Show HN: LA Wildfire Satellite Analysis | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: LA Wildfire Satellite Analysis

github.com

117 pointsxingyzt60 comments

Nice, thanks but did you know about NASA FIRMS?

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@-117.8,34...

No, looks like they're doing a way better job! Thanks for sharing. I was only aware of the GOES sats. Seems like VIIRS is more intended to do this kind of monitoring.

I still like what you did on break. FWIW GEOS provides Fire Temperature: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_band.php?sat=G1...

Interesting that FIRMS doesn't seem to yet be showing the "Sunset" fire, or anything West of Griffith Park...

Maybe because FIRMS uses data from satellites in polar orbits, which only pass over the area once every few hours? With choosing near-Earth polar vs. farther geostationary orbits there's a tradeoff between space and time resolution.

FIRMS is very cool, but take it with a grain of salt - we were all looking at it obsessively while Jasper AB burned this summer, and apparently it has issues with differentiating between fire on the ground and fire in the smoke clouds, so it can make the fire boundary look bigger than it actually is.

Wonder why the whole central band of Africa is just covered in fires, households? deforestation?

A sibling comment mentioned that it can detect smoke, so my guess is waste disposal, aka burning trash in your backyard. Some can produce quite a lot of smoke.

I did a private pilot license in Africa, the biggest "plus" was that I always knew the direction of the wind on the ground by looking at all these fires. There was never a time when I didn't see smoke unless I was flying in very remote areas.

Why did you assume they are burning trash instead of log fires? What was the primary fuel for cooking and heating for poor people in the part of Africa you got your PPL?

It's not an assumption, it's commonly done in some parts of the world that don't have proper waste management. What happens after you put trash in a bin and there's nobody to collect it? You have to get rid of it somehow. Out of many options, such as throwing it in the sea, burring it in the ground or simply burning it, the latter is usually done because it's easier and quicker.

Heating isn't really an issue in the part I lived (warm all year round, even in the night) and the smell of burned plastic is quite distinguishable, even at higher altitudes.

If you look at all the green, you'll notice the fires are in the equatorial rainforest that runs along the equator. Fire is a quick, non-mechanical way to clear land of vegetation for farming or other uses.

Additionally, in a rainforest, wood is a cheap and easily available source of fuel for day to day household energy needs in areas that are rural, remote and with no electrical services.

Another fire project idea: show, based on some kind of prediction model that gives 50th, 90th, 99th percentiles (from historical data, perhaps, or perhaps just from wind/fire speeds), how fast a given fire could reach a specific location.

Whenever I've opened watch duty, that's always the question I'm asking. How long might it take to reach [here/there]?

It’s a very dangerous answer to try to give someone, because of how unpredictable and dangerous a wildfire is. Sudden shifts in winds and can have the flames jump (literally) miles in minutes, after sitting calmly for hours.

It isn’t theoretical either - it kills professionals too. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Gulch_fire], [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Canyon_Fire], [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude_fire] for a few examples.

Long story short - never turn your back on a wildfire, and try to stay as far away as possible.

Right, they seem highly volatile/variable. The thinking is that showing the 99th percentile / range of possibilities would cover that, if it's based on historical data - does that seem right to you or no, and if not why not?

It would be like if someone you never met came up to you and held a revolver to your head, and told you they were going to play Russian roulette.

If they told you the 99% percentile odds of the next trigger pull, would it be okay to stay if you thought you liked the odds?

And if you were silly enough to believe him, who would be to blame if he was wrong?

Oh, here are some more [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarnell_Hill_Fire]. Oh and [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Griffith_Park_fire]. And [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Fire_of_1937]

There is a reason why firefighters are considered to be one of the most heroic professionals.

And some more (not all related to wildfires though) [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_deadliest_firefi...]

Prisoners one day, hero firefighters earning a dollar an hour the next.

https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-inmate-firef...

The authorities already do the type of broad analysis you're suggesting. That's how they generate the evacuation maps.

If you mean a more specific analysis: there's no way to do that with a level of detail or accuracy that would be relevant to individual decision-making. There are simply too many variables in the air, in the fuel, and even in the fire itself.

