Any information about the Pacific Palisades Fire

[look 171]

Originally Posted by HobieMarty

And to think they just played a football game at the Rose Bowl, and none of this was going on, then, how quickly things can go south. Prayers for everyone affected by the fires. I find it so crazy that one side of the country is freezing and wet, and the other side is burning up. Crazy world.

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I took the long way home and climbed through Altadena Drive with a couple of friend after our weekly Saturday training bike ride. Now, most of houses of that section of that road is burned up. Not riding due to the ashes in the air tomorrow but to drive out and see how some of them are doing.

[jyl]

https://www.youtube.com/live/2xsIqqvI98s

This vid starts kind of slow but gets interesting when they start putting up layers showing the fires from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc. These ridges and canyons basically burn over and over, every few decades. Sometimes the winds are just right and the fire breaks into the built up area under high winds and is unstoppable.

[varmint]

[KFC911]

Banning posted some horrific pics on the Mul thread. You guys be safe take care of yourselves... stuff just ain't worth it.
Mother Nature/Earth doesn't play nice. I've dodged big events by just a few miles in recent years .... between the mtns and the coast... flooding, cleanups (bigly pollution), total disasters ... all of them. The scenes are horrific .... please be safe!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by jyl

https://www.youtube.com/live/2xsIqqvI98s

This vid starts kind of slow but gets interesting when they start putting up layers showing the fires from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc. These ridges and canyons basically burn over and over, every few decades. Sometimes the winds are just right and the fire breaks into the built up area under high winds and is unstoppable.

This is an interesting point as well. To some extent building in these areas is gambling with Mother Nature. Much like building on the coast in FL, it’s not a matter of IF but WHEN. I get it, people want to live in beautiful places, I certainly don’t blame them. But there’s some inherent risk associated with living on the side of a mountain in an area prone to forest fires. 400 years ago there were probably some Indians standing around watching the same hills burn and not thinking anything of it. Much like prairie fires were a normal occurrence before we developed the Midwest and implemented more modern farming practices.

[KFC911]

The whole NC coastline ...

When I was a kid, the Outer Banks, etc. were beautiful miles of no development ... except for mostly "shacks" ... because people learned not to live on them about 8000 years ago. Every year a few more shacks were taken by the sea .... as usual. But now?

We'zedumb ... not Wisdom

[javadog]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

This is an interesting point as well. To some extent building in these areas is gambling with Mother Nature. Much like building on the coast in FL, it’s not a matter of IF but WHEN. I get it, people want to live in beautiful places, I certainly don’t blame them. But there’s some inherent risk associated with living on the side of a mountain in an area prone to forest fires. 400 years ago there were probably some Indians standing around watching the same hills burn and not thinking anything of it. Much like prairie fires were a normal occurrence before we developed the Midwest and implemented more modern farming practices.

They did more than just watch and observe. They took measures to mitigate against the threat. I linked an article somewhere earlier that talks about this.

Originally Posted by jyl

I think houses can be built to be much more fire resistant than the typical SoCal house. Fire-resistant cladding like cement board (Hardie), no eaves or fire resistant eaves w/o vents, fire-resistant roof material, appropriate landscaping. Any info on how much this helps in actual practice?

It can help a lot. To some extent, it also matters how big your lot is but you will see examples of houses in this fire that escaped destruction because of the design choices and mitigation choices they made.

[javadog]

One of many examples that I have seen:

[javadog]

And there are systems like this:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1775434433278372?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=0NULKw

[techweenie]

Pacific Palisades will be rebuilt. Just how quickly will depend on the population of undocumented workers, who comprise the backbone of the construction industry here.

Cumulative impact of the (6 or 7) fires has been 11,000 or so "structures" destroyed. FDLA definition includes vehicles, gazebos, sheds... and houses and commercial buildings.

Expect the price of building materials to skyrocket.

[techweenie]

Although Santa Ynez reservoir was foolishly drained going into Santa Ana season, the Encino reservoir holds 3 billion gallons of water...

