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Comment by PuffinBlue | Hacker News Reader

For first hand accounts and excellent reporting on the Camp fire take a look at the Blancolirio channel on YouTube.

Juan Brown does some great work and has some very interesting content, such as exclusive access to the VLAT refueling and refilling operation, a 50+ minute interview with one of the nurses that helped evacuate the hospital, and he lives just 40 miles from the fire, so lived it's effects.

He also has some truly brilliant content on the Oroville Dam, the near disaster and the subsequent multi year rebuild project.

https://www.youtube.com/user/blancolirio

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There was a firsthand video where a guy came back after the fire was over to find his neighbors as a bunch of skeletons inside their burnt cars.

"I went to their house right here in this white car to get them out.

She had to put her makeup on.

She died because of it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rmu2-P18Is

I'd wager that most of the people who managed to die in this fire were doing things that seem inexplicably superficial in their final moments.

"managed to die"? That's pretty harsh, from what I've seen of it.

I don't blame them -- I've never been in a wildfire or imminent disaster situation, but my impression is that the majority of the people who've died in the fire didn't die because they were completely ignorant of the fire until it was suddenly upon them. They are aware of the warnings, but don't believe until it's too late that they are in imminent danger. So I don't think the victims as being particularly irrational, just particularly unlucky.

I've watched this video, and I've seen it shared frequently with people highlighting exclusively the "dumb" woman and her makeup, as if that seemingly superficial decision by her was the thing that led to her tragic death. There were others who died at that gate in the fire, and they all made decisions just as superficial as wanting to put on makeup beforehand -- I mean, in the way that every delaying decision is incredibly superficial when we consider it in retrospect.

There was a famous fire in a mall where most of the people who died were in one particular restaurant.

It's because they all tried to pay before they left, the lost time killed them.

The idea haunts me because it was 100% the correct thing to do, they had no idea how bad the fire would be. I even know this design flaw but I still would queue to pay before leaving if a fire alarm went off in a mall.

When there is a fire alarm, the only 100% correct thing to do is evacuate the area immediately.

But this is in some sense a failure to learn from experience. Every experience of a fire alarm is non-fatal except the last one.

The fire alarm went off during one of my final exams at university.

Immediately the invigilator shouted "stay seated, we wait for confirmation", but within a few seconds a security guard ran into the room and shouted "please leave immediately".

There was a fire, but I assume this process was in place to take account of people trying to disrupt the examination. I don't know how long the invigilator would have waited for security.

The invigilators tried to find everyone outside and keep us together without discussion, but that was unrealistic in Central London, there is too little open space.

Fire fighters extinguished the fire within about half an hour, and we finished the exam.

I was in a line at immigration in an airport when the fire alarm went off. Everyone pretended it wasn't happening. I remember thinking everyone in here is dead if its real - Imagine the stampede that would form.

The comments attached to this video sure are... interesting. Chemtrails, laser attacks, and more.

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