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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

#641

Post by bloudermilk »

ramshanker wrote: post #480
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.

What was the major building material? Wood or Concrete? I hear wood houses are a lot more popular in US. Sorry for your loss.

The house was framed in 2x4 which is standard in most of the US. We did have modern fire resistant siding and roof tiles, but this was leagues beyond what any of those materials are designed for. It melted most of the steel around the property. Thank you for the kind words.

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

#642

Post by scarab92 »

gonzo41 wrote: post #122
throwaway249281 wrote: post #115

There's a lot of fingerpointing but as Daniel Swain put it: 1. This was completely expected and forecasted both short and long term by regional climate and weather experts. Two very wet winters caused fuel buildup followed by an extremely hot and dry year. 2. There is very little that can be done in these situations. 100 mph gusts of embers can't be fought with hoses and air attack isn't possible in high winds. 3. Ha…

You need to do fuel reduction burns during winter (when it's wet) so you can reduce the load. They do this near my house in Australia every few years, it's somewhat terrifying to have a slow roll bushfire roll around the house, but it can be managed with care.

Perhaps worth mentioning that Australia is doing less fuel reduction burns than in the past, especially near major urban centres with unfavourably wide directions.

Fuel reduction burning often requires blanketing millions of people with carcinogenic smoke for several weeks each year.

The greater good is to protect everyone’s lungs and accept that every few years we’ll have to rebuild a few homes.

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

#644

Post by aaronbrethorst »

infecto wrote: post #635
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep precisely: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-and-his-allies-foll...

And those comments are as distasteful as yours.

I recommend doing some careful consideration about how intrinsically tied up politics are to every facet of our lives. You may find this distasteful, but choosing to ignore it merely blinds you to the way that power works in the United States.

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

#645

Post by gamblor956 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #83
earnestinger wrote: post #77

I see there are three separate fires several km apart. How do they start so synchronously?

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).

Another followup:

There were several more fires that started on Thursday. Due to the unusual nature of these fires, authorities suspect arson. A person of interest was arrested for one of these fires after being observed trying to start a fire.

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

#646

Post by martinpw »

mturmon wrote: post #596
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 F…

The image has the label MAXAR at top right. I believe that company only does satellite imagery? Also articles that link to the image call it satellite data, eg: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/us/video/images-fire-before-a...

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

#647

Post by mempko »

leet_thow wrote: post #223
mempko wrote: post #82

Global warming doing it's thing.

From Wikipedia: The Santa Ana winds and the accompanying raging wildfires have been a part of the ecosystem of the Los Angeles Basin for over 5,000 years, dating back to the earliest habitation of the region by the Tongva and Tataviam peoples. Honest question in good faith: For those that use the reductionist argument of global warming / climate change for every natural disaster, what do they expect to happen if we h…

The idea of a stable ecosystem is a myth. Yes, in hundreds of thousands and millions of years the region will change dramatically. The difference between natural variability and instability is the rate of change. If left to the "natural" cycles and instability of the earth's climate, you would see gradual changes over tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years.

What people like you don't understand is that our man made climate change is 100 to 1000 times faster than anything nature has dealt (except say a meteor hitting the earth).

So yes, the climate has always been unstable over long periods, but never changed as quickly as we are changing it today. We are the meteor now.

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

#648

Post by friend_Fernando »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #561
friend_Fernando wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest power company in CA is in the process of burying its cables. The risk level is not just affected by proximity to forests. For offshore (Santa Ana) wind events, the riskiest areas are the SW bottom of hills and near canyons. That's where the current LA fires are. IMO, a better prevention measure would be to not build houses out of sticks. That's already the case for much of the housing in Europe. Alas, her…

> IMO, a better prevention measure would be to not build houses out of sticks. That's already the case for much of the housing in Europe. Alas, here in the US the colonial and cabin aesthetics still win out, even when fire-resistant options aren't more expensive. It is not an aesthetic preference, the US used to construct housing like in Europe through the 19th century. That style of construction was repeatedly catas…

Your argument only applies to unreinforced masonry, which is no longer allowed by code in seismically-prone areas. For fire resistance you can use reinforced concrete, steel or aluminum framing, or wood framing with non-combustible walls. Or even go exotic with various prefab options and 3D printing.

As for the higher cost, this has become mostly an urban myth. In regions with low construction costs such as the South or the Midwest ($130-180/sqft,) the cost difference is minimal. In areas with high construction costs such as CA ($200-700/sqft,) the difference is either immaterial or negative (thanks to the insurance savings.)

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

#649

Post by friend_Fernando »

infecto wrote: post #500
friend_Fernando wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest power company in CA is in the process of burying its cables. The risk level is not just affected by proximity to forests. For offshore (Santa Ana) wind events, the riskiest areas are the SW bottom of hills and near canyons. That's where the current LA fires are. IMO, a better prevention measure would be to not build houses out of sticks. That's already the case for much of the housing in Europe. Alas, her…

This narrative about building houses out of sticks also rubs me the wrong way. It's an extremely naive take on why it happens. The reason most homes in America are wood framed is really down to economics. Europe does not have as vast of a forest stock for lumber as the US/Canada does. Over time we have specialized in building wood framed homes and because of lumber, its cheaper. These homes would have been destroyed…

See sibling posts for the cost argument.

> These homes would have been destroyed regardless of building material.

That's just not the case. Fire-resistant construction might not always help the first house at the subdivision's edge, but it will help the rest. One analogy is control rods in a reactor.

As I said in another post, the problem with firestorms here in CA is the rate of initial spread. We always get massive numbers of destroyed structures all at once, and <25% containment until the winds subside. The ignition source for most of the structures are burning wood-frame structures. Early on, firefighters can only help evacuate people.

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

#650

Post by pkulak »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #553
pkulak wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're put in prison, your "freedom is taken". We use that language for a reason. It's what happens, it's intentional, and I used to think everyone understood what it meant. Choices in prison are not the same as "every choice in life".

I don't disagree with what you said, but I don't think that supports the conclusion above. Trade-offs are different in all sorts of situations. All choices in life have consequence. The fact that one is better than the other does not negate anything or create slavery

So nothing can be slavery if there's any choice at all? By that logic slavery can never exist, because any slave can chose not to work and be killed, kill themselves, run, etc.

At some point you have to draw a line and say, there is choice, but there's not enough choice to say it's not slavery.

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