California Wildfires

[Dr. Detroit]

Not enough forest raking?

Forest clean-up/raking is a thing, its utilized in the Sierra National Forest to keep the wild fire risk low. You can make fun of the term "raking" but its happening.

Restoration Infrastructure

The lack of appropriate wood- and biomass-processing infrastructure remains a significant impediment to forest restoration efforts.

sierranevada.ca.gov

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Pile Burns Planned in Parks Through Mid-March - Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

This is not the first LA wild-fire that has taken out posh neighborhoods - fire breaks should have been cut with dozers and maintained. The scrub should have been thinned. No idea why this risk wasn't being mitigated.

 

[Muse]

Oh man everything north of Hollywood Blvd from Laurel Canyon Blvd to the 101 is having mandatory evacuations. Jeez the Sunset Fire came on fast.

I think I used to live in that area. Lived in Pacific Palisades too.

 

[Torn Mind]

0.16 inch of rainfall in L.A. area since April, i.e. a massive drought. Wind storm of up to or over 100 mph winds of exceedingly dry air. Not having out of control fires would seem to be virtually impossible.

There are 6 wildfires (at least) now burning in the area, probably over 25,000 acres burned, thousands of structures destroyed.

I went to bed last night knowing it would be like this today, based on what happened yesterday and the weather forecast.

You still need spark even if air and fuel exist.
Cali's numbers for arson pin an estimate of 10% and they have nabbed guys using investigative techniques the arsonists and most laypeople would not fathom could solve the crime.
Other sources are human negligence, i.e cigarettes or pyrotechnics from a coming-out party have provided the spark.

Natural spark would be lightning...but with drought, the skies are usually clear.

The need to force an interpretation as "naturalistic causes" stem from numerous cognitive biases, some innate, some learned. One, is that humans are very afraid of attributing malevolence or other propensity to misconduct to others in these days. The other is the need to force everything to be explained; but the LA fire department has most fire cases be deemed "undetermined" rather than intentional or unintentional.

 

[BoomerD]

You still need spark even if air and fuel exist.
Cali's numbers for arson pin an estimate of 10% and they have nabbed guys using investigative techniques the arsonists and most laypeople would not fathom could solve the crime.
Other sources are human negligence, i.e cigarettes or pyrotechnics from a coming-out party have provided the spark.

Natural spark would be lightning...but with drought, the skies are usually clear.

The need to force an interpretation as "naturalistic causes" stem from numerous cognitive biases, some innate, some learned. One, is that humans are very afraid of attributing malevolence or other propensity to misconduct to others in these days. The other is the need to force everything to be explained; but the LA fire department has most fire cases be deemed "undetermined" rather than intentional or unintentional.

Don't dismiss the effects of wind blowing trees into power lines, sparking wildfires...then the fires whipped into infernos by the high winds. PG&E went bankrupt because one of their power lines caused a massive wildfire...now, when the winds pick up, they kill the power.

 

[RalphTheCow]

Drill, baby drill. What an asshole.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You still need spark even if air and fuel exist.

Sure don't. Spontaneous ignition of organic material can happen in specific scenarios.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379711217301509

Hell, static sparks can create an ignition source in sufficiently dry environments.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Altadena:

 

[Pens1566]

You can talk all you want about "raking", but it's worth jack shit with 80-100mph winds and you're in ... checks notes ... Malibu. You'd have to essentially clear for MILES around an urban-ish environment.

Now, tell me again how much it'll cost to reduce emissions and fight climate change? Compare that to this single instance of some of the most expensive real estate in the world being turned to ash. That argument should have gone to shit with storms like Katrina, but here we fucking are ...

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You can talk all you want about "raking", but it's worth jack shit with 80-100mph winds and you're in ... checks notes ... Malibu. You'd have to essentially clear for MILES around an urban-ish environment.

Now, tell me again how much it'll cost to reduce emissions and fight climate change? Compare that to this single instance of some of the most expensive real estate in the world being turned to ash. That argument should have gone to shit with storms like Katrina, but here we fucking are ...

