California Fires - Politics of Blame & Trump water claims

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Anybody that says State officials "dropped the ball" is a farggin' eejit. It was a lack of rain which usually precedes the usual Santa Ana winds. That said, some local officials may be blamed for building homes deep into the fire zones. We know they’re fire zones, we know they’re dangerous, and yet City Hall and county government has constantly greenlit development in places of greater and greater risks. Local decisions, not State level. Newsom is held blameless there. "Fire experts, past reports and risk assessments had all anticipated a wildfire catastrophe to some degree." But, duh. I could have told you that. But what to do at the State level?

The local water supply system in the Palisades area is designed to flow with enough gallons a minute to fight a house fire or a blaze in apartments or commercial buildings, but that's it. Again... local level issues, not State. Then you have a massive fire over the whole community and you have 10 times as many fire units, all pulling water out of the system at once. Of course the hydrants ran dry.

It was/is a perfect storm of events. But Newsom mandating water "pulled from NoCal to SoCal" like trump suggests is total B.S. California officials and experts say that's totally bogus.
 
Callatoroy said:
While you are correct about some disasters, this particular one doesn't fall into that category. CA deals with this in some form almost every year. This isn't a "nobody could have seen this coming" event. The state and local officials dropped the ball in a huge way. Especially given the recent history from which to draw upon.
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You should probably learn how water pressure works before continuing to opine. Nobody dropped the ball, except the GOP for three decades.

The LA municipal water supply is not and can never be designed to fight wildfires. I read an estimate of the cost to store enough water to be prepared for this sort of thing: at least $10B a year. So yeah, that's not feasible.

Everybody saw this coming. The problem is that there is no actual solution that can be implemented over any reasonable time frame. This is a long-term issue, not a short-term issue.

Apparently Trump has caused such brain rot that MAGA thinks everything can be solved with a phone call, when in fact nothing can be solved that way. Have you noticed that Trump is all of a sudden realizing that ending the war in Ukraine will be very hard; prices aren't going to drop (they are in fact going to increase, probably rapidly), etc.? Guess what? You can't fix the problem of scrub brush fires in a few days.
 
Centerpiece said:
Anybody that says State officials "dropped the ball" is a farggin' eejit. It was a lack of rain which usually precedes the usual Santa Ana winds. That said, some local officials may be blamed for building homes deep into the fire zones. We know they’re fire zones, we know they’re dangerous, and yet City Hall and county government has constantly greenlit development in places of greater and greater risks. Local decisions, not State level. Newsom is held blameless there. "Fire experts, past reports and risk assessments had all anticipated a wildfire catastrophe to some degree." But, duh. I could have told you that. But what to do at the State level?

The local water supply system in the Palisades area is designed to flow with enough gallons a minute to fight a house fire or a blaze in apartments or commercial buildings, but that's it. Again... local level issues, not State. Then you have a massive fire over the whole community and you have 10 times as many fire units, all pulling water out of the system at once. Of course the hydrants ran dry.

It was/is a perfect storm of events. But Newsom mandating water "pulled from NoCal to SoCal" like trump suggests is total B.S. California officials and experts say that's totally bogus.
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1. It wasn't just a lack of rain. It was a lack of rain after the tremendous rain last year. So lots of vegetation grew, and then died and dried out. It's the combination of the two and of course that's not something that can be managed.

2. Obviously building in fire zones is a problem, but it's also true that the fire zones have moved and continue to move. Was Palisades actually a fire zone when it was built up? Or has it become that way as the climate has changed? Serious question, 'cause I don't know the answer.
 
superrific said:
1. It wasn't just a lack of rain. It was a lack of rain after the tremendous rain last year. So lots of vegetation grew, and then died and dried out. It's the combination of the two and of course that's not something that can be managed.

2. Obviously building in fire zones is a problem, but it's also true that the fire zones have moved and continue to move. Was Palisades actually a fire zone when it was built up? Or has it become that way as the climate has changed? Serious question, 'cause I don't know the answer.
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Palisades is a very, very old neighborhood (by LA standards). This is not a new situation where they just started building houses deeper and deeper into the hills. And it certainly wasn’t considered a high fire risk when those houses were originally built.

But times have changed. Any community with any kind of elevation near a canyon or wilderness is at a great risk of fire. The insurance companies have figured that out and stopped writing policies for anything even near the hills. So the palisades are definitely in a fire zone now - but so is a great deal of Southern California.
 
I’m going to be honest - a giant fire is probably the most reasonable reason to loot a store. Decorum goes out the window when everything feels like it is about to burn down around you. Hell the store might be there in a couple of days. I’m not saying it is right, but I kind of get it.
 
sringwal said:
I’m going to be honest - a giant fire is probably the most reasonable reason to loot a store. Decorum goes out the window when everything feels like it is about to burn down around you. Hell the store might be there in a couple of days. I’m not saying it is right, but I kind of get it.
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Most of the looting is usually houses, not stores, and often they are houses that did not burn down. The looters know homeowners likely evacuated and police will not have time for calls.
 
