Wildfire ‘24

[claymond]

LA City FD not having handcrews is a different issue than what you were saying in the post I responded to. I was trying to provide a little more detail statements you gave. I highly doubt in this instance the city having handcrews would have made much difference, but who knows.

Should the City have handcrews, yeah. It's kinda crazy having USFS and county crews driving an hour deep into the city, far away from where they are most effective, to a fire a homeless person started in a dry riverbed. Which is the current MO.

I'm all for looking at what failed, criticizing, and learning. But, from my ground level view, the people and systems around LA County are better than any others when it comes to wildfire suppression in or very close to urban areas. You can build the fire suppression capabilities as high as the sky and theres still gonna be Santa Ana driven fires that don't stop til the wind dies down.

The thing in my mind is that most all fire starts during Santa Ana's are human caused. Which means we have the potential to stop them from starting. It'd be draconian, but I don't see millions of homes going away so maybe it's the deal left to make. Shut down highways and roads through wildland areas during Santa Ana's. Close forests and open spaces ahead of time. Shut off the electrical lines sooner than they do now. Build community centers run off generators people can go to for climate control if its hot. Hospitals and nursing homes, generators. Patrol homeless encampments with engines on scene ready to go. Is any of that crazier than rebuilding again and again in areas that burn again and again? Is that more expensive than making hundreds of thousands of homes fireproof, or spending even more money on the already huge-budgeted, most advanced firefighting force probably on earth?

[MultiVerse]

I had gotten some bad news yesterday so I didn’t give this post my attention. That said:


Fed retardant planes are contracted, not owned by the govt. When the contract is up at the end of the usual fire season they get stored or sent to other countries by the private contractors. Unlike feds the state of California does own its retardant ships.


The ‘main issue’ with LA hand crews is that they would have been completely ineffective and unusable in >60 mph winds in housing developments like Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Period.


^This is wrong. After they’ve served their time people that worked on CalFire convict crews can be hired by the state as regular firefighter. That is a fairly recent change.
https://precinctreporter.com/2022/09...minal-records/

- Right, that explains why federal were planes were slower on the scene than planes from other countries

- I don't think anyone is claiming hand crews would have been effective in housing developments. That's a strawman

- Good to hear the law recently changed. Overly restrictive occupational licensing is one the biggest impediments to job growth in the country: "This legislation rights a historic wrong and recognizes the sacrifice of thousands of incarcerated people who have helped battle wildfire"

[Bunion 2020]

Regardless, I'm not making that claim myself apart from responding to a general question about L.A. hand crews but I am speculating, a lot.

FIFY

[MultiVerse]

Putting aside the urge to dunk on people by falsifying arguments, it seems like discussing hand crews in a wildfire thread is a perfectly legitimate topic, is not Bunion?

LA City FD not having handcrews is a different issue than what you were saying in the post I responded to.

It's not, that was the issue

[Meadow Skipper]

…You can build the fire suppression capabilities as high as the sky and theres still gonna be Santa Ana driven fires that don't stop til the wind dies down.

Quoted for truth.

And I’m not sure if you were responding my post, but your knowledge on this topic seems solid to me FWIW. No criticism intended.

[Bunion 2020]

it seems like discussing hand crews in a wildfire thread is a perfectly legitimate topic, is not Bunion?

Sure thing buddy and asked and answered several pages back. There are actually people posting here that were Wildland Firefighters. I was a lowly FF2 but was on enough fires to know what 50-80 mph winds mean for trying to contain a forest fire. You are shit out of luck until the wind dies down or it snows.

[MultiVerse]

Right, old goat asked the question and I answered it a couple of pages pack. So thank you for your service as an FF2 even though your response is yet another non sequitur given so many other people are saying the same thing over-and-over

[Bunion 2020]

You are welcome I guess. Back to uninformed speculation and wild claims.

noun: non sequitur; plural noun: non sequiturs; noun: nonsequitur; plural noun: nonsequiturs

a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.

[MultiVerse]

That's the dumbest response ever uttered by someone not addicted to Vicodin.

It does beg the question though, are you arguing L.A. was perfectly prepared, there were no bad policies, and the infrastructure was perfectly adequate? Like, is that the point Meadow Skipper and claymond are trying to make by arguing there's nothing that can be done in the face of high winds? I thought we were trying to take politics out of it and just discuss what happened?

FWIW, the Palisades Fire started in the hills above the Pacific Palisades near where a recent previous fire started so I don't think it's a "wild claim" to mention reignition as one of several potential causes. Quoting NYT, "firefighters thought they had extinguished on New Year’s Day, nearly a week before the Palisades fire broke out."

[claymond]

Quoted for truth.

And I’m not sure if you were responding my post, but your knowledge on this topic seems solid to me FWIW. No criticism intended.

No I was replying to MultiVerse, I lost the quote somewhere as I typed shit out.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Has this turned into another Multiverse knows everything thread?

