9 ms·

Two fire experts interviewed about L.A. wildfires

74 points by hodgesrm 2y ago

elteto 2y ago
I'm still looking for the incovenient truths because I couldn't find them in that article... A couple thousand words with no real insight or information.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Not directly stated (and maybe not even intended) but for me the inconvenient truth is that human society is absolutely powerless against nature at the extreme ends of the scale. We can do a lot, we can build sea walls, we can reroute rivers, we can cross over or tunnel under almost any obstacle. But ultimately, the planet is capable of bringing more to bear than we can offset, whether it's wind-driven wildfires, floods, large hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, volcanoes. The best and only thing we can do in those situations is hope we have enough warning to get out of the way or find someplace to hide.
  - tlogan 2y ago
    I believe this assessment is intellectually dishonest. A couple of days before the fires started, I received a major red alert on my phone (I was in Los Angeles just prior to the fires - Recognizing the danger, I decided to leave). I expected to see a large-scale response—fire trucks stationed everywhere, extra firefighters on standby, planes ready to deploy, and vegetation being watered—but none of that appeared to happen. This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this. Until we address the root causes (like global warming), these events will continue to occur, and we need better preparedness in the meantime.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      Fire departments do not have the equipment nor the personnel to handle "the entire city is on fire" events. That would require one or two fire trucks with crew for each house in the city. Even if you could do that, you would quickly deplete the available water supply. It's just not possible. Could more have been done to make a fire of this size less likely? Perhaps. But once it starts, and reaches a certain size, with winds as they were and combustible material in its path, all you can do is get out.
      - lazide 2y ago
        Every city in the state has mutual aid available.
      - tlogan 2y ago
        > Fire departments do not have the equipment > nor the personnel to handle "the entire city is on fire" events. True, but in fire-prone areas—such as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage—we might need to consider a different approach. Whether it’s specialized equipment, additional staffing, or other protective measures, some system should be in place specifically for those regions..
        SoftTalker 2y ago
        > as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage Maybe in those areas the policy should be "you're on your own."
    - takeda 2y ago
      They did prepare though, 3 days before they got units from north California. If nothing would happen they would be attacked for risking safety of BTW: which locations in the whole Los Angeles (you know how big it is? actually there's no guarantee the fire works be in LA) you should get fire trucks stationed? There wasn't any rain registered since April, there were unprecedented (last time we had such big ones was 15 years ago) dry, 100mph winds. This means using air support was also not feasible at the time. We mostly talk about Palisades, but when watching WatchDuty app, fires were constantly popping up in random places. It was a nightmare, and it is frustrating to see politicizing the whole thing or criticizing that fire men did something wrong. Why those people aren't volunteering and helping? There are some things that is impossible to do with what we have. Much more effective would be for example having all building up to the latest fire code, but majority are of course old.
      - tlogan 2y ago
        > If nothing would happen they would be attacked for risking safety of You’ve pinpointed the core issue. Politicians have little incentive to invest in preventive measures because, as voters, we rarely reward that sort of long-term planning. And who’s really at fault? We are. We don’t demand enough accountability for prevention when we cast our votes. If they successfully prevent fires, nobody notices—and no political points are scored.
        takeda 2y ago
        It's the same in Software Engineering, lol. If your service just works no one cares. If you instead have a flaky service, but step in to save the day then you become a hero :) Though I agree somewhat that politicians don't have as much incentive, but this is what regulations are for. Someone said that regulations are written in blood, because they are results of "lessons learned". It doesn't help that then those regulations are frequently removed to help businesses and the cycle repeats.
    - danaris 2y ago
      > This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this. Unfortunately, this seems to be fast becoming a partisan position.
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    Not necessarily. There are similar cases in other countries where the fire was well controlled. Might not be as similar as I thought, but I'm wondering if professionals can give an honest post mortem at least for this time.
    - leptons 2y ago
      >There are similar cases in other countries where the fire was well controlled. Did they also have unprecedented 100mph wind gusts, and strong winds blowing for days? It's impossible to fly fire mitigation aircraft in those conditions, and the terrain where the fire was spreading the most were rugged mountain areas, mostly not accessible to firefighters.
      - throw0101a 2y ago
        E.g., > “Without helicopters, this kind of a brush fire, we cannot stop it on the ground,” said Margaret Stewart, an LAFD spokeswoman. > Perhaps demonstrating what a difference aircraft can make, a fire that threatened the Hollywood Hills late Wednesday was quickly contained and limited to 43 acres. Calmer winds allowed aircraft to douse flames with water from nearby reservoirs. * https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/10/la-fires-containment-winds-firefighter-challenges/ https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/20...
        SoftTalker 2y ago
        Water scooped from reservoirs is less effective than you might think. When it is dropped, a good amount of it evaporates before it ever hits the ground. Most effective would be air drops of fire retardant, but neither can be done in high wind conditions.
        throw0101a 2y ago
        > Water scooped from reservoirs is less effective than you might think. I'm guessing that water scooped from reservoirs is probably more effective than no water at all.
- lokar 2y ago