Callatoroy said:
Yea, they handled this incorrectly. They have a very recent history of wildfires. Like every year. Plus learning from the lessons from Hawaii and other places. This should have been on every elected officials radar given how frequently that area incurs fires. Making sure you have infrastructure, basic traffic management, the correct personnel, etc., isn't asking them to be clairvoyant. Its asking them to be competent.
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Again, define correctly. What does basic traffic management mean in the middle of a firestorm? What infrastructure, where, when? What are the national standards for infrastructure during events like this. What level of public safety personnel should any local government carry to protect against black swan events? Why wasn't WNC prepared for the inevitable catastrophic hurricane.

You're just saying words...after the fact...because you have slightly more information than officials did before this happened. There may certainly be areas for improvement, there always are...everywhere. Simply launching hindsight aided blame bombs just reeks of politization of an extraordinary event.
 
BoonetheAiredale said:
Again, define correctly. What does basic traffic management mean in the middle of a firestorm? What infrastructure, where, when? What are the national standards for infrastructure during events like this. What level of public safety personnel should any local government carry to protect against black swan events? Why wasn't WNC prepared for the inevitable catastrophic hurricane.

You're just saying words...after the fact...because you have slightly more information than officials did before this happened. There may certainly be areas for improvement, there always are...everywhere. Simply launching hindsight aided blame bombs just reeks of politization of an extraordinary event.
Click to expand...
www.nationalgeographic.com

Here's what really caused L.A. fire hydrants to run out of water

As unprecedented wildfires raged through Los Angeles, some firefighters suddenly lost access to water. City officials called one shortage a “worst-case scenario”—one they expect to see again in the future.
www.nationalgeographic.com www.nationalgeographic.com

“It was like a worst-case scenario, but I think we should be planning for those worst case scenarios,” she said. “You can't predict everything, but also, I do think this is where we're headed.”

Competent leadership has a plan for how to manage evacuations. I don't know what basic traffic management would be in PP but there should have been a plan for how traffic was going to be dealt with. You can't just say "Leave now" without knowing people will be leaving by car and the traffic problems that will create. This is CA. Where Malibu burns almost every other year it seems like. This is like a hurricane in the south. One would expect LA to have a comprehensive plan for dealing with wildfires just as you would expect FL to have a plan for dealing with a hurricane. Running out of water is mind blowing. Apparently Gavin thinks so to because he has used this event to call for an independent review. Wonder why so quick to announce it? Nothing political there to see.
 
Calheel said:
Most of the looting is usually houses, not stores, and often they are houses that did not burn down. The looters know homeowners likely evacuated and police will not have time for calls.
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I get that. With that in mind, I almost died in a fire (spent 10 days in the Jaycee burn unit) and my neighbor’s house burned down in a separate fire while I watched, across the street, as the fire got close enough to our house to melt the windows.

There is nothing in this world like watching fire consume things.

You get a pass from me if you steal a few things when coming to grips with its raw power.

Not with the law if you get caught, mind you, but yeah.
 
Calheel said:
Palisades is a very, very old neighborhood (by LA standards). This is not a new situation where they just started building houses deeper and deeper into the hills. And it certainly wasn’t considered a high fire risk when those houses were originally built.

But times have changed. Any community with any kind of elevation near a canyon or wilderness is at a great risk of fire. The insurance companies have figured that out and stopped writing policies for anything even near the hills. So the palisades are definitely in a fire zone now - but so is a great deal of Southern California.
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Right. So it's not as if the problem here was building in fire zones. It's fire zones moving to buildings. Which is to say, if we abandon the area because they are now uninhabitable/uninsurable, that's an economic loss. It's better than cycles of building and rebuilding, but it's expensive either way.

If only we had done something about global warming before the catastrophes.
 
superrific said:
1. It wasn't just a lack of rain. It was a lack of rain after the tremendous rain last year. So lots of vegetation grew, and then died and dried out. It's the combination of the two and of course that's not something that can be managed.

2. Obviously building in fire zones is a problem, but it's also true that the fire zones have moved and continue to move. Was Palisades actually a fire zone when it was built up? Or has it become that way as the climate has changed? Serious question, 'cause I don't know the answer.
Click to expand...
2. Not sure. That would be a question for one of our Cali friends. But the reports indicate that it was, and local PTB allowed even more construction adding more properties to be dependent on limited resources in terms of what the "fire brigade" can access.

