I see there are three separate fires several km apart. How do they start so synchronously?
Palisades started Tuesday morning in someone's backyard. The Eaton fire started last evening near one of the campgrounds. The Hearst fire started late last night around 10pm (suspected cause was a vehicle fire from an accident that spread to the side of the road).
- A specific house address was given on-air for the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills that started this evening at around 5:40pm. The ABC7 copter crew had actually spotted the fire within the first minute or two of it forming (while they were trying to get in position to cover the Palisades fire after refueling), and (ABC and NBC) broadcast the first hour of the fire's growth (and provided live updates on new flare-ups). They may well have saved Hollywood from burning down.
There were several more fires that started on Thursday. Due to the unusual nature of these fires, authorities suspect arson. A person of interest was arrested for one of these fires after being observed trying to start a fire.
Extreme dryness, high wind, failing electrical infrastructure, overburdened emergency response.
Also embers can easily be blown miles away to ignite another "new" fire.
Some fires are started by glass bottles causing the dry grass underneath to lit up, and then the wind takes care of the rest. But that's really, really rare.
It's most often someone doing something really stupid.
Tell people they can't come out of their house and they go stir crazy to go out... Tell people it's an absolute fire ban and the situation is extremely critical and it only takes 1 nut bag out of the entire population... The odds are high.
Every few years in Australia we get a story of arsonists setting fires. Sometimes they're firefighters, too.
Actually, that was my first natural reaction. (Though I do live in the neighborhood of Russia, here probability of foul play is much higher up the list)
> Sometimes they're firefighters, too.
That is messed up.
A "visit" or two are often all that is necessary to convince folks to pay protection money to gangs. Protectors always have a perverse incentive to remind people what they need protection from.
One shouldn't rush to accuse though.
> With that, Shorty said, “Say, Ladd, why don’t you have Floyd and Carl here set a forest fire?”
> “Hey, just a minute!” Carl Abeyta stiffened self-righteously and stifled an urge to lunge across the room at Shorty. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
> “Setting a fire,” Shorty said calmly. “Christ, that’s one of the few ways those men down there have earned a living around here. I know of a dozen guys from town, the past twenty years, who've gone up and set the trees on fire. For crissakes, man, it’s—what is the pay now? Two-fifty an hour around the clock? Three dollars? And the Forest Service—God bless Smokey the Bear!—packs in potatoes and all the fresh-killed beef you can eat. You want to get this town’s mind off that beanfield, light the forest and hire all the heavies to put it out. And keep lighting little fires here and there—”