  We can’t treat fire as an occasional emergency the fire department will take care of. Managing fire risk is something every town and home owner need to spend time on year round.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Even if you don't really live in a wildfire area, there are things you can/should do. I get my fields cut back with a tractor once or twice a year and keep a lawn around the house. I also won't use firepits that have the potential to ignite the surroundings.
    - lokar 2y ago
      This is what everyone needs to be doing, and the fire dept. needs to enforce it.
      - throw0101a 2y ago
        > […] and the fire dept. needs to enforce it. And/or insurance companies.
        lokar 2y ago
        This is actually where the action has been recently. Lots of people complain about aerial inspection by insurance followed by ultimatums to clear vegetation and junk. Look for people asking for regulations to prevent this any day now.
        ghaff 2y ago
        >Look for people asking for regulations to prevent this any day now. I actually sort of empathize with a point of view that you pay your insurance every year, aren't doing anything especially unreasonable, and have to adhere to a somewhat arbitrary new standard at possibly very significant cost and time. To be clear, I get the other side too in wildfire-prone areas.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  The inconvenience was ignoring the experts advice. They might have said something along the lines of make sure you have water, the ability to use it (hello Maui), and people who know how to use it. Or maybe they thought that was needless to say and had more advanced advice like clearing dead brush, making fire breaks, etc. Or ... Well yeah. It would be nice to know what advice was ignored. I'm sure there was plenty in that category.
- throw0101a 2y ago
  > A couple thousand words with no real insight or information. Because it's things we already know about, but refuse to do anything about. For example: > “The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.” We've known about embers for decades, and why you need to clear the area around your home of ignition sources: * https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/preparing-homes-for-wildfire https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/prepari... Here's a potato-quality video posted thirteen years ago on landscaping best practices: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVe0gu69FY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVe0gu69FY A news story from twelve years ago about a home that survivied (with a charred landscape around it): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgUp245nso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgUp245nso Which is talked about in the article: > This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing. We may also have to accept that perhaps Mother Nature can still be more powerful than humans at times: > The National Fire Prevention Assn., a national nonprofit that provides standards for fire suppression operations, calls for a minimum of three engines or 15 firefighters for a single-residence fire, a number that is impossible to attain when fighting a fire on the scale of the Palisades or Eaton fires. > “We’re not recognizing, analyzing, questioning how we’re failing,” Cohen said. “We just think we need more airplanes and more helicopters flying 24 hours a day.” > More CL-415 super-scoopers or Firehawk helicopters will not help when water is being dropped into 60 mph wind gusts. See also "Why Los Angeles was unprepared for this fire": > Water runs short: […] “There’s no urban water system engineered and constructed to combat wildfire,” said Michael McNutt, a spokesman for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 people in northwest Los Angeles County. The system was intended to supply water to homes and businesses, he said, and to help fire crews defend a large structure or several homes, not multiple neighborhoods at once. […] * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42674591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42674591
- SteveVeilStream 2y ago
  I think this gets at the heart of it. People assume that these fires are fought and prevented in the forest/hills by wildland fire fighters but the reality is that individual homeowners can do a lot by clearing brush, etc. (ahead of time,) from their own yards. It's an inconvenient truth because it shifts the responsibility to individuals. ""...Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.” This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing."
CurtHagenlocher 2y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42666776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42666776
whimsicalism 2y ago
> “The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.” I think this is well-known and not at all some sort of secret inconvenient truth. After any disastrous event, there will always be people coming out of the woodwork saying “you should have listened to me.” Pretty unimpressed by this article, frankly.
- lokar 2y ago
  Well known by people who pay attention, yet ignored by people who make policy at the local level. Look at the before pictures in LA. Homes with flammable exteriors and dense plantings. Look at Laguna beach to the south. About half the town burned in the 90s. Strict building codes and regular inspections. It’s expensive and annoying to homeowners, but it works.
  - morkalork 2y ago
    "What Saved The ‘Miracle House’ In Lahaina?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37192915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37192915 Iirc, one of items listed was rocks/gravel surrounding the house on the ground so any embers that landed beside the building had nothing to feed on ignite.
    - throw0101a 2y ago
      Don't even have to go back in time in another state, but even right now in California, "Owner of ‘miracle’ Malibu mansion reveals why he thinks house survived raging fire": > “It’s stucco and stone with a fireproof roof,’’ he said, adding that it also includes pilings “like 50 feet into the bedrock’’ to keep it steady when powerful waves crash into the seawall below it. * https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/us-news/owner-of-miracle-malibu-mansion-reveals-why-he-thinks-house-survived-raging-fire/ https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/us-news/owner-of-miracle-malib... And you don't need to have a building made out of concrete either, as long as the shell and the surrounding area is not flammable: * https://www.builderonline.com/building/safety-healthfulness/how-to-build-fire-proof-homes_o https://www.builderonline.com/building/safety-healthfulness/... * https://www.nfpa.org/en/education-and-research/wildfire/preparing-homes-for-wildfire https://www.nfpa.org/en/education-and-research/wildfire/prep...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
red_admiral 2y ago
> It may be the fire equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane When I saw the pictures of the completely burnt out districts, the first thing I thought of was Hiroshima. At least we got most of the people out first this time, though.
