People have lost their lives and many more have lost their homes.
Elon Musk has chimed-in on the matter. I don't post this flippantly. As a huge fan of Tesla and SpaceX, someone please explain to me what is happening.
LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
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Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insurers require ember resistant vulcan vents and the like now. It’s a relatively minor upgrade for most homeowners since its just a mesh over the vent.
Would that have stopped this fire from spreading?
No, vulcan vents only help when the exterior is capable of resisting the fire. These winds threw fist sized pieces of burning wood for hundreds of feet which is much harder to defend against.
All homeowners I know here have already had them installed over the last five years because of fire insurance inspections but I don’t know how representative my sample is.
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Even e.g. a cargo 747 has ~750 m3 (=~200k gal h2o) of cargo space, but 112000 kg (=~30k gal h2o) of payload, so one could only fill ~1/6 of the cargo volume with water. yep. Yet they still have to push through the air and have the mass and the cost of the plane for that unnecessary 6x volume. That is because the plane is retrofitted instead of having been built for the purpose of carrying high density payload. (also…
I think I (and maybe others) understood 'drone' to mean something closer to quad-copters. Sounds like you're actually proposing something closer to water-filled cruise missiles? Which actually seems like a compelling idea. I'd guess there are some questions around how to make the vehicle recoverable/reusable, or else how to avoid causing more fire than you're putting out when the vehicle splatters against terrain, an…
That would really give red flag warnings more teeth. "We said no campfires" kablam
Smokey would have a different tone too. "Only you, plus our array of guided missiles, can prevent forest fires."
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Hundreds or thousands of planes??? “Federal agencies are responsible for managing 200 to 300 wildland fire aircraft.” - Nat’l Interagency Fire Center, https://www.nifc.gov/resources/aircraft “CAL FIRE’s fleet of more than 60 fixed and rotary wing aircraft make it the largest civil aerial firefighting fleet in the world.” — CAL FIRE, https://www.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/fire-protection/aviation-...
I was throwing out a number. Clearly, my perspective is that we need more water-dropping aircraft than we have or that we are borrowing.
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#595Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, in good faith, if everyone in "dangerous" areas of the US moved to less dangerous areas, the resulting population density would still be less than Ohio's (~242/mi2, also LA's population density is ~8,000/mi2--well below places like Pittsburgh and Buffalo even--so keep that in mind), and I left Alaska out of both safe and dangerous lists because it's a cheat. And it's very OK there! Winter is fine. I grew up and…
EF5 tornado can be every bit as destructive as a wildfire and in some areas they recur pretty frequently.
Costs since 2003 seem comparable (~62 billion for both). Tornadoes do outpace wildfires in immediate deaths 752 to 270, but the smoke from the wildfires kills 10000s more after the fact.
I've done a pretty bad comparison here though; there are a lot of differences between tornadoes and wildfires and the places they happen. What I feel confident in saying is you are very unlikely to be seriously affected by a tornado, even if you live in a place where they happen frequently. But if you live in a place where wildfires happen frequently, you're way more likely to be seriously affected.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters_by_cost
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/18/1245068810/wildfire-smoke-con...
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a horrific satellite picture of Altadena: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/06-closer-s...
The blue and green colour small areas suggest this is a false color image that maps colours to a value and coincidentally looks like a fire. Presumably it's measuring heat or something vaguely relevant but I don't trust my immediate visceral reaction to it.
The image filename contains SWIR which is a clue.
Several instruments can sense emissions in short-wave IR which light up for fires (and hot smoke plumes, and some industrial plants). E.g., VIIRS which is a successor to MODIS (https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/instruments/viirs/viirs-...).
The resolution in the posted image is much better than satellite, however. This implies that it's an airborne platform like FIRIS (https://wifire.ucsd.edu/firis-in-depth). It also uses IR.
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#597California has a long history of failed forest management. At what point will the voters say enough is enough? But they keep electing the same people. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/25/1010382535/gavin-newsom-misle...
People are blaming it on climate change, and making excuses for the state's management. When you point this out they get angry or passive aggressive like you are some kind of evil person like those evil republicans. It's unbelievable really.
We need to manage the forest! We need prescribed burns, fire roads, lookouts, etc. But we also need sensible development at the interface, stricter brush-clearance laws, emissions restrictions to attempt to mitigate climate change, etc.
But people get angry because 'forest management' has become a shorthand for the former without the latter (or in denial of the latter). It's been promulgated as an _alternative_ policy, not a _complimentary_ policy.
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I (and maybe others) understood 'drone' to mean something closer to quad-copters. Sounds like you're actually proposing something closer to water-filled cruise missiles? Which actually seems like a compelling idea. I'd guess there are some questions around how to make the vehicle recoverable/reusable, or else how to avoid causing more fire than you're putting out when the vehicle splatters against terrain, an…
That would really give red flag warnings more teeth. "We said no campfires " kablam Smokey would have a different tone too. "Only you, plus our array of guided missiles, can prevent forest fires."
this, this is exactly what I want. flick a cigarette off ACH, get a rainstorm delivered to the top of your head at 600mph.
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree. Once you are in prison, choosing to work or not is a free choice.
Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
In the context of firefighting, my understanding it is entirely voluntary and selective as well
Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
#600People have lost their lives and many more have lost their homes. Elon Musk has chimed-in on the matter. I don't post this flippantly. As a huge fan of Tesla and SpaceX, someone please explain to me what is happening. https://i.redd.it/iasdlw98tzbe1.png
Apparently a fire chief wrote in her boilerplate online bio that her top priority was equity and inclusion with the fire department, so clearly firefighting wasn't her top priority, so clearly the entire disaster is her fault, and so DEI caused the wildfire.