> We download the reprojected data from UW SSEC's RealEarth program

I really wish GOES's official images would provide the high resolution imagery directly. We shouldn't have to go through RealEarth to get it. However I've noticed that only RealEarth has the highest resolution images.

Thanks for sharing. Do you work with the folks at Watch Duty?

No, just a student on winter break who got curious why CA Fire's map wasn't showing the up-to-date extent of the Eaton fire. Do they have this kind of heat data?

They integrate a number of sources. Satellite, cameras, weather, CalFire, etc. Check out their app, it’s free. They are a non-profit Startup, which is an interesting approach.

cmap="inferno", lml

I really don't understand why something that is presumed preventable with little investment is allowed to continue happening. What's worse is the water shortage is what I don't understand. It's a state literally bordering the ocean.

That graph is impressive, and really shocking how much land these fires are just taking.

Wildfires in California date back millions of years and are a natural part of the region's ecology. The difference in recent centuries has been dense human habitation. I think your statement about presumed prevention is inaccurate or misleading.

Another difference is a steady increase in the world temperature due to climate change.

That is nonsense, the climate has been changing all the time without the place burning down to the roots when it happened to be a bit warmer or not burning at all when it was cooler. These fires have nothing to do with 'climate change', they are caused by the lack of controlled burning which leads to an accumulation of combustible material on the forest floor. Once a fire starts - and fires start all the time, both from natural (lightning etc.) as well as man-made (PG&E cables, careless campers, smokers, fireworks, arson, etc.) causes - they quickly bloom into massive conflagrations due to the presence of all that combustible material. Increased habitation makes these massive fires more costly since fire consumes a McMansion just as readily as it does a Pacific pine.

You wrote "the climate has been changing all the time" It must have taken you so much effort and thinking to come up with such an illuminating, novel, and profound assertion.

Here is something of that ilk:

The statement "the climate has been changing all the time" is often used to downplay the significance of current climate change. While it's true that Earth's climate has undergone natural changes throughout its history, the current warming trend is different for several reasons:

Rate of Change: The current rate of warming is unprecedented in the past several thousand years. Natural climate fluctuations typically occur over much longer timescales, allowing ecosystems and species to adapt gradually. The rapid pace of current change is making it difficult for many species to keep up, leading to disruptions in ecosystems and biodiversity loss.

Cause of Change: While past climate change events were triggered by natural factors like volcanic eruptions or solar variations, the current warming trend is primarily driven by human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. This has led to a significant increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, trapping heat and warming the planet.

Magnitude of Change: The projected magnitude of future warming, if left unchecked, is likely to exceed the changes experienced during the past several million years. This could have severe consequences for human societies and natural ecosystems, including rising sea levels, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and widespread species extinctions.

Evidence: The overwhelming scientific consensus supports the conclusion that human activities are the primary cause of current climate change. This is based on a vast body of evidence from multiple independent lines of research, including temperature records, ice core data, and climate models.

In summary, while the Earth's climate has naturally changed over long periods, the current warming trend is distinct in its rate, cause, magnitude, and supporting evidence. It is crucial to recognize the unique nature of human-induced climate change and take action to mitigate its impacts.

Your comment comes across as markedly authoritative. Are you a climate scientist with first hand knowledge? You appear to be repeating what we all read in countless reports almost daily from innumerable organizations and have done over the past few years. I'm pretty sure like many here I could probably offer an impromptu talk like this at the drop of a hat, covering the same points.

I do wonder why we accept the reports from a number of rather distinguished climatologists and physicists who do not accept this 'scientific consensus'. Given the very significant swathe of the public who are convinced by the latter, why isn't this academic divide finally put to rest and the skeptics shown to be demonstrably wrong in their selection of data and their interpretations? It does not seem to happen. Why not? If this is an existential crisis I would have thought that such public debates at a very high level by extremely well-informed experts are well overdue. Yes, some occur but they are never definitive?