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  Much/most of the damage at Hiroshima was the resulting fires, not the explosion, so it's very similar!
- spike021 2y ago
  As someone who’s spent their entire life in california near these types of fires and someone who recently visited the Hiroshima memorial museum, this take is pretty disingenuous.
  - macintux 2y ago
    As someone who’s not participating in the discussion, can you elaborate? “No it isn’t” is an unhelpful response without any explanation whatsoever.
- rasz 2y ago
  First thing I thought was hopefully they wont rebuild using same cardboard and wood in a highly fire prone area.
23B1 2y ago
It's inconvenient to the policy 'makers' who are more interested in their aspirations than their duty. It's common sense to everyone else.
- thenaturalist 2y ago
  Cheap talk and extremely boring overgeneralization. As everyone else clearly has built their houses in a fireproof manner, activated personal fire prevention tactics like watering their surroundings and, as the article stated, tried to decrease community hotspots succeptible to being ignited by ember, what do we even need these experts for, am I right? I mean, clearly it's common sense, right?
  - 23B1 2y ago
    Yes, it is common sense.
    - thenaturalist 2y ago
      The fact that thousands of homes are burnt to ashes very simply and clearly shows that is not the case.
      - 23B1 2y ago
        I'll concede that you're making a strong individual case that common sense is anything but.
        thenaturalist 2y ago
        Ahh, can't contribute anything meaningful, so you go for an ad hominem attack. As in the beginning, still pretty boring. At least you have continuity in that regard.
        23B1 2y ago
        QED
akamaka 2y ago
I found a much better article (5 page PDF) from the fire prevention expert quoted in this article, which details his method of prioritizing building fire-safe homes and dispels misconceptions of how wildfire spreads to homes: https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/woods/117_121.pdf https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/woods/117_121.pdf
- dumbmrblah 2y ago
  Thank you, the original article had very little actual practical information, or substance at all.
- freddie_mercury 2y ago
  The 2020 Australia Royal Commission on bushfire prevention is a good resource, too. There are tons of things that could be done. Virtually none are being done nowadays, much less retrofitted to existing structures. Bushfire prevention via design is essentially in its infancy, much like earthquake safe designs took decades to become widespread in California after the 1933 quake. It wasn't like structures built in the 40s had "learned the lessons" and were earthquake proof. It has taken the better part of a century to get there.
  - contingencies 2y ago
    https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2020-12/Royal%20Commission%20into%20National%20Natural%20Disaster%20Arrangements%20-%20Report%20%20%5Baccessible%5D.pdf https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2020-12/Roya...
- rawgabbit 2y ago
  Thanks for the article. So it looks like quarter sized embers are the most likely cause of many fires.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
A professor of atmospheric science from the university of Washington has a couple posts he wrote about how the fires started and it seems like it was probably electrical, and could have been avoided (by turning off the grid in the area) given the very clear forecasts for extreme wind. https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/did-la-fire-disaster-have-to-happen.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/did-la-fire-disaster-... https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-palisades-fire-start.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-pal... The other inconvenient truth is that the lack of good water management, prescribed burns, and forest management has been problematic across the country. Climate change isn’t the cause, even though attribution teams desperately try to make it that - it just makes things worse. But forests have dry fuel that will light up at some point and that’s regardless of climate change. There’s inadequate proactive planning for this.
- cjcenizal 2y ago
  “Climate change isn’t the cause.” The region experienced back to back years of high rainfall, spurring brush growth. This year the region experienced severe drought, converting all of that growth into fuel. Last week the region experienced 100 mph winds, which converted spot fires into fast-spreading conflagrations that could not be fought. This pattern of instability is an outcome of climate change. So yeah, it was caused by climate change.
  - RhysU 2y ago
    Which of those named weather events was outside of historical experience in the area? From the outside, wet years and dry years and desert winds seem very much like the expected climate for SoCal.
    - throw0101a 2y ago
      > Which of those named weather events was outside of historical experience in the area? Over the last few decades averages for events have changed, and not for the better: > It was found that nearly all the observed increase in burned areas over the past half-century is due to human-caused climate change. It is estimated that from 1971 to 2021, human-caused climate change contributed to a +172% increase in burned areas, with a +320% increase from 1996 to 2021. In the coming decades, a further increase in annual forest burned areas is expected, ranging from 3% to 52%. * https://www.drought.gov/news/study-finds-climate-change-blame-record-breaking-california-wildfires-2023-08-08 https://www.drought.gov/news/study-finds-climate-change-blam...
markus_zhang 2y ago
I wonder what caused the fire to burn more heavily before anyone took action? The first few hours are usually very important. It's very difficult to control once it goes off totally. Similar fire in Chongqing, China back in 2022. The fire was pretty close to the city. The total acre burnt was less than 1000 acres in total. https://www.lifeweek.com.cn/article/174896?from=information https://www.lifeweek.com.cn/article/174896?from=information
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Firefighters can’t work well in very high winds, they probably didn’t try until the winds died down.
- throw0101a 2y ago
