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Merged LA Wildfires/Malibu Barbie Evacuated from Dream House

Dont' they all ? How do 3 fires miles away from each other start almost at the same time ?
Three fires miles away from each other starting at "about the same time" argues against arson, not for it. How does it happen? Extreme fire weather throughout the area. We had winds gusting to 100 mph and 10% humidity following an extremely dry season.
 
Scary! Sympathy.

Having had to pack up our things on the day of the Ash Wednesday bushfires, I know what that's like. Back in those days, we just had the radio, and hadn't heard exactly how far away the fire was.

At least these days you have alerts and online mapping. Stay informed!
Thanks. We're out of danger now. The evacuation alert has been lifted for our area.
 
I will point out that LA County had a voter turnout of 25%, and the entire state of California had a voter turnout of 28.98% in 2024. I voted. You get the government you vote for. Or don't vote for.
No way. Turnout was 57% of eligible voters for L.A. County was 60% for the State of California according to the Secretary of State's office.
 
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On the other had, it warms my heart to see a conservative take issue with the potential harm that can be caused by budget cuts to essential services. Not that I believe it's remotely sincere or will ever be applied to Republican budget cuts, but hey, you take your wins where you can.

Conservatives are generally pretty much okay with government doing things like providing police and fire protection; those certainly seem like the kinds of essential services that local governments can best provide.
 
Thanks. We're out of danger now. The evacuation alert has been lifted for our area.


I'm glad to hear that things are working out on your end, and in other important news:


Seattle Humane taking in 60 LA-area shelter pets due to 'unprecedented' wildfires
Story by Helen Smith, Sharon Yoo

As wildfires continue to rage in Los Angeles County, Seattle Humane is opening its doors to dozens of Los Angeles-area shelter pets in response.
The shelter announced Thursday that they will be accepting 60 pets from LA shelters. LA shelters are looking to make room for displaced pets so they can ideally be reunited with their families after the wildfires have calmed down.


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Three fires miles away from each other starting at "about the same time" argues against arson, not for it. How does it happen? Extreme fire weather throughout the area. We had winds gusting to 100 mph and 10% humidity following an extremely dry season.
That explains the spread. Not the start. Do fires usually start every time wind blows ? 3 in one day ?
 
That explains the spread. Not the start. Do fires usually start every time wind blows ? 3 in one day ?
Do arsonists usually set three fires in one day?

I didn't think it was necessary to spell out a list of possible causes of wildfires, but since it is, here are a few: wet or dry lightning, power lines, campfires, an unextinguished cigarette butt, trash fires, etc...
 
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The Eaton fire was apparently started by a downed power line (during intense winds).
That might be an issue, but still, 3 per day ? It seems it would be happening all the time. The winds were high, but not unprecedented, AFAIK.
It would be well known major risk, it would get fixed decades ago. Dry or not, you can't have lines arcing in high wind, that would always been considered major hazard.
 
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That might be an issue, but still, 3 per day ? It seems it would be happening all the time. The winds were high, but not unprecedented, AFAIK.
It's would be well known major risk, it would get fixed decades ago. Dry or not, you can't have lines arcing in high wind, that would always been considered major hazard.
While I imagine there have been 100 mph Santa Ana winds at some point in the past, it's a freak occurence. Combine that with the super dry conditions that already existed.
 
That might be an issue, but still, 3 per day ? It seems it would be happening all the time. The winds were high, but not unprecedented, AFAIK.
It would be well known major risk, it would get fixed decades ago. Dry or not, you can't have lines arcing in high wind, that would always been considered major hazard.
In 2008, three major fires started within a 48 hr period. One was caused by a bonfire, one by a catalytic converter, and I don't know about the third. This happens when the Santa Ana winds are blowing.

Readers who are unfamiliar with southern CA topography need to understand that mitigating the risk is a massively formidable challenge. I avoid the word impossible but...

(I lived in Topanga Canyon once upon a time.)
 
Good to see that your president-elect is showing such empathy for his fellow citizens. No playing politics here with other people's misfortune. He is, no doubt, working so hard on an issue that he will soon inherit to find things the feds can do to help the victims and potentially alleviate similar disasters during his upcoming presidency reign of terror. You are so lucky to have him. (Pathetic farkin country).
 
