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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

#81

Post by llamaimperative »

ChrisClark wrote: post #76
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"

2% means gutted? 2% less funding means only a skeleton crew is left?

Depends: did it have a lot of excess capacity before the cuts?

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

#83

Post by gamblor956 »

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).

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

#84

Post by vel0city »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
wk_end wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately there's increasingly few places where natural disasters, of one sort or another, aren't inevitable. The PNW also burns regularly now, never mind the enormous earthquake looming under us that we're terribly unprepared for. Even the northeast is starting to get buried in smoke in the summer and hit by storms like Hurricane Sandy. Tornado Alley knocks out much of the midwest. What's left of the US? Desert…

> there's increasingly few places where natural disasters, of one sort or another, aren't inevitable Sure. That doesn’t mean you can’t mitigate damage. Not e.g. building on the Houston flood plain is one such example [1]. [1] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/...

You wouldn't think you'd need to point out building on the water side of a levee is a bad idea, even for a "dry reservoir", but here we are.

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

#86

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

xoa wrote: post #40
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…

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…

I never experienced an earthquake, in Tokyo, but those who have, say that the buildings wave around like drunk dancers.

Things fall off of shelves, but the buildings seem to come out OK.

The Japanese are hard core about building standards.

Compared to other nations (deliberately not gonna name them), that have corruption problems, as well as frequent earthquakes, you always have a bunch of buildings fall down, there's a surge of anger, a couple of unpopular scapegoats get jailed, then, it happens again, the next time.

I have a bunch of friends in the LA area. So far, none of them have been in the line of [literal] fire, but everyone is freaking out. These fires are under no control, whatsoever.

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

#88

Post by ravenstine »

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 that they have been isn't cheap, to put it lightly. Somehow, a state that is one of the largest economies in the world can't or won't expand its aerial response such that fires of the scale we are seeing become a thing of the past. 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.

I can anticipate being told this is not possible or too expensive, which is what everyone I know seems to believe, but I don't buy it.

If anyone ever runs for governor and makes my proposal their single issue platform, I will vote for them regardless of political party or whether it is truly feasible up to the extent that I am imagining. Fuck wildfires.

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

#89

Post by llamaimperative »

earnestinger wrote: post #77

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

The conditions that make one fire likely make others likely too...

Extreme dryness, high wind, failing electrical infrastructure, overburdened emergency response.

Also embers can easily be blown miles away to ignite another "new" fire.

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

#90

Post by Twirrim »

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…

Agreed. I don't see anything from a google search that suggests that they cut the number of firefighters, either.

Hyperbolic statements like "gutted" are just meant to get the knee jerk, frothing at the mouth "retweet" kind of reaction, and it seems to be being successful at that.

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