  > I wonder what caused the fire to burn more heavily before anyone took action? High winds don't help: > “I’ll be clear: We could have had much more water. With those wind gusts, we were not stopping that fire,” Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin said. > When winds are as strong as they were Tuesday and Wednesday — reaching 100 mph on mountaintops and surpassing 60 mph along the coast — firefighters are severely limited in their tactics, experts said. They make it too dangerous and all but impossible to establish any fire perimeter. They blow flames as tall as 200 feet horizontally and send balls of red-hot embers flying at speeds that can carry them a mile or two away, where they start what are known as spot fires. […] > The lack of firefighting by air was a critical deficiency that persisted from Tuesday night through early Wednesday, fire officials said, and one that has allowed other devastating Southern California fires to spread in the past, including the Woolsey Fire, which burned across a footprint just to the west of the Palisades Fire in 2018. > “Without helicopters, this kind of a brush fire, we cannot stop it on the ground,” said Margaret Stewart, an LAFD spokeswoman. * https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/10/la-fires-containment-winds-firefighter-challenges/ https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/20...
- Axsuul 2y ago
  The fire quickly grew into a firestorm due to the 50 mph+ winds. Southern California is known for this phenomenon of dry winds that blow from the desert called the Santa Anas. They only affect certain areas, so the perfect combination of the winds + being in a fire prone area + having record rainfall the year before + being in a drought caused the fire to burn crazy fast with access to lots of brush (fuel). If you don't stop it within the first 5 min, it quickly gets out of control. There's so much stuff to burn.
mschuster91 2y ago
> Building codes failed to address the requirements of specific environments, and infrastructure was laid out without attending to potential hazard. Well, yeah. Americans tend to laugh at European construction codes, label us with words suggesting we live in a dictatorship... but with every report I see from the newest natural disaster in the US, be it fires, floods or hurricanes, I'm happy that building codes are very very strict here. > For example, municipal and fire prevention agencies must give property owners advance — and continual — warnings to clear dead vegetation and to wet dry brush within 10 feet of the house with periodic, prolonged sprinklings. Try that with your average American and the poor sod tasked with doing that will be at best yelled at with "leave my property", and that's assuming they can inspect the property to begin with.
- egorfine 2y ago
  Taxing people and protecting everyone from fires by imposing regulations is of course socialism. /s
  - euroderf 2y ago
    Get ready for a political reaction in the form of privatised firefighting. Drones and helicopters. Not cheap. Altho this proposal might encounter resistance from the real fire department, which neeeds unimpeded access to the skies.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  NA has far more natural disaster exposure than europe does, especially when people just like to subset to the richest western european states as ‘europe’. i seem to recall quite a few buildings collapsing in Turkey and in Greece in the last quarter century after earthquakes
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > NA has far more natural disaster exposure than europe does Agreed, but that's even more of a sign for "the US should be even more proactive in regulations and enforcement than Europe, not the other way around! In any case we do have areas that are prone to wildfire, especially the Balkans, Greece and Turkey get hit regularly and hard. But the human toll is always very low even if the fires rage, because our buildings don't consist out of the cheapest sort of wood and cardboard and there is ample distance between homes and forests. > i seem to recall quite a few buildings collapsing in Turkey and in Greece in the last quarter century after earthquakes Yup, and in almost all cases it turns out that either the owners intentionally circumvented the code or construction was shoddy because someone diverted money and substituted cheaper but unallowed materials. Our greatest issue tends to be floods like in the Ahrtal or the beginning of Spain, because our building and zoning codes haven't caught up with climate change. Unfortunately, what I call "Americanism" (or y'all "American Exceptionalism") seems to have seeped into our culture as well - the attitude that humans are superior to nature's forces and can bend them to their will, and so I'm afraid history is doomed to repeat itself.
whatever1 2y ago
Ok I get all of these, but, {checking calendar}, it is freaking January! Not Summer.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  The Santa Ana winds that spread the fire are an all-year thing, concentrated in autumn and winter.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  I thought the appeal of California was that it didn't have intense winters or summers, but was pleasantly warm year-round? LA is at the same latitude as North Texas, and Texas isn't exactly known for snow. Where I live in the Midwest we're guaranteed at least one good snow every winter, and it's been around freezing temperatures for weeks.
mixmastamyk 2y ago
So many tall telephone and power poles with wires everywhere in LA, but rarely mentioned. Can’t survive really high winds. It’s not clear why they’re not buried other than cost. A few bent poles must now be replaced in our neighborhood at great expense. Looks like they’d be cheaper buried in the long run.
- Axsuul 2y ago
  It is mainly cost – like 6x more. Utilities like LADWP eventually want to underground everything but the time scale of such a project is probably eons.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  cost and regulators generally have been unwilling to approve the rate increases necessary for resilience plus we make our utilities pay prevailing wage
  - RangerScience 2y ago
    Yeah because those are where the money’s going. https://www.google.com/search?q=pg%26e+profits https://www.google.com/search?q=pg%26e+profits
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      1. a 10% profit margin this year - they are not even profitable over the last 10 years and barely profitable over the last 25. 2. yea, prevailing wage requirements are definitely relevant to the marginal cost of a labor intensive undergrounding project 3. why is pg&e the topic of discussion here?
      - RangerScience 2y ago
        The last batch of fires were, AFAIK, caused by under-maintained PG&E infrastructure. I would not be surprised if it turns out these were, too.
nothrowaways 2y ago
What are the odds of the fire expanding to the rest of the world making a full circle?
- gruez 2y ago
  Given there are continents acting as fire breaks, pretty close to zero.
  - timbit42 2y ago
    Don't you mean oceans acting as fire breaks?
temptemptemp111 2y ago
[dead]
neonate 2y ago
https://archive.ph/ienhO https://archive.ph/ienhO
antoniuschan99 2y ago
I think the Santa Ynez reservoir being empty is probably the issue how the Pallisades fires got out of control