Good to see that your president-elect is showing such empathy for his fellow citizens. No playing politics here with other people's misfortune. He is, no doubt, working so hard on an issue that he will soon inherit to find things the feds can do to help the victims and potentially alleviate similar disasters during his upcoming presidency reign of terror. You are so lucky to have him. (Pathetic farkin country).
Priority 3: How can I weaponize this?
Priority 2: How can I enrich myself from this?
Priority 1: How can I make this all about me?
 
Fixed it for me...
In 2008, three major fires started within a 48 hr period. One was caused by a bonfire, one by a catalytic converter, and I don't know about the third. This happens when the Santa Ana winds are blowing.

Readers who are unfamiliar with southern CA western states topography need to understand that mitigating the risk is a massively formidable challenge. I avoid the word impossible but...
 
Conservatives are generally pretty much okay with government doing things like providing police and fire protection; those certainly seem like the kinds of essential services that local governments can best provide.

Let’s check the record:
FY2018: In its first presidential budget for 2018, the Trump administration proposed funding most fire service programs at slightly below the previous White House administration’s 2017 budget
FY2019: The Trump administration’s proposed budget once again kept funding levels the same, though Congress increased budgets for AFG and SAFER grants by $6 million each and raised the U.S. Forest Service’s budget by $6 billion to combat wildfire threats.
FY2020: The Trump administration’s initial budget for fiscal year 2020 proposed a $948 million cut to the U.S. Forest Service’s budget, which included a 16% decrease in grant funding for state wildfire action plans, the Missoula Current reported. According to the IAFC, the budget proposal would have cut funding to many fire service programs
FY2021: The proposed White House budget for fiscal year 2021 again suggested cuts to many fire service programs

Looks like the record contradicts your claim.

And as far as local governments providing theses services, 57% of the forest land in California is owned and managed by the federal government (source), in particular by the agencies whose budgets the Trump administration repeatedly proposed cutting.
 
A friend of mine, originally from New Jersey, relocated to the LA area about forty years ago. They wrote the words quoted below yesterday. They are the last person I'd expect to write something like this but bravo!!! Very good.

I have called Los Angeles home for most of my adult life. There are few cities that seem to generate as much hatred and disdain... but let me tell you, LA is a great city full of amazing people. I am heartbroken by what befell her over the last few days. But Los Angeles has fortitude in her DNA. She has beauty in her soul. I am proud to be a part of her. I am proud to be an Angeleno.

We are LA.
:cool:
 
A friend of mine, originally from New Jersey, relocated to the LA area about forty years ago. They wrote the words quoted below yesterday. They are the last person I'd expect to write something like this but bravo!!! Very good.


:cool:
I would expect most people to feel similarly about their home city, adopted or otherwise. Just that most people would not take it upon themselves to write it on social media.
 
People in LA -- including my friend -- just went through a very traumatic, deadly series of events. Emotions are running high as one would expect.
 
Let’s check the record:





Looks like the record contradicts your claim.

And as far as local governments providing theses services, 57% of the forest land in California is owned and managed by the federal government (source), in particular by the agencies whose budgets the Trump administration repeatedly proposed cutting.
To add to this: Republicans will rarely support wildland fuels management that does not offset costs through sales of timber. The chaparral/cheatgrass areas around L.A. have almost no commercially valuable timber.

They talk about fuels management and healthy forests, but then only support actions that lead to commercial timber harvest. Which will never ever ever do anything at all to decrease flammability of wildlands around southern California.
 
Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts

The belief was that urban fires no longer exist, but they’ve come back. “It’s like watching polio return,” he said. “It’s happening repeatedly.”

While the Bel-Air fire in 1961, which destroyed 484 homes, and the Mandeville Canyon fire in 1978, which destroyed 230 homes, are often cited for the scale of their destruction, the 1991 Tunnel fire in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills marked the start of the modern era of urban fires, destroying 2,843 homes.

More recently, fires devastated Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 2016, the towns of Superior and Louisville in Colorado in 2021 and Lahaina, Hawaii, two years ago.

“It’s not just a California quirk,” Pyne said. “California, I think, gets there first in exaggerated forms, but this is a national issue. And, in fact, it’s becoming an international issue.”
 