The only bad policies that are to blame are letting those areas get developed in the first place. Nothing was going to stop those fires with the conditions at the time. There’s really no practical or economically feasible way to design and build infrastructure to stop or contain those fires. Blaming policy and inadequate infrastructure is bringing politics back to the discussion. It’s really that simple and it’s tragic.


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[MultiVerse]

Well, one example is power lines. Near where the fires started old dangerous wooden power line poles were supposed to be replaced with stronger metal structures but environmental regulators stopped the project due to concerns over harming Braunton’s milkvetch plants. If that turns out to be the cause then that would be a case of inadequate infrastructure

[MagnificentUnicorn]

SCE says the power lines were de energized before the fire started. Power lines arcing have caused fires for sure.


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[MultiVerse]

Yeah agreed, the question is did overhead power lines cause the days earlier fire in the same area where the Palisades Fire started. People posted videos of smoke in the area days after the New Year's fire before the big main fire spread on Jan. 7. The posts & vids have since been removed after reporters tried to contact them

[MontuckyFried]

This one's been making the rounds lately. From a 1961 documentary on LA Wildfires, "Design for Disaster."
https://www.instagram.com/dtlaartsdi...l/DE_jsTLx9QW/

[Bunion 2020]

That's the dumbest response ever uttered by someone not addicted to Vicodin.

Hopefully your withdrawal is not too severe.

It does beg the question though, are you arguing L.A. was perfectly prepared, there were no bad policies, and the infrastructure was perfectly adequate? Like, is that the point Meadow Skipper and claymond are trying to make by arguing there's nothing that can be done in the face of high winds? I thought we were trying to take politics out of it and just discuss what happened?

as you re-injected partisan politics and blame back into the discussion? And NO ONE has said the response or the preparation were 100%

FWIW, the Palisades Fire started in the hills above the Pacific Palisades near where a recent previous fire started so I don't think it's a "wild claim" to mention reignition as one of several potential causes. Quoting NYT, "firefighters thought they had extinguished on New Year’s Day, nearly a week before the Palisades fire broke out."

And the Eaton fire may have been sparked by electrical lines and Lahina fires may have also started from a fire that was declared to be out.

Stop pointing fingers and a civil discussion is possible.

[MultiVerse]

lol, show one example of "pointing fingers" politically for these fires or apologize, Bunion.

as you re-injected partisan politics and blame back into the discussion?

Absolute nonsense. Don't get me wrong, I love it when your little voices argue with your imaginary friends but your responses are asinine

[Bunion 2020]

OK, sorry you are a dumbass.

[MultiVerse]

Just one example, Bunion....

[claymond]

It does beg the question though, are you arguing L.A. was perfectly prepared, there were no bad policies, and the infrastructure was perfectly adequate? Like, is that the point Meadow Skipper and claymond are trying to make by arguing there's nothing that can be done in the face of high winds? I thought we were trying to take politics out of it and just discuss what happened?

FWIW, the Palisades Fire started in the hills above the Pacific Palisades near where a recent previous fire started so I don't think it's a "wild claim" to mention reignition as one of several potential causes. Quoting NYT, "firefighters thought they had extinguished on New Year’s Day, nearly a week before the Palisades fire broke out."

OK, first off, I am saying that news articles and comments that focus on, well they didn't have this, or they didn't have that don't mention that LA County, as an area, through many different agencies, has more technology, more resources, and better coordination and response times than just about anywhere. They are very very good at quickly suppressing fires. It's the most tested and dialed-in WUI wildfire suppression system in North America if not the world. That said, they will never suppress all of them before they impact infrastructure and homes. I'm not being prideful or standing up for other firefighters here, I'm asking how much more money and effort and time should be focused on trying to attain the unattainable of stopping every fire before it impacts homes? They've been ramping up suppression capabilities in SoCal continuously since World War 2 if not earlier, and fires like the Eaton and the Palisades and the Thomas and the Wooley still happen and cause devastation. Was the preparation and response to the Palisades and Eaton perfect? No, nothing humans do ever is or ever will be. So learn from the fire suppression response to these fires, criticize, make changes, just know that improving the suppression capabilities in and around LA may make mass devastation fires a less frequent, but it will never make them disappear.

With that out of the way...
If by prepared you mean able to withstand a few large fast moving fires with minimal levels of damage and loss of life, no they weren't prepared and I am not trying to argue they were. If by prepared you mean that collectively, SoCal knows fires like these are common and that homes and infrastructure within a couple miles of steep chaparral covered mountains are at great risk of burning down in the average human lifetime-well I don't know. I don't live there and never have. But my guess is that people have short memories and aren't great at understanding risk thats not in their face, over decades of time. Doesn't make them bad people, life's busy and tough and full of tradeoffs.

When the area I grew up in burned in the Creek Fire a few years ago, the number of old friends who said "I didn't think that would happen here" was shocking. Like, why not?

