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Comment by sapphicsnail | Hacker News Reader

I was in Pacific Palisades when the fire started yesterday. I've never seen one spread so fast. It went from there being smoke way in the distance and people going about their lives normally, then 90 minutes later the fire was everywhere and people were panicking and evacuating en masse.

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I was in a wildfire once. I was in a grocery store and I didn’t see anything burning. 2 minutes into the store, another person came in saying they saw smoke a few blocks away. I immediately left the store and went back to the car. Before I could leave the parking lot, everything around me was on fire, there was smoke so dense I couldn’t see anything beyond 10 feet and I genuinely thought I was going to die, if not in the fire, then in an accident. Wildfires move very fast and every second is precious.

Especially in this wind. Some of the strongest Santa Ana winds in a century

I have a good view of the smoke column from Brentwood. I've also never seen a fire spread that fast. Same thing, in about an hour it went from a small fire to the smoke blocking out the sun.

As a testament to the speed of the winds, I've never seen a smoke column visually move so quickly. Usually at that size and distance, they feel more like static objects.

Edit: I'm preparing to evacuate tonight in case the order comes through. Checking the most recent maps, the fire has burned through almost all of the Palisades and is getting into Brentwood. The fire may also reach Santa Monica at this rate. I'm stacking go bags by the door.

What is burning? Mostly bushes or mostly homes?

Both unfortunately. Many neighborhoods seem fully engulfed based on the maps: https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents.html#

In the Palisades? Nearly everything. Homes, the iconic Pali high school, the shops, the bushes — it's reportedly devastated.

From the initial National Weather Service alert:

> IMPACTS...If fire ignition occurs, conditions are favorable for very rapid fire spread and extreme fire behavior, including long range spotting, which would threaten life and property. There will be a high risk for widespread downed trees and powerlines, as well as widespread power outages. A Red Flag Warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly. Use extreme caution with anything that can spark a wildfire.

So seems the combination of the wind + fire makes for easy and fast fire propagation. The alert/warning in full is a pretty interesting read: https://alerts-v2.weather.gov/search?id=urn%3Aoid%3A2.49.0.1...

Some harrowing before and after photos from a Maxar instrument via LA Times (may be pay walled):

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-08/shocking...

This shows Altadena, just east of JPL, and Malibu (separate fires, of course).

This is a horrific satellite picture of Altadena:

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/06-closer-s...

wow.

The blue and green colour small areas suggest this is a false color image that maps colours to a value and coincidentally looks like a fire.

Presumably it's measuring heat or something vaguely relevant but I don't trust my immediate visceral reaction to it.

The image filename contains SWIR which is a clue.

Several instruments can sense emissions in short-wave IR which light up for fires (and hot smoke plumes, and some industrial plants). E.g., VIIRS which is a successor to MODIS (https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/instruments/viirs/viirs-...).

The resolution in the posted image is much better than satellite, however. This implies that it's an airborne platform like FIRIS (https://wifire.ucsd.edu/firis-in-depth). It also uses IR.

The image has the label MAXAR at top right. I believe that company only does satellite imagery? Also articles that link to the image call it satellite data, eg: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/us/video/images-fire-before-a...

They've been doing FIRIS flights over the fires under the call sign INTEL 24

https://archive.is/gMzez

Folks say the same thing about the 1991 Oakland firestorm. If there's a fire in your area, pay attention and don't assume it'll be contained, the situation can change very quickly.

It’s definitely the worst fire I’ve ever seen here. Very surreal to watch houses burning while walking my dogs this morning. The only silver lining are the winds blowing the smoke out to sea rather than blanketing Santa Monica.

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