Topic: L.A fires

[dave500]

its all over our news here,looks terrifying over there.

[RAFster122s]

This one is a bit different in that typical Santa Ana winds aren't as widespread and many ridge lines are seeing 100mph winds. Some areas that typically don't see intense Santa Ana winds are seeing extremely high winds...
So, the widespread very strong winds are feeding the firestorms and causing massive devastation. Nearly impossible to fight fires fed by winds that high. All you can do is to eliminate flammable materials but winds of 60-80 mph can spread embers way too far.
The weather will have to cooperate for the California fires to get under control.

[newday777]

This one is a bit different in that typical Santa Ana winds aren't as widespread and many ridge lines are seeing 100mph winds. Some areas that typically don't see intense Santa Ana winds are seeing extremely high winds...
So, the widespread very strong winds are feeding the firestorms and causing massive devastation. Nearly impossible to fight fires fed by winds that high. All you can do is to eliminate flammable materials but winds of 60-80 mph can spread embers way too far.
The weather will have to cooperate for the California fires to get under control.

Very true. When I was in north San Diego county in 2007, the wild fires shut down the area, the wires start 45 miles from the coast and traveled so fast, getting to the coast within a day by jumping with embers flying miles to start new spots ablaze.

[Stev-o]

It is horrific, I cannot imagine.   

Not going to get political here but the mayor cut the fire dept budget by millions and the Governor blasted away dams that had reservoirs with water that could have been used to fight fires [some hydrants went dry]

[newday777]

It is horrific, I cannot imagine.   

Not going to get political here but the mayor cut the fire dept budget by millions and the Governor blasted away dams that had reservoirs with water that could have been used to fight fires [some hydrants went dry]

Just like Maui a short time ago......

[simon#42]

i am surprised at the speed the houses burnt , what are they made of ?

[RAFster122s]

Standard construction, wood, stucco, gypsum drywall board typically. The winds accelerated the burn rate...

[Don R]

 When I've been out there, I mostly saw tile roofs and stucco siding. You would think that it would be resistant to fire.

[newday777]

When I've been out there, I mostly saw tile roofs and stucco siding. You would think that it would be resistant to fire.

Many of the homes are actually half a century old, and even newer ones are still made of wooden structures. Sure a tile roof doesn’t combust, but the frame beneath the stucco is wood and is engulfed merely by the ambient heat. Even steel fails in this heat. Plus you have “greenscape” around many homes. Lots and lots of fuel…

Many of the older tile roofs had sculpted redwood fillers at the bottom to keep birds and pests out, that redwood has dried out and shrunk so there are spaces were wind driven  embers get in igniting the old felt paper used under the tiles to waterproof in case of leaks. Poof go the house.
The embers get driven into vents to cool the attics too.
Even the new houses are suseptible.

[RAFster122s]

California has been on an eco kick and funding cuts for generating and maintaining firebreaks. Homeowners don't do enough fire prevention around their homes with combustible greenscape too close to the structures. Things have been extremely dry too which led to much more fuel for the fire. Densely packed housing also makes for fire rich zones. Saw photos of Pacific Palisades before and after and the grid like housing area razed by the fire.

A politician in LA was in Ghana and cut the trip short to return.

The high winds have kept the air tankers and helicopter tankers from doing their jobs in many areas.

The results of the fires will likely displace even more Californians who will move to AZ and TX in even greater numbers if they are wiped out and their job can allow them to telework/remote work. There isn't enough housing for them from what I have seen of the scale of destruction.

Infrastructure in America is suffering from lack of maintaining what was built and electrical grid issues and water problems as well as highway infrastructure all haven't had the investment they need. It isn't just in California.

[Don R]

 A few years ago, a friend living out there had a kitchen fire and their double wide burned. Since it was over 30 years old, he couldn't buy insurance for it. $30K house on a $1,200 a month lot. They moved to a 5th wheel camper, he recently retired, and now they are in a motorhome full time. He was counting on the company he worked for cashing in on medical research they were doing. It was bought out a couple times and he was forced to retire, but it was time anyway.

[willbird]

When I've been out there, I mostly saw tile roofs and stucco siding. You would think that it would be resistant to fire.

I knew a guy who was a roofer. He told me that under the tile on some roofs in NW Ohio was a material called "Pitch". Thinking it is derived from Pine trees ?? He said it was fairly nasty stuff to work around. Google is telling me Asphalt-Saturated Felt is one option. I learned a lot about roofing theory from knowing him.

Bill

[carnivorous chicken]

It is indeed horrific. I've heard from msot of my friends who live there and they're OK, but the conditions even far from the fires sound horrible.

