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This is some pure bullshit right here. Never let a tragedy go to waste, gotta get those clicks. No amount of budget would have prepared the city for this. They would have needed literally 10x to contain the fires fast enough.
High winds prevented the use of air based equipment. The same winds drove burning embers for miles into absolutely bone dry foliage.
It's been way to dry here for too long to do any controlled burns, so no way to effectively get rid of the fuel.
The FD could always use more resources, but the extent of this fire has nothing to do with a lack of resources and much more to do with climate change.
Sure but climate change just isn't sexy. "Hey everyone that problem we've been telling everyone about for decades has resulted in the predicted outcome, it's pretty terrible."
So the lesson here is to get more slave labor to fight these fires?
I mean, yes, but also fuck the cops and fund the fire department
You don't understand wildland fire mitigation very much, do you. Every penny helps you troll. And by the way, I have my red card, and a minor in forest fire management.
Glad to hear from an expert on the situation , as someone who is in fire management there is a lot you can explain.
There are so much about this . What general resources that would have been needed to prevent the scale of the fires? If properly resourced how would the response have been significantly different? Of course each fire fighter counts, but what would the scale need to have been to change this event? What should people be focusing on when we demand better?
For example I heard the the first hours and days of the fires air assets could not be deployed because of the 60-80 mile hour winds. that was cited as a significant factor in the initial spread. though the source was just on the news so no idea how creditable
Are there types of air craft designed to fight fires in tropical storm like conditions?
Are fire like this seen coming by the city FD?
How are resources allocated when multiple fires rage?
In your opinion what cities are doing a good job with fire/disaster planning? What cities globally face similar challenges as Los Angles? Are there lessons than can be learned from those places?
To keep it short, it's called mitigation. You "prevent" crazy fires by eliminating fuel sources. But remember, homes are fuel sources as well, often great fuel sources. I will let you do the math.
The main problem is that the houses are made from wood and cardbord, and are placed in and/or surrounded by dry-as-a-fart forests and brushwork. Which is a stupid idea in an area that is known to regularly hve forest and brushwork fires. More now with global warming, which makes the plants even dryer.
LA has some some of the most pain in the ass building codes and inspectors. A permit is needed for just about damn everything specifically because of fire risks. Set backs and spacing are strongly enforced as well as the use of fire resistant materials. So even if the house were made of 'cardboard' they are wrapped in concrete siding or stucco.
The winds were 60-80 Miles per hour, blown in from the desert. This is a fire in the center of the city, not some remote urban wild interface.
Nonetheless, all the houses I have seen burning in the news were surrounded by dry trees and shrubs. And those houses burned as well as any other American cardboard houses. Somehow, I see no difference between them and houses with not as strict building codes. So either they only show homes that have been grandfathered in, or those building codes make no serious difference.
This is one of those situations where negatives can't be proved. You are arguing since even code made homes have the possibility of still burning codes don't make a difference. The loss of property has been great, but some of those homes were battered by wind driven ashes for quite a time before igniting. The loss of life while tragic is low given the extent of the fires.
As you noted there are no regulations in LA city proper about landscaping . That is likely to change in the future.
I saw more LA houses in the news, and again all what was left was the chimney. To me, it looks like houses there are just part of the fuel. But one cannot tell whether those houses were the ones that were grandfathered in. And if the new regulation is in power for just a few years, just keep in mind how many new houses with new standards have been built since then.
Unlike houses here in Europe, which are usually made of stone, bricks, or concrete. Our house has a reinforced concrete basement and floors, foam concrete insulating walls, and concrete tiles on the roof. While it would definitively see damages if placed into the middle of such a firestorm, it would resist way longer, and would not contribute to the fire. I'd say before our house would get damaged beyond the need to just clean and repaint it, everything combustible (vegetation, sheds, fences) around would be long gone.
My understanding of the situation is the fires are currently burning the historic districts and grandfathered homes. The newer buildings have not been touched yet.
That is not true for the Palisades region and Malibu. Most of the homes there would have been newer and they had significant losses.