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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 onc

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.
- kshacker 2y ago
  If true, isn't this setup to fail? In cloud infrastructure, we build redundancy because humans can't really solve such problems in 5 minutes. And here in real world, that's our margin? Not talking about uprooting established habitats, but it appears that such risk should not be allowed.
  - Axsuul 2y ago
    Redundancy only develops after failures. Only after that 5th PagerDuty alert do we start to add more of it. The fires in LA were a failure and more redundancy will soon follow like improved building codes, better forest management, etc.
  - EdwardDiego 2y ago
    Same issue Australia has, people keep building their houses on hills in the scrub because they like the views and/or nature. But it's an ecosystem that has evolved for fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral#Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral#Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia#Before_European_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia#Before_...
- euroderf 2y ago
  It sounds like anyone building in the midst of such an environment has some kind of death wish.
leptons 2y ago
There wasn't mention about extreme wind in the link you provided, all it called out is "southerly winds". The very high winds (100mph gusts) in Los Angeles prevented fire mitigation aircraft from flying, and spread the fires far and wide very quickly - and the area where the fires started was inaccessible to firefighters, so the fire had very little push-back for the first night so it grew uncontrollably. The circumstances are very different from what happened in the link you provided. Fire crews were ready to fight fires in Los Angeles, and quite a lot of fire crews from outside the area were brought in before the fires even started - they knew how dangerous the situation was, and they were trying to do what they could by staffing up. Once the winds died down, fire-fighting aircraft could fly and started containing the fires on the mountains, but much of the residential areas had already been lost, there was just too much fire and too few resources to keep it under control.
bigfatkitten 2y ago
Assuming you could get to the fire in the first place. The winds prevented the use of aircraft, either for direct attack or to insert handcrews. That means firefighters need to drive/hike in, which can take hours. By that point, it's grown to the point where the wind is blowing embers over your head and causing spotfires miles away. With the winds again, your containment options are limited. It's already too large for a direct attack. It'll jump your mineral earth containment lines, and you can't light a backburn. The only real option then becomes property protection, and with a water shortage and finite resources that becomes a challenge.

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.

kshacker 2y ago
If true, isn't this setup to fail? In cloud infrastructure, we build redundancy because humans can't really solve such problems in 5 minutes. And here in real world, that's our margin? Not talking about uprooting established habitats, but it appears that such risk should not be allowed.
- Axsuul 2y ago
  Redundancy only develops after failures. Only after that 5th PagerDuty alert do we start to add more of it. The fires in LA were a failure and more redundancy will soon follow like improved building codes, better forest management, etc.
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  Same issue Australia has, people keep building their houses on hills in the scrub because they like the views and/or nature. But it's an ecosystem that has evolved for fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral#Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral#Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia#Before_European_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia#Before_...
euroderf 2y ago
It sounds like anyone building in the midst of such an environment has some kind of death wish.

leptons 2y ago

There wasn't mention about extreme wind in the link you provided, all it called out is "southerly winds". The very high winds (100mph gusts) in Los Angeles prevented fire mitigation aircraft from flying, and spread the fires far and wide very quickly - and the area where the fires started was inaccessible to firefighters, so the fire had very little push-back for the first night so it grew uncontrollably. The circumstances are very different from what happened in the link you provided. Fire crews were ready to fight fires in Los Angeles, and quite a lot of fire crews from outside the area were brought in before the fires even started - they knew how dangerous the situation was, and they were trying to do what they could by staffing up. Once the winds died down, fire-fighting aircraft could fly and started containing the fires on the mountains, but much of the residential areas had already been lost, there was just too much fire and too few resources to keep it under control.

bigfatkitten 2y ago

Assuming you could get to the fire in the first place. The winds prevented the use of aircraft, either for direct attack or to insert handcrews. That means firefighters need to drive/hike in, which can take hours. By that point, it's grown to the point where the wind is blowing embers over your head and causing spotfires miles away. With the winds again, your containment options are limited. It's already too large for a direct attack. It'll jump your mineral earth containment lines, and you can't light a backburn. The only real option then becomes property protection, and with a water shortage and finite resources that becomes a challenge.