Not going to get political here but the mayor cut the fire dept budget by millions and the Governor blasted away dams that had reservoirs with water that could have been used to fight fires [some hydrants went dry]

This was a critique from the left but it's been debunked. See this:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/wildfire-threatens-karen-bass-extended-honeymoon-00197228?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=dc17af68-fbd6-4816-b542-880b5b9516f9&nlid=630318

And especially this section:
"Bass also took heat from far-left activists online, who accused the mayor of cutting the fire department’s budget in order to pay for a costly new contract with the city’s police. Also weighing in against her was Patrick Soon-Shiong, the politically idiosyncratic owner of the Los Angeles Times, who echoed the attack, posting on X that “the Mayor cut LA Fire Department’s budget by $23M.”

That assertion is wrong. The city was in the process of negotiating a new contract with the fire department at the time the budget was being crafted, so additional funding for the department was set aside in a separate fund until that deal was finalized in November. In fact, the city’s fire budget increased more than $50 million year-over-year compared to the last budget cycle, according to Blumenfield’s office, although overall concerns about the department’s staffing level have persisted for a number of years.

But the mayor’s team did not push back on the record to inquiries about Soon-Shiong’s post, allowing the incorrect information to circulate widely online for most of Wednesday. Bass briefly noted in the news conference that LAFD’s budget was higher than what was allocated on July 1."

The budget was actually $50 million higher. Others are comparing the mayor to Ted Cruz escaping to Cancun, but the obvious difference is Ted Cruz fled after the disaster and Karen Bass was abroad when it started and hurried back.

Regrettably California is subject to wildfires annually. This one though has hit a very urban area threatening more people and less usual properties. Staving it off is worsened by a decade of draconian environmental policies. Fingers crossed that everyone escapes harm and lives are spared.

I see a lot of this commentary on right-leaning places, but I'm not exactly sure this explains anything as much as, say, the impact of climate change. The incoming president isn't helping the situation, and Californians are rightly worried that the government might withhold emergency funding in 2025. People are spreading rumors of arson. At this point, assigning unfounded blame is probably not the right response.

[scottly]

Regrettably California is subject to wildfires annually. This one though has hit a very urban area threatening more people and less usual properties. Staving it off is worsened by a decade of draconian environmental policies. Fingers crossed that everyone escapes harm and lives are spared.

There isn't a "Fire Season" anymore in the West, it's become year-round in the last few years. Just what do you mean by "draconian environmental policies"? What about the effects of decades of drought? 

[scottly]

the Governor blasted away dams that had reservoirs with water that could have been used to fight fires [some hydrants went dry]

Steve, where were these dams? Were they the ones on the Klamath, 700 miles away?

[scottly]

Climate change is responsible for wildfires? Put down the bong, Dude. Wildfires have been encompassing the earth for 100,000 years, long before “climatologists” began their horse-hockey.

The wildfires are much worse now than ever before; they're Mega-fires. The average temperature of the Earth is higher now than it has been for 100,000 years, and the CO2 levels have increased to match. There have been new high temperature records set for the last three years here, and the daily temps in Phoenix have been 18 degrees above normal until a few days ago. 2024 was the warmest year in recorded history.

[RAFster122s]

Fires are worse during drought and California and AZ and other western states have had plenty of that, this past year in Southern AZ started off wet but turned very dry for the later half. California has been dealing with drought for over a decade and last year's snow fall surprised scientists with how much water restored the lakes in Cali as well as others in the Colorado river system. I personally think climate is cyclical and scientist are blaming man for a lot of things, some of which are accurate, but I am not convinced man has caused the extent they are claiming. You believe what you want, I will believe what I want.
Solar cycle, tilt of earth, magnetic north pole movement, just weather dynamics we do not have a complete grasp of of the want to minimize the affects of some things to fill their narrative of man caused climate change.
Only gonna take 2-3 big volcanoes to erupt and spew a lot of ash into the atmosphere to plunge temps across the globe until it works it's way out of the stratosphere and other layers.

At any rate, here's a recent article by AccuWeather on the fires and status:

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/palisades-fire-in-california-rages-out-of-control/1731028

[RAFster122s]

Interesting clip, unrelated to the fires, about LA and some of its quirks...
https://www.facebook.com/reel/505891085618462?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

[jgger]

Born and raised in So Cal,  here for 72 years. I see a lot of speculation here about this fire. A friend of mine lost his house in this fire, and the pic of his house is a very complete burn of the house and neighborhood.  His house was a well maintained property, but burned literally to the ground, as well as much of his neighborhood.

