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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

#201

Post by darth_avocado »

defrost wrote: post #66
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"

Someone tweeted $23 million .. your linked article (thank you for source) follows that with: City budget documents show the department’s more than $800 million budget decreased by around $17 million compared to the previous budget cycle. Which makes the cuts less than %2.12 "Gutted" as a descripter seems extreme and the details that matter are whether these reductions simply trimmed fat, or denied something essential…

The problem with that though is that the overall budget includes big ticket items like pensions and overtime. And cuts often directly are from live services. So even though it’s 2% of the overall budget, the cut could still be significant to the availability of firefighters and crucial things like response times.

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

#202

Post by defrost »

darth_avocado wrote: post #201
defrost wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone tweeted $23 million .. your linked article (thank you for source) follows that with: City budget documents show the department’s more than $800 million budget decreased by around $17 million compared to the previous budget cycle. Which makes the cuts less than %2.12 "Gutted" as a descripter seems extreme and the details that matter are whether these reductions simply trimmed fat, or denied something essential…

The problem with that though is that the overall budget includes big ticket items like pensions and overtime. And cuts often directly are from live services. So even though it’s 2% of the overall budget, the cut could still be significant to the availability of firefighters and crucial things like response times.

It appears we agree that the details of the cuts matters.

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

#203

Post by jpmattia »

harmmonica wrote: post #152
gamblor956 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't. Palisades started Tuesday morning in someone's backyard. The Eaton fire started last evening near one of the campgrounds. The Hearst fire started late last night around 10pm (suspected cause was a vehicle fire from an accident that spread to the side of the road).

Hey there, do you have a source for the backyard? I'm not questioning it. I'd like to know the origin and what actually occurred in that yard to cause it.

One source is the news stations here in LA, eg https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california-wildfires/pali...

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

#204

Post by Syonyk »

ravenstine wrote: post #88
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"

I really don't understand how SoCal and California residents in general find the the state's response to wildfires in the last decade to be acceptable. Not only have fire departments seen cutbacks, but so has the forestry needed for preventative measures. What really bugs me is what I find to be a disinterest and lack of belief in vastly expanding the fleet of water dropping aircraft. Letting fires burn to the extent…

Wildfires, unfortunately, have a way of "not caring in the slightest about what people think of them." Throw in the winds of southern CA, and a wildfire can go from "freshly started" to "a few thousand acres" by the time anyone manages to get their boots on and equipment started. You don't fight wildfires in 60-100mph winds. Firebombers can't fly in those winds (or at night, since it's close to terrain), and even if they did, that sort of wind will scatter your drop before it has a chance to do anything useful.

> With satellite technology, it should be possible to identify wildfires as they begin and immediately deploy hundreds if not 1000+ planes to dump water from the Pacific and reservoirs, while drones go ahead of them to confirm that an out-of-control fire is actually in progress.

Great, you've just put out the fire, and kicked the can for next time. Even if it did work that way, it doesn't fix the root problem, which is simply:

Many western forests need to burn. Not in the sort of uncontrolled canopy fires we see with this sort of situation, but a lower, "clean the brush out, candle off some weaker trees, and open up the seeds" sort of fire. The problem is, for most of the past century, we haven't been allowing them to burn. Wildfire fighting in the US really ramped up and became a capable force with the post-WWII surplus - Jeeps, bombers that could be bought for nothing and converted to fire bombers, cheap spotting aircraft. So, for about 80 years, we've been fighting fires - or, explained differently, "We've been letting fire load build up for 80 years." When those areas light, with most of a century worth of buildup, they go off like a bomb, and your option in high winds is to "get out of the way."

You cannot allow endless fuel growth in a forest without consequences - and we're out of runway on that. All the aerial firefighting in the world won't fix that problem, because it's not the problem that needs fixing.

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

#205

Post by jondwillis »

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.

That’s devastating, and I hope you can stay strong through the recovery process. As a nearby neighbor a couple of communities over, do you know of anything that I can do or donate to help generally that won’t be a waste/too late? Like donate masks or water or something?

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

#206

Post by threatofrain »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #154
segasaturn wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Crime is rampant, cut the police budget. I hear ya'.

For $2B you could save a lot of lives even through the overpriced medical system. With a number this big, whatever you do with $2B has to be way better than saving those lives.

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

#207

Post by BeefWellington »

earnestinger wrote: post #172
sbohacek wrote: post #163

The relative humidity is 0.33 [1]. The previous lowest recorded relative humidity was 0.36 in Needles CA and Iran [2] [1] https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=KSMO [2] https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/world-record-low-humidity-...

Maximum being 1 or 100?

I believe 100, because lower than 36% humidity is fairly common while lower than 1% is incredibly rare.

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

#208

Post by dgfitz »

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.

Seems like he knows his way around the financial system:

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/politico-uncovers-more...

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

#209

Post by mempko »

proc0 wrote: post #177
mempko wrote: post #82

Global warming doing it's thing.

'It will continue to happen until people realize the true root cause which is bad leadership... or continue blaming "climate change" and giving up because we're not changing how much China pollutes the air anytime soon. I would rather at least elect better leaders who have their priorities in order.

Except China is working damn hard on climate initiatives.
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