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LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

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Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#191

Post by tzs »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

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…

I took a look at a map of the Eaton fire and its evacuation area and warning area, then looked up several houses for sale in those areas on Redfin. Redfin includes a section that lists environmental risks.

In the northern parts of Altadena it says the fire risk is 33% chance of a fire within the next 30 years. Going south toward Pasadena it gets lower. At the southern parts of the evacuation zone I'm seeing it mostly range from "minimal" to numbers under 1%. "Minimal" is the category for the places with the least risk, and is described as "Unlikely to be in a wildfire in the next 30 years".

In the warning zone south of that, which looks like to goes south to the 210, so far all I've found is "Minimal".

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#192

Post by kamikazeturtles »

> The National Guard - along with thousands of firefighters (many of them prisoners working for $10 a day or less) - have been deployed to help tackle the conflagration.

I hope their compensation is a little more than $10 a day! By the looks of the fire, those guys/gals are heros.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#193

Post by UncleOxidant »

segasaturn wrote: post #51

Los Angeles Fire Department funding was cut by over $23M only a few months ago. The fires are currently being fought by a skeleton crew of remaining fire fighters and volunteers. Can't say if that funding would have prevented it, but cutting it definitely has not helped. Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/los-angeles-fires-m... Edit: Changing a word, "gutted" -> "cut"

> Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, slammed Bass in an X post claiming the mayor slashed the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget, despite the high risk of wildfires in the region, and raised questions about reports that some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had run dry.

It's kind of rich that a local billionaire would complain about this. I'm going to guess that the $23M was cut due to budget shortfalls. Maybe if the billionaires and multi-millionaires in the area were willing to pay their fair share that wouldn't have happened.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#194

Post by dmitrygr »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #193
segasaturn wrote: post #51

Los Angeles Fire Department funding was cut by over $23M only a few months ago. The fires are currently being fought by a skeleton crew of remaining fire fighters and volunteers. Can't say if that funding would have prevented it, but cutting it definitely has not helped. Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/los-angeles-fires-m... Edit: Changing a word, "gutted" -> "cut"

> Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, slammed Bass in an X post claiming the mayor slashed the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget, despite the high risk of wildfires in the region, and raised questions about reports that some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had run dry. It's kind of rich that a local billionaire would complain about this. I'm going to guess that the $23M was…

[flagged]

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#195

Post by bamboozled »

bloudermilk wrote: post #170

We lost our house to the Eaton fire this morning. It’s difficult to describe the vastness of the destruction in our community. Everything within a couple square miles of us burned.

Sorry friend, may your new place be even better.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#196

Post by baggy_trough »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #193
segasaturn wrote: post #51

Los Angeles Fire Department funding was cut by over $23M only a few months ago. The fires are currently being fought by a skeleton crew of remaining fire fighters and volunteers. Can't say if that funding would have prevented it, but cutting it definitely has not helped. Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/los-angeles-fires-m... Edit: Changing a word, "gutted" -> "cut"

> Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, slammed Bass in an X post claiming the mayor slashed the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget, despite the high risk of wildfires in the region, and raised questions about reports that some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had run dry. It's kind of rich that a local billionaire would complain about this. I'm going to guess that the $23M was…

"fair share" is always defined as more than they pay now, I've noticed.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#197

Post by darth_avocado »

sapphicsnail wrote: post #16

I was in Pacific Palisades when the fire started yesterday. I've never seen one spread so fast. It went from there being smoke way in the distance and people going about their lives normally, then 90 minutes later the fire was everywhere and people were panicking and evacuating en masse.

I was in a wildfire once. I was in a grocery store and I didn’t see anything burning. 2 minutes into the store, another person came in saying they saw smoke a few blocks away. I immediately left the store and went back to the car. Before I could leave the parking lot, everything around me was on fire, there was smoke so dense I couldn’t see anything beyond 10 feet and I genuinely thought I was going to die, if not in the fire, then in an accident. Wildfires move very fast and every second is precious.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#198

Post by bdangubic »

baggy_trough wrote: post #196
UncleOxidant wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, slammed Bass in an X post claiming the mayor slashed the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget, despite the high risk of wildfires in the region, and raised questions about reports that some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had run dry. It's kind of rich that a local billionaire would complain about this. I'm going to guess that the $23M was…

"fair share" is always defined as more than they pay now, I've noticed.

lol exactly

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#199

Post by somecontext »

segasaturn wrote: post #145
nradov wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which other fat targets should local governments cut? Please be specific and quantitative.

Great question, lets take a look at the 2024-2025 budget sheet for LA City: https://cao.lacity.gov/budget/summary/2024-25%20Budget%20Sum... (This PDF is great, props to whoever made it for making it so easy and accessible for normal people to read.) If you look at the pie chart on Page 11, you will see that by far the largest slice of the pie is the police budget. It's 45% of LA County's entire budget, totalling almo…

> totalling almost $2 billion. The LAPD's budget for one fiscal year is larger than most country's GDPs

In case anyone was curious, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... suggests that ~17 countries have a GDP of less than $2 billion per year. Seeing as how there are 193+ countries, this means that the LAPD budget exceeds the GDP of fewer than 10% of countries. (The median country GDP is ~$50 billion per year.)

For some extra context: while these 17 countries include some very poor countries, the primary reason that they have such small GDPs is their small population. Their combined population is approximately the same as the city of Los Angeles.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#200

Post by dgfitz »

Redoubts wrote: post #141
segasaturn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for providing context, I edited the comment and changed "gutted" to "cut".

[flagged]

You know them enough to claim they generally are telling lies on a regular basis?
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