[jyl]

When I lived in LA (1985-1997), we had the Big Rock fire in Malibu [edit: I guess was the Topanga fire? not sure any more]. Multiple of my partners lost their homes, all their belongings and photographs, everything but the shirts on their backs. It was terrible and this looks like that multiplied manyfold.

The foothills in this part of California are steep and rugged, with narrow canyons loaded with fuel and very few roads for access. When a big fire is whipped by 60 mph Santa Ana winds, it tears through the canyons and roars into the developed areas in no time, where it finds more fuel and keeps going. Even with lots of warning and time to gather thousands of firefighters and all the aerial assets, these fires are almost impossible to stop if Mother Nature, fuel, and wind want to keep going. Burning materials will fly a mile and ignite fires where they land, which are quickly whipped up and continue the advance.

Its kind of like the Helene floods and slides. Whole divisions of troops and equipment couldn't have done anything.

I was in South Lake Tahoe during the Caldor Fire. Plenty of warning, the fire was continually tracked as it burned its way northeast toward the lake, seemed like all the available fire-fighting forces in the state were mustered, urban fire departments sent engines and crews and CalFire was completely mobilized. They could sometimes get the fire to detour around high-value points, other times it just jumped over those points, but there was no "stopping" it as long as the fuel as abundant and dense. It was just luck - wind direction and intensity - that spared South Lake Tahoe.

Edit: CalFire is not small. 1,000 engines, 40+ air, 13,000 ish personnel. And you know every FD in LA County is sending the men/women and equipment they can.