"Current surveys may underestimate climate change skepticism evidence from list experiments in Germany and the USA" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8262789/

I do agree, the experts could do a better job of communicating to the parts of the public who may not understand the scientific consensus. But there is a broad swath of people who will reject any information, because it’s already been politicized to death. (Why this is political I can’t tell you)

But the public reception doesn’t really tell us much about the strength of the conclusions. For which there is overwhelming consensus, very clear mechanisms of action, and pretty straightforward directional signal.

Are you questioning the comms or the consensus? I’m not clear from your response.

Hello vixen99

You wrote "You appear to be repeating what we all blah blah" and guess what, the poster I responded to started it :-)

A weak point of zero value like "weather has been changing all the time" deserves absolutely no more effort than the response I gave, what do you think? Anyone with an ouce of honesty and self-respect and care for the future would know by now that such a statement is completely worthless with 100% certainty.

And the so-called skeptics have been shown to be demonstrably wrong in their selection of data and their interpretations many many times, they just choose to ignore the evidence and to lie and lie and repeat. There are whole websites like realclimate that go through absolutely everything that's been ponied up by now.

And finally, full disclaimer but I thought my post was clear enough about that: except for the intro, all the points were pasted straight out of ChatGPT! No one has to accept the worn-out intellectual denial-of-service attack of climate trolls now, demanding exhausting pure sweet clear responses as response to half-baked brain farts. Like I said: low-effort on troll's part, low-effort on responder. Is fair.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...

'California has experienced increasingly severe autumn wildfires over the past several decades, which have exacted a rising human and environmental toll. Recent fire and climate science research has demonstrated a clear link between worsening California wildfires and climate change, mainly though the vegetation-drying effect of rising temperatures and shifting precipitation seasonality.'

https://weatherwest.com/

'Thus, the wildfire risk across much of SoCal will be even greater than the sum of its parts (i.e., the strong winds or dry fuels individually). This is an increasingly prominent concern, as has been previously discussed, with increasing overlap between “offshore wind season” and “critically dry vegetation season” in California---and is something that is expected to happen more often with climate change (especially in Southern California).'

The climate has been changing a long time. I’m a big fan of the XKCD about it.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

You win worst comment on HN for the day. https://www.drought.gov/news/study-finds-climate-change-blam...

"It was found that nearly all the observed increase in burned areas over the past half-century is due to human-caused climate change."

The previous inhabitants knew all about these firestorms and used controlled burning to minimize their impact. Its probably going to be wise for future governors to consider re-learning this knowledge....

No need to look back that far.

They know to do use control burns, we've been doing it.

It's forest management 101.

But they get sued by environmentalists when they do.

You make it sound unidimensional but there is probably not 1 type of wildfire in California. Coastal residentially dense fires in chaperal are not the same things as massive fires burning in remote areas of national forrests in the sierras. There is no single cause or solution because they are totally different things, with different drivers and requiring different solutions.

Who's presuming it's preventable? What little investment do you suggest California make?

Probably slow controlled burns would be helpful in reducing potential fuel, but who's going to perform controlled burns over the entirety of all the hills surrounding LA ?

I cannot answer the "who" but here in a region with similar vegetation and fire risk we don't cool burn the entirety, we stagger mosaic burns that break up the fire risk area into patches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKsLRNbczJY

When I last talked to USFS folks, one big issue is complaints and even legal action from folks about smoke when they do burn. It’s a lose/lose situation for them.

That and insurance no doubt.

What's needed is the reeducation of the NIMBY crowd .. I live in a state where many local community members are motivated to egage with local volunteer bush fire services and cool burning is less of an issue.

As the urbanisation and luxury housing increases the resistance to "inconveniance" seems to also climb.

I doubt very much it’s a matter of lack of knowledge/education.

Rather various degrees of ‘fuck you, I got mine’ and ‘it won’t happen to me because I’m special’. Which, often, is true enough they can keep doing it until they die, at which point they ‘win’.

Sometimes though, either something happens and they ‘don’t have theirs’ anymore, or it becomes too clear it will happen to them - and some action occurs. Usually too late for it to be an easy or smooth change, of course.

