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Comment by throwaway249281 | Hacker News Reader

There's a lot of fingerpointing but as Daniel Swain put it: 1. This was completely expected and forecasted both short and long term by regional climate and weather experts. Two very wet winters caused fuel buildup followed by an extremely hot and dry year. 2. There is very little that can be done in these situations. 100 mph gusts of embers can't be fought with hoses and air attack isn't possible in high winds. 3. Hard to believe but it could have been a lot worse. Daniel Swain points out there could have been several more major fires like the two big ones but they got put out quickly before they spread. 4. California's climate has likely been this way for millions of years, long before human habitation.

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In the old days, where I live (and I'm guessing most of Mediterranean Europe) we had goats. It was a superb utilization of resources really, goats eat almost any vegetation - even hard bramble - so the shepherds would take them to the forest, and they would eat the vegetation buildup that serves as the fuel for these fires.

That would be a win-win situation for everyone. We would get goat meat/milk for free (minus the shepherd effort) and the forest would be mostly clean.

This is quite rare now. Sure, in some places in the mountains we still have that because life is hard there and there's little else you can get from the land. But it's mostly disappearing.

Why didn't this happen in this region (over the last half a millennium) ?

No goat equivalent in the Americas ?

Population density too low ?

I’m guessing there were more profitable economic activities there. Gold mining, lumber industry, pelting, etc.

Here, in the mountains, there’s basically nothing really profitable. So, husbandry (using goats since they are adapted to this environment) was basically the only way to go.

Caltrans uses goats to create fire breaks around highways: https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-4/d4-popular-li...

You need to do fuel reduction burns during winter (when it's wet) so you can reduce the load. They do this near my house in Australia every few years, it's somewhat terrifying to have a slow roll bushfire roll around the house, but it can be managed with care.

We do. And we have setbacks you must maintain and keep brush cleared. But there's still only so much you can do.

A lot more could be done: https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-better-approach-to-forest-man...

These aren’t “forests” like in other parts of the West so much as cliffs covered in dry, scrubby brush. I’m pessimistic that they could be systematically cleared or burned in a controlled way.

Burning in a dense residential area…no. Draconian clearing of all trees and brush except for selective fire-aware landscaping…yes, but you are paying significant money to make the residential area look uglier (in some eyes, it’s just a High Desert aesthetic for others), a hard sell.

The residential area being on fire looks significantly uglier to me.

Similar climates and geographies both either have the issue or manage it better.

Greece is a good example of also not managing this properly with its own regular massive fires, while national parks around Cape Town and other parts of South Africa do regular controlled burns in very rocky, hill-y terrain.

"There's only so much you can do" doesn't mean "we have done what we can" or even "we have done enough".

Shouldn’t have built expensive houses for a start

> Shouldn’t have built expensive houses for a start

Why not?

They burn down the same as cheap ones.

My other suggestion, which isn't super popular in australia, is we should consider deforesting / reforesting eucalyptus trees. They are a lot of trouble.

This was a wealthy area built within canyons and other natural areas. Controlled burns are possible in some areas but I can't imagine it would have been possible there.

I’m not sure precisely where the fires started, but the neighborhoods in the Palisades are impenetrable hillsides with roads and houses are intervals. They’re about as densely developed as practical given the geography. A controlled burn would be unimaginable there.

A controlled burn is impossible just from the sheer angle, you can hardly traverse those piles of conglomerate making following and pathing the fire impossible from anywhere but the air. I had problems hunting agates out of those hills due to the steepness, as I was on all fours and about 55 degrees off-horizontal most times.

Perhaps worth mentioning that Australia is doing less fuel reduction burns than in the past, especially near major urban centres with unfavourably wide directions.

Fuel reduction burning often requires blanketing millions of people with carcinogenic smoke for several weeks each year.

The greater good is to protect everyone’s lungs and accept that every few years we’ll have to rebuild a few homes.

That makes no sense. A controlled burn shouldn't be as large as an out of control wildfire. For the cost of those burned down homes the government could hand out n95 masks by the basket-full. Not to mention you'll still have the smoke inhalation problem when you have those wildfire cases anyways - and in those scenarios you can't control what is being release in the burn.

Hazard reduction burns need to occur on all land which is at risk of burning, whereas wildfires actually only occur on a small proportion of the land surrounding a population center each year.

The result is much more smoke being emitted overall.

> There is very little that can be done in these situations.

Ah yes, same response to school shootings; "No way to solve this, says the only country where this happens every year".

There's nothing that special about California that makes it different from many other places around the world with densely populated forested areas that do not get insane wildfires almost every single year.