Yeah... there's videos floating around of cars burned out in the middle of the road. Looks like an actual warzone. If fire is hopping across concrete to set fire to metal objects, you ain't raking that.

 

[IronWing]

Latest IR perimeter for the Palisades Fire is here:

Index of /public/incident_specific_data/calif_s/!CALFIRE/!2025_Incidents/CA-LFD-000738_Palisades/IR

Click date then select kmz for Google Earth or one of the pdf.

Hurst Fire:

Index of /public/incident_specific_data/calif_s/!CALFIRE/!2025_Incidents/CA-LFD-3294_Hurst/IR

Eaton Fire:

Index of /public/incident_specific_data/calif_s/!2025_Incidents_Federal/CA-ANF-Eaton/IR

Sunset Fire not available yet.

 

[gothuevos]

Forest clean-up/raking is a thing, its utilized in the Sierra National Forest to keep the wild fire risk low. You can make fun of the term "raking" but its happening.

Restoration Infrastructure

The lack of appropriate wood- and biomass-processing infrastructure remains a significant impediment to forest restoration efforts.

sierranevada.ca.gov

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Pile Burns Planned in Parks Through Mid-March - Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

View attachment 114538

This is not the first LA wild-fire that has taken out posh neighborhoods - fire breaks should have been cut with dozers and maintained. The scrub should have been thinned. No idea why this risk wasn't being mitigated.

Newsom and Bass should resign.

 

[Brovane]

You can talk all you want about "raking", but it's worth jack shit with 80-100mph winds and you're in ... checks notes ... Malibu. You'd have to essentially clear for MILES around an urban-ish environment.

Now, tell me again how much it'll cost to reduce emissions and fight climate change? Compare that to this single instance of some of the most expensive real estate in the world being turned to ash. That argument should have gone to shit with storms like Katrina, but here we fucking are ...

The reality is as someone who has lived in CA all my life and someone who lives in a high fire hazard area is that all levels of government from the Federal on down to the city level haven't done a good job of managing wild land areas to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. The areas around LA are Chaparral. These areas should regularly burn every couple of decades but government agencies in CA and at the Federal Level spent over a half-century preventing any type of burning. This means when they do burn, they burn really intensely as we are now seeing. You then add in climate change to this and you have a recipe for disaster. Climate change is happening now and the wild-land areas of CA need to be better managed now. CA needs to have a lot more prescribed burns and this vegetation needs to be cleared out. CA is doing a lot to reduce emissions but we need to be realistic in CA that our wild land areas need to be better managed to deal with reality that we will continue to have periods of intense rain followed by long periods of drought.

 

[Pens1566]

The reality is as someone who has lived in CA all my life and someone who lives in a high fire hazard area is that all levels of government from the Federal on down to the city level haven't done a good job of managing wild land areas to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. The areas around LA are Chaparral. These areas should regularly burn every couple of decades but government agencies in CA and at the Federal Level spent over a half-century preventing any type of burning. This means when they do burn, they burn really intensely as we are now seeing. You then add in climate change to this and you have a recipe for disaster. Climate change is happening now and the wild-land areas of CA need to be better managed now. CA needs to have a lot more prescribed burns and this vegetation needs to be cleared out. CA is doing a lot to reduce emissions but we need to be realistic in CA that our wild land areas need to be better managed to deal with reality that we will continue to have periods of intense rain followed by long periods of drought.

From the details so far, no amount of realistic fire prepping would have prevented this scenario.

 

[K1052]

From the details so far, no amount of realistic fire prepping would have prevented this scenario.

Ember resistant vents probably would have prevented some amount of the structure fires. Ditto with not having vegetation right up against one's house.

 

[K1052]

The reality is as someone who has lived in CA all my life and someone who lives in a high fire hazard area is that all levels of government from the Federal on down to the city level haven't done a good job of managing wild land areas to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. The areas around LA are Chaparral. These areas should regularly burn every couple of decades but government agencies in CA and at the Federal Level spent over a half-century preventing any type of burning. This means when they do burn, they burn really intensely as we are now seeing. You then add in climate change to this and you have a recipe for disaster. Climate change is happening now and the wild-land areas of CA need to be better managed now. CA needs to have a lot more prescribed burns and this vegetation needs to be cleared out. CA is doing a lot to reduce emissions but we need to be realistic in CA that our wild land areas need to be better managed to deal with reality that we will continue to have periods of intense rain followed by long periods of drought.

