I'm still looking for the incovenient truths because I couldn't find them in that article... A couple thousand words with no real insight or information.
A couple of days before the fires started, I received a major red alert on my phone (I was in Los Angeles just prior to the fires - Recognizing the danger, I decided to leave).
I expected to see a large-scale response—fire trucks stationed everywhere, extra firefighters on standby, planes ready to deploy, and vegetation being watered—but none of that appeared to happen.
This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this. Until we address the root causes (like global warming), these events will continue to occur, and we need better preparedness in the meantime.
Could more have been done to make a fire of this size less likely? Perhaps. But once it starts, and reaches a certain size, with winds as they were and combustible material in its path, all you can do is get out.
True, but in fire-prone areas—such as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage—we might need to consider a different approach. Whether it’s specialized equipment, additional staffing, or other protective measures, some system should be in place specifically for those regions..
Maybe in those areas the policy should be "you're on your own."
BTW: which locations in the whole Los Angeles (you know how big it is? actually there's no guarantee the fire works be in LA) you should get fire trucks stationed?
There wasn't any rain registered since April, there were unprecedented (last time we had such big ones was 15 years ago) dry, 100mph winds. This means using air support was also not feasible at the time.
We mostly talk about Palisades, but when watching WatchDuty app, fires were constantly popping up in random places.
It was a nightmare, and it is frustrating to see politicizing the whole thing or criticizing that fire men did something wrong.
Why those people aren't volunteering and helping?
There are some things that is impossible to do with what we have.
Much more effective would be for example having all building up to the latest fire code, but majority are of course old.
You’ve pinpointed the core issue. Politicians have little incentive to invest in preventive measures because, as voters, we rarely reward that sort of long-term planning. And who’s really at fault? We are. We don’t demand enough accountability for prevention when we cast our votes.
If they successfully prevent fires, nobody notices—and no political points are scored.
Though I agree somewhat that politicians don't have as much incentive, but this is what regulations are for. Someone said that regulations are written in blood, because they are results of "lessons learned".
It doesn't help that then those regulations are frequently removed to help businesses and the cycle repeats.
Unfortunately, this seems to be fast becoming a partisan position.
Did they also have unprecedented 100mph wind gusts, and strong winds blowing for days? It's impossible to fly fire mitigation aircraft in those conditions, and the terrain where the fire was spreading the most were rugged mountain areas, mostly not accessible to firefighters.
> “Without helicopters, this kind of a brush fire, we cannot stop it on the ground,” said Margaret Stewart, an LAFD spokeswoman.
> Perhaps demonstrating what a difference aircraft can make, a fire that threatened the Hollywood Hills late Wednesday was quickly contained and limited to 43 acres. Calmer winds allowed aircraft to douse flames with water from nearby reservoirs.
* https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/20...
I'm guessing that water scooped from reservoirs is probably more effective than no water at all.
Can you provide specific citations?
And.. normally, I might ask that for argumentative reasons, but… sitting here, south of Pasadena, I really want things to look at to understand what this might do to the place I live.
Right now it’s my understanding that this is yet another once-in-a-lifetime disaster. I think our generation is at… five of these, at least?
And/or insurance companies.
Look for people asking for regulations to prevent this any day now.
I actually sort of empathize with a point of view that you pay your insurance every year, aren't doing anything especially unreasonable, and have to adhere to a somewhat arbitrary new standard at possibly very significant cost and time.
To be clear, I get the other side too in wildfire-prone areas.
Either you adhere to standard and make the effort to comply, or you eat the cost of a higher premium because your property has a higher risk.
It's going to cost you either way.
Or you can decide to try to go without insurance and you pay neither the costs of the premium nor adhering to the standard.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Fire
The world is changing
B&B Complex Fires in Oregon in 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%26B_Complex_fires
Yellowstone Fires in 1988 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988
And I'm sure I could find many other older examples.
I’m responsible for clearing brush in that hillside, so that it’s n-hundred feet from structures. It’s checked in May, or thereabouts.
""...Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.” This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing."
Because it's things we already know about, but refuse to do anything about. For example:
> “The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.”
We've known about embers for decades, and why you need to clear the area around your home of ignition sources:
* https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/prepari...
Here's a potato-quality video posted thirteen years ago on landscaping best practices:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVe0gu69FY
A news story from twelve years ago about a home that survivied (with a charred landscape around it):
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgUp245nso
Which is talked about in the article:
> This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing.
We may also have to accept that perhaps Mother Nature can still be more powerful than humans at times:
> The National Fire Prevention Assn., a national nonprofit that provides standards for fire suppression operations, calls for a minimum of three engines or 15 firefighters for a single-residence fire, a number that is impossible to attain when fighting a fire on the scale of the Palisades or Eaton fires.
> “We’re not recognizing, analyzing, questioning how we’re failing,” Cohen said. “We just think we need more airplanes and more helicopters flying 24 hours a day.”
> More CL-415 super-scoopers or Firehawk helicopters will not help when water is being dropped into 60 mph wind gusts.
See also "Why Los Angeles was unprepared for this fire":
> Water runs short: […] “There’s no urban water system engineered and constructed to combat wildfire,” said Michael McNutt, a spokesman for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 people in northwest Los Angeles County. The system was intended to supply water to homes and businesses, he said, and to help fire crews defend a large structure or several homes, not multiple neighborhoods at once. […]
They might have said something along the lines of make sure you have water, the ability to use it (hello Maui), and people who know how to use it.
Or maybe they thought that was needless to say and had more advanced advice like clearing dead brush, making fire breaks, etc.
Or ... Well yeah. It would be nice to know what advice was ignored. I'm sure there was plenty in that category.