Australia is now in this situation as well, and we've seen it in Spain. It's just that LA gets way better global news coverage.

There's nothing special indeed : this shrub biome gets devastated by firestorms on a regularish 30 to 150 years clock (looking at the past 520 years), regardless of what humans do (at least so far, uncertainty over the last few decades is of course high).

>very little that can be done in these situations

I don't agree with that. People can choose to not live there. There is an entire country to live in and we keep crowding in what seem to the worst places to live and then act surprised when it goes badly. Climate change is going to make some places uninhabitable, that's why we tried to prevent it, but no one cares.

> … we keep crowding in what seem to the worst places to live …

Malibu?

Pacific Palisades?

These are among the most pleasant places in the world to live. People are not going to stop wanting to live there — this isn’t a lost cause like a low-lying area exposed to floods. We have to find ways to mitigate the very real fire risk.

Correction: among the most pleasant _when natural wildfires don't burn everything down_. People need to take long-term conditions into account when choosing locations for habitation.

Does anyone do this?

SoCal, NorCal, Seattle - Earthquakes

SoCal, NorCal - Fires

Midwestern States - Tornadoes

North Easy - Blizzards

South Easy - Hurricanes

Which part do you suggest everyone move to?

Northeast. Structural modifications for heavy snow are light (make sure the house is well-insulated, get yourself a nice heater, don't put any pipes in the exterior walls, and have sloped roofs rather than flat roofs), and they're not particularly dangerous if you're prepared to be cooped up in a house for a day or two (and you're not in the main lake effect snow belt, where snow can be rather constant).

So the proposal is for 350 Million people to move to New England?

Well, in good faith, if everyone in "dangerous" areas of the US moved to less dangerous areas, the resulting population density would still be less than Ohio's (~242/mi2, also LA's population density is ~8,000/mi2--well below places like Pittsburgh and Buffalo even--so keep that in mind), and I left Alaska out of both safe and dangerous lists because it's a cheat. And it's very OK there! Winter is fine. I grew up and lived in the Midwest for years; tornadoes, etc. are bad but they're not wildfires and hurricanes.

Is this a serious "proposal"? Definitely not. But a lot of people in this thread are acting like moving away from literal hellfire is impossible, and I respectfully submit that living in the interior is better than having everything you own burn down.

"Dangerous": California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Utah, Puerto Rico, Nevada, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, Hawaii, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa

"Safe": New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Missouri, West Virginia, Minnesota, Vermont, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming

EF5 tornado can be every bit as destructive as a wildfire and in some areas they recur pretty frequently.

Costs since 2003 seem comparable (~62 billion for both). Tornadoes do outpace wildfires in immediate deaths 752 to 270, but the smoke from the wildfires kills 10000s more after the fact.

I've done a pretty bad comparison here though; there are a lot of differences between tornadoes and wildfires and the places they happen. What I feel confident in saying is you are very unlikely to be seriously affected by a tornado, even if you live in a place where they happen frequently. But if you live in a place where wildfires happen frequently, you're way more likely to be seriously affected.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters_by_cost

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/18/1245068810/wildfire-smoke-con...

Agreed. And I personally prefer living in an area with tornados over wild fires or hurricanes. That's one of the reasons why I stay in Missouri and would never move to southern California, Florida or the Texas coast.

Several of your "safe" States are prone to extremely strong earthquakes.

In the last ~7 years only Oklahoma has had a >= 5.0 earthquake (three of them). But even if you move it, you're still under Ohio.

https://earthquakelist.org/usa/#latest-earthquakes-mag-5-dis...

Looking at only the last 7 years is a poor standard, and Oklahoma is a known active seismic zone with dedicated USGS risk models. Severe earthquakes occur much less frequently, often less than once per century. US Geological Survey seismic risk maps paint a different picture of actual risk than you are presenting.

For example, you've deemed the New Madrid seismic zone[0] as "safe", despite multiple M7-8+ earthquakes in the 19th century. The Cascadia subduction zone hasn't had a major event in 300+ years but no one considers that seismically safe.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_seismic_zone

(Sorry on phone) California famously also has earthquakes. You can't look at the USGS risk map and seriously say the risk between living in Missouri/Oklahoma and California is equivalent. Also I didn't include PNW states in the safe list. Also the NMSZ had only one >= 5.0 earthquake (5.4) in the entire 20th century. Also earthquake deaths are only around half wildfire deaths, and I'd guess the distance between them will only increase as wildfires are only gonna get worse.

https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/hazard-map-2023-50-state-u...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters_by_cost

Pacific Northwest earthquake codes are based on earthquakes that last happened more than 300 years ago. The New Madrid Seismic Zone has had multiple earthquakes more powerful than any in the Pacific Northwest during those intervening centuries.