So a few things to consider about what happened. First is the Santa Ana wind condition. The Santa Ana winds are both high velocity and hot and dry. The wind comes over the mountians from the high desert. As the air desends  the temperature rises something like 3 to 7 degrees for every 1000 feet of elevation that it drops. So you are talking about air commingover a mountian range that is in the 4 to 6 thousand foot range.. Almost all of Pacific Palisades is less than 1000 feet. So you have very hot and dry air moving somewhere around 60 to 100 mph, this acts like a blacksmiths bellows on anything that is burning, so the heat generated is absolutely explosive. Now add to that the scrub brush in the hills and canyon is so thick that you cannot even walk through it,  this in all the open spaces. Now with a super heated fire fed by the winds can carry embers as far as 40 miles in search of something to burn, truly a WILD fire. The heat that is generated will cause housed to become super heated , then even in an area like a well maintained neighborhood the attic vents work like a vacuum to suck the embers into the roof structure through the vents. This causes the building to literally explode into flames and then be burnred by a very hot fire. If you look at the pictures a of burnt houses, they are completely burnt. That is why when a single house is burning, the firefighters will not only hose the burning house but also the adjacent structures also to keep them cool, so to speak. People are looking at these fires like they are a Forrest fire with lots of tall trees, that isn't the case. Most of the Chaparral is usually 6 feet high or less.

As for the government/environmental aspect, many municipalities make it very hard to have "permission" to clear brush because it might endanger some kind of an imaginary "endangered" critter. Add to that they do not maintain the fire breaks like they did 20 or 30 years ago for the same reasons. Now top that off with the Department of water and power doing a piss poor job of building and mataining an adequate system of fire hydrants with adequate water pressure and you have the perfect storm.

In my OPINION they are asking the firefighters to make chicken salad out of chicken #$%*! .These guys are truly heroes in my book.

[scottly]

The hydrants losing pressure and going dry might be caused by power outages in the affected areas. Anytime the power goes out for any length of time here, the water pressure drops significantly.

[jgger]

Perhaps. But.........the way the water system is supposed to work is if the overall pressure drops too low, other pump stations nearby are supposed to automatically increase pressure to compensate. Plus, the hydrants are not connected to the supply for the houses. There is a monitoring system to tell DWP when a hydrant is running due to the system pressure readings. L A's water system is woefully outdated, with some mains close to 100 years old with little to no upgrades. Think back to seeing water mains breaking and causing sink holes around Los Angeles.

[RAFster122s]

Well only positive news unrelated to fires this week I have seen is that Meta/Facebook is doing away with its Fact Checkers and actually states they have a bias and was not working correctly or as intended.

The devastation is massive and over 5000 structures destroyed by the wildfires. That is a lot of displaced people.

Pray for those fighting the fires and those being affected... Contribute to Red Cross and other well established relief organizations if you can.

I hope & pray the winds will die down and these fires be extinguished soon.

Gatlinburg TN had a wildfire not driven by as much wind a few years ago and it was extensive with many homes lost in the blaze. It was not concentrated in the city of  Gatlinburg as the surrounding mountainside around Gatlinburg, was a difficult fire because of terrain, similar to California's terrain adding to its complexity. By comparison the Smokey mountains are more like rolling hills compared to the ravines and ridge lines in the area where the fires are burning, but western US mountains are much more rugged or severe overall IMHO.

[vfourfreak]

Given the extent of the damage, and the high value of many of the properties lost, is there a possibility that insurance companies could claim some type of force majeure to avoid paying claims?

[RAFster122s]

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15bFW6GHC2/

Aerial footage from ABC station of Pacific Palisades destruction

[carnivorous chicken]

Climate change is responsible for wildfires? Put down the bong, Dude. Wildfires have been encompassing the earth for 100,000 years, long before “climatologists” began their horse-hockey.

The wildfires are much worse now than ever before; they're Mega-fires. The average temperature of the Earth is higher now than it has been for 100,000 years, and the CO2 levels have increased to match. There have been new high temperature records set for the last three years here, and the daily temps in Phoenix have been 18 degrees above normal until a few days ago. 2024 was the warmest year in recorded history.

I find it fascinating that while 97% of climate scientists -- that is, people who devote their entire lives to studying the climate, 40 or more hours a week, for decades -- agree that the climate is changing due to human activity, a lot of people refuse to believe that and decide, after looking at a few web pages that confirm their bias, that it must be a hoax. Tragic event such as this, more devastating hurricanes, eroding coastlines, etc., are going to continue to plague the world and instead of looking at the big picture naysayers will blame "The environmentalists" or "the left" or whatever. It's part of what makes this so tragic.

Climate change is responsible for wildfires? Put down the bong, Dude. Wildfires have been encompassing the earth for 100,000 years, long before “climatologists” began their horse-hockey.

This thread was to express empathy and support for CA-fornians yet typically the Hall Monitors chime in to refute culpability of ignorant policies. Some things never change.

Annoyed that once again chirpers refuse culpability. I’m out-

Cantakerous Cal strikes again -- politicizes, criticizes, and splits! Pick up the bong dude!