California Fires - Politics of Blame & Trump water claims

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  • Records show L.A. County missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say likely would have helped firefighters during the Palisades fire.
  • Some of the long-delayed projects were specifically aimed at improving “fire flow” and ensuring enough water during emergencies.
  • A county official said that the water system “performed as designed” during the Palisades fire, and that additional water would have saved “relatively few homes.”
Los Angeles County officials missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say probably would have enabled firefighters to save more homes during the Palisades fire, public records show.

As crews battled the blaze, attempting to extinguish flames that burned huge swaths of L.A. County and killed at least 11 people, some hydrants ran dry.

The lack of water has come under scrutiny since the wildfire broke out Jan. 7, with officials scrambling to explain why the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was left empty for maintenance.


www.latimes.com

Officials were warned of failing water system before Palisades fire. Fixes never happened

Thousands of pages of records reviewed by The Times show L.A. County officials had for years described water infrastructure in areas where hydrants ran dry during the Palisades fire as 'leak prone,' 'severely undersized' and not having enough flow to support firefighters.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
 
chrissteel said:
  • Records show L.A. County missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say likely would have helped firefighters during the Palisades fire.
  • Some of the long-delayed projects were specifically aimed at improving “fire flow” and ensuring enough water during emergencies.
  • A county official said that the water system “performed as designed” during the Palisades fire, and that additional water would have saved “relatively few homes.”
Los Angeles County officials missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say probably would have enabled firefighters to save more homes during the Palisades fire, public records show.

As crews battled the blaze, attempting to extinguish flames that burned huge swaths of L.A. County and killed at least 11 people, some hydrants ran dry.

The lack of water has come under scrutiny since the wildfire broke out Jan. 7, with officials scrambling to explain why the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was left empty for maintenance.


www.latimes.com

Officials were warned of failing water system before Palisades fire. Fixes never happened

Thousands of pages of records reviewed by The Times show L.A. County officials had for years described water infrastructure in areas where hydrants ran dry during the Palisades fire as 'leak prone,' 'severely undersized' and not having enough flow to support firefighters.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
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I feel like it’s been stated over and over again that it’s the wind not a lack of water that has wreaked havoc.
 
Bigs23 said:
I feel like it’s been stated over and over again that it’s the wind not a lack of water that has wreaked havoc.
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As someone who has more than a passing interest in California wildfires and knows lots of wildfire attorneys, I think it is a bit premature to assign percentages of blame for the Palisades fire. I know the attorneys will be looking very closely at the water issues, and there will likely be many wildfire experts over the next several years assigning blame percentages.

There is not a lot that can be done about wind or drought. But like most wildfires around here, there are human decisions that can exacerbate or lessen the impact of wind and drought. It may well be that negligence significantly increased the extent of the Palisades fire. That chapter has yet to be written.
 
nycfan said:
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Fucking hell this lying, fascist, bag of burgers is dumb as a brick.

Record breaking sustained winds, and this motherfucker thinks fire suppression sprinklers and the [checks notes] the small business administration, led by Kelly fucking Loeffler, are the answers?!

Good lord, this clownfuckery is accelerating even faster than my nihilistic, pessimistic ass imagined.
 
Calheel said:
As someone who has more than a passing interest in California wildfires and knows lots of wildfire attorneys, I think it is a bit premature to assign percentages of blame for the Palisades fire. I know the attorneys will be looking very closely at the water issues, and there will likely be many wildfire experts over the next several years assigning blame percentages.

There is not a lot that can be done about wind or drought. But like most wildfires around here, there are human decisions that can exacerbate or lessen the impact of wind and drought. It may well be that negligence significantly increased the extent of the Palisades fire. That chapter has yet to be written.
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Your point is generally correct, and you surely have a lot more insight and information than me.

But the problem here, as I understand it, was that the tremendous rains from last year caused huge vegetation growth, which then dried out and created kindling for fire.

If the cycle is a year or so, there's not a lot forest managers can do.

As you well know, the biggest problem is people building homes in fire areas.
 
Calheel said:
As someone who has more than a passing interest in California wildfires and knows lots of wildfire attorneys, I think it is a bit premature to assign percentages of blame for the Palisades fire. I know the attorneys will be looking very closely at the water issues, and there will likely be many wildfire experts over the next several years assigning blame percentages.

There is not a lot that can be done about wind or drought. But like most wildfires around here, there are human decisions that can exacerbate or lessen the impact of wind and drought. It may well be that negligence significantly increased the extent of the Palisades fire. That chapter has yet to be written.
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Tell me more about these “wildfire attorneys”
 
superrific said:
Your point is generally correct, and you surely have a lot more insight and information than me.

But the problem here, as I understand it, was that the tremendous rains from last year caused huge vegetation growth, which then dried out and created kindling for fire.

If the cycle is a year or so, there's not a lot forest managers can do.

As you well know, the biggest problem is people building homes in fire areas.
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All of that is true. But it also appears that decisions were made by governmental officials that made fighting the fire harder and less effective than it should have been.

That said, it is still early days and it may turn out that there was no negligence by anyone. I’m just reserving judgment on that for now.
 
Does anyone have a coherent summary link of how/where/etc there is a big spigot we can turn to let water flow to SoCal? Orangeturd keeps saying there is-and that Cali just needs to turn the spigot?
 


On the executive order:

“In an apparent poke at California politics, one of President Donald Trump's executive orders on Monday directed federal agencies “to route more water" from across the state instead of trying to protect a nearly extinct tiny fish species.

… In the executive order titled “Putting People Over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California,” Trump mandated water from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, one of the state's main water sources, to be redirected south. It's an attempt to change the environmental protections of the smelt, a three-inch-long fish once vital to California's ecosystem but now nearly extinct, and criticize the state's efforts while battling raging and deadly wildfires that have wreaked havoc across greater Los Angeles.

The executive order comes after Trump initially promised in 2016 to redirect California’s water runoff south to help farmers and growers in Central Valley. In 2020, then-President Trump issued a federal memorandum to redirect millions of gallons of water. But California Gov. Gavin Newsom successfully sued in federal court to limit the flow from the Delta.

… Otherwise, Trump's order is "so vague" that it is meant to appear he is keeping his word to farmers who overwhelmingly voted for him last year, said Fresno State University Political Science Professor Tom Holyoke, who specializes in western water policy.

"It’s not really a solution, it's a signal to his supporters that he’s trying to do something," said Holyoke, adding Los Angeles gets its water primarily from the Los Angeles River, Owens Valley and the Colorado River.

"It’s a directive to find a solution when there might not even be one. Increasing the water flowing south of the Delta is not likely to help Los Angeles with its water supply problem. …”

www.recordnet.com

Trump's California water order takes aim at Newsom, troubled Delta smelt

A Trump executive order directs agencies to “to route more water” across the state. But pumping water out of the Delta has already proven disastrous.
www.recordnet.com www.recordnet.com
 
mpaer said:
Does anyone have a coherent summary link of how/where/etc there is a big spigot we can turn to let water flow to SoCal? Orangeturd keeps saying there is-and that Cali just needs to turn the spigot?
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And you believed him?
 
Calheel said:
Swing a stick in LA and you’ll hit one. Lots of money in fire.
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When I was growing up in Eastern NC and tobacco was still the key piece that drove the entire economy, every small town attorney knew ALOT about tobacco barns burning down during the curing process and subsequent insurance claims. As best as I can remember the fire department strategy, once a tobacco barn caught fire, was to (1) keep the fire contained to one barn and (2) keep any nearby propane tanks from exploding.
 
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