Huge fires in Los Angeles California

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Networkn
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#3329914 10-Jan-2025 10:31

vexxxboy:

it's not there houses , it is all there personal effects , photos, family heirlooms etc that puts everybody in the same situation whether you are rich or poor.

Yup, exactly that. Also, not every celebrity has the financial resources you might think they do, and regardless, it would still be a massive dent.

pdh

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#3330019 10-Jan-2025 14:14

My sympathy is diminished if you live somewhere prone to natural disasters - and do nothing to mitigate the risks.
Santa Anna winds have been fanning fires in that area for 5 centuries of European settlement.

Bad consequences flow - from choosing to support politicians who
(a) encourage development in (known) fire-prone areas,
(b) reduce (to zero) centuries-old fire-suppression/prevention practices,
(c) hugely reduce funding for fire-fighting
(d) drive insurance companies out of the fire insurance business.

Sympathy for catastrophic stupidity may be bad for the human race..

mattwnz

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#3330041 10-Jan-2025 15:59

Fire risk was always one of the off putting things about buying a house in the hills in Wellington for me, much of which is in bush. I can see insurance companies charging higher premiums in the future, possibly as a result of these sorts of events, which they will likely partly blame on climate change.

neb

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#3330054 10-Jan-2025 16:54

neb: I'll post the description he used at some point in the future when things have died down a bit since it was pretty blunt.

The Guardian has a more diplomatic description of the problem:

Homes built in and around natural landscapes – canyons, chaparral coastal hills, forests, mountainsides – with a history of wildfire that are pretty much guaranteed to burn again sooner or later create the personal tragedies and losses and the pressure for fire crews to try to contain the blazes. But suppressing the blazes lets the fuel load build up, meaning that fire will be worse when it comes.

[...]

I say that not to blame the devastated who have lost their homes or evacuated from them – if anyone’s to blame, it’s the civic institutions that allowed development in dangerous places and, according to the LA city councilwoman serving the Pacific Palisades region, underinvested in infrastructure, including water systems, to fight such fires, and had vehicles out of service due to lack of mechanics.

Tinkerisk

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#3330078 10-Jan-2025 17:44

A bloody nasty thing. Damn bad, because it was foreseeable. I know a few corners there personally. But I'm already wondering whether the fires weren't started.

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#3330092 10-Jan-2025 19:52

Dingbatt:

Many insurance companies won’t offer fire insurance because the risk profile is too high and they can’t set the premiums at an appropriate level.

And do the banks not care if you can't get insurance?

Here if you can't get insurance, you can kiss any mortgage goodbye.

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ezbee

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#3330283 11-Jan-2025 18:38

They are chasing down leads that some of these fires were deliberately lit.
May explain some of the 'Everything happening everywhere all at once' that overwhelms resources.

Who knows how manageable this would have been without help.

I seem to remember something simialr in Australia's worst wildfires, and as we enter our fire season ?

Neighbours make dramatic citizens arrest to stop another LA fire devouring homes
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360545349/neighbours-make-dramatic-citizens-arrest-stop-another-la-fire-devouring-homes

""
He added that he was the first to spot the stranger in the leafy neighbourhood holding a blowtorch rummaging near his bins on Thursday afternoon.

Kay described how he sped after the suspect in his white Mercedes until he found him attempting to start a fire near another property and shouted to neighbours to help.
""

Constitutional right to bear a blowtorch ?

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neb

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#3330284 11-Jan-2025 18:56

The story talks about someone looking in rubbish bins with a "yellow blowtorch", which sounds like a homeless guy with an electric torch rummaging through rubbish bins, as interpreted by panicked locals.

People always want to find scapegoats for these things. During the big fires in Australia, Faux News reported that they were deliberately lit by Australian environmentalists.

(No, I have no idea why either. It's Faux News, it just has to cause outrage, not make any sense).

pdh

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#3330597 12-Jan-2025 14:44

>People always want to find scapegoats for these things. During the big fires in
>Australia, Faux News reported that they were deliberately lit by Australian environmentalists.
>
>(No, I have no idea why either. It's Faux News, it just has to cause outrage, not make any sense)."
>

Well, there was active speculation in 2021 that the Fawn Fire was started by an activist. She was a Doctoral student at the New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry - and represented herself as a Shaman... It was speculated that she wanted to promote the agenda that wildfires are increasing due to AGW.