Missouri could realistically experience a M8.0 earthquake tomorrow, just like Washington. That the NMSZ was relatively quiescent during the 20th century tells you little about the seismic risk. Geological risk isn't determined by what happened last week.

Mount Rainier has not been active since the 19th century either. Nonetheless, it is a Decade Volcano[0], one of the highest risk volcanoes in the world.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decade_Volcanoes

OK, I think I know what happened here. I was trying to say, "hey, earthquakes aren't great, but it's not like they happen every year (multiple times a year even!), unlike wildfires." Then it seemed like I was cherry picking lists and not using a wide enough window. I understand that; definitely not trying to do that. Great, let's continue.

I feel like everything you've brought up has to be factored into the USGS seismic risk map. But in case it's not, I searched the USGS earthquake database. Of the 1425 >= 5.0 earthquakes in the coterminous US since 1700, 12 of them occurred in the NMSZ (only 7 of which were >= 6.0). In the same amount of time, hundreds occurred in California (the USGS search is rectangular and I can't be arsed to separate out Nevada). There simply is no equivalence. If earthquakes are really a concern, definitely don't live in California! And if wildfires are a concern, also definitely don't live in California!

California/Nevada earthquakes: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=28.32372...

NMSZ earthquakes: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=28.26568...

New Mexico is pretty relaxed

I tend to think many of humanity’s - and, by extension, the entire ecosystem’s - problems arise from overpopulation of homo sapiens. Perhaps the human race should depopulate entirely. Sadly, this won’t happen of its own volition.

You can pour concrete over all the shrubbery. Won’t be as nice, though.

Where should they live? People living in the Midwest being hit by freezing winters get told to move to warmer weather…then Georgia gets hit by hurricanes. Move to California to avoid those and your house burns down. It turns out that climate change affects weather everywhere.

The Midwest is paradise compared to crowding into a desert with no water and winds that whip flames into something like a blast furnace.

https://gisgeography.com/us-precipitation-map/

https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

Frozen paradise several months a year. Water is a solved problem, look at Israel

That’s probably why the Midwest paradise produces half the fruits and vegetables in the US.

No wait that’s the desert. The midwest produces mostly corn for corn syrup, ethanol, and grains… and dust bowls.

You haven’t been to California right? Weather and location wise, it’s one of the best places in the world to live in

I mean... other than the fires ripping through and destroying everything.....

Don't forget the mud slides and earthquakes, but yeah.

“Everything”? Seriously?

The evacuation zones at their peak covered fewer than 200,000 people… in a state with a population of almost 39 million. That’s half a precent and these are the worst fires we’ve seen in years.

Most fires in California happen in places that haven’t burned for nearly a century.

Two very wet winters caused fuel buildup followed by an extremely hot and dry year.

References for the "hot and dry year" ('cause I hear it tossed around a lot). As far as I can tell, all of California had several relatively wet (but hot) years and nothing dry afterwards. I'm linking to NOAA's the California drought map, which shows "Abnormally Dry" (less than "moderate drought") for LA currently and I think showed "none" for much of the year [1].

The thing is, I agree this was to be expected. But only by the principle "climate change is going to cause disaster out of nowhere". We need to say this and let people understand.

[1] https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...

This was also to be expected in the sense that forecasters for a week now have been warning about century long record wind speeds and the fire dangers those bring along with them

Sure but that's quite different from implications that the conditions of the past year pointed to this. I follow the Dought Monitor regularly and as a California resident, I want to know if rainfall patterns point to danger. I don't see indications here (see link in my parent post).

Wind speeds and live fuel moisture level are the critical measures of fire risk in chaparral. Fuel moisture levels have been approaching critical this season in Southern California and, due to lack of rain, didn't follow the seasonal pattern: https://fire.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/All-Are...

Some relevant research: https://moritzfirelab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/denniso...

Drought is a more comprehensive measure that includes snowpack, rainfall, resevoir levels, etc.

I looked at your first link. The 2024 curve is incomplete but roughly follows (but is above) the average of the 1980-present average curve. The 2023 curve similarly.

Your other link is research saying that statistic matters for fires. I can believe it does but your other graphs don't show fuel moisture as even slightly below average. Maybe the last two months of no rain indeed put fuel moisture well average. But, this is California - rainfall varies widely. LA has had many winters without rain, I grew up there.

I can't claim to climatological understanding of the situation. But I variety of narratives that don't make sense and impulse is to say that these are a response the LA fires being almost entirely a sudden and a unpredictable event, an effect not of trends but of the situation of global warming overall, something people simply don't want to admit.

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