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

This is an interesting point as well. To some extent building in these areas is gambling with Mother Nature. Much like building on the coast in FL, it’s not a matter of IF but WHEN. I get it, people want to live in beautiful places, I certainly don’t blame them. But there’s some inherent risk associated with living on the side of a mountain in an area prone to forest fires. 400 years ago there were probably some Indians standing around watching the same hills burn and not thinking anything of it. Much like prairie fires were a normal occurrence before we developed the Midwest and implemented more modern farming practices.

This. People want to live in pretty areas, I get that. But building along side of pretty much any river, you will have a flood. The Mississippi River floods regularly. Large towns are flooded every few years. The people living along the beach will at some point face a hurricane and lose their home. People love to live in the in the forest, or heavily wooded lots. At some point there will be a fire.

Here in the plains of Oklahoma we have tornadoes. We set a record this year for over 150 state wide. Most were little wimpy F0 or F1, and did no damage. Big tornadoes are rare. The biggest baddest meanest monster tornado on Earth hit rural El Reno and it was 2.6 miles wide and moving at 80 MPH across the ground. It killed mostly tornado chasers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_El_Reno_tornado

It did little damage as it hit a wheat field and not a populated area.

The Moore tornado rolled through several neighborhoods and cleaned a house off of the concrete slab and left nothing but other peoples debris. With 321 MPH winds, and debris in the wind, nothing stands up to that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Bridge_Creek%E2%80%93Moore_tornado

I never lost power just 20 miles away. It hit a narrow band of the ground, and just a few blocks away is civilization. Unlike in a flood.

Next California will get heavy rains and have massive mudslides. Lets all hope for just gentle rains.

We all are at mother nature's mercy. Pick your poison.

[SpyderMike]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

I’m surprised they don’t already have the California national guard up there patrolling to keep our looters.

I believe they do. News showed some heading to the area yesterday.

[techweenie]

Looters aren't a big problem on the ground, but the media loves promoting negativity. 22 people arrested so far with over 40,000 acres affected.

National Guard is here in force.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by techweenie

Looters aren't a big problem on the ground, but the media loves promoting negativity. 22 people arrested so far with over 40,000 acres affected.

National Guard is here in force.

Exactly. And this is not an easy situation to loot in like an urban riot, The Police and National Guard are already stationed in the areas before the looters can get there, for the most part. If there is one common trait that most thieves have, it's that they are lazy. Otherwise, they wouldn't be thieves.

[Bill Douglas]

Here in NZ we had a thing on TV explaining about the big basin covering multiple states to the east. Filling up with hot air, then the Santa Ana winds blowing it, further heating it up. Combined with crazy low humidity, it was a recipe for disaster.

Edit: This thread can stay open here or we can move it all to PARF to discuss the politics of climate change.

I don't care.

[Seahawk]

Posted in PARF.

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I have hesitated to post this, but here is what we did on the small ranch I grew up on outside of Newbury Park, California. The reason is my father, from Castro Valley, worked summers in HS as a volunteer fire mule...that was in the mid 1940's.

- We had two goats, each on 50 feet of rope, that we moved around the outside of out property, which was scrub. The goats could be near each other but could not intertwine. 100 ft of clearance around the property.

- We would then move them inside the property, a little more interesting because they had to be in a movable pen, but they eat, clear everything.

- No trees, shrubs near the house, which means 50 feet or so.

- Gas powered pump for water in the swimming pool. Hoses with the old brass nozzles for the pool and all other outdoor faucets.

- Fire plan and assignments. My Dad covered the house, the rest of us had specific tasks because we had horses, goats, chickens, etc...the goats were smart, the rest of the herd not so much. All time based with a, "get in the truck, let's go" matrix.

- Bug out kits. We had all important documents in a binder boxed with other important family stuff. I still have the footlocker, from Cadet Bob's time at West Point.

- Lots of little insights, like sealing vents into the attic.

Now, would all this helped in the current fire situations in LA? I have no idea, only that we were aware of the threat and took steps to mitigate the threat to the best of our abilities.

No judgement meant or intended.

[mtnrat]

One mans experience.

[techweenie]

Originally Posted by mtnrat

One mans experience.

Yep, and the cadaver dogs will find the others.

[techweenie]

This bore no resemblance to your little backyard brush fire that the garden hose could knock down. Burning embers traveled up to 2 miles.