People in LA -- including my friend -- just went through a very traumatic, deadly series of events.
Should have written, are going through. From the Washington Post:

The Palisades Fire, the largest of six active blazes in the Los Angeles region, shifted east on Friday night and triggered a new evacuation order that included much of the Brentwood neighborhood and parts of Encino. The new flare-up was a “significant development,” said L.A. County spokesman Jesus Ruiz, with the fire rapidly growing and moving in the direction of “a heavily populated area … we’re definitely concerned.” The fires have killed at least 11 people and burned more than 37,000 acres — an area bigger than San Francisco — according to Cal Fire, with flames claiming more than 12,000 structures and displacing tens of thousands. The Palisades Fire is the largest at more than 21,000 acres, while the Eaton Fire has burned more than 14,000 acres. Those blazes are 11 percent and 15 percent contained, respectively. Washington Post news link (apparently not paywalled)
One resident in Tarzania said that, "whenever the planes make water drops it gets better" but then it goes back to getting worse. :(

1736624817615.png
 
That $100 million was probably for heavy equipment that you don't need to buy fleets of every year. The GQP is desperately trying to find any angle of attack, and unfortunately it will work.
 
Should have written, are going through. From the Washington Post:


One resident in Tarzania said that, "whenever the planes make water drops it gets better" but then it goes back to getting worse. :(

View attachment 58442
Reduced the overall budget by 100 million dollars? That’s almost nothing if the firefighting part of that budget alone is 3 BILLION dollars. Scare tactics reporting at its worst.
 
Yes, houses are fuel. I have removed all vegetation around my home. This week I'm removing the wood mulch ground cover to replace with decorative gravel. It's not perfect, but it gives my house a fighting chance on a bad day.

Some trees do well in fire. Monterey Pines are thick to the south of me, and their pinecones are designed to open, and drop seeds after a fire, which suggests my part of California has a history of wildfire predating humans. Anyway, I think if you got a close look at some of those trees still standing you'll see they've been scorched pretty good. And fire is a funny thing. Actor James Woods returned to his home today thinking it has been destroyed (he filmed the flames racing up the hillside behind his place), and found his place was untouched aside from smoke damage. He's been filming and posting to Twitter, and it's typical: one side of the street is an apocalypse, and the other is fine.

The sad thing is I'm now so used to wildfires that I know all the explanations for the things people think are weird.
The sad thing is making excuses about how you're prepared for life in a high fire low water region, instead of moving to a region where it's not necessary to spend billions of dollars, divert billions of tons of water, and accept billions of dollars of death and destruction on a decadal basis.

I'm literally in favor of commie blocks, over whatever southern California desert-turned-waterpark lifestyle you're defending here.
 
The "forest management" that has negligently not been done is clearly impractical to the point of impossibility in the present day. It would require extensive constant clearing and harvesting along with frequent controlled burns. Any adequate program would be canceled after a year amid a tide of outrage by the very people who insist on living in or above the canyons, which wouldn't matter because it would be bankrupt by then anyhow. Better forestry is a distraction to the dilemma of safe responsible living in a tinderbox, kind of like how fusion power is a distraction to the dilemma of energy needs and climate change.

So those vulnerable homes should be dismantled and banned instead, right? Well, no, it's too late and we can't afford what it would cost to make such a taking constitutional. Also, the same principle could also be applied to living in many other places, including southern coastlines, the tsunami-threatened Pacific Northwest coast, Midwestern river valleys, and even my own home (near sea level). What I think might be done instead, and generalized, is a size cap on rebuilding (as well as new construction) in such places. Something like 1200 square feet or a (re)building cost of $180K (indexed to inflation). You can live in a spacious mansion if you want (and can afford it), or you can live on the edge of a scenic erosion-prone cliffside surrounded by dry tinder (if you can afford that), but you can't do both, unless you can find a grandfathered place and are willing to shoulder all the costs and risks yourself.

There are very good reasons this couldn't possibly fly at present, but nothing else will either, until there's a major housing price correction (aka crash, aka crisis). But we're not going to escape that in one form or another.
 
The sad thing is making excuses about how you're prepared for life in a high fire low water region, instead of moving to a region where it's not necessary to spend billions of dollars, divert billions of tons of water, and accept billions of dollars of death and destruction on a decadal basis.