Wholesale genocide should be waged against the eucalyptus tree. Total war.

 

[Brovane]

From the details so far, no amount of realistic fire prepping would have prevented this scenario.

I disagree, considering that the chaparral that is currently burning hasn't burned in probably over half-century. Better management would reduce fuel load which would significantly reduce fire intensity when things like this happen, which isn't if but when. We could also talk about hardening structures against fires by not having vegetation right up against the structure and having attic ventilation that doesn't allow embers to enter.

 

[Amused]

Newsom and Bass should resign.

It's been explained to you over and over again that wildfire in SoCal is inevitable. It's an annual event that has happened ever since the natives first populated this area.

Nothing short of complete clearing of all vegetation would stop it. And that, for obvious reasons, is impossible and an ecological nightmare.

SoCal has cycles. Wet rainy periods with tremendous plant growth followed by blasting dry Santa Ana winds that NO AMOUNT of preparation can stop or mitigate. The winds blow so dry, so hot and so hard that they create literal blast furnaces that can spread fire MILES away from where it's burning. So even mile wide bare zones around housing would be pointless (and an obvious ecological and landslide nightmare).

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, we had a brick wall blown over twice in the 70s. That's how hard the winds blow here in the valleys and canyons. The Santa Ana winds START with gusts at 40MPH. Average 80MPH and often reach 100MPH at their worst as they are right now.

And finally, as proof wild fire is endemic and unstoppable here: MUCH of our native flora REQUIRES wildfire to propagate and has developed highly flammable resins so they burn hot and fast.. From the pine trees to the chaparral.

In my 57 years of life there has NEVER been a year without wildfires in CA. They are worst after wet periods like we had from 2016-2022 when the brush has grown high and thick then dries out once drought sets in. And in ALL of written and spoken history, the same.

Proscribed burns have become impossible. The native flora is literally designed through evolution to propagate fire on a massive scale and attempts to burn have far too often led to disaster... which is why proscribed burns were largely abandoned near populated areas.

Fire breaks are a joke in 100MPH winds. So don't even mention them. And SoCal is COVERED in fire roads and breaks already. They do exactly fuck-all.

Furthermore, proscribed burns are only effective at the most dangerous time when the plants are fully dried and the humidity drops below 30%. Otherwise the plants will not burn well enough. And those conditions ONLY exist during the Santa Ana winds.

People who have never lived here have no fucking clue about how any of this works and should shut all the way the fuck up.

 

[Brovane]

Wholesale genocide should be waged against the eucalyptus tree. Total war.

I personally prefer the CA Pepper tree or Coast live oak. Yes the eucalyptus needs to go away.

 

[Amused]

I personally prefer the CA Pepper tree or Coast live oak. Yes the eucalyptus needs to go away.

The CA/Japanese pepper tree (actually Peruvian) is an invasive plant as well.

 

[feralkid]

Newsom and Bass should resign.

What an ignorant person you are.

 

[K1052]

The CA/Japanese pepper tree (actually Peruvian) is an invasive plant as well.

IIRC this tree is indeed non-native/invasive but not basically nature's own organic incendiary bomb like the eucalyptus.

 

[Pens1566]

Ember resistant vents probably would have prevented some amount of the structure fires. Ditto with not having vegetation right up against one's house.

I think that would slightly reduce the overall destruction.

See Amused's post ...

 

[K1052]

Cruising around PP on street view and you can find some simply amazing stuff.

 

[K1052]

I think that would slightly reduce the overall destruction.

See Amused's post ...

I seem to recall most studies indicate the majority of structure fires from wildfires are a result of embers entering the envelope not actual flames lapping against the building.

 

[MrSquished]

MAGA is pure evil