74 points by hodgesrm 2y ago

I'm still looking for the incovenient truths because I couldn't find them in that article... A couple thousand words with no real insight or information.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Not directly stated (and maybe not even intended) but for me the inconvenient truth is that human society is absolutely powerless against nature at the extreme ends of the scale. We can do a lot, we can build sea walls, we can reroute rivers, we can cross over or tunnel under almost any obstacle. But ultimately, the planet is capable of bringing more to bear than we can offset, whether it's wind-driven wildfires, floods, large hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, volcanoes. The best and only thing we can do in those situations is hope we have enough warning to get out of the way or find someplace to hide.
- tlogan 2y ago
  I believe this assessment is intellectually dishonest. A couple of days before the fires started, I received a major red alert on my phone (I was in Los Angeles just prior to the fires - Recognizing the danger, I decided to leave). I expected to see a large-scale response—fire trucks stationed everywhere, extra firefighters on standby, planes ready to deploy, and vegetation being watered—but none of that appeared to happen. This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this. Until we address the root causes (like global warming), these events will continue to occur, and we need better preparedness in the meantime.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Fire departments do not have the equipment nor the personnel to handle "the entire city is on fire" events. That would require one or two fire trucks with crew for each house in the city. Even if you could do that, you would quickly deplete the available water supply. It's just not possible. Could more have been done to make a fire of this size less likely? Perhaps. But once it starts, and reaches a certain size, with winds as they were and combustible material in its path, all you can do is get out.
    - lazide 2y ago
      Every city in the state has mutual aid available.
    - tlogan 2y ago
      > Fire departments do not have the equipment > nor the personnel to handle "the entire city is on fire" events. True, but in fire-prone areas—such as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage—we might need to consider a different approach. Whether it’s specialized equipment, additional staffing, or other protective measures, some system should be in place specifically for those regions..
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        > as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage Maybe in those areas the policy should be "you're on your own."
  - takeda 2y ago
    They did prepare though, 3 days before they got units from north California. If nothing would happen they would be attacked for risking safety of BTW: which locations in the whole Los Angeles (you know how big it is? actually there's no guarantee the fire works be in LA) you should get fire trucks stationed? There wasn't any rain registered since April, there were unprecedented (last time we had such big ones was 15 years ago) dry, 100mph winds. This means using air support was also not feasible at the time. We mostly talk about Palisades, but when watching WatchDuty app, fires were constantly popping up in random places. It was a nightmare, and it is frustrating to see politicizing the whole thing or criticizing that fire men did something wrong. Why those people aren't volunteering and helping? There are some things that is impossible to do with what we have. Much more effective would be for example having all building up to the latest fire code, but majority are of course old.
    - tlogan 2y ago
      > If nothing would happen they would be attacked for risking safety of You’ve pinpointed the core issue. Politicians have little incentive to invest in preventive measures because, as voters, we rarely reward that sort of long-term planning. And who’s really at fault? We are. We don’t demand enough accountability for prevention when we cast our votes. If they successfully prevent fires, nobody notices—and no political points are scored.
      - takeda 2y ago
        It's the same in Software Engineering, lol. If your service just works no one cares. If you instead have a flaky service, but step in to save the day then you become a hero :) Though I agree somewhat that politicians don't have as much incentive, but this is what regulations are for. Someone said that regulations are written in blood, because they are results of "lessons learned". It doesn't help that then those regulations are frequently removed to help businesses and the cycle repeats.
  - danaris 2y ago
    > This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this. Unfortunately, this seems to be fast becoming a partisan position.
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  Not necessarily. There are similar cases in other countries where the fire was well controlled. Might not be as similar as I thought, but I'm wondering if professionals can give an honest post mortem at least for this time.
  - leptons 2y ago
    >There are similar cases in other countries where the fire was well controlled. Did they also have unprecedented 100mph wind gusts, and strong winds blowing for days? It's impossible to fly fire mitigation aircraft in those conditions, and the terrain where the fire was spreading the most were rugged mountain areas, mostly not accessible to firefighters.
    - throw0101a 2y ago
      E.g., > “Without helicopters, this kind of a brush fire, we cannot stop it on the ground,” said Margaret Stewart, an LAFD spokeswoman. > Perhaps demonstrating what a difference aircraft can make, a fire that threatened the Hollywood Hills late Wednesday was quickly contained and limited to 43 acres. Calmer winds allowed aircraft to douse flames with water from nearby reservoirs. * https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/10/la-fires-containment-winds-firefighter-challenges/ https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/20...
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        Water scooped from reservoirs is less effective than you might think. When it is dropped, a good amount of it evaporates before it ever hits the ground. Most effective would be air drops of fire retardant, but neither can be done in high wind conditions.
        throw0101a 2y ago
        > Water scooped from reservoirs is less effective than you might think. I'm guessing that water scooped from reservoirs is probably more effective than no water at all.
lokar 2y ago
We can’t treat fire as an occasional emergency the fire department will take care of. Managing fire risk is something every town and home owner need to spend time on year round.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Even if you don't really live in a wildfire area, there are things you can/should do. I get my fields cut back with a tractor once or twice a year and keep a lawn around the house. I also won't use firepits that have the potential to ignite the surroundings.
  - lokar 2y ago
    This is what everyone needs to be doing, and the fire dept. needs to enforce it.
    - throw0101a 2y ago
      > […] and the fire dept. needs to enforce it. And/or insurance companies.
      - lokar 2y ago
        This is actually where the action has been recently. Lots of people complain about aerial inspection by insurance followed by ultimatums to clear vegetation and junk. Look for people asking for regulations to prevent this any day now.
        ghaff 2y ago
        >Look for people asking for regulations to prevent this any day now. I actually sort of empathize with a point of view that you pay your insurance every year, aren't doing anything especially unreasonable, and have to adhere to a somewhat arbitrary new standard at possibly very significant cost and time. To be clear, I get the other side too in wildfire-prone areas.
readthenotes1 2y ago
The inconvenience was ignoring the experts advice. They might have said something along the lines of make sure you have water, the ability to use it (hello Maui), and people who know how to use it. Or maybe they thought that was needless to say and had more advanced advice like clearing dead brush, making fire breaks, etc. Or ... Well yeah. It would be nice to know what advice was ignored. I'm sure there was plenty in that category.
throw0101a 2y ago
> A couple thousand words with no real insight or information. Because it's things we already know about, but refuse to do anything about. For example: > “The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.” We've known about embers for decades, and why you need to clear the area around your home of ignition sources: * https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/preparing-homes-for-wildfire https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/prepari... Here's a potato-quality video posted thirteen years ago on landscaping best practices: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVe0gu69FY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVe0gu69FY A news story from twelve years ago about a home that survivied (with a charred landscape around it): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgUp245nso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgUp245nso Which is talked about in the article: > This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing. We may also have to accept that perhaps Mother Nature can still be more powerful than humans at times: > The National Fire Prevention Assn., a national nonprofit that provides standards for fire suppression operations, calls for a minimum of three engines or 15 firefighters for a single-residence fire, a number that is impossible to attain when fighting a fire on the scale of the Palisades or Eaton fires. > “We’re not recognizing, analyzing, questioning how we’re failing,” Cohen said. “We just think we need more airplanes and more helicopters flying 24 hours a day.” > More CL-415 super-scoopers or Firehawk helicopters will not help when water is being dropped into 60 mph wind gusts. See also "Why Los Angeles was unprepared for this fire": > Water runs short: […] “There’s no urban water system engineered and constructed to combat wildfire,” said Michael McNutt, a spokesman for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 people in northwest Los Angeles County. The system was intended to supply water to homes and businesses, he said, and to help fire crews defend a large structure or several homes, not multiple neighborhoods at once. […] * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42674591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42674591
SteveVeilStream 2y ago
I think this gets at the heart of it. People assume that these fires are fought and prevented in the forest/hills by wildland fire fighters but the reality is that individual homeowners can do a lot by clearing brush, etc. (ahead of time,) from their own yards. It's an inconvenient truth because it shifts the responsibility to individuals. ""...Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.” This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing."