This might seem far-fetched, but I wonder if all the money used for reactive actions to the fires and the billions lost during those, couldn't instead heavily subsidize a goat grazing industry at large scale.

Keeping the forest clean of combustible materials is the only real preventive solution, but that's almost impossible to do by humans (besides lots of issues with depletion of soils if done incorrectly). The old way of doing that (and raise meat for human consumption) in Southern Europe, was to have goats, lots of goats, eating up all that combustible mass and transforming it into meat and "natural fertilizer".

This is the best hacker comment on the thread. Trying to find innovative solutions to a big problem. Thank you!

Side question, is goat poop flammable?

There are two issues. For thousands of years, indigenous people maintained the forest and small fires cleaned out the underbrush. The US halted maintenance, and suppressed fires, creating a backlog of fuel.

The second issue is global warming.

If you have any ideas on how to get the manpower necessary to perform 100+ years of backlogged forest maintenance spanning the entire west coast, or (better) how to fix global warming, I’d love to hear it.

Also, desalination at the scale necessary to meet California’s demands is beyond current technology (especially if it’s done without destroying the ocean ecosystem). Note that the central valley relies on irrigation, and is the bread basket of the US.

You can extinguish a fire with salt water.

Connect the sewage / storm water system to a few massive pumps and back flush everything.

Set off a few nukes in the bay to cause a tidal wave.

I’m no civil engineer / hydrologished, so there’s probably issues with my drive-by dismissal of a serious issue.

So yes, you can put out fires with salt water but its bad for any equipment that is currently being used * and it hurts the future plant life (salting the earth is an old method of hurting your enemies * ).

* https://firefighterinsider.com/can-you-put-out-a-fire-with-s...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth

I love how you respond seriously to the logistical challenges of salt water, and don’t blink at the prospect of using nukes to create a tidal wave.

While we’re speaking about future plant life, it isn’t necessarily looking particularly good.

This is the most HN comment ever.

Aww thanks, you’re making me blush.

But I think the honorific goes to the Dropbox dismissal.

This is a misnomer, Calfire does a lot of prescribed burns already. It's really difficult to do them safely around urban interfaces.

They also just get sued all the time for doing their job

https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1877114784149029252

https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1877145129351323920

They do, but they’re still way behind where they need to be.

They also do shaded fire breaks, which make sense.

> manpower necessary to perform 100+ years of backlogged forest maintenance spanning the entire west coast

Curious what is involved with this. If indigenous people could do it, why couldn't a larger population with superior tech do it? Sounds like a worthwhile venture. Even if it costs a fortune it might be better than rebuilding LA every 30-50 years.

It’s unfortunate that Claude can’t provide references, but it plausibly suggests that the indigenous population actively managed forests in a radius around their population centers, not the entire land area. So the current larger population doesn’t make the task easier, since the size of the task scales with the population size. Superior technology should certainly make it easier, though. Probably a matter of lack of political will, and bureaucratic inefficiency.

You missed the third issue which was utterly incompetent management from the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, and the governer of California, Gavin Newsom.

The Sierra Club sues any attempt to do preventive burns. Forest management can take 4-7 years between planning and execution for any one task.

https://x.com/tahrajirari/status/1877110097790312519

> preventable

Preventable via multiple methods, you've been downvoted presumably for seeming insensitivity, but it seems a valid question. Water is plentiful, it's a rich area. This stuff can be prevented. Why wasn't it?

1) There wasn't a water shortage. The local reservoirs were full at the start of the fire. The problem was that there was so much simultaneous demand that there was insufficient water pressure. This was compounded by the destruction of pumping stations by the fire, and by the extreme winds preventing the use of aerial support (i.e., water and fire retardant) on Tuesday, when most of the Palisades were burned.

2) Salt water is highly corrosive to equipment, and also kills vegetation. But it used as a last resort when fresh water reservoirs are empty...and was used in previous Malibu fires...

3) For an example of how important aerial support is: the Sunset Fire and the Mt Wilson flameup of the Eaton fire were controlled within an hour each through the use of aerial water drops.

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