That's what I'm trying to get across. Relying on putting out fires before they become an issue, defensible space, and technology only gets you so far. Relying on expensive fire resistant to fireproof buildings like the one in the article muted posted is great til people realize they don't wanna live like that. Some combination of the above reduces risk but doesn't bring it to zero. Intentionally irresponsible or not, there's lots of peoples lives and property in places history indicates will catch fire rather often. Those communities need to face the facts and decide how they want to live with that.

[raisingarizona13]

Better than dying in a traffic jam on a narrow suburban/country road.
Tunnel fire, Oakland 1991
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991
…and many others.


Well, as you pointed out, there were infinitely less of them, and they were infinitely more mobile. There was nothing like Pacific Palisades or Santa Rosa CA in native America. Their knowledge can only be acted upon in very remote areas. And they didn’t have Karens complaining to mayors, governors, and legislators about smoke. It’s hard to imagine how the native Americans would handle urban areas like Pacific Palisades. How would you apply Native American knowledge to the LA basin or Bay Area?

Also, they had many years of fire maintenance, they weren’t immeasurably behind the curve like we are. Their lessons aren’t applicable to many places in the lower 48.

Why aren't people like yourself being interviewed by news media? Instead they are interviewing are some guy that burned his finger lighting a grill once and sold spatulas his whole life and now blames libturds for the extreme fire conditions. I guess we shouldn't expect much else at this point, we are a two party culture because that's what works for most peoples brains and anything that's not black and white that requires some critical thinking is unfortunately too complex. It's Idiocracy now.

[raisingarizona13]

When the area I grew up in burned in the Creek Fire a few years ago, the number of old friends who said "I didn't think that would happen here" was shocking. Like, why not?

Because they don't want to believe it. It's insane how stupid we humans are!

[MagnificentUnicorn]

As long as people are living in the Santa Monica mountains and the foothills surrounding the LA basin this is going to continue to happen to different extremes. No one is to blame but the people that allowed development and the people who keep rebuilding.


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[John_B]

With that out of the way...
If by prepared you mean able to withstand a few large fast moving fires with minimal levels of damage and loss of life, no they weren't prepared and I am not trying to argue they were. If by prepared you mean that collectively, SoCal knows fires like these are common and that homes and infrastructure within a couple miles of steep chaparral covered mountains are at great risk of burning down in the average human lifetime-well I don't know. I don't live there and never have. But my guess is that people have short memories and aren't great at understanding risk thats not in their face, over decades of time. Doesn't make them bad people, life's busy and tough and full of tradeoffs.

When the area I grew up in burned in the Creek Fire a few years ago, the number of old friends who said "I didn't think that would happen here" was shocking. Like, why not?

Well said claymond! I keep an eye on Zeke Lunder's blog The Lookout. He had a good Livestream with footage from both fires. Afterwards he takes a look at the area of the Tunnel Fire in Oakland in 1991 and looks at current fuel loading conditions using Google Street. It looks ready to go again.

https://www.youtube.com/live/FG1pPTLGwbk?feature=shared

The Tunnel discussion is at 55:45.

[Meadow Skipper]

Why aren't people like yourself being interviewed by news media?

Ha, because I’m not getting paid to waste my time on it anymore? So I get to be kind of an asshole about it, as people here on TRG well know.

But here’s an article from the LA Times that really spoke to me. I might have gotten it here, and it might be paywalled, but it speaks to issue of the public being told numerous times over many years that wildfire is gonna be a problem. Stephen Pyne is the pre-eminent fire historian in the US, really really sharp guy, and Jack Cohen really knows his shit. The article is sort of a “well, we told you so” kind of thing. People either don’t listen or they forget pretty quickly.
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...changing-times

Not quite six years ago, wildfire expert Jack Cohen, who lives in Missoula, Mont., visited Pacific Palisades to instruct firefighters and property owners on how to protect homes against wildfires.

Three days of training, including a tour of the community, left Cohen hopeful, but the feeling faded when it became clear that his lessons were not going to be fully implemented. This week’s tragedy has left him with a deep sadness.

Respected by fire agencies across the country, Cohen and Pyne have found their straight-talk admonitions often disregarded or dismissed. Sensitive to losses and suffering, both said they are motivated by the belief that magnitude of destruction this week in Los Angeles and Altadena is not a foregone conclusion.

“I’m compelled to continue pursuing this issue because it is so solvable if we determine to do it,” Cohen said.

The two experts spoke to The Times in 2017 when wildfires ravaged Northern California and again this week amid the unfolding calamity. They have long argued that our understanding and relationship to fire has to change if conflagrations are to be prevented.

While Pyne focuses on our cultural relationship with fire, Cohen looks at fire from a scientific perspective. Both suggest that we have more control over fire disasters than we think, and both begin by redefining the problem.

Popular wisdom, Pyne said, holds that “fire is something that happens once in a while. It’s seasonal. It’s nothing we really have to invest in systematically. It’s just an emergency that we need to be prepared for and then respond to.”

“I think we’re beyond that,” he said.