuring out the San Marcos fire situation; any knowledgeable or official help appreciated! It looks as if there was a fire which started early in the day, early enough that I was writing about it this afternoon, and which caused the evacuation of Cal State San Marcos. This seems to be called the Twin Oaks Fire. Then there is a fire which started late in the afternoon, like 5:30, and is called the Cocos Fire (formerly Washingtonia Fire). But some sources are describing them as the same fire, or saying that the Cocos Fire caused the evacuation of CSSM. I think these sources are confused, because the campus was evacuated during the daytime (disrupting finals), and because I was writing about this evacuation well before the Cocos Fire is reported to have started. But it is possible that the article (which currently treats them as two fires) is wrong and will have to be corrected. If so the timeline will also have to be clarified. --MelanieN (talk) 06:48, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, they are 2 separate fires. The problem (as outlined in a new broadcast today) is that many of the agencies are fighting the fires separately, so while many of them have a comprehensive coverage of the fires, some of them also may confuse the fires/leave some out, due to the mess that's going on out there. I hope that this clarified things for you. LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:57, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought so. I wish I could find more information - for example when the Twin Oaks fire started; that would help to distinguish them. Hopefully the officials and the media will have sorted things out by tomorrow. For further confusion, some media use names loosely - for example, the Los Angeles media today kept talking about "the freeway fire" when they meant the one that started in LA under a freeway, rather than the Freeway Fire near Fallbrook. --MelanieN (talk) 07:58, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

May 2014 San Diego County Wildfires

Hello. Given how significant this wildfire outbreak is, can someone please find a good satellite image of these wildfires and add it to the main infobox. It would definitely help the readers get a better understanding of the scope of these fires. Thanks. LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:55, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Infobox

I have moved the infobox from the top of the page to the San Diego County May 2014 section, and revised it to be just about those fires. It makes no sense to try to do an infobox about the whole season - if that's what was being attempted here. --MelanieN (talk) 07:54, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the seasonal infobox is meant for the entire article as a whole, regardless of whatever picture is being used. All of the other articles do it this way, and if the infobox was meant only for the May 2014 San Diego County wildfires, then the stats and the data given in the infobox would be very different. LightandDark2000 (talk) 09:11, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I understand you were trying to do an infobox for the entire season. I just don't think an infobox is the proper way to summarize the entire season, which is why I moved it and converted it to be just about the San Diego situation. If you want to have statistics for the season, such as number of named fires or acres burned, I think they would be better and more understandably presented in text or table form. IMO infoboxes should be reserved for specific incidents. OK, I was bold, you reverted, let's discuss. I will bow to whatever works out to be the consensus here, about whether an infobox for the entire season makes sense or not. (I see that there is one at 2013 California wildfires, but you created it just yesterday, so I don't really count it as contributing to consensus about whether such an infobox is a good idea.)

BTW I see that you added the San Diego fire emergency to the article lead. We may have a bunch more such emergencies to add to the lead before the season is over! :-( But I do think it would be helpful to add to the lead some information about the fire season starting earlier than usual this year. I don't have good sources for that; do you want to add something? --MelanieN (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Reference citations

BTW I realize that the San Diego County section is way over-cited right now. I think that's appropriate while this is an ongoing situation, with breaking news and the situation changing rapidly. When this is in the past we can get rid of the clutter, and trim the citations to one or two authoritative ones. --MelanieN (talk) 18:20, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

It is certainly better to err on the side of too many citations than not enough. I agree that when a summary of the fires are published in an RS, that can then be the citation. By the way, I think the small non-notable fires can be deleted. It's not like it is notable that there are fires when there are Santa Ana Winds, it happens every year. Just the notable ones should be mentioned. Bahooka (talk) 18:32, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I think we might wait a day or so before deleting them. Because of the current emergency situation, these minor brush fires got more publicity than they normally would have. People may have heard of them and come here wanting to know about the (shortlived and overhyped) "Escondido fire" for instance. ("Escondido Fire" was briefly a section heading here, thanks to the saturation media coverage.) That's why I put all the non-named fires in a catchall category - so such people can look and say "Oh, OK, so it was no big deal then." After a week or so I would be fine with nuking that section. --MelanieN (talk) 19:02, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Separate article for May 2014 wildfires

I believe that there should be a separate article for the May 2014 California wildfires. JC · History · Talk · Contributions 21:31, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you may be right. This was/is a major incident, calling for a state declaration of emergency, and is likely to have lasting impact. However, I think it should be titled May 2014 San Diego County wildfires. That cluster of fires is what is notable. There are other fires burning in other parts of California, but (so far at least) they are not at this level of notability. --MelanieN (talk) 21:40, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps we should collaborate in the creation of this article. JC · History · Talk · Contributions 21:57, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Happy to. But I think it is mostly already created: the bulk of the article could be created by copy-pasting the existing section and subjections, leaving a link behind which says "Main article:..." We'll need to write a lead section though. --MelanieN (talk) 23:18, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and get it started. --MelanieN (talk) 23:19, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

By the way, if a person types in "San Diego fires", it redirects them to October 2007 California wildfires. Some changes may be needed in that area. Bahooka (talk) 23:41, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I redirected it to the new article, at least for now. When things calm down we might want to consider a DAB page. --MelanieN (talk) 23:45, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

That was exactly what I was thinking, disambiguation. JC · History · Talk · Contributions 23:46, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

