UPDATE: Late Wed. afternoon:
Cal Fire is monitoring a brush fire that is about a half-mile inside Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border. The blaze is about a half-acre in size and is burning east of Potrero, south of state Route 94 below Bell Valley, a Cal Fire spokesman said.
Firefighters said the fire appears to be burning away from the border.
SAN DIEGO, CA. Wednesday, August 26th – hot, dry, records being set. Did you know that there is a large fire burning in or near Tecate, Mexico. That’s about a 40 mile drive away – or 30 miles from downtown San Diego as the crow flies. I just watched the nightly news on several local San Diego TV stations. Not one word about the Tecate fire – although plenty of coverage of a fire in Los Angeles.
Why? And why does this continue to happen? Large fires burning – sometimes out of control – just across the border, but there’s no coverage about them on this side of the border.
Is it simply an American bias? Is it racism?
Isn’t it dangerous? What about true-Americans living just a few miles away from the Tecate fire? Reportedly, Cal Fire trucks, equipment and firefighters are currently patrolling on Highway 94. Don’t civilians who live close by deserve to know about a fire that is burning just a few miles away – although across an international border?
Just two weeks ago, I was visiting a friend who lives in Potrero, very close to the border. Off in the east there were huge billowing dark clouds – they weren’t clouds – they were smoke from a large fire burning south of the border. But, again, not one word from San Diego media.
It just does not make sense to not inform people who may live close to a large fire.
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I know this isn’t a local news story, but after speaking to my Potrero friend, who had called the Potrero library – where the librarian confirmed that they had called 9-1-1 originally about the fire, and that it was in Tecate. I then turned on the local TV news, and yup, not one word on 7,8,9 or 10. Where’s our independent television station?
These fires threaten East County rednecks, not city dwellers or the all-important demographic in the Great White North (Poway, Rancho Bernardo et al). Seriously, media coverage of anything important out there is abysmal – I lived in southeast El Cajon through the firestorms of 2003 and 2007, both times was evacuated from my house and didn’t hear a word about it until the CHP rolled through my ‘hood telling me I had 20 minutes to get out – even though I’d been glued to my TV for hours prior. In ’07 I refused to leave, because in ’03 the authorities evacuated the wrong neighborhood – I lived off Willow Glen and was forced to leave, while friends off Willow Road in Alpine had their only warning in the form of a neighbor’s wood shake roof popping off like a firecracker. Sob stories featuring torched BMWs and imported marble flooring in Sabre Springs flooded the airwaves while we drove a truck and trailer through police barricades to salvage anything we could get our hands on out of a friend’s mom’s in Crest…
…as if fire makes a distinction between Mexican scrub, animals, people and dwellings and those on the other side of the “linea.” Thanks Frank.
Ah, finally, some mainstream media confirmation – this was on signonsandieg late yesterday (8/26/09):
“Brush fire in Mexico not a threat to U.S.
Cal Fire is monitoring a brush fire that is about a half-mile inside Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border. The blaze is about a half-acre in size and is burning east of Potrero, south of state Route 94 below Bell Valley, a Cal Fire spokesman said.
Firefighters said the fire appears to be burning away from the border.”
here’s link: http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/breaking/2009/08/brush_fire_in_mexico_near_us_n_1.html