Regarding 1. what happened last year may have added potential fuel, the fact remains, the lack of "usual" rain this year prior to the usual winds allowed all dried vegetation to become a dangerous issue.

But let's not let those facts get in the way of the fact that callatroy and other trumpers are trying to make political hay out of this issue like they did in WNC after Helene.

ETA: I see Calheel weighed in on 2.
 
BoonetheAiredale said:
Again, define correctly. What does basic traffic management mean in the middle of a firestorm? What infrastructure, where, when? What are the national standards for infrastructure during events like this. What level of public safety personnel should any local government carry to protect against black swan events? Why wasn't WNC prepared for the inevitable catastrophic hurricane.

You're just saying words...after the fact...because you have slightly more information than officials did before this happened. There may certainly be areas for improvement, there always are...everywhere. Simply launching hindsight aided blame bombs just reeks of politization of an extraordinary event.
Click to expand...
Oh come on. Everyone knows that if high winds are predicted, the correct course of action is to add a couple of lanes to the major evac routes. You know, you've got a few days lead time. More than enough time.
 
Centerpiece said:
Regarding 1. what happened last year may have added potential fuel, the fact remains, the lack of "usual" rain this year prior to the usual winds allowed all dried vegetation to become a dangerous issue.
Click to expand...
I was adding to your point, not offering a rival consideration. I'm not always good about making that clear.
 
Callatoroy said:
While you are correct about some disasters, this particular one doesn't fall into that category. CA deals with this in some form almost every year. This isn't a "nobody could have seen this coming" event. The state and local officials dropped the ball in a huge way. Especially given the recent history from which to draw upon.
Click to expand...
CA deals with forest fires in the wild every year. Most of them start in fairly remote areas. What doesn't happen is several major fires in the LA area at once, compounded by 100 mph wind gusts. And in any event, understanding that fires like this are a possibility doesn't mean that it's easy or obvious how to stop or contain them under the current circumstances. Your post tellingly fails to identify what, exactly, could so easily have been done based on the experience with other fires, to prevent these fires from spreading at all. That's like suggesting that because Florida deals with hurricanes every year Florida shouldn't have any people killed or structures damaged by tornadoes. Unless you can point to experts saying there were obvious steps that can be taken to eliminate the possibility and spread of fires like this, then you're just mouthing empty criticisms like Trump is.
 
Callatoroy said:
www.nationalgeographic.com

Here's what really caused L.A. fire hydrants to run out of water

As unprecedented wildfires raged through Los Angeles, some firefighters suddenly lost access to water. City officials called one shortage a “worst-case scenario”—one they expect to see again in the future.
www.nationalgeographic.com www.nationalgeographic.com

“It was like a worst-case scenario, but I think we should be planning for those worst case scenarios,” she said. “You can't predict everything, but also, I do think this is where we're headed.”

Competent leadership has a plan for how to manage evacuations. I don't know what basic traffic management would be in PP but there should have been a plan for how traffic was going to be dealt with. You can't just say "Leave now" without knowing people will be leaving by car and the traffic problems that will create. This is CA. Where Malibu burns almost every other year it seems like. This is like a hurricane in the south. One would expect LA to have a comprehensive plan for dealing with wildfires just as you would expect FL to have a plan for dealing with a hurricane. Running out of water is mind blowing. Apparently Gavin thinks so to because he has used this event to call for an independent review. Wonder why so quick to announce it? Nothing political there to see.
Click to expand...
lol, do you think "traffic management" is what caused these fires to spread?

As has been exhaustively reported, they didn't "run out" of water; instead, the incredibly taxing demands on water pressure from having to fight multiple huge fires that sprung up at the same time made it impossible for the system to deliver water to several places at once. Unless you have a solution for how to fix hat, STFU.
 
rodoheel said:
lol, do you think "traffic management" is what caused these fires to spread?

As has been exhaustively reported, they didn't "run out" of water; instead, the incredibly taxing demands on water pressure from having to fight multiple huge fires that sprung up at the same time made it impossible for the system to deliver water to several places at once. Unless you have a solution for how to fix hat, STFU.
Click to expand...
He still doesn't understand the role that gravity plays in moving water.

The fires are at an elevation of about 1500-2500 feet. Santa Monica is at an elevation of about 75 feet. If they have any idea of how to move massive quantities of water up that elevation, it sure would be nice to hear. I mean, this is 10th grade physics.
 
rodoheel said:
lol, do you think "traffic management" is what caused these fires to spread?

As has been exhaustively reported, they didn't "run out" of water; instead, the incredibly taxing demands on water pressure from having to fight multiple huge fires that sprung up at the same time made it impossible for the system to deliver water to several places at once. Unless you have a solution for how to fix hat, STFU.
Click to expand...
So angry. So dumb, so naive. A trifecta of ignorance.
 
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