I'm literally in favor of commie blocks, over whatever southern California desert-turned-waterpark lifestyle you're defending here.
Here's the thing, Hotrod, I don't live in Southern California. I live in a mobile home in Central California. 450 miles to the north. Drought is the default mode for California, when the Spanish arrived they endured 10 years of drought by shipping water north from Mexico. We have an entire aquafer we're not allowed to touch thanks to the federal government.

And where should I move to? Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Colorado all endure droughts, and wildfires. How does moving more people into those places make anything better? Western Canada, Greece, Australia, and Siberia have been having the same fire issues we've been having. And most all of our wildfires have been started by people, not dry-lightning. The homes that survive all have had landscape abatement practices in line with the state's suggested clearance for trees and brush around.

There are few states that can boast zero natural disasters, and fewer that have avoided manmade destruction. The body-count for this event might top 20.The Paradise Fire in 2018 killed 85, and that was in a forested area with plenty of water. I'd say SoCal is doing alright, all things considered.

I get it, you're misanthrope with a keen hatred for Hollywood, and Los Angeles. They'll rebuild just to piss you off.
 
Three fires miles away from each other starting at "about the same time" argues against arson, not for it. How does it happen? Extreme fire weather throughout the area. We had winds gusting to 100 mph and 10% humidity following an extremely dry season.
Yes, you guys have had zero rain this season. Up here we've have two atmospheric rivers blow through with our 40mph winds. If SoCal had its normal rainfall from November though now there might not be a fire. Certainly not what we've got now. Literally luck of the draw.
 
And where should I move to? Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Colorado all endure droughts, and wildfires. How does moving more people into those places make anything better? Western Canada, Greece, Australia, and Siberia have been having the same fire issues we've been having. And most all of our wildfires have been started by people, not dry-lightning. The homes that survive all have had landscape abatement practices in line with the state's suggested clearance for trees and brush around.
Right now, much of the East Coast is experiencing drought. Some areas it is severe. South Jersey, for example. Other areas such as Eastern PA and DelMarVa are pretty close to severe as well.
 
People who love animals (especially cats) are the best.

Some folks in the MSN forums (and I'm sure some folks in the ISF too) are calling her stupid, but I disagree:


Gossip Girl's Samantha Rose Baldwin Ran Through Palisades Fire To Save Her Cat
Story by Glenn Garner

As wildfires ravage Southern California, many evacuees have been separated from their pets while fleeing impacted areas.
Samantha Rose Baldwin, an actress who appeared in the Gossip Girl reboot, detailed the “terrifying” experience of running through the Palisades Fire to save her 10-year old tortoiseshell cat Kitty.


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California wildfires are anything but a natural disaster.

It's hard to imagine a more thoroughly managed wilderness than the California back country. It's also hard to imagine a more thoroughly mismanaged wilderness than the California back country.

What specifically should CA be doing / not doing?
But answer there came none.
 
All of these fires started and are happening in suburbs. I fail to see what managing lush forests in Northern California would have to do with building regulations near a major city.

You could argue that there could be regulations in the suburbs to reduce risk but guess which party squeals at any regulation existing?
 
The suburbs in question are in or fractally adjacent to forested hills and canyons like the Santa Monica Mountains, Topanga Canyon, the Angeles Forest, Hollywood Hills, etc. It's not exactly mighty redwoods but hillsides covered with dry scrub burn well enough, and there are tens of thousands of acres of them. That's the "forest management" we're talking about in regards to L.A.

I'm learning this morning that stricter fire-resistance codes for new construction have been in effect in L.A. in recent years, and that many new buildings adhering to those codes actually did survive within the generally fire ravaged areas. Presumably those buildings also contributed less to spreading the fire among the structures around them and/or required fewer resources to protect. So that's an area that should be explored further.
 
The sad thing is making excuses about how you're prepared for life in a high fire low water region, instead of moving to a region where it's not necessary to spend billions of dollars, divert billions of tons of water, and accept billions of dollars of death and destruction on a decadal basis.

I'm literally in favor of commie blocks, over whatever southern California desert-turned-waterpark lifestyle you're defending here.

Yes, continuing to ignore the effects of climate change and just moving people away from the areas that become uninhabitable as a result seems like a solid plan. No flaws detected.
 
How many president sin the past have threatened to withhold disaster relief based on the politics of a State?
 
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