CurtHagenlocher 2y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42666776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42666776

whimsicalism 2y ago

> “The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.” I think this is well-known and not at all some sort of secret inconvenient truth. After any disastrous event, there will always be people coming out of the woodwork saying “you should have listened to me.” Pretty unimpressed by this article, frankly.

lokar 2y ago
Well known by people who pay attention, yet ignored by people who make policy at the local level. Look at the before pictures in LA. Homes with flammable exteriors and dense plantings. Look at Laguna beach to the south. About half the town burned in the 90s. Strict building codes and regular inspections. It’s expensive and annoying to homeowners, but it works.
- morkalork 2y ago
  "What Saved The ‘Miracle House’ In Lahaina?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37192915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37192915 Iirc, one of items listed was rocks/gravel surrounding the house on the ground so any embers that landed beside the building had nothing to feed on ignite.
  - throw0101a 2y ago
    Don't even have to go back in time in another state, but even right now in California, "Owner of ‘miracle’ Malibu mansion reveals why he thinks house survived raging fire": > “It’s stucco and stone with a fireproof roof,’’ he said, adding that it also includes pilings “like 50 feet into the bedrock’’ to keep it steady when powerful waves crash into the seawall below it. * https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/us-news/owner-of-miracle-malibu-mansion-reveals-why-he-thinks-house-survived-raging-fire/ https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/us-news/owner-of-miracle-malib... And you don't need to have a building made out of concrete either, as long as the shell and the surrounding area is not flammable: * https://www.builderonline.com/building/safety-healthfulness/how-to-build-fire-proof-homes_o https://www.builderonline.com/building/safety-healthfulness/... * https://www.nfpa.org/en/education-and-research/wildfire/preparing-homes-for-wildfire https://www.nfpa.org/en/education-and-research/wildfire/prep...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

red_admiral 2y ago

> It may be the fire equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane When I saw the pictures of the completely burnt out districts, the first thing I thought of was Hiroshima. At least we got most of the people out first this time, though.

Schiendelman 2y ago
Much/most of the damage at Hiroshima was the resulting fires, not the explosion, so it's very similar!
spike021 2y ago
As someone who’s spent their entire life in california near these types of fires and someone who recently visited the Hiroshima memorial museum, this take is pretty disingenuous.
- macintux 2y ago
  As someone who’s not participating in the discussion, can you elaborate? “No it isn’t” is an unhelpful response without any explanation whatsoever.
rasz 2y ago
First thing I thought was hopefully they wont rebuild using same cardboard and wood in a highly fire prone area.

