51–60 of 691 posts
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/los-angeles-fires-m...
Edit: Changing a word, "gutted" -> "cut"
One can imagine an IR monitoring (satellite or high flying drones like Reaper, one drone can see an IR source like a tank from 100km, so it would take just a few drones to monitor the the whole state for fires) with [almost] automated immediate dispatching of the fleet of drones (not small quadcopters, more like WWII size bombers) once the fire is detected. Would be much cheaper than having multi-billion dollar fires…
https://wifire.ucsd.edu/firis-in-depth
With much of California, Texas and Florida property damage is concentrated where folks built where they shouldn’t have [1]. (At times nudged on by subsidised insurance [2].) Is that true in this case, too? (Being so close to LA, it doesn’t strike me that it could be.) If not, is my general thesis off? [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1204923950/arizona-california... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article…
To start with the last first, I would argue your general (and not uncommon) thesis is off in one key respect: it's not primarily (though in some percentage it may be) a matter of people building where they shouldn't have per se, but that they built what they shouldn't have where they did. Ie, it's 100% feasible as a matter of architecture/engineering/construction to build a structure that will shrug off a Cat 5 hurri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-31/york-fir...
I stand corrected! I guess the rains caused the desert to burn?
Most desert areas in the US are a lot more lush than the blank sand dunes many people think of as desert. Usually there are a lot of bushes and grasses, and higher elevations can pine, juniper, oak, and other trees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they’re talking about dousing when it first lights. That isn’t “a dumb person’s idea.” But it is presently beyond our capabilities, to say nothing of the huge privacy problem it would entail.
They're talking about both detecting and dousing. Note they mention two different kinds of drones (a few monitor drones, and then a fleet of drones to deploy and douse). The monitor drones could be practical, we've demonstrated that loitering sensor drones work well in other domains. Depending on the sensor payload (what it's looking for) and how the data is stored and used, it wouldn't really entail a huge privacy p…
If you’re hoping to do better than sighting a smoke column, you will absolutely have to be. We’re not at a loss of detecting entire houses burning.
One can imagine an IR monitoring (satellite or high flying drones like Reaper, one drone can see an IR source like a tank from 100km, so it would take just a few drones to monitor the the whole state for fires) with [almost] automated immediate dispatching of the fleet of drones (not small quadcopters, more like WWII size bombers) once the fire is detected. Would be much cheaper than having multi-billion dollar fires…
The problem is fighting fires in steep, mountainous terrain filled with dryed out brush and trees when the winds are so strong (hurricane-strength gusts) that you can't provide any air support. The problem is that the winds were so strong last night and this morning that burning embers in the air could fly to and light structures miles away (which is how most of the current fires in Altadena started).
With much of California, Texas and Florida property damage is concentrated where folks built where they shouldn’t have [1]. (At times nudged on by subsidised insurance [2].) Is that true in this case, too? (Being so close to LA, it doesn’t strike me that it could be.) If not, is my general thesis off? [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1204923950/arizona-california... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article…
Your thesis is way off, and people didn’t understand climate back when these areas were settled. And really, we still don’t know how to or can’t politically manage wildfires well. Part of climate change is that this man-induced change is making previously hospitable areas much less so.
With much of California, Texas and Florida property damage is concentrated where folks built where they shouldn’t have [1]. (At times nudged on by subsidised insurance [2].) Is that true in this case, too? (Being so close to LA, it doesn’t strike me that it could be.) If not, is my general thesis off? [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1204923950/arizona-california... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article…