In the finish, she was charged, deemed unfit to stand trial and sent to a mental institution.
And no further reports linked her action to climate change activism.

Personally, I do wonder at the mental health of some protest group members.
Is attacking old masters any saner than burning down a forest ?

So perhaps someone in Australia speculated that their local activists thought it might 'make sense'.
The speculation was probably wrong...
But doesn't speculation about irrational behaviour have to at least flirt with being irrational ?

ezbee

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#3330629 12-Jan-2025 15:27

Mental illness, narcissism and idiocy occurs across political spectrum.

People who gain enjoyment from others misery, the spectacle, the sound of fire engines.
Copycatism and wanting fame, and to one up the the previous disaster.
Well even exceptional cases of firefighters or volunteers being firebugs do exist,
they were attracted not out of service.

Its a very tiny minority fortunately, though it only takes one or two out of 10's of millions.

Australian study found about 13% with define evidence of deliberate start to a fire, 37% are suspicious.

Australian fires: Why do people start fires during fires?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50400851

It seems the two biggest groups are the young, children and over 30's by age from those identified.

A review of decades of bushfire studies by Matthew Willis found revenge - against an employer or ex-partner - was a "primary" motive.

""
One man told ABC that he started a bushfire after finding out his girlfriend was sleeping with someone else. "I'm not a person to let my anger out by punching or anything like that," he said.
""

gzt

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#3330636 12-Jan-2025 16:02

HD Aerial footage of Malibu beachfront and Pacific Palisades

Tinkerisk

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#3330696 12-Jan-2025 18:19

gzt:

HD Aerial footage of Malibu beachfront and Pacific Palisades

Wooden hut after wooden hut, they fell down/burnt away one after the other like dominoes.

tdgeek

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#3330711 12-Jan-2025 19:37

neb:

neb: I'll post the description he used at some point in the future when things have died down a bit since it was pretty blunt.

The Guardian has a more diplomatic description of the problem:

Homes built in and around natural landscapes – canyons, chaparral coastal hills, forests, mountainsides – with a history of wildfire that are pretty much guaranteed to burn again sooner or later create the personal tragedies and losses and the pressure for fire crews to try to contain the blazes. But suppressing the blazes lets the fuel load build up, meaning that fire will be worse when it comes.

[...]

I say that not to blame the devastated who have lost their homes or evacuated from them – if anyone’s to blame, it’s the civic institutions that allowed development in dangerous places and, according to the LA city councilwoman serving the Pacific Palisades region, underinvested in infrastructure, including water systems, to fight such fires, and had vehicles out of service due to lack of mechanics.

I agree with that, but that applies to many many locations globally

Climate change, doesnt just mean that everywhere gets hotter (on average it does) It changes weather as more moisture is in the atmosphere (water is a greenhouse gas). Your location may get hotter, or not as hot, or wetter or drier. Winds, more or less. In 9/11, Pakistan had a flash flood event, wrong time of year, ground was bone dry, so flash floods 250k died, but as it was 9/11 this was less newsworthy. ONE example.

As to blame, water, fire staff, retrofit homes, city authorities, who pays?

tdgeek

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#3330713 12-Jan-2025 19:38

Tinkerisk:

gzt:

HD Aerial footage of Malibu beachfront and Pacific Palisades

Wooden hut after wooden hut, they fell down/burnt away one after the other like dominoes.

Agree. How many of these are in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, let alone elsewhere. HEAPS, IMO. As per my last post, who pays?

Tinkerisk

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#3330745 12-Jan-2025 22:35

tdgeek:

Tinkerisk:

Wooden hut after wooden hut, they fell down/burnt away one after the other like dominoes.

Agree. How many of these are in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, let alone elsewhere. HEAPS, IMO. As per my last post, who pays?

Well, that's the risk you take. Here, traditional houses are predominantly made of stone and built with 2.3 times the structural reserve. However, more and more insulation and wooden components are being used. After a major fire disaster in 1842, drastic consequences (also in terms of fire insurance) were drawn.

After the later WW II area bombings in 1943, the neighbourhood around me looked like this (before my time).

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