23B1 2y ago

It's inconvenient to the policy 'makers' who are more interested in their aspirations than their duty. It's common sense to everyone else.

thenaturalist 2y ago
Cheap talk and extremely boring overgeneralization. As everyone else clearly has built their houses in a fireproof manner, activated personal fire prevention tactics like watering their surroundings and, as the article stated, tried to decrease community hotspots succeptible to being ignited by ember, what do we even need these experts for, am I right? I mean, clearly it's common sense, right?
- 23B1 2y ago
  Yes, it is common sense.
  - thenaturalist 2y ago
    The fact that thousands of homes are burnt to ashes very simply and clearly shows that is not the case.
    - 23B1 2y ago
      I'll concede that you're making a strong individual case that common sense is anything but.
      - thenaturalist 2y ago
        Ahh, can't contribute anything meaningful, so you go for an ad hominem attack. As in the beginning, still pretty boring. At least you have continuity in that regard.
        23B1 2y ago
        QED

akamaka 2y ago

I found a much better article (5 page PDF) from the fire prevention expert quoted in this article, which details his method of prioritizing building fire-safe homes and dispels misconceptions of how wildfire spreads to homes: https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/woods/117_121.pdf https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/woods/117_121.pdf

dumbmrblah 2y ago
Thank you, the original article had very little actual practical information, or substance at all.
freddie_mercury 2y ago
The 2020 Australia Royal Commission on bushfire prevention is a good resource, too. There are tons of things that could be done. Virtually none are being done nowadays, much less retrofitted to existing structures. Bushfire prevention via design is essentially in its infancy, much like earthquake safe designs took decades to become widespread in California after the 1933 quake. It wasn't like structures built in the 40s had "learned the lessons" and were earthquake proof. It has taken the better part of a century to get there.
- contingencies 2y ago
  https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2020-12/Royal%20Commission%20into%20National%20Natural%20Disaster%20Arrangements%20-%20Report%20%20%5Baccessible%5D.pdf https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2020-12/Roya...
rawgabbit 2y ago
Thanks for the article. So it looks like quarter sized embers are the most likely cause of many fires.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

A professor of atmospheric science from the university of Washington has a couple posts he wrote about how the fires started and it seems like it was probably electrical, and could have been avoided (by turning off the grid in the area) given the very clear forecasts for extreme wind. https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/did-la-fire-disaster-have-to-happen.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/did-la-fire-disaster-... https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-palisades-fire-start.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-pal... The other inconvenient truth is that the lack of good water management, prescribed burns, and forest management has been problematic across the country. Climate change isn’t the cause, even though attribution teams desperately try to make it that - it just makes things worse. But forests have dry fuel that will light up at some point and that’s regardless of climate change. There’s inadequate proactive planning for this.

cjcenizal 2y ago
“Climate change isn’t the cause.” The region experienced back to back years of high rainfall, spurring brush growth. This year the region experienced severe drought, converting all of that growth into fuel. Last week the region experienced 100 mph winds, which converted spot fires into fast-spreading conflagrations that could not be fought. This pattern of instability is an outcome of climate change. So yeah, it was caused by climate change.
- RhysU 2y ago
  Which of those named weather events was outside of historical experience in the area? From the outside, wet years and dry years and desert winds seem very much like the expected climate for SoCal.
  - throw0101a 2y ago
    > Which of those named weather events was outside of historical experience in the area? Over the last few decades averages for events have changed, and not for the better: > It was found that nearly all the observed increase in burned areas over the past half-century is due to human-caused climate change. It is estimated that from 1971 to 2021, human-caused climate change contributed to a +172% increase in burned areas, with a +320% increase from 1996 to 2021. In the coming decades, a further increase in annual forest burned areas is expected, ranging from 3% to 52%. * https://www.drought.gov/news/study-finds-climate-change-blame-record-breaking-california-wildfires-2023-08-08 https://www.drought.gov/news/study-finds-climate-change-blam...

markus_zhang 2y ago

I wonder what caused the fire to burn more heavily before anyone took action? The first few hours are usually very important. It's very difficult to control once it goes off totally. Similar fire in Chongqing, China back in 2022. The fire was pretty close to the city. The total acre burnt was less than 1000 acres in total. https://www.lifeweek.com.cn/article/174896?from=information https://www.lifeweek.com.cn/article/174896?from=information