That's much better. The San Diego information was overwhelming the 2014 California wildfires page. I did kind of a quick-and-dirty spinoff; additional input is requested. The new article could use, at a minimum, a better lead and possibly more categories. --MelanieN (talk) 23:47, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Meadow fire, Yosemite Sept. 2014

Meadow wildfire, Yosemite 9-7-2014

Here's a dramatic photo of same from the Park. Half Dome in the foreground. Resulted in evacuation of 150 (+/-) hikers & climbers, ims. --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Can we add that and the Gulch Fire? AmericanLeMans (talk) 18:52, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Please do! Remember to be bold and enrich the experiences of people who read these articles. By the way, that is an awesome picture. LightandDark2000 (talk) 03:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

There! I added it in. Hope this helps. LightandDark2000 (talk) 11:01, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with May 2014 San Diego County wildfires

The following is a closed discussion of a proposed merger. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the merge proposal was: Keep as it is. LightandDark2000 (talk) 10:09, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

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consistency with other years. Individual fires should have pages. Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 04:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I propose creating a heading 2 section on 2014 California wildfires about the May 2014 San Diego County wildfires. Those that are inherently notable due to size or structure loss will get their own page. The other smaller fires can be simply listed.--Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Very Strong Oppose - This group of wildfires are notable enough to have their own article (and none of the content should be trimmed down). And as discussed last year, merging the article into the main 2014 California wildfires article would be too unbalanced in terms of content. LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:02, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
  • @LightandDark2000: the unbalanced issue is a valid point. 2014 California wildfires absolutely needs a section about the May 2014 San Diego County wildfires but I could see that section pointing to {{main|May 2014 San Diego County wildfires}}. As for the "none of the content should be trimmed down". I'm sorry but that is just not the case. There is loads of unreferenced material on that page as well as entire sections that are about tiny fires (less than 100 acres). As this is a major outbreak, I agree that all fires should be mentioned on that page, but entire sections that are 1-2 sentences about a tiny fire makes no sense. Take a look at the table I added (note it is absolutely possible that I missed a fire or two in that table...). I will hold off on any merging until a consensus is reached, but content that is WP:UNSOURCED or Not Notable has got to go. That is independent of the merge question. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 16:21, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons of balance and coverage. Balance: the 2014 San Diego County Wildfires article was created as a spinoff from this article, because it was overwhelming the article; it was just too complex and generating too much information to be a section here. Coverage: this series of fires, so close together in time and geography, was covered as a unit by virtually all sources, both official and journalistic. The article could be renamed to San Diego Fire Complex, now a redirect to the page, if that would fit the format here better. But it absolutely should not be converted into a redirect to this page; either it would overwhelm the article again, or else tons of relevant, sourced information would be lost. And to list it as a few individual fires, as Zackmann08 seems to want, would totally misrepresent this series of fires - which was considered, reported, and treated as an event. MelanieN alt (talk) 22:59, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

@MelanieN alt: you make some great points! To be clear, I am not proposing SOLELY treating them as a series of individual fires. I agree that the series as a whole is noteworthy. My question is whether it is so noteworthy as to have its own page. It seems to me that the May 2014 San Diego County wildfires page is about 15% talking about the overall effect of series of fires (mass damage, evacuations, costs, health affects, etc...) and about 85% talking about the individual fires. My thinking was to take that 85% and spin it off into pages about the individual fires and take the 15% and put it into the 2014 California wildfires page with its own section. Does that at least make sense? (Even if you disagree). Sorry been a long week, trying to explain my thoughts is a bit like trying to smell the color blue. :-p --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:45, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a proposed merge. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Renaming pages

There is a discussion about renaming the Category:Wildfires in California by year pages from <YEAR> California wildfires to <YEAR> California wildfire season on the talk page for Talk:2015 California wildfires. If you care to participate in the discussion, please comment here (so as to keep the discussion in one location. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 17:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Small fires

It should be noted that by convention fires under 1,000 acres (400 ha) are not listed UNLESS they cause major damage or are otherwise notable. Fires over 1,000 acres (400 ha) are inherently notable. That being said, having paragraphs about fires that just have multiple sentences saying On <date> the fire was ##% contained. On <later date> the fire was ##% contained... Is pointless and shouldn't be placed on the page. LightandDark2000 has continually restored that content to the page. I have tried to discuss it with them on their talk page but when I attempted to start a dialogue with them they just reverted my edits to their talk page with no response. SO... I am placing this here for historical context. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:23, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't have info at that time (July-August 2014) on the large fires, other than from the CAL FIRE and the government sites, probably because I didn't have very much time that summer. As for the smaller fires, some of them were associated with or coincided with the May 2014 fires (which were very notable) or the other large Summer 2014 wildfires, so they are not able enough to be included. As for the other "small" wildfires listed, I believe that they are all over 1,000 acres each in size, and caused some amount of reportrd damage. As for the specifics of the content, I currently do not have enough time to go back and conduct a thorough search to add more information to their sections. However, if you can find any additional information on those wildfires, fell free to add them. LightandDark2000 (talk) 00:29, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@LightandDark2000: no one is faulting you for not having enough time to add better information, but what you DID add is not encyclopedic or was unsourced which is why it was removed. That's all.--Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:36, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

It's all sourced. LightandDark2000 (talk) 00:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Now it is... --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 01:21, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

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