mixmastamyk 2y ago
Firefighters can’t work well in very high winds, they probably didn’t try until the winds died down.
throw0101a 2y ago
> I wonder what caused the fire to burn more heavily before anyone took action? High winds don't help: > “I’ll be clear: We could have had much more water. With those wind gusts, we were not stopping that fire,” Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin said. > When winds are as strong as they were Tuesday and Wednesday — reaching 100 mph on mountaintops and surpassing 60 mph along the coast — firefighters are severely limited in their tactics, experts said. They make it too dangerous and all but impossible to establish any fire perimeter. They blow flames as tall as 200 feet horizontally and send balls of red-hot embers flying at speeds that can carry them a mile or two away, where they start what are known as spot fires. […] > The lack of firefighting by air was a critical deficiency that persisted from Tuesday night through early Wednesday, fire officials said, and one that has allowed other devastating Southern California fires to spread in the past, including the Woolsey Fire, which burned across a footprint just to the west of the Palisades Fire in 2018. > “Without helicopters, this kind of a brush fire, we cannot stop it on the ground,” said Margaret Stewart, an LAFD spokeswoman. * https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/10/la-fires-containment-winds-firefighter-challenges/ https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/20...
Axsuul 2y ago
The fire quickly grew into a firestorm due to the 50 mph+ winds. Southern California is known for this phenomenon of dry winds that blow from the desert called the Santa Anas. They only affect certain areas, so the perfect combination of the winds + being in a fire prone area + having record rainfall the year before + being in a drought caused the fire to burn crazy fast with access to lots of brush (fuel). If you don't stop it within the first 5 min, it quickly gets out of control. There's so much stuff to burn.

mschuster91 2y ago

> Building codes failed to address the requirements of specific environments, and infrastructure was laid out without attending to potential hazard. Well, yeah. Americans tend to laugh at European construction codes, label us with words suggesting we live in a dictatorship... but with every report I see from the newest natural disaster in the US, be it fires, floods or hurricanes, I'm happy that building codes are very very strict here. > For example, municipal and fire prevention agencies must give property owners advance — and continual — warnings to clear dead vegetation and to wet dry brush within 10 feet of the house with periodic, prolonged sprinklings. Try that with your average American and the poor sod tasked with doing that will be at best yelled at with "leave my property", and that's assuming they can inspect the property to begin with.

egorfine 2y ago
Taxing people and protecting everyone from fires by imposing regulations is of course socialism. /s
- euroderf 2y ago
  Get ready for a political reaction in the form of privatised firefighting. Drones and helicopters. Not cheap. Altho this proposal might encounter resistance from the real fire department, which neeeds unimpeded access to the skies.
whimsicalism 2y ago
NA has far more natural disaster exposure than europe does, especially when people just like to subset to the richest western european states as ‘europe’. i seem to recall quite a few buildings collapsing in Turkey and in Greece in the last quarter century after earthquakes
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > NA has far more natural disaster exposure than europe does Agreed, but that's even more of a sign for "the US should be even more proactive in regulations and enforcement than Europe, not the other way around! In any case we do have areas that are prone to wildfire, especially the Balkans, Greece and Turkey get hit regularly and hard. But the human toll is always very low even if the fires rage, because our buildings don't consist out of the cheapest sort of wood and cardboard and there is ample distance between homes and forests. > i seem to recall quite a few buildings collapsing in Turkey and in Greece in the last quarter century after earthquakes Yup, and in almost all cases it turns out that either the owners intentionally circumvented the code or construction was shoddy because someone diverted money and substituted cheaper but unallowed materials. Our greatest issue tends to be floods like in the Ahrtal or the beginning of Spain, because our building and zoning codes haven't caught up with climate change. Unfortunately, what I call "Americanism" (or y'all "American Exceptionalism") seems to have seeped into our culture as well - the attitude that humans are superior to nature's forces and can bend them to their will, and so I'm afraid history is doomed to repeat itself.

whatever1 2y ago

Ok I get all of these, but, {checking calendar}, it is freaking January! Not Summer.

AlotOfReading 2y ago
The Santa Ana winds that spread the fire are an all-year thing, concentrated in autumn and winter.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
I thought the appeal of California was that it didn't have intense winters or summers, but was pleasantly warm year-round? LA is at the same latitude as North Texas, and Texas isn't exactly known for snow. Where I live in the Midwest we're guaranteed at least one good snow every winter, and it's been around freezing temperatures for weeks.

mixmastamyk 2y ago

So many tall telephone and power poles with wires everywhere in LA, but rarely mentioned. Can’t survive really high winds. It’s not clear why they’re not buried other than cost. A few bent poles must now be replaced in our neighborhood at great expense. Looks like they’d be cheaper buried in the long run.

Axsuul 2y ago
It is mainly cost – like 6x more. Utilities like LADWP eventually want to underground everything but the time scale of such a project is probably eons.
whimsicalism 2y ago
cost and regulators generally have been unwilling to approve the rate increases necessary for resilience plus we make our utilities pay prevailing wage
- RangerScience 2y ago
  Yeah because those are where the money’s going. https://www.google.com/search?q=pg%26e+profits https://www.google.com/search?q=pg%26e+profits
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    1. a 10% profit margin this year - they are not even profitable over the last 10 years and barely profitable over the last 25. 2. yea, prevailing wage requirements are definitely relevant to the marginal cost of a labor intensive undergrounding project 3. why is pg&e the topic of discussion here?
    - RangerScience 2y ago
      The last batch of fires were, AFAIK, caused by under-maintained PG&E infrastructure. I would not be surprised if it turns out these were, too.

nothrowaways 2y ago

What are the odds of the fire expanding to the rest of the world making a full circle?

gruez 2y ago
Given there are continents acting as fire breaks, pretty close to zero.
- timbit42 2y ago
  Don't you mean oceans acting as fire breaks?

temptemptemp111 2y ago

[dead]

neonate 2y ago

https://archive.ph/ienhO https://archive.ph/ienhO

antoniuschan99 2y ago

I think the Santa Ynez reservoir being empty is probably